It has been proposed that reoffending could be reduced by manipulating the neural underpinnings of offenders’ criminogenic mental features with what have been called neurocorrectives. The legitimacy of such use of neurotechnology – criminal neurorehabilitation, as the use is called – is usually seen to presuppose valid consent by the offenders subjected to it. According to a central criticism of nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation, nonconsensual use of neurocorrectives would express a degrading attitude towards offenders. In this article, I consider this criticism (...) of nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation. By using cases of autonomous persons who lead a subservient existence as an example, I propose that nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation need not express a more degrading attitude towards offenders than consensual criminal neurorehabilitation. The argument of this article does not show that nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation is morally or legally acceptable. Yet, in view of the argument, criticizing nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation for expressing a degrading attitude towards offenders is not compatible with simultaneously endorsing consensual criminal neurorehabilitation. (shrink)

It has been suggested that neuroenhancements could be used to improve the abilities of criminal justice authorities. Judges could be made more able to make adequately informed and unbiased decisions, for example. Yet, while such a prospect appears appealing, the views of neuroenhanced criminal justice authorities could also be alien to the unenhanced public. This could compromise the legitimacy and functioning of the criminal justice system. In this article, I assess possible solutions to this problem. I maintain that none of (...) them qualifies as a satisfactory general solution to it, a solution that could reasonably be taken to solve the problem or to suffice for dealing with it in at least most cases. Yet I also suggest that, depending on contingent empirical circumstances, the responses – either singly or together – can sometimes amount to a sufficient answer to it. (shrink)

It has been suggested that neuroenhancements could be used to improve the abilities of criminal justice authorities. Judges could be made more able to make adequately informed and unbiased decisions, for example. Yet, while such a prospect appears appealing, the views of neuroenhanced criminal justice authorities could also be alien to the unenhanced public. This could compromise the legitimacy and functioning of the criminal justice system. In this article, I assess possible solutions to this problem. I maintain that none of (...) them qualifies as a satisfactory general solution to it, a solution that could reasonably be taken to solve the problem or to suffice for dealing with it in at least most cases. Yet I also suggest that, depending on contingent empirical circumstances, the responses – either singly or together – can sometimes amount to a sufficient answer to it. (shrink)

Open Peer Commentary, referring to "Neuroethics at 15: The Current and Future Environment for Neuroethics".

A central question in the current neurolegal and neuroethical literature is how brain-reading technologies could contribute to criminal justice. Some of these technologies have already been deployed within different criminal justice systems in Europe, including Slovenia, Italy, England and Wales, and the Netherlands, typically to determine guilt, legal responsibility, or recidivism risk. In this regard, the question arises whether brain-reading could permissibly be used against the person's will. To provide adequate legal protection from such non-consensual brain-reading in the European legal (...) context, ethicists have called for the recognition of a novel fundamental legal right to mental privacy. In this paper, we explore whether these ethical calls for recognising a novel legal right to mental privacy are necessary in the European context. We argue that a right to mental privacy could be derived from, or at least developed within in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and that introducing an additional fundamental right to protect against brain-reading is not necessary. What is required, however, is a specification of the implications of existing rights for particular neurotechnologies and purposes. (shrink)

A central question in the current neurolegal and neuroethical literature is how brain-reading technologies could contribute to criminal justice. Some of these technologies have already been deployed within different criminal justice systems in Europe, including Slovenia, Italy, England and Wales, and the Netherlands, typically to determine guilt, legal responsibility, or recidivism risk. In this regard, the question arises whether brain-reading could permissibly be used against the person's will. To provide adequate legal protection from such non-consensual brain-reading in the European legal (...) context, ethicists have called for the recognition of a novel fundamental legal right to mental privacy. In this paper, we explore whether these ethical calls for recognising a novel legal right to mental privacy are necessary in the European context. We argue that a right to mental privacy could be derived from, or at least developed within in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and that introducing an additional fundamental right to protect against brain-reading is not necessary. What is required, however, is a specification of the implications of existing rights for particular neurotechnologies and purposes. (shrink)

“Committing a crime might render one morally liable to certain forms of medical intervention”, claims Thomas Douglas, who stated in this context that “compulsory uses of medical correctives could in principle be justified.” This article engages critically with his and other arguments on the use of coercive neurocorrectives for criminal offenders. First, the rehabilitation assumption that includes—for coercive neurocorrectives to work as an alternative to incarceration—that rehabilitation is the “only goal” of criminal punishment is criticized. Additionally this article engages with (...) the theoretical difficulty of solely rehabilitative approaches, and discusses why it is unfortunate to design neurocorrectives so as to be particularly harmful in order to imagine administering them as being a punishment. Second, until we know more about specific neurocorrectives, we are well advised not to undermine the most important objection against coercive neurocorrectives, namely offenders’ human rights. This article argues that the use of coercive neurocorrectives would particularly violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees as an absolute right that “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, and finally holds that a still weak human right to mental integrity and self-determination should fundamentally come first. (shrink)

The increasing diffusion of novel digital and online sociotechnical systems for arational behavioral influence based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as social media, microtargeting advertising, and personalized search algorithms, has brought about new ways of engaging with users, collecting their data and potentially influencing their behavior. However, these technologies and techniques have also raised concerns about the potential for manipulation, as they offer unprecedented capabilities for targeting and influencing individuals on a large scale and in a more subtle, automated and (...) pervasive manner than ever before. This paper, provides a narrative review of the existing literature on manipulation, with a particular focus on the role of AI and associated digital technologies. Furthermore, it outlines an account of manipulation based of four key requirements: intentionality, asymmetry of outcome, non-transparency and violation of autonomy. I argue that while manipulation is not a new phenomenon, the pervasiveness, automaticity, and opacity of certain digital technologies may raise a new type of manipulation, called “digital manipulation”. I call “digital manipulation” any influence exerted through the use of digital technology that is intentionally designed to bypass reason and to produce an asymmetry of outcome between the data processor (or a third party that benefits thereof) and the data subject. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, and computer science, I identify key factors that can make manipulation more or less effective, and highlight the potential risks and benefits of these technologies for individuals and society. I conclude that manipulation through AI and associated digital technologies is not qualitatively different from manipulation through human–human interaction in the physical world. However, some functional characteristics make it potentially more likely of evading the subject’s cognitive defenses. This could increase the probability and severity of manipulation. Furthermore, it could violate some fundamental principles of freedom or entitlement related to a person’s brain and mind domain, hence called neurorights. To this end, an account of digital manipulation as a violation of the neuroright to cognitive liberty is presented. (shrink)

The important question of the legality of the state obliging trial incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatment against their wishes, is one that has received much attention by legal scholars. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been paid to the, in many ways more fundamental, moral question of whether the state ought to administer such treatments. The aim of this paper is to start filling this gap in the literature. I begin by offering some reasons for thinking it morally acceptable to, (...) at least sometimes, oblige trial-incompetent defendants to receive competency-restoring treatments. The paper then discusses whether three prominent arguments (and their variations) offered by legal scholars against using non-consensual treatment to restore trial competence provide grounds for thinking there to be a general moral prohibition against these treatments. I argue that they do not. (shrink)

Moral agential neuroenhancement can transform us into better people. However, critics of MB raise four central objections to MANEs use: It destroys moral freedom; it kills one moral agent and replaces them with another, better agent; it carries significant risk of infection and illness; it benefits society but not the enhanced person; and it’s wrong to experiment on nonconsenting persons. Herein, I defend MANE’s use for prisoners of war fighting unjustly. First, the permissibility of killing unjust combatants entails that, in (...) cases where MANE is equally or more likely as termination to reduce moral recidivism in unjust combatants, then MANE is morally justified. Second, the relevant infections and illnesses caused by MANE are less bad than death, so MANE leaves unjust POWs better off than the alternative. Third, just as incarceration is often permissible despite benefitting society but not the incarcerated, the same holds for unjust POWs. Fourth, we should accept a broader construal of “benefit” that includes moral benefits. Thus, 3 and 4 are false when applied to unjust POWs. Fifth, medical experimentation likely to help nonconsenting persons is sometimes permissible. Because MANE is likely to help unjust POWs irrespective of their consent or lack thereof, its use is permissible. Sixth, basic principles of proper medical care support the use of MANE on unjust POWs as pro tanto morally obligatory. I conclude that militaries should therefore begin to employ MANE for unjust POWs. (shrink)

As neuroscience progresses, we will not only gain a better understanding of how our brains work, but also a better understanding of how to modify them, and as a result, our mental states. An important question we are faced with is whether the state could be justified in implementing such methods on criminal offenders, without their consent, for the purposes of rehabilitation and reduction of recidivism; a practice that is already legal in some jurisdictions. By focusing on a prominent type (...) of view of free action, which I call bypassing views, this paper evaluates how such interventions may negatively impact the freedom of their subjects. The paper concludes that there will be a tension between the goals of rehabilitation and reduction of recidivism, on the one hand, and the negative impact such interventions may have on free action, on the other. Other things equal, the better that a particular intervention is at achieving the former, the more likely it is to result in the latter. (shrink)

How should we punish criminal offenders? One prima facie attractive punishment is administering a mandatory neurointervention—interventions that exert a physical, chemical or biological effect on the brain in order to diminish the likelihood of some forms of criminal offending. While testosterone-lowering drugs have long been used in European and US jurisdictions on sex offenders, it has been suggested that advances in neuroscience raise the possibility of treating a broader range of offenders in the future. Neurointerventions could be a cheaper, and (...) more effective method of punishment. They could also be more humane. Nevertheless, in this paper we provide an argument against the use of mandatory neurointerventions on offenders. We argue that neurointerventions inflict a significant harm on an offender that render them a morally objectionable form of punishment in a respect that incarceration is not. Namely, it constitutes an objectionable interference with the offender’s mental states. However, it might be thought that incarceration also involves an equally objectionable interference with the offender’s mental states. We show that even if it were the case that the offender is harmed to the same extent in the same respect, it does not follow that the harms are morally equivalent. We argue that if one holds that intended harm is more difficult to justify than harm that is unintended but merely foreseen, this means neurointerventions could be morally objectionable in a significant respect that incarceration is not. (shrink)

Crutchfield and Redinger (2024) argue that, ceteris paribus, it is morally worse to deploy a restraint that undermines a basic liberty than one that does not.1 This is a plausible view, and is like...

Since the 90’s, neurolaw is on the rise. At the heart of heated debates lies the recurrent theme of a neuro-revolution of criminal responsibility. However, caution should be observed: the alleged foundations of criminal responsibility (amongst which free will) are often inaccurate and the relative imperviousness of its real foundations to scientific facts often underestimated. Neuroscientific findings may impact on social institutions, but only insofar as they also engage in a political justification of the changes being called for, convince populations, (...) and take into consideration the ensuing consequences. Moreover, the many limits of neuroscientific tools call for increased vigilance when, if ever, using neuroscientific evidence in a courtroom. In this article, we aim at setting the basis for future sound debates on the contribution of neuroscience to criminal law, and in particular to the assessment of criminal responsibility. As such, we provide analytical tools to grasp the political and normative nature of criminal responsibility and review the current or projected use of neuroscience in the law, all the while bearing in mind the highly-publicized question: can neuroscience revolutionize criminal responsibility? Answering this question implicitly requires answering a second question: should neuroscience revolutionize the institution of criminal responsibility? Answering both, in turn, requires drawing the line between science and normativity, revolution and dialogue, fantasies and legitimate hopes. (shrink)