This paper distinguishes two ways in which to think about the freedom of extremists. Non-pluralists claim to have identified the general rule for resolving moral conflicts, and conceptualize freedom as liberty of action in accordance with that rule. It follows, if extremist violence breaks the rule in question, removing this option does not infringe the freedom of extremists. In contrast, for pluralists there is no one general rule to resolve moral conflicts, and freedom is simply the absence of interference. I (...) argue here that pluralism provides a principled defense of freedom, as it allows us to see that removing options from extremists is worse, on prima facie grounds, than not doing so. Also, non-pluralists cannot show that they have identified the general rule for resolving moral conflicts, and in particular, are forced to rely on quite different principles altogether when justifying paternalistic responses to extremism. (shrink)

It is generally wrong to manipulate. One leading reason is because manipulation interferes with autonomy, in particular the component of autonomy called ‘independence’, that is, freedom from intentional control by others. Manipulative health promotion would therefore seem wrong. However, manipulative techniques could be used to counter-manipulation, for example, playing on male fears of impotence to counter ‘smoking is sexy’ advertisements. What difference does it make to the ethics of manipulation when it is counter-manipulation? This article distinguishes two powerful defences of (...) counter-manipulative health promotion: that the counter-manipulation would prevent manipulation occurring, leaving people unmanipulated; and that the counter-manipulation would make people healthier without being any more manipulated than they would otherwise be. The article explains how counter-manipulation might work and the limits to its scope. The upshot is that counter-manipulative health promotion could respect the independence people are owed in virtue of their autonomy. However, autonomy is not the only consideration, and the article discusses further potential problems. Counter-manipulative health promotion might be misapplied, it might undermine trust, it might infringe on some norms for role behaviour and it might encourage a regrettable social practice. These objections are likely to be decisive against the counter-manipulation in some but not all cases. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Persons generally must give their informed consent to participate in research. To provide informed consent persons must be given information regarding the study in simple, lay language. Consent must be voluntary, and persons giving consent must be legally competent to consent and possess the capacity to understand and appreciate the information provided. This paper examines the relationship between the obligation to disclose information regarding risks and the requirement that persons have the capacity to understand and appreciate the information. There (...) has been insufficient attention to the extent to which persons must be able to understand and appreciate study information in order to have their consent deemed valid when the information is provided in simple, lay language. This paper argues that (1) the capacity to understand and appreciate information that should be deemed necessary to give valid consent should be defined by the capacity of the typical, cognitively normal adult and (2) the capacity of the typical, cognitively normal adult to understand and appreciate the concept of risk is limited. Therefore, (3) all things being equal, potential subjects must possess a limited capacity to understand and appreciate risk to be deemed competent to consent to research participation. (4) In some cases investigators ought to require that persons possess a greater than typical capacity to understand and appreciate risk. (shrink)

An important question regarding the use of neurointerventions in criminal justice systems relates to the ethics of offering neurointerventions in exchange for a sentence reduction or as a condition of parole – what has been termed the _neurocorrective offer_. In this paper, we suggest that neurocorrective offers may sometimes involve manipulative pressure. That is, in some cases these offers will involve a pressure to comply with the manipulators’ (i.e., the state’s) bidding that does not rise to the level of coercion, (...) but which cannot be considered an instance of persuasion. We then suggest that offenders may fall victim to this pressure due to general facts about human psychology and their situational vulnerability. We end the paper by identifying three reasons for thinking it prima facie morally wrong for the state to make neurocorrective offers involving manipulative pressure even if such offers do not undermine offenders’ consent to the offer. Specifically, we suggest that such offers are plausibly pro tanto harmful to some offenders and that they sometimes disrespect their autonomy and rationality. (shrink)

This article addresses the impact of the potential conflict between the roles of physicians who are both clinicians and researchers on the recruitment of persons into research trials. It has been proposedthat a physician breaches inter-role confidentiality when he or she uses information gathered in his or her clinical role to inform patients about trials for which they may be eligible and that clinician-researchers should adopt a model of preliminary consent to be approached about research prior to commencing a clinical (...) relationship. This article argues that even if we grant the legitimacy of inter-role confidentiality (which is open to question), there are circumstances in which other obligations physicians bear override the obligation of inter-role confidentiality. Moreover, it is argued that the practice of preliminary consent is morally suspect and that such consent cannot be deemed valid. The article concludes with a series of recommendations of ways in which the legitimate concern regarding the conflicting roles of clinician-researchers can be addressed in the recruitment stage of research. (shrink)

Selfish, dishonest or malicious agents may find an interest in manipulating others. While many works deal with designing robust systems or manipulative strategies, few works are interested in defining in a broad sense what is a manipulation and how we can reason with such a notion. In this article, based on a social science literature, we give a general definition of manipulation for multi-agent systems. A manipulation is a deliberate effect of an agent – called manipulator – to instrumentalize another (...) agent – called victim – while making sure to conceal that effect. We present then a logical framework, called KBE, to express and reason about manipulations. Since manipulation relies on deliberate effects, KBE introduces a deliberate BIAT operator which abstracts deliberate consequences of actions. We prove that this logic is sound and complete. Furthermore,we express related notions such as coercion, persuasion, or deception. (shrink)

Before they can commit their states to war, leaders who believe that war is necessary must first secure public commitment to collective action and sacrifice. The chief instrument for achieving this...