The right to bodily integrity is a controversial issue within moral, political and legal discourse. This first collection of scholarly research articles provides a comprehensive overview of the debates around the ethical and legal aspects of the right to bodily integrity and its implications in theory and practice. The selected essays examine topics such as pregnancy and reproduction, altering children's bodies, transplantation, controversial modifications and surgeries, and experimentation and dead bodies.

The neurosciences not only challenge assumptions about the mind’s place in the natural world but also urge us to reconsider its role in the normative world. Based on mind-brain dualism, the law affords only one-sided protection: it systematically protects bodies and brains, but only fragmentarily minds and mental states. The fundamental question, in what ways people may legitimately change mental states of others, is largely unexplored in legal thinking. With novel technologies to both intervene into minds and detect mental activity, (...) the law should, we suggest, introduce stand alone protection for the inner sphere of persons. We shall address some metaphysical questions concerning physical and mental harm and demonstrate gaps in current doctrines, especially in regard to manipulative interferences with decision-making processes. We then outline some reasons for the law to recognize a human right to mental liberty and propose elements of a novel criminal offence proscribing severe interventions into other minds. (shrink)

There are three lines of argument in defence of coercive treatment of patients with mental disorders: arguments regarding (1) societal interests to protect others, (2) the patients' own health interests, and (3) patient autonomy. In this paper, we analyse these arguments in relation to an idealized case, where a person with a mental disorder claims not to want medical treatment for religious reasons. We also discuss who should decide what in situations where patients with mental disorders deny treatment on seemingly (...) rational grounds.We conclude that, in principle, coercive treatment cannot be defended for the sake of protecting others. While coercive actions can be acceptable in order to protect close family and others, medical treatment is not justified for such reasons but should be given only in the interest of patients. Coercive treatment may be required in order to promote the patient's health interests, but health interests have to waive if they go against the autonomous interests of the patient. We argue that non-autonomous patients can have reasons, rooted in their deeply-set values, to renounce compulsory institutional treatment, and that such reasons should be respected unless it can be assumed that their new predicaments have caused them to change their views. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience might make it possible to develop techniques for directly altering offenders’ brains, in order to make offenders more responsible and law-abiding. The idea of using such techniques within the criminal justice system can seem intuitively troubling, even if they were more effective in preventing crime than traditional methods of rehabilitation. One standard argument against this use of brain interventions is that it would undermine the individual’s free will. This paper maintains that ‘free will’ (at least, as that (...) notion is understood by those who adopt the influential compatibilist approach) is an inadequate basis for explaining what is problematic about some direct brain interventions. This paper then defends an alternative way of objecting to certain kinds of direct brain interventions, focusing on the relationship between the offender and the state rather than the notion of free will. It opposes the use of interventions which aim to enhance ‘virtue responsibility’ (by instilling particular values about what is right and wrong), arguing that this would objectify offenders. In contrast, it argues that it may be acceptable to use direct brain interventions to enhance ‘capacity responsibility’ (i.e. to strengthen the abilities necessary for the exercise of responsible agency, such as self-control). Finally it considers how to distinguish these different kinds of responsibility enhancement. (shrink)

Existing arguments against paid organ donation are examined and found to be unconvincing. It is argued that the real reason why organ sale is generally thought to be wrong is that (a) bodily integrity is highly valued and (b) the removal of healthy organs constitutes a violation of this integrity. Both sale and (free) donation involve a violation of bodily integrity. In the case of the latter, though, the disvalue of the violation is typically outweighed by the presence of other (...) goods: chiefly, the extreme altruism involved in the giving. There is usually no such outweighing feature in the case of the former. Given this, the idea that we value bodily integrity can help to account for the perceived moral difference between sale and free donation. (shrink)