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Those who forget the past: An ethical challenge from the history of treating deviance

McTernan, Emily; (2018) Those who forget the past: An ethical challenge from the history of treating deviance. In: Birks, David and Douglas, Thomas, (eds.) Treatment For Crime: Philosophical Essays on Neurointerventions in Criminal Justice. (pp. 274-288). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. Green open access

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Abstract

Treating those who commit crimes or behave in ways deemed socially undesirable with medical interventions targeting the brain, or ‘neurointerventions’, comes with a history. That history is one full of appalling cases, including the chemical castration of men convicted of consensual same-sex relations, electric shocks to treat the ‘non-compliant’, and lobotomies. This chapter argues that this appalling history of using neurointerventions to respond to socially undesirable behaviour should affect our assessment of whether it is ethical to try again. In particular, proponents of such neurointerventions must defend their actions as different to those of the past in ethically salient ways, but it turns out to be very hard for them to do so.

Type: Book chapter
Title: Those who forget the past: An ethical challenge from the history of treating deviance
ISBN-13: 9780198758617
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198758617.003.0016
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198758617.003.0016
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Neurointervention, crime, history, pessimistic induction, medical intervention, moral progress
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Political Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1547658
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