Thomas Douglas

Risk assessment tools are increasingly used in policing to enhance decision-making accuracy and objectivity; yet their implementation has raised significant ethical concerns regarding issues of bias, transparency, and governance. This paper examines the ethical complexities of risk assessment tools through an analysis of four instruments: the Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART), previously developed and used by Durham Constabulary; the Active Risk Management System (ARMS), used across all police forces in England and Wales; the Offender Assessment System (OASys), used to profile risk of reoffending by probation services in the UK; and the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS), a widely researched tool deployed in US corrections contexts whose ethical challenges are directly relevant to tools now entering policing practice. A thematic framework identifies 10 key challenges for the field, including disparities in accuracy metrics, fairness trade-offs, bias linked to demographics and social identity, and retraining. The paper contextualises these issues within influential roles, including tool developers, decision-makers, and oversight committees. The credible risk of ethical harms arising from the use of risk assessment tools underscores the need for rigorous validation, transparency, and adaptive governance to minimise these risks. This paper arises from a meeting of an interdisciplinary working group convened at Ethox, University of Oxford, comprising academics in philosophy, law, psychology, psychiatry, and criminology, as well as police stakeholders.

It is widely accepted that we each possess a right against interference with our body. In this book, Thomas Douglas argues that we each also possess an analogous right against interference with our mind. Douglas offers two arguments in favour of the view that we possess this right. The first appeals to intuitions regarding cases. Douglas describes a series of cases in which one individual influences the mind of another in a seemingly wrongful way, and argues that we can best account for the wrongfulness of these influences by invoking a right against mental interference. The second argument appeals to the notion of self-ownership. According to this argument, our ownership of ourselves implies ownership of our minds, which in turn implies a right against interference with our minds. Douglas then turns to the task of defining the scope of the right against mental interference. On the view he develops, the right against mental interference protects us against some actions that alter our mental states via processes that are insensitive to the reasons that bear on the alteration. The interventions that most obviously infringe the right are ‘nonconsensual neurointerventions’—interventions that alter a person’s mental states by physically modulating their brain states—and are performed without the target’s consent. But Douglas argues that some psychological forms of influence can infringe the right too. Examples include the use of subliminal imagery and conditioning-based interventions, such as the use of loot boxes in computer games.

In this article, I begin to develop an account of bodily trespass – a specification of the conditions under which one person infringes another’s right against bodily interference. I first offer a minimal account, intended to capture only the clear cases of bodily trespass. On this account, bodily trespass consists in either bodily touching or significant, non-psychologically-mediated bodily alteration. I then consider whether this account should be broadened to accommodate some plausible, though non-obvious, cases of bodily trespass. These are cases in which a bodily alteration is produced via psychological processes in the target. I argue that, in deciding whether to accommodate such cases within our account, we face a dilemma, and one of considerable practical significance.

It is standardly accepted that medical interventions can be permissibly administered to a patient who has decision-making capacity only when she has given her valid consent to the intervention. However, this requirement for valid medical consent is much less frequently discussed in relation to psychological interventions (‘PIs’) than it is in relation to bodily interventions (‘BIs’). Moreover, legal and professional consent requirements in respect of PIs are laxer than the analogous requirements in respect of BIs. One possible justification for these differences appeals to the Differential Importance View—the view that it is presumptively morally less important to obtain explicitly given valid consent for PIs than for BIs. In this article, we argue against the Differential Importance View by considering and rejecting three possible justifications for it. These invoke differences between PIs and BIs with respect to implicit consent, risk, and wrongfulness.

Medical predictions, for example, concerning a patient's likelihood of survival, can be used to efficiently allocate scarce resources. Predictions of patient behaviour can also be used—for example, patients on the liver transplant waiting list could receive lower priority based on a high likelihood of non‐adherence to their immunosuppressant medication regimen or of drinking excessively. But is this ethically acceptable? In this paper, we will explore arguments for and against behavioural predictions, before providing novel empirical evidence on this question. Firstly, we note that including behavioural predictions would lead to improved transplant outcomes. Fairness could also require prioritising those predicted to engage in healthier behaviours: consistent with using behavioural predictions in other contexts such as psychiatry and substance misuse. Conversely, behavioural predictions may be judged too inaccurate or discriminatory, or it may be thought unfair to deprioritise based on future behaviour. In part two, we performed an online survey of 172 UK adults. When presented with possible factors relevant to liver allocation, most thought predictions of higher medication adherence (78.6%) and lower future alcohol use (76.5%) should be used but not predictions of lower future criminality (24.7%) and higher societal contribution (21.2%). Randomising participants into two groups, 69.8% of participants found deprioritising a patient based on their predicted medication adherence acceptable (91.9% found a nonbehavioural prediction acceptable). We did not identify an ethically relevant difference between behavioural predictions and other medical predictions already used in organ allocation. Our sample of participants also appeared to support behavioural predictions in this context.

Reproductive genetic technologies allow parents to decide whether their future children will have or lack certain genetic predispositions. A popular model that has been proposed for regulating access to RGTs is the ‘genetic supermarket’. In the genetic supermarket, parents are free to make decisions about which genes to select for their children with little state interference. One possible consequence of the genetic supermarket is that collective action problems will arise: if rational individuals use the genetic supermarket in isolation from one another, this may have a negative effect on society as a whole, including future generations. In this article we argue that RGTs targeting height, innate immunity, and certain cognitive traits could lead to collective action problems. We then discuss whether this risk could in principle justify state intervention in the genetic supermarket. We argue that there is a plausible prima facie case for the view that such state intervention would be justified and respond to a number of arguments that might be adduced against that view

Several authors have recently claimed that we each possess a right against interference with our minds. However, it remains unclear how this claim is to be justified. I offer a novel argument in defence of it. The argument is intuitive—appealing centrally to intuitions regarding cases—and abductive—taking the form of an inference to the best explanation; I offer a series of cases involving intuitively wrongful interventions, argue that five somewhat promising attempts to account for the wrongfulness of these interventions leave some of this wrongfulness unexplained, and show that my proposed alternative explanation, which invokes a right against mental interference, can account for this residual wrongfulness.

The possibility of neurotechnological interference with our brain and mind raises questions about the moral rights that would protect against the (mis)use of these technologies. One such moral right that has received recent attention is the right to mental integrity. Though the metaphysical boundaries of the mind are a matter of live debate, most defences of this moral right seem to assume an internalist (brain-based) view of the mind. In this article, we will examine what an extended account of the mind might imply for the right to mental integrity and the protection it provides against neurotechnologies. We argue that, on an extended account of the mind, the scope of the right to mental integrity would expand significantly, implying that neurotechnologies would no longer pose a uniquely serious threat to the right. In addition, some neurotechnologies may even be protected by the right to mental integrity, as the technologies would become part of the mind. We conclude that adopting an extended account of the mind has significant implications for the right to mental integrity in terms of its protective scope and capacity to protect against neurotechnologies, demonstrating that metaphysical assumptions about the mind play an important role in determining the moral protection provided by the right.

In this article, we argue that rational persuasion can be a _pro tanto_ wrong and that online platforms possess features that are especially conducive to this wrong. We begin by setting out an account of rational persuasion. This consists of four jointly sufficient conditions for rational persuasion and is intended to capture the core, uncontroversial cases of such persuasion. We then discuss a series of wrong-making features which are present in methods of influence commonly thought of as _pro tanto_ wrong, such as manipulation and paternalism. It is next shown that these wrong-making features are also present in a range of cases that are, by the jointly sufficient conditions already established, rational persuasion, and so some forms of rational persuasion are _pro tanto_ wrong, including in some ways that have not previously been remarked upon. Finally, we demonstrate that online settings possess a number of features that are especially conducive to wrongful rational persuasion.

Christine Clavien and Samia Hurst1 (henceforth C-H) make at least three valuable contributions to the literature on responsibility and healthcare. They offer an admirably clear and workable set of criteria for determining a patient's degree of responsibility for her health condition; they deploy those criteria to cast doubt on the view that patients with lifestyle-related conditions are typically significantly responsible for their conditions; and they outline several practical difficulties that would be raised by any attempt to introduce responsibility-sensitive healthcare funding. I am sympathetic to the general thrust of their argument, share—at least tentatively—their policy conclusions, and was persuaded by much of the detail of their argument. However, I do have three critical comments.

We are grateful to the commentators for their close reading of our article 1 and for their challenging and interesting responses to it. We do not have space to respond to all of the objections that they raise, so in this reply, we address only a selection of them. Some commentaries question the usefulness of developing an account of the sort we provide, 2 or of revising the Standard Account (SA) in doing so. 3–5 Our schema is intended to provide a framework for developing a full account of invasiveness that captures existing uses of the term. On the assumption that the term is used somewhat reliably and consistently–and we are inclined to agree with some of our commentators 3 4 that people are not terribly confused or mistaken in how they employ the term–an account that captures these...

In discussions of nudging, transparency is often taken to be important; it is often suggested that a significant moral consideration to take into account when nudging is whether the nudge is transparent. Another consideration taken to be relevant is whether the nudge is easy to resist. Sometimes, these two considerations are taken to be importantly related: if we have reason to make nudges easy to resist, then we have reason to make them transparent, insofar as a nudge’s transparency is relevant to whether the nudge is easy to resist. In this paper, we critically scrutinize this view. First, we draw out the purported connections between transparency and resistibility, combining them into what we call the Resistibility-to-Transparency Argument (RTA). Then, we do some conceptual groundwork elaborating on different forms of transparency mentioned in the debate. With this in place, we argue that in order to be plausible, the RTA must appeal to certain forms of transparency; those on which the transparency of a nudge depends on the nudgee’s ability to become aware of the relevant facts about the nudge. We then argue against the common assumption that in order for a nudge to be easy to resist for an individual, that individual needs to have the capacity to easily become aware of the relevant nudge facts. We conclude that the connection between the easy resistibility of a nudge and its transparency is, at best, a weak one.

This chapter explores some implications of the view that the woman in the rubella case has a reason to defer conception. It considers its implications for the ethics of genetic selection. Genetic selection involves choosing to bring one child into existence rather than another, based in part on the genetic characteristics of the alternative possible children. The chapter argues that potential parents have reason to pursue genetic selection to avoid having a child with a disposition to a wellbeing-reducing disease or disability, a disposition to other wellbeing-reducing traits, and dispositions that tend to reduce the wellbeing of others. It considers several objections that might be raised against genetic selection. Some people would advance these objections only against the more controversial forms of genetic selection mentioned earlier: selection against non-medical traits, and selection for the benefit of third parties. Others would advance these objections even against the least controversial kind of genetic selection: selection to avoid disease or disability.

Interventions designed to promote perspective taking are increasingly prevalent in educational settings, and are also being considered for applications in other domains. Thus far, these perspective-taking interventions (PTIs) have largely escaped philosophical attention, however they are sometimes _prima facie_ morally problematic in at least two respects: they are neither transparent nor easy to resist. Nontransparent or hard-to-resist PTIs call for a moral defense and our primary aim in this paper is to provide such a defense. We offer two arguments for the view that an exemplar PTI is morally permissible even though it is plausibly neither transparent nor easy to resist. The first argument appeals to an analogy between PTIs and permissible deceptive research practices. The second appeals to the way in which PTIs draw participants’ attention to their reasons for action. We also respond to the objection that, by imposing a particular conception of the good, PTIs violate liberal neutrality.

Psychological literature indicates that actions performed with the assistance of cognition‐enhancing biomedical technologies are often deemed to be less praiseworthy than similar actions performed without such assistance. This study examines (i) whether this result extends to the bioenhancement of moral capacities, and (ii) if so, what explains the effect of moral bioenhancement on perceived praiseworthiness. The findings indicate that actions facilitated by morally bioenhanced individuals are considered less deserving of praise than similar actions facilitated by ‘traditional’ moral enhancement—for example, moral self‐education. This diminished praise does not seem to be driven by an aversion to (moral) bioenhancement per se. Instead, it appears to be primarily attributable to a perceived lack of effort exerted by bioenhanced individuals in the course of their moral enhancement. Our findings advance the philosophical discourse on the foundations of praise in the context of moral bioenhancement by elucidating the empirical basis underlying some assumptions commonly employed to argue for or against the permissibility of moral bioenhancement.

There is growing interest in the use of neurointerventions to reduce the risk that criminal offenders will reoffend. Commentators have raised several ethical concerns regarding this practice. One prominent concern is that, when imposed without the offender’s valid consent, neurointerventions might infringe offenders’ right to bodily integrity. While it is commonly held that we possess a moral right to bodily integrity, the extent to which this right would protect against such neurointerventions is as-yet unclear. In this paper, we will assess whether, why, and how severely three forms of neurointervention might infringe the right to bodily integrity. We show that the severity of the infringement of the right to bodily integrity differs across different forms of neurointervention. Moreover, we argue that mental and behavioral effects of neurointerventions could in some cases be relevant to determining the severity of infringements of the right to bodily integrity.

The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account.

The opponents of enhancement do not all set out to defend a common and clearly specified thesis. However, several would either assent or be attracted to the following claim (henceforth, the bioconservative thesis): Even if it were technically possible and legally permissible for people to engage in biomedical enhancement, it would not be morally permissible for them to do so. The scope of this thesis needs to be clarified. This chapter argues that the bioconservative thesis, thus qualified, is false. There is clearly scope for most people to morally enhance themselves. According to every plausible moral theory, people often have bad or suboptimally good motives. The author tentatively argues that it would sometimes be morally permissible for people to biomedically mitigate their counter‐moral emotions. The chapter concludes with a scenario consisting of five assumptions that will be morally permissible for people to morally enhance themselves.

We address the issue of whether, why and under what conditions, quarantine and isolation are morally justified, with a particular focus on measures implemented in the developing world. We argue that the benefits of quarantine and isolation justify some level of coercion or compulsion by the state, but that the state should be able to provide the strongest justification possible for implementing such measures. While a constrained form of consequentialism might provide a justification for such public health interventions, we argue that a stronger justification is provided by a principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue: a state may permissibly compel individuals to engage in activities that entail a small cost to them but a large benefit to others, because individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue to engage in those activities. The principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue gives rise to an Obligation Enforcement Requirement: the state should create the conditions such that submitting to coercive or compulsive measures becomes a fundamental moral duty of individuals, i.e. a duty of easy rescue. When the state can create such conditions, it has the strongest justification possible for implementing coercive or compulsive measures, because individuals have a moral duty to temporarily relinquish the rights that such measures would infringe. Our argument has significant implications for how public health emergencies in the developing world should be tackled. Where isolation and quarantine measures are necessary, states or the international community have a moral obligation to provide certain benefits to those quarantined or isolated.