Abstract
Certain contemporary forms of organic therapy used in an attempt to correct or control deviance strike terror into the hearts of traditional liberals and humanists. In addition to radical forms to behavior modification therapy (e.g., the use of “shock sticks” or “cattle prods” on autistic children and the administration of drugs which produce symptoms of suffocation in patients), psychosurgery has also experienced a resurgence of popularity. Its use has been advocated (and sometimes practiced) on impulsively violent persons and on so-called “hyperkinetic” children.
Earlier versions of this article were presented at a symposium on ‘Behavior Control and the Law,’ American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, March 28, 1975, and at the “Conference on Medical Ethics,” University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, May 23, 1975. I am grateful to David Wexler and Keith Lehrer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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Notes
Shapiro,’ Legislating the Control of Behavior Control: Autonomy and Coercive Use of Organic Therapies’, 47 So. Cal. L. Rev. 237, 244 n.8 (1974) (original emphasis).
Civ. No. 73–19434-AW (Wayne County C. C, Mich., July 10,1973).
E. Goffman, Asylums (New York, Doubleday, 1961).
Shapiro, supra note 1, at 280–81 (footnotes omitted).
Cal. A. B. 2296, § 2672(a), qoted in Shapiro, supra note 1, at 341.
See Murphy, ‘Incompetence and Paternalism,’ 60 Archiv Für Rechts und Sozialphilosophie 465 (1974); see also Punishment and Rehabilitation (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973).
Punishment and Rehabilitation (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973).
Note 2 supra.
I. Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. W. Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), pp. 46–49.
Note 2 supra.
V. Haksar, ‘Civil Disobedience, Threats and Offers’, (unpublished paper). The relevant part has now been published as ‘Coercive Proposals’ in Political Theory 4, No. 1 (Feb. 1976), pp. 65–79. I now realize that Haksar’s views, as presented in my paper, are somewhat misinterpreted. He distinguishes between coercive threats and coercive offers and argues that the nature of the immorahty involved in the former is different from the nature of the immorality involved in the latter. His more complex analysis, however, can still be used in support of the basic claims of my essay.
See text at pp. supra.
Indeed, some limited support for it can be found in Murphy, ‘Marxism and Retribution,’ 2 Philosophy and Public Affairs 217 (1973). (Reprinted in the present collection).
Morris, Book Review, 18 U.C.L.A. Rev. 1164, 1166 (1971).
A. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (New York: Norton, 1963).
See Murphy, ‘Moral Death: A Kantian Essay on Psychopathy’, 82 Ethics 284 (1972). (Reprinted in the present collection).
In my judgment, the main points to be made against psychosurgery are the following: (i) It has been persuasively argued that the claim that psychosurgery can in fact cure “brain diseases” which cause violence is in part incoherent and in part supported by evidence that is grotesquely inadequate. See John Hodson, ‘Reflections Concerning Violence and the Brain,’ 9 Crim. L. Bull. 684 (1973).
V. Mark & F. Ervin, Violence and the Brain (New York: Harper and Row, 1970). If this is true, then psychosurgical interventions as a response to social deviance border upon charlatanism and medical quackery. As such, they would hardly deserve (either morally or prudentially) public funding or serious consideration as posible solutions to the problem of controlling crime. (Recall my analogy: My belief that it is possible for inmates to give informed, competent and voluntary consent to the use of copper bracelets for arthritis is perfectly consistent with my belief that the state should not purchase, offer, and make available these items of medical superstition to inmates), (ii) It is my belief that many (perhaps most) people incarcerated in prisons and mental hospitals are there for reasons that are largely suspect. Bad laws, bad criteria for such concepts as “dangerous” and “violent” and “disease,” economic exploitation, and the occupance of crucial positions of power by evil, ignorant, and ideologically-biased persons have, in my judgment, a prominent part in the explanation of the incarceration of inmates in America. I am greatly opposed to having this venal aspect of the American system of “justice” further hidden with a strengthening of the already too prevalent illusion that social deviance, rather than frequently being a normal understandable response to certain intolerable social conditions, is primarily a result of individual pathology or disease. This illusion causes us to look for quick and simple solutions in all the wrong places, (iii) Finally, and closely related to the above, I am extremely skeptical that procedures and mechanisms could be designed that would prevent the administration of psychosurgery to those who are not capable of informed, voluntary ad competent consent. Though, as I have argued, I believe that it is possible for some inmates to give such consent in total institutions, I am inclined to suspect that cases of correct use (i.e., cases of type (2)) are likely to be greatly outnumbered by cases of abuse (i.e., cases of type (1)). The burden of proof is surely upon the advocates of psychosurgery to come up with the proper safeguards. Until they do, I should continue to oppose psychosurgery on inmates even if all my other objections to it could somehow be met.
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© 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Murphy, J.G. (1979). Total Institutions and the Possibility of Consent to Organic Therapies. In: Retribution, Justice, and Therapy. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9461-4_13
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