Autonomy and the Folk Concept of Valid Consent

Demaree-Cotton, J., & Sommers, R. 

(2021, August 17). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/p4w8g

Abstract

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even when the consenter makes an irrational and inauthentic decision. Finally, Study 3 showed that the effect of autonomy on judgments of valid consent carries important downstream consequences for moral reasoning about the rights and obligations of third parties, even when the consented-to action is morally wrong. Overall, these findings suggest that laypeople embrace a normative, domain-general concept of valid consent that depends consistently on the possession of autonomous capacities, but not on the exercise of these capacities. Autonomous decisions and autonomous capacities thus play divergent roles in moral reasoning about consent interactions: while the former appears relevant for assessing the wrongfulness of consented-to acts, the latter plays a role in whether consent is regarded as authoritative and therefore as transforming moral rights.

Conclusion 

Before these studies, it remained an open possibility that “valid consent” as a rich and normatively complex force existed only as a technical concept used in philosophical, legal and academic domains. We found, however, that the folk concept of consent involves normative distinctions between valid and invalid consent that are sensitive to the consenter’s autonomy, even if the linguistic utterance of “yes” is held constant, and that this concept plays an important role in moral reasoning. 

Specifically, the studies presented here examined the relationship between autonomy and intuitive judgments of valid consent in several domains: medical procedures, sexual relations, police searches, and agreements between buyers and sellers.  Across scenarios, we found that judgments of valid consent carried a specific relationship to autonomy: whether an agent possesses the mental capacity to make decisions in an autonomous way has a consistent impact on whether their consent is regarded as valid, and thus whether it was regarded as morally transformative of the rights and obligations of the consenter and of third parties.  Yet, whether the agent in fact makes their decision in an autonomous, rational way—based on their own authentic values and what is right for them—has little impact on perceptions of consent or associated rights, although it has relevance for whether the consent-obtainer is acting wrongly.  Autonomy thus has a subtle role in the ordinary reasoning about morally transformative consent, where consent given by an agent with autonomous capacities has a distinctive role in downstream moral reasoning.

The research is here.

The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities: A Literature Review

Harris, J., Anthis, J.R. 

Sci Eng Ethics 27, 53 (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00331-8

Abstract

Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify 294 relevant research or discussion items in our literature review of this topic. There is widespread agreement among scholars that some artificial entities could warrant moral consideration in the future, if not also the present. The reasoning varies, such as concern for the effects on artificial entities and concern for the effects on human society. Beyond the conventional consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethicist ethical frameworks, some scholars encourage “information ethics” and “social-relational” approaches, though there are opportunities for more in-depth ethical research on the nuances of moral consideration of artificial entities. There is limited relevant empirical data collection, primarily in a few psychological studies on current moral and social attitudes of humans towards robots and other artificial entities. This suggests an important gap for psychological, sociological, economic, and organizational research on how artificial entities will be integrated into society and the factors that will determine how the interests of artificial entities are considered.

Concluding Remarks

Many scholars lament that the moral consideration of artificial entities is discussed infrequently and not viewed as a proper object of academic inquiry. This literature review suggests that these perceptions are no longer entirely accurate. The number of publications is growing exponentially, and most scholars view artificial entities as potentially warranting moral consideration. Still, there are important gaps remaining, suggesting promising opportunities for further research, and the field remains small overall with only 294 items identified in this review.

These discussions have taken place largely separately from each other: legal rights, moral consideration, empirical research on human attitudes, and theoretical exploration of the risks of astronomical suffering among future artificial entities. Further contributions should seek to better integrate these discussions. The analytical frameworks used in one topic may offer valuable contributions to another. For example, what do legal precedent and empirical psychological research suggest are the most likely outcomes for future artificial sentience (as an example of studying likely technological outcomes, see Reese and Mohorčich, 2019)? What do virtue ethics and rights theories suggest is desirable in these plausible future scenarios?

Despite interest in the topic from policy-makers and the public, there is a notable lack of empirical data about attitudes towards the moral consideration of artificial entities. This leaves scope for surveys and focus groups on a far wider range of predictors of attitudes, experiments that test the effect of various messages and content on these attitudes, and qualitative and computational text analysis of news articles, opinion pieces, and science fiction books and films that touch on these topics. There are also many theoretically interesting questions to be asked about how these attitudes relate to other facets of human society, such as human in-group-out-group and human-animal interactions.

The info is here.

Marina Ovsyannikova: Profile in Courage

From Julia Davis

@JuliaDavisNews

Julia translates:

"What is currently happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is a country-aggressor. All responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of one person: Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian. They were never enemies. This necklace around my neck signifies that Russia should immediately stop this fratricidal war and our brotherly nations can make peace with each other.

Unfortunately, for the last several years I worked at Channel One, promoting Kremlin propaganda and for that I am very ashamed right now. I am ashamed that I allowed lies to be told from TV screens, that I allowed Russian people to be zombified. We stayed quiet when all of this was just getting started in 2014. We didn't come out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We continued to quietly watch this inhumane regime. Now the whole world turned away from us. Ten generations of our descendants won't be able to wash away the shame of this fratricidal war.

Can you be too moral?

Tim Dean

TEDx Sydney

Interesting introduction to moral certainty and dichotomous thinking.

One of the biggest challenges of our time is not people without morals, according to philosopher Tim Dean. It is often those with unwavering moral convictions who are the most dangerous. Tim challenges us to change the way we think about morality, right and wrong, to be more adaptable in order to solve the new and emerging problems of our modern lives. Tim Dean is a Sydney-based philosopher and science writer. He is the author of How We Became Human, a book about how our evolved moral minds are out of step with the modern world. He has a Doctorate in philosophy from the University of New South Wales on the evolution of morality and has expertise in ethics, philosophy of biology and critical thinking. 

Do Obligations Follow the Mind or Body?

Protzko, J., Tobia, K., Strohminger, N.,

& Schooler, J.  (2022, February 7). 

Retrieved from psyarxiv.com/m5a6g

Abstract

Do you persist as the same person over time because you keep the same mind or because you keep the same body? Philosophers have long investigated this question of personal identity with thought experiments. Cognitive scientists have joined this tradition by assessing lay intuitions about those cases. Much of this work has focused on judgments of identity continuity. But identity also has practical significance: obligations are tagged to one’s identity over time. Understanding how someone persists as the same person over time could provide insight into how and why moral and legal obligations persist. In this paper, we investigate judgments of obligations in hypothetical cases where a person’s mind and body diverge (e.g., brain transplant cases). We find a striking pattern of results: In assigning obligations in these identity test cases, people are divided among three groups: “body-followers”, “mind-followers”, and “splitters”—people who say that the obligation is split between the mind and the body. Across studies, responses are predicted by a variety of factors, including mind/body dualism, essentialism, education, and professional training. When we give this task to professional lawyers, accountants, and bankers, we find they are more inclined to rely on bodily continuity in tracking obligations. These findings reveal not only the heterogeneity of intuitions about identity, but how these intuitions relate to the legal standing of an individual’s obligations.

From the General Discussion

Whether one is a mind-follower, body-follower, or splitter was predicted by several psychological traits, suggesting that participants’ decisions were not arbitrary. Furthermore, the use of comprehension checks did not moderate the results, so the variety of assigning obligations were not due to participants not understanding the scenarios. We found physical essentialism and mind/body dualism predict body-following; while the best educated participants are more likely mind-followers and the least educated are more likely splitters. The professional experts were more likely to be body-followers.

Essentialism predicted the belief that obligations track the body. This may seem mysterious, until we consider that much of essentialism has to do with tracking a physical (if invisible) properties. Here is a sample item from the Beliefs in Essentialism Scale: Trying on a sweater that Hitler wore, even if it was washed thoroughly beforehand, would make me very uncomfortable (Horne & Cimpian, 2019). If someone believes that essences are physically real in this way, it makes sense that they would also believe that obligations and identity go with the body. 

Consideration of specific items in the Mind/body Dualism Scale (Nadelhoffer et al., 2014) similarly offer insight into its relationship with the continuity of obligation in this study. Items like Human action can only be understood in terms of our souls and minds and not just in terms of our brains, indicate that for mind/body dualists, a person is not reducible to their brain. Accordingly, for mind/body dualists, though the brain may change, something else remains in the body that maintains both identity and obligations.

The pdf is here.

The Moral Injury of COVID: How Will Nurses Survive?

Diane M. Goodman

MedScape.com

Originally posted 11 FEB 22

Here are some excerpts:

According to recent statistics, 1 in 5 nurses have retired from active duty since the pandemic began. Far from feeling like heroes, nurses now feel exhausted, demoralized, underappreciated, and severely overworked. They are broken in ways that cannot be repaired.

Recently, an intensive care unit nurse abandoned his shift in the middle of the night and walked off into the unknown only to be found deceased 2 days later. What happened to this caregiver? Was his distress so severe he could not communicate pain? One can only wonder.

Nurses across the country are suffering from moral injury.

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This is what nurses feel prepared to do, but it violates their moral code.

Nurses may be unfamiliar with the process of rationing care, but the pandemic has changed that perspective. Nurses are now dealing with a form of rationing that leaves them miserable, in tears, and in persistent distress.

Providing care for 10 patients as opposed to a maximum of five forces nurses to make appalling decisions. Which patient needs my attention now? Will another patient die while I am in this room? How can I choose without suffering lasting trauma from my decisions?

Nurses have repeatedly been placed in impossible situations throughout the pandemic.

Remember the early days of PPE shortages? Nurses went without appropriate attire to protect their peers, at times with fatal results. 

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The profession prides itself on delivering the highest quality care it can. But when was the last time nurses felt that they were meeting this standard? How can they? They are working in a system where their own needs are minimized to meet the demands of an ongoing COVID patient population.

Moral injury, which can lead to moral trauma if unresolved, is different from burnout. 

Moral injury affects our sense of right and wrong. Moral injury is different because it represents a situation of witnessing care or offering care that conflicts with our internal compass. It is witnessing patients die without loved ones, repeatedly, or instituting a crisis standard of care that feels endless, although no earthquake, tornado, or bus accident has occurred. It is a feeling of running behind without the possibility of ever getting a break.

Moral injury is lasting distress that leads to feelings such as guilt, anger, and shame. There are true psychological implications for this type of angst. 

The info is here.

Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks

Armaly, M.T., Buckley, D.T. & Enders, A.M. 

Polit Behav (2022). 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y

Abstract

What explains popular support for political violence in the contemporary United States, particularly the anti-institutional mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021? Recent scholarship gives reason to suspect that a constellation of beliefs known as “Christian nationalism” may be associated with support for such violence. We build on this work, arguing that religious ideologies like Christian nationalism should be associated with support for violence, conditional on several individual characteristics that can be inflamed by elite cues. We turn to three such factors long-studied by scholars of political violence: perceived victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identities, and support for conspiratorial information sources. Each can be exacerbated by elite cues, thus translating individual beliefs in Christian nationalism into support for political violence. We test this approach with original survey data collected in the wake of the Capitol attacks. We find that all the identified factors are positively related to each other and support for the Capitol riot; moreover, the relationship between Christian nationalism and support for political violence is sharply conditioned by white identity, perceived victimhood, and support for the QAnon movement. These results suggest that religion’s role in contemporary right-wing violence is embedded with non-religious factors that deserve further scholarly attention in making sense of support for political violence.

From Discussion and Implications

While this is not a piece of policy analysis, our findings do come with implications for governmental efforts to confront domestic extremism, which have received significant attention in the shadow of January 6. First and foremost, these efforts could repeat mistakes of earlier generations of policy designed to counter violent extremism, which tended to focus on religious ideology or beliefs in isolation. The results we present here suggest that efforts to promote “moderate” Christianity are likely to run into similar obstacles to twenty years of limited results from efforts to promote “moderate” Islam or mobilize government resources to win a “war of ideas” within Islam. Instead, religion’s impact on support for extremist violence is likely to be “interactive” (Mandaville & Nozell, 2017, 1). In this case, for example, the strong conditioning effect of support for the QAnon movement suggests the urgent need for increased data collection on the explicit or implicit ways in which conspiratorial disinformation spreads through religious congregations and institutions. Moreover, as victimhood and white identity can be cued and strategically employed by political elites (Armaly and Enders Forthcoming; Jardina 2019), our results suggest attention to the types of messages from political and religious leaders intended to exacerbate the factors that condition the impact of Christian nationalism.

Our findings, drawn from one sample and an observational research design, also provide ample opportunities for further research. First, we theorize, but do not directly observe or test, that the factors enhancing Christian nationalism’s effect on support for violence are tied to changing top-down mechanisms such as the supply of anti-establishment elite cues. Research has documented the ability of elite cues to stoke victimhood, white identity, and conspiracy beliefs, and Christian nationalism itself could well be manipulable in a similar way. Various experimental approaches could probe the mass-level effects of elite communication strategies. Building on recent experimental research (Buckley, 2020; Margolis, 2018), these designs could test which types of individuals are most responsive to Christian nationalist cues, and further investigate the reinforcing nature of cues that blend religious, racial, and even conspiratorial content. A significant body of recent research on clergy influence (Dujpe and Gilbert 2009), including attitudes related to tolerance (Djupe 2015), suggests that clergy influence may be substantial, but also contingent.

Biden Team Gets It Right on Inadmissibility of Torture Evidence

Tess Bridgeman

JustSecurity.com

Originally posted 1 FEB 22

The Biden administration just took an important step to restore the rule of law in the Al-Nashiri case at the Guantanamo military commissions: it categorically rejected the use of statements obtained through torture at any stage in the proceedings and promised that the government will not seek to admit any statements the petitioner made while in CIA custody. This should be unremarkable, as it clearly reflects U.S. domestic and international legal obligations and Biden administration policy, but the position the Department of Justice (DOJ) took in its brief filed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday is actually an about-face from the position prosecutors took before the military commission judge. The Al-Nashiri case has a long history, but this most recent controversy stems from prosecutors’ decision to seek to admit statements obtained through torture in pre-trial proceedings in the capital case of Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Al-Nashiri, the “alleged mastermind” of the U.S.S. Cole bombing. Although the prosecution eventually withdrew the particular statements at issue, it had essentially reserved the right to rely on torture-obtained evidence in future proceedings. 

In October of last year, Al-Nashiri filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that sought “to enjoin the government from offering, and the military commission judge from considering, torture-derived evidence.” The much-awaited U.S. government response — called a “moment of truth” for the Biden administration on torture — came yesterday. 

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The government is taking the issue seriously in this case; but what about the other cases? 

The government brief states that it has “conducted a search of this case’s voluminous record, including the prosecution’s ex parte submissions” to determine whether there have been any “past orders predicated on evidence admitted in violation of” the Military Commissions Act’s prohibition of the admission of statements obtained through torture or CIDT. It found one, and has committed to “move promptly to correct” the error. This shows the administration is taking the issue seriously. 

But given al-Nashiri isn’t the only petitioner who was in the CIA’s black sites, and that the prosecution regularly makes ex parte submissions in commission proceedings, there may be instances in other cases pending before the military commissions where the same problem is lurking and could compromise the prosecution. If it isn’t doing so already, the government would be wise to undertake a thorough review of all commissions cases and withdraw any submissions it might find that contain information obtained from torture or CIDT.

The info is here.

As Suicide Attempts Rise in America, Mental Health Care Remains Stagnant

Kara Grant

MedPageToday.com

Originally posted 19 JAN 22

Despite the substantial increase in suicide attempts among U.S. adults over the last decade, use of mental health services by these individuals didn't match that growth, data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) revealed.

From 2008 to 2019, suicide attempts among adults increased from 481.2 to 563.9 per 100,000 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.23, 95% CI 1.05-1.44, P=0.01), reported Greg Rhee, PhD, of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues.

And according to their study in JAMA Psychiatry, there was a significant uptick in the number of individuals that attempted suicide within the past year who said they felt they needed mental health services but failed to receive it (34.8% in 2010-2011 vs 45.5% in 2018-2019).

Overall, the researchers found no significant changes in the likelihood of receiving past-year outpatient, inpatient, or medication services for mental health reasons, nor any change in substance use treatment services. An increase in the number of visits to mental health centers was detected, but even this change was no longer significant after correcting for different sources of mental health care.

"One would hope that as suicide attempts increase, the percentage of individuals who receive treatment in proximity to their attempt would also increase," Rhee and colleagues wrote. "Current suicide prevention interventions largely focus on individuals connected to treatment and high-risk individuals who have contact with the health care system."

"However, our finding that less than half of suicide attempters had clinical contact around the time of their attempt suggest[s] that it is not only important to expand initiatives for high-risk individuals with clinical contact, but also to implement public health-oriented strategies outside the formal treatment system," they suggested.

The info is here.