Pugh Jonathan, Maslen Hannah
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, St Ebbes Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT UK.
Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, 34 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BD UK.
Crim Law Philos. 2017;11(3):499-522. doi: 10.1007/s11572-015-9383-0. Epub 2015 Oct 5.
In many jurisdictions, an offender's remorse is considered to be a relevant factor to take into account in mitigation at sentencing. The growing philosophical interest in the use of neurointerventions in criminal justice raises an important question about such remorse-based mitigation: to what extent should technologically facilitated remorse be honoured such that it is permitted the same penal significance as standard instances of remorse? To motivate this question, we begin by sketching a tripartite account of remorse that distinguishes cognitive, affective and motivational elements of remorse. We then describe a number of neurointerventions that might plausibly be used to enhance abilities that are relevant to these different elements of remorse. Having described what we term the 'moral value' view of the justification of remorse-based mitigation (according to which remorse-based mitigation is justified insofar as mitigation serves as a deserved form of response to the moral value of the offender's remorse), we then consider whether using neurointerventions to facilitate remorse would undermine its moral value, and thus make it inappropriate to honour such remorse in the criminal justice system. We respond to this question by claiming that the form of moral understanding that is incorporated into a genuinely remorseful response grounds remorse's moral value. In view of this claim, we conclude by arguing that neurointerventions need not undermine remorse's moral value on this approach, and that the remorse that such interventions might facilitate could also be authentic to the recipient of the neurointerventions that we discuss.
在许多司法管辖区，犯罪者的悔悟被视为量刑时从轻处罚需考虑的一个相关因素。在刑事司法中，对神经干预措施使用的哲学兴趣日益浓厚，这引发了一个关于基于悔悟的从轻处罚的重要问题：技术促成的悔悟应在多大程度上得到认可，从而使其被赋予与标准悔悟情形相同的刑罚意义？为引出这个问题，我们首先勾勒出一个悔悟的三方描述，区分悔悟的认知、情感和动机要素。然后，我们描述了一些可能合理用于增强与悔悟这些不同要素相关能力的神经干预措施。在阐述了我们所谓的基于悔悟的从轻处罚正当性的“道德价值”观点（根据该观点，基于悔悟的从轻处罚是正当的，因为从轻处罚是对犯罪者悔悟的道德价值应有的回应形式）之后，我们接着思考使用神经干预措施来促成悔悟是否会损害其道德价值，进而使其在刑事司法系统中不适合得到认可。我们对这个问题的回答是，融入真诚悔悟回应中的道德理解形式奠定了悔悟的道德价值。鉴于这一主张，我们最后论证，在这种方法下，神经干预措施不一定会损害悔悟的道德价值，而且我们所讨论的神经干预措施促成的悔悟对接受者来说也可能是真实的。
