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Jonathan Pugh

Illegal Strikes and Political Obligation – What Reasons Do We Have To Obey The Law?

The issue of public sector pay rises has been at the forefront of political discussions in the UK in recent months. The controversy can be traced back to at least 2013, when the government placed a 1% limit on such pay rises, a figure that falls below recent levels of inflation, meaning that the cap has made public sector workers financially worse off in real terms. Earlier last week, the government announced that it would allow ministers some flexibility to breach this limit, as well as announcing small rises in the pay of some public sector workers. However, critics have labelled these measures as divisive and insufficient.

Len McCluskey, the leader of the Unite union in the UK, has recently added to this controversy when he told a BBC interviewer that he would be willing to back illegal strike action in order to oppose the cap on public sector pay rises. Under legislation introduced last year, legal industrial strike action in the UK public sector now requires the support of at least 40% of all those entitled to vote in the relevant ballot. Moreover, the ballot itself must also have at least 50% turnout in order to be valid. In his interview, McCluskey intimated that he would support strikes that did not meet this second condition. In turn, this has led commentators to call on Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, to clarify whether he too would support illegal strikes.

I do not intend to address the moral and economic considerations involved in the question of the amount that a fair society should pay to its public sector workers. Rather, I shall be interested in the nature of the reasons that we may have to obey laws we disagree with, and the implications that our answer to this question may have for whether we should support illegal strikes of this sort.

 

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Using AI to Predict Criminal Offending: What Makes it ‘Accurate’, and What Makes it ‘Ethical’.

Jonathan Pugh

Tom Douglas

 

The Durham Police force plans to use an artificial intelligence system to inform decisions about whether or not to keep a suspect in custody.

Developed using data collected by the force, The Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART) has already undergone a 2 year trial period to monitor the accuracy of the tool. Over the trial period, predictions of low risk were accurate 98% of the time, whilst predictions of high risk were accurate 88% of the time, according to media reports. Whilst HART has not so far been used to inform custody sergeants’ decisions during this trial period, the police force now plans to take the system live.

Given the high stakes involved in the criminal justice system, and the way in which artificial intelligence is beginning to surpass human decision-making capabilities in a wide array of contexts, it is unsurprising that criminal justice authorities have sought to harness AI. However, the use of algorithmic decision-making in this context also raises ethical issues. In particular, some have been concerned about the potentially discriminatory nature of the algorithms employed by criminal justice authorities.

These issues are not new. In the past, offender risk assessment often relied heavily on psychiatrists’ judgements. However, partly due to concerns about inconsistency and poor accuracy, criminal justice authorities now already use algorithmic risk assessment tools. Based on studies of past offenders, these tools use forensic history, mental health diagnoses, demographic variables and other factors to produce a statistical assessment of re-offending risk.

Beyond concerns about discrimination, algorithmic risk assessment tools raise a wide range of ethical questions, as we have discussed with colleagues in the linked paper. Here we address one that it is particularly apposite with respect to HART: how should we balance the conflicting moral values at stake in deciding the kind of accuracy we want such tools to prioritise?

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Sartre vs The Selfie: An Existentialist Critique of Selfie- Taking

Selfie-sticks are notoriously ubiquitous in modern society, and the art of ‘selfie-taking’ may well be something that future analysts identify as being one of the defining sociological trends of this period of history. In this post, I will discuss some passages from Sartre that help to explain my feeling of unease at this rampant ‘selfie-ism’.Read More »Sartre vs The Selfie: An Existentialist Critique of Selfie- Taking

Rugby and the Love of the Underdog

The Rugby World Cup is now well underway in England and Wales, and rugby fans have possibly already seen one of its most surprising results and entertaining games. On the second day of the tournament, Japan defied the odds to earn a narrow 34-32 victory over South Africa. The result stunned the rugby world – prior to the result, South Africa had been hailed as possible tournament winners, having been already been crowned world cup champions in 1995 and 2007, whilst few outside the Japanese camp gave them a serious chance of success, with bookmakers classing them as 80-1 underdogs. It truly was a victory of Goliath-slaying proportions.

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The Ethics of Compulsory Chemical Castration: Is Non-Consensual Treatment Ever Permissible?

By Jonathan Pugh

Tory Grant, the justice minister for New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, has announced the establishment of a task force to investigate the potential for the increased use of anti-libidinal treatments (otherwise known as chemical castration) in the criminal justice system. Such treatments aim to reduce recidivism amongst sexual offenders by dramatically reducing the offender’s level of testosterone, essentially rendering them impotent. The treatment is reversible; its effects will stop when the treatment is ceased. Nonetheless, as I shall explain below, it has also been linked with a number of adverse side effects.

Currently, in New South Wales offenders can volunteer for this treatment, whilst courts in Victoria and Western Australia have the discretion to impose chemical castration as a condition of early release. However, Grant’s task force has been established to consider giving judges the power to impose compulsory chemical castration as a sentencing option. Notably though, New South Wales would not be the first jurisdiction to implement compulsory chemical castration in the criminal justice system. For instance, Florida and Poland also permit compulsory chemical castration of sex offenders.

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Stripping Addicts of Benefits – Coercion, Consent, and the Right to Benefits

The UK government has announced plans to review the possibility of stripping drug addicts, alcoholics and obese individuals of benefits if they refuse treatment for their conditions. In support of the review, a consultation paper claims that the review is intended to “. . . consider how best to support those suffering from long-term yet treatable conditions back into work or to remain in work.”

One concern that has been raised against the plans is that stripping these individuals of their benefits is unlikely to be effective in getting them to seek treatment, with the Mirror reporting one campaigner as suggesting that “(this strategy) didn’t work in the Victorian times, (and) it’s not going to work now”.

In this post, I shall consider a challenge to the lawfulness of the proposals that is based on the claim that they would coerce individuals into accepting treatment. This is in fact a challenge that Sarah Woolaston, chair of the Health Select Committee has herself raised.

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Race, Gender, and Authenticity: Reflections on Rachel Dolezal and Caitlyn Jenner

The concept of authenticity has been receiving a lot of attention in the past few weeks due to two high profile cases. First, Caitlyn Jenner, a former Olympic gold medallist and TV personality who was until recently known as “Bruce”, debuted her new name and identity in an interview with the magazine Vanity Fair. Second, it was reported that Rachel Dolezal, the Spokane NAACP president, was allegedly born a white woman, and has been deceptively representing herself as a black woman.

The latter case has sparked a great deal of controversy that I do not intend to fully address here. Furthermore, although some commentators have drawn all things considered likewise comparisons between the two cases, it seems clear that Dolezal’s case involves a range of separate issues, which make an all things considered likewise comparison inappropriate; again, I do not intend to make such a comparison here. Rather, in this post, I shall explore one particular theme that has emerged in many discussions of these cases, namely the language of authenticity.Read More »Race, Gender, and Authenticity: Reflections on Rachel Dolezal and Caitlyn Jenner

Legally Competent, But Too Young To Choose To Be Sterilized?

In the UK, female sterilisation is available on the NHS. However, as the NHS choices website points out:

Surgeons are more willing to perform sterilisation when women are over 30 years old and have had children.

Recent media reports about the experience of Holly Brockwell have detailed one woman’s anecdotal experience of this attitude amongst medics. Ms. Brockwell, 29, explains that she has been requesting sterilization every year since she was 26. However, despite professing a firmly held belief that she does not, has not, and never will want children, her requests have so far been refused, with doctors often telling her that she is ‘far too young to make such a drastic decision’. In this post, I shall consider whether there is an ethical justification for this sort of implicit age limit on consenting to sterilization.Read More »Legally Competent, But Too Young To Choose To Be Sterilized?

Treatment for Crime Workshop (13th – 14th April) – Overview

Practical ethicists have become increasingly interested in the potential applications of neurointerventions—interventions that exert a direct biological effect on the brain. One application of these interventions that has particularly stimulated moral discussion is the potential use of these interventions to prevent recidivism amongst criminal offenders. To a limited extent, we are already on the path to using what can be described as neuro-interventions in this way. For instance, in certain jurisdictions drug-addicted offenders are required to take medications that are intended to attenuate their addictive desires. Furthermore, sex-offenders in certain jurisdictions may receive testosterone-lowering drugs (sometimes referred to as ‘chemical castration’) as a part of their criminal sentence, or as required by their conditions of parole.

On 13-14th April, a workshop (funded by the Wellcome Trust) focussing on the moral questions raised by the potential use of neuro-interventions to prevent criminal recidivism took place at Kellogg College in Oxford. I lack the space here to adequately explore the nuances of all of the talks in this workshop. Rather, in this post, I shall briefly explain some of the main themes and issues that were raised in the fruitful discussions that took place over the course of the workshop, and attempt to give readers at least a flavour of each of the talks given; I apologise in advance for the fact that I must necessarily gloss over a number of interesting details and arguments.Read More »Treatment for Crime Workshop (13th – 14th April) – Overview

Smoking, Ice-Cream and Logical Progressions: Why We Shouldn’t Ban Smoking in Outdoor Public Places

It’s a beautiful warm sunny day, and you have decided to take your children to join a group of friends for a barbecue at the local public park. The wine is flowing (orange juice for the kids), you have managed not to burn the sausages (vegetarian or otherwise), and there is even an ice-cream van parked a conveniently short walk away.

An idyllic scenario for many of us, I’m sure you will agree; one might even go so far as to suggest that this is exactly the sort of thing that public parks are there for; they represent a carefree environment in which we can enjoy the sunshine and engage in recreational communal activities with others.Read More »Smoking, Ice-Cream and Logical Progressions: Why We Shouldn’t Ban Smoking in Outdoor Public Places