CASTRATION II: No Right Turn responds here to my previous criticism of his attitude to castration for sex offenders.

I'm not sure if we're getting closer to being able to discuss this productively or not. I hope we are, because, NRT is actually a lot of fun to argue with, and, even though we often disagree on substance, someone whose opinions I have a good deal of respect for. (An admission I'm sure will earn me black marks from the more extreme members of the right wing blogosphere.)

The difficulty arises because NRT often seems to support a position that says government can't ever interfere with rights, no matter what the benefit, and even if that benefit results in lesser total rights violation. NRT's commentary sometimes seems to obscure this, but it's crucial to remember that we're dealing with two sets of "rights" here, not just one: the right of children to be free from molestation, and the right of paedophiles to refuse medical treatment. Because of this, in order to argue against compulsory libido-reduction therapy a priori, you need to either say:

(1) that the right to refuse medical treatment is more important than the right to be free from molestation; or

(2) that neither right is necessarily more important, but that rights function as side constraints on action, so that government cannot interfere with rights, even when that would lead to a lesser total rights violation; or

(3) that neither right is necessarily more important, and rights do not function as side constraints on action, but, because governmental authority is so easily abused, it should be illegitimate for government to interfere with rights under any circumstances, even to guarantee the rights of others (effectively a slippery slope argument).

I'm not really sure which position NRT supports. I think (1) is wrong, but it's something we can probably argue about. I think (2) is philosophically incoherent: if NRT's respect for the right to refuse medical treatment is based, as he claims, on the argument that

Human rights (and, to a lesser extent, preference-based consequentialisms) are ultimately based on the idea that individual autonomy - "the capacity to be one's own person, to live one's life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one's own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces" - is valuable.

then my response is that, unless you're claiming that the children asked for it, the right to be free from child molestation is pretty damn important too.

I have a little more sympathy for (3) - I do think there's a danger in allowing governments to limit rights willy nilly. However, I think that this can be overcome by requiring a very high standard of proof before allowing rights violations. An absolute prohibition on any governmental intereference with rights isn't necessary.

However, it's possible that an a priori prohibtion on chemical castration isn't actually what NRT is arguing for. despite all the hyperbole about treating people like animals, this statement suggests that may be willing to limit rights in some circumstances:

the respect for autonomy on which a liberal society is based necessarily entails that ... punishments or preventative measures should interfere as little as practicable with a criminal's autonomy. [emphasis mine]

Under this approach (which comes closer to that used by the courts under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act) what is a permissible limitation then becomes open to argument - which is all I was claiming to begin with. In fact, it may be the case that libido reduction therapy isn't particualrly effective unless it's voluntary, and we probably want to look at alternative systems, such as allowing sentence reductions for those who undergo voluntary castration. But these possibilities should at least be investigated, not automatically dismissed as beyond the pale.

¶ 12:22 pm