Addiction and autonomy: Why emotional dysregulation in addiction impairs autonomy and why it matters.

An important philosophical issue in the study of addiction is what difference the fact that a person is addicted makes to attributions of autonomy (and responsibility) to their drug-oriented behavior. In spite of accumulating evidence suggesting the role of emotional dysregulation in understanding addiction, it has received surprisingly little attention in the debate about this issue. I claim that, as a result, an important aspect of the autonomy impairment of many addicted individuals has been largely overlooked. A widely shared assumption in the philosophical literature is that for addiction to impair a person's autonomy it has to make them (in some sense) take drugs against their will. So-called "willing addicts" are therefore usually seen as exempted from the autonomy impairment believed to characterize "unwilling addicts," the latter being those who "truly want" to stop using drugs but find their attempts repeatedly derailed by failures of self-control. In this article, I argue that the association between addiction and emotional dysregulation shows why this assumption is false. Emotional dysregulation is not only consistent with the possibility that many addicts take drugs "willingly," it supports the hypothesis that they use drugs because they truly want to. The article proposes an explanation for why emotional dysregulation should nevertheless be seen as an aspect of their loss of control and an important reason why they have impaired autonomy. I end by exploring some implications of this account for addict's decision-making capacity when they are prescribed the drugs to which they are addicted.

Can medical algorithms be fair? Three ethical quandaries and one dilemma.

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate what it takes to reconcile the idea of fairness in medical algorithms and machine learning (ML) with the broader discourse of fairness and health equality in health research. METHOD: The methodological approach used in this paper is theoretical and ethical analysis. RESULT: We show that the question of ensuring comprehensive ML fairness is interrelated to three quandaries and one dilemma. DISCUSSION: As fairness in ML depends on a nexus of inherent justice and fairness concerns embedded in health research, a comprehensive conceptualisation is called for to make the notion useful. CONCLUSION: This paper demonstrates that more analytical work is needed to conceptualise fairness in ML so it adequately reflects the complexity of justice and fairness concerns within the field of health research.

How to achieve trustworthy artificial intelligence for health.

Artificial intelligence holds great promise in terms of beneficial, accurate and effective preventive and curative interventions. At the same time, there is also awareness of potential risks and harm that may be caused by unregulated developments of artificial intelligence. Guiding principles are being developed around the world to foster trustworthy development and application of artificial intelligence systems. These guidelines can support developers and governing authorities when making decisions about the use of artificial intelligence. The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence set up by the European Commission launched the report Ethical guidelines for trustworthy artificial intelligence in2019. The report aims to contribute to reflections and the discussion on the ethics of artificial intelligence technologies also beyond the countries of the European Union (EU). In this paper, we use the global health sector as a case and argue that the EU's guidance leaves too much room for local, contextualized discretion for it to foster trustworthy artificial intelligence globally. We point to the urgency of shared globalized efforts to safeguard against the potential harms of artificial intelligence technologies in health care.

L'intelligence artificielle regorge de potentiel en matière d'interventions préventives et curatives précises, efficaces et bénéfiques. Mais par la même occasion, elle présente certains risques et peut s'avérer nocive si son développement n'est pas encadré par des règles. Partout dans le monde, des principes directeurs sont instaurés afin de promouvoir un niveau de fiabilité optimal dans l'évolution et l'application des systèmes basés sur l'intelligence artificielle. Ces principes peuvent aider les développeurs et les autorités gouvernementales à prendre des décisions relatives à l'intelligence artificielle. Le Groupe d'experts de haut niveau sur l'intelligence artificielle créé par la Commission européenne a récemment publié un rapport intitulé Lignes directrices en matière d'éthique pour une IA digne de confiance. Objectif de ce rapport : contribuer aux réflexions et discussions portant sur l'éthique des technologies fondées sur l'intelligence artificielle, y compris dans les pays n'appartenant pas à l'Union européenne (UE). Dans ce document, nous utilisons le secteur mondial de la santé comme exemple et estimons que les directives de l'UE accordent un pouvoir discrétionnaire trop important aux autorités locales et au contexte pour véritablement encourager la fiabilité de l'intelligence artificielle dans le monde. Nous insistons également sur l'urgence de mettre en place une protection globale commune contre les éventuels préjudices liés aux technologies d'intelligence artificielle dans le domaine des soins de santé.

La inteligencia artificial es muy prometedora en términos de intervenciones preventivas y curativas beneficiosas, precisas y eficaces. Al mismo tiempo, también hay conciencia de los posibles riesgos y daños que pueden causar los desarrollos no regulados de la inteligencia artificial. Se están elaborando principios fundamentales en todo el mundo para fomentar el desarrollo y la aplicación confiables de los sistemas de inteligencia artificial. Estas directrices pueden servir de apoyo a los desarrolladores y a las autoridades gobernantes en la toma de decisiones sobre el uso de la inteligencia artificial. El Grupo de Expertos de Alto Nivel sobre Inteligencia Artificial establecido por la Comisión Europea ha publicado recientemente el informe Ethical guidelines for trustworthy artificial intelligence (Directrices éticas para una inteligencia artificial confiable). El informe tiene por objeto contribuir a la reflexión y el debate sobre la ética de las tecnologías de inteligencia artificial incluso más allá de los países de la Unión Europea (UE). En este documento, se recurre al sector sanitario mundial como caso de referencia y se argumenta que las directrices de la UE conceden demasiado margen a la discreción local y contextualizada como para fomentar una inteligencia artificial confiable a nivel mundial. Se destaca la urgencia de compartir los esfuerzos internacionales para protegerse de los posibles daños de las tecnologías de inteligencia artificial en la atención sanitaria.

Exploring online problem gamblers' motivation to change.

BACKGROUND: In order to improve interventions for problem gambling, there is a need for studies that can highlight psychological factors that support the desire to reduce gambling. OBJECTIVE: To explore online problem gamblers' motivation for change by studying participants' reactions to an online treatment referral website designed to motivate at-risk gamblers to seek help. DESIGN: A qualitative evaluation study, combining focus groups and in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the general inductive approach. INFORMANTS: The informants included 19 male, treatment- and non-treatment seeking, online gamblers who played a variety of games, including poker, sports betting and online casino. RESULTS: Motivation to change emerged as two processes including (a) empathy with others, which included projection of their thoughts and feelings onto others, and (b) dissonance between gambling behavior and ideal self-image. Dissonance included two subthemes: (i) dissonance due to positive feelings towards sports and athletics, and (ii) dissonance due to gambling among family. CONCLUSIONS: The findings have implications for interventions designed to evoke motivation early in treatment of online problem gambling. Inducing problem gamblers to reflect on the thoughts and feelings of concerned significant others, real or fictional, could be a viable strategy to motivate online problem gamblers to consider change.

Addiction, Voluntary Choice, and Informed Consent: A Reply to Uusitalo and Broers.

In an earlier article in this journal I argued that the question of whether heroin addicts can give voluntary consent to take part in research which involves giving them a choice of free heroin does not - in contrast with a common assumption in the bioethics literature - depend exclusively on whether or not they possess the capacity to resist their desire for heroin. In some cases, circumstances and beliefs might undermine the voluntariness of the choices a person makes even if they do possess a capacity for self-control. Based on what I took to be a plausible definition of voluntariness, I argued that the circumstances and beliefs typical of many vulnerable heroin addicts are such that we have good reasons to suspect they cannot give voluntary consent to take part in such research, even assuming their desire for heroin is not irresistible. In a recent article in this journal, Uusitalo and Broers object to this on the grounds that I misdescribe heroin addicts' options set, that the definition of voluntariness on which I rely is unrealistic and too demanding, and, more generally, that my view of heroin addiction is flawed. I think their arguments derive from a misunderstanding of the view I expressed in my article. In what follows I hope therefore to clarify my position.

Providing free heroin to addicts participating in research - ethical concerns and the question of voluntariness.

Providing heroin to people with heroin addiction taking part in medical trials assessing the effectiveness of the drug as a treatment alternative breaches ethical research standards, some ethicists maintain. Heroin addicts, they say, are unable to consent voluntarily to taking part in these trials. Other ethicists disagree. In our view, both sides of the debate have an inadequate understanding of 'voluntariness'. In this article we therefore offer a fuller definition of the concept, one which allows for a more flexible, case-to-case approach in which some heroin addicts are considered capable of consenting voluntarily, others not. An advantage of this approach, it is argued, is that it provides a safety net to minimise the risk of inflicting harm on trial participants.

Addiction: choice or compulsion?

Normative thinking about addiction has traditionally been divided between, on the one hand, a medical model which sees addiction as a disease characterized by compulsive and relapsing drug use over which the addict has little or no control and, on the other, a moral model which sees addiction as a choice characterized by voluntary behavior under the control of the addict. Proponents of the former appeal to evidence showing that regular consumption of drugs causes persistent changes in the brain structures and functions known to be involved in the motivation of behavior. On this evidence, it is often concluded that becoming addicted involves a transition from voluntary, chosen drug use to non-voluntary compulsive drug use. Against this view, proponents of the moral model provide ample evidence that addictive drug use involves voluntary chosen behavior. In this article we argue that although they are right about something, both views are mistaken. We present a third model that neither rules out the view of addictive drug use as compulsive, nor that it involves voluntary chosen behavior.

Heroin addiction and voluntary choice: the case of informed consent.

Does addiction to heroin undermine the voluntariness of heroin addicts' consent to take part in research which involves giving them free and legal heroin? This question has been raised in connection with research into the effectiveness of heroin prescription as a way of treating dependent heroin users. Participants in such research are required to give their informed consent to take part. Louis C. Charland has argued that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to do this since heroin addiction by nature involves a loss of ability to resist the desire for heroin. In this article, I argue that Charland is right that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to consent, but not for the reason he thinks. In fact, as Charland's critics correctly point out, there is plenty of evidence showing that heroin addicts can resist their desire for heroin. These critics are wrong, however, to conclude from this that we should presume that heroin addicts are competent to give their voluntary consent. There are, I shall argue, other conditions associated with heroin addiction that might constrain heroin addicts' choice in ways likely to undermine the voluntariness of their consent. In order to see this, we need to move beyond the focus on the addicts' desires for heroin and instead consider the wider social and psychological circumstances of heroin addiction, as well as the effects these circumstances may have on the addicts' beliefs about the nature of their options.