Some Ethical Considerations About the Use of Biomarkers for the Classification of Adult Antisocial Individuals

Abstract

It has been argued that a biomarker-informed classification system for antisocial individuals has the potential to overcome many obstacles in current conceptualizations of forensic and psychiatric constructs and promises better targeted treatments. However, some have expressed ethical worries about the social impact of the use of biological information for classification. Many have discussed the ethical and legal issues related to possibilities of using biomarkers for predicting antisocial behavior. We argue that prediction should not raise the most pressing ethical worries. Instead, issues connected with “biologization”, such as stigmatization and negative effects on self-image, need more consideration. However, we conclude that also in this respect there are no principled ethical objections against the use of biomarkers to guide classification and treatment of adult antisocial individuals.

Keywords:

• Classification of antisocial behavior
• biomarkers
• bioprediction
• ethical issues
• stigma

Acknowledgments

MJ thanks the hosts of the BIAS institute (Nerezine), where part of the article was written.

Funding

IAB was supported by a VENI grant (451-15-014) awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO). MJ and LM are funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (Project CEASCRO, grant. 8071) that has also financed making this article open access.