Rights statement: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-013-9519-8”.
Accepted author manuscript, 312 KB, PDF document
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - On deciding to have a lobotomy
T2 - either lobotomies were justified or decisions under risk should not always seek to maximise expected utility
AU - Cooper, Rachel
N1 - The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-013-9519-8”.
PY - 2014/2
Y1 - 2014/2
N2 - In the 1940s and 1950s thousands of lobotomies were performed on people with mental disorders. These operations were known to be dangerous, but thought to offer great hope. Nowadays, the lobotomies of the 1940s and 1950s are widely condemned. The consensus is that the practitioners who employed them were, at best, misguided enthusiasts, or, at worst, evil. In this paper I employ standard decision theory to understand and assess shifts in the evaluation of lobotomy. Textbooks of medical decision making generally recommend that decisions under risk are made so as to maximise expected utility (MEU) I show that using this procedure suggests that the 1940s and 1950s practice of psychosurgery was justifiable. In making sense of this finding we have a choice: Either we can accept that psychosurgery was justified, in which case condemnation of the lobotomists is misplaced. Or, we can conclude that the use of formal decision procedures, such as MEU, is problematic.
AB - In the 1940s and 1950s thousands of lobotomies were performed on people with mental disorders. These operations were known to be dangerous, but thought to offer great hope. Nowadays, the lobotomies of the 1940s and 1950s are widely condemned. The consensus is that the practitioners who employed them were, at best, misguided enthusiasts, or, at worst, evil. In this paper I employ standard decision theory to understand and assess shifts in the evaluation of lobotomy. Textbooks of medical decision making generally recommend that decisions under risk are made so as to maximise expected utility (MEU) I show that using this procedure suggests that the 1940s and 1950s practice of psychosurgery was justifiable. In making sense of this finding we have a choice: Either we can accept that psychosurgery was justified, in which case condemnation of the lobotomists is misplaced. Or, we can conclude that the use of formal decision procedures, such as MEU, is problematic.
KW - Decision theory
KW - Lobotomy
KW - Psychosurgery
KW - Risk
KW - Uncertainty
U2 - 10.1007/s11019-013-9519-8
DO - 10.1007/s11019-013-9519-8
M3 - Journal article
VL - 17
SP - 143
EP - 154
JO - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
JF - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
SN - 1386-7423
IS - 1
ER -