Kent medical law and ethics expert Professor Robin Mackenzie discusses the link between disgust and the law in an interview broadcast as part of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s programme, The Naked Scientists.
During the show, broadcast on Sunday, Professor Mackenzie says that ‘moral disgust’ has evolved as a means of ensuring that inappropriate conduct in society is punished: ‘If you look at primate societies there is a lot of evidence to suggest that if punishment doesn’t happen to ensure that conduct is appropriate in a society then it is less likely to succeed. This gets harnessed into a form of moral disgust in our society where people think that someone who’s misbehaved in a particular way or has behaved in a particular way that they conceive of as misbehaving should be punished and you can see this in terms of various sexual behaviours like paedophilia for instance; it’s seen as very wrong.’
Professor Mackenzie also explains her theory that sex-related behaviours are strongly linked to disgust as an evolutionary mechanism to prevent us from considering ‘unsuitable’ reproductive partners, such as those who are too ill, too young, too old or within the same kin group.
Earlier this summer Professor Mackenzie presented a paper for the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction (CISoR) at the 8th Skepsi international conference centred on the theme of ‘disgust’. Held at Kent on the 29/30 June, the conference explored the complex nature of the feeling of disgust in a variety of disciplines and whether disgust can (or should) be related to ethical outrage as a way to protect human dignity and social order.
Professor Mackenzie’s paper for the conference was entitled ‘Cultural reframing of sexual disgust: now that sex and reproduction are not necessarily connected, how long should humans having sex with sentient sexbots, nonhuman animals and children provoke disgust?’
Professor Mackenzie’s research interests include forensic, ethical and medical aspects of neuroscience, regulation of health and bioscience technologies, robotics, neurodiversity and constructions of disability, decision-making capacity, body alteration, neurorehabilitation, end of life decision-making, psychoactive substance use, enhancement, ethical and legal relations between species, critical/cultural theory and feminist perspectives applied to all the above.
Most recent publications include a book chapter ‘Dying high: using psychedelics to maximise end of life choices by enhancing the dying experience’ in Breaking Convention published by Strange Attractor Press and an article ‘Capacity to consent to sex reframed: the need for an evidence based model of sexual decision-making and socio-sexual competence’ published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry.
In addition to teaching Medical Law and Ethics, Intellectual Property and Banking Law at Kent Law School, Professor Mackenzie is also a member of the EU funded FET Flagship Initiative Robot Companions for Citizens Ethics and Society Working Group, with special responsibility for law and for ethical and legal aspects of human/robots social interaction. Professor Mackenzie is also a member of the National Council for Palliative Care Ethics Committee, the South East Research Ethics Committee, the East Kent University Hospital Research and Development Committee and the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) Guideline Development Group for Autism in Children and Young People.
For more information about Professor Mackenzie’s research and publications, visit her staff profile page.
Listen again to Professor Mackenzie’s interview on The Naked Scientists (43:46 minutes into the programme).