Return of the Pedophilic Brain Tumor: Acquired versus Innate Pedophilia
Last week, Reuters carried a story by Kate Kelland about a pediatrician in Italy, Domenico Mattiello, accused of sexually abusing his patients. [1] His lawyers plan to present evidence that his pedophilic urges are the result of a brain tumor and argue that the judge in the case should be lenient. As the Reuter's story mentions, this case is very similar to a US case I blogged about a few months ago , where a 40 year old man suddenly developed pedophilic urges and had to be removed from his home. The US case was presented at a medical conference, with very little discussion of criminal charges, while Mattiello's case is presented by Kelland as an extreme example of the sort of challenges neuroscience may bring to our understandings of criminal responsibility. I want to push back against this framing, and argue that a tumor such as this poses an interesting ethical question because it does not simply challenge ideas about criminal responsibility, but also serv...