LAUSR

David Chalmers (2022) argues that reality as we encounter it in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is just as real as the everyday physical world. We may not agree with Chalmers’s proposal, yet appreciate the foundation it lays for approaching the ethics of VR and AR technologies, or, as Ligthart et al. calls them together, extended reality (XR). If XR systems are real, we need not approach them as complete novelties. Instead, we can approach XR as a new application that has entered our existing ethical context. XR should therefore be subject to the same standards of analysis as other applications, not embraced or rejected simply for the sake of its newness. We agree with Ligthart et al. (2022) on this overall approach, and adopt it in this OPC. First, we ask a question the authors gloss over: do XR applications actually work in forensic contexts? We then consider XR’s application in forensic psychiatry using extant evaluative frameworks: in particular, the frameworks provided by the distinction between active and passive interventions and by the ideas of transformative experience and relational autonomy. For any new application of a technology, we must first determine the degree of its effectiveness. A central assumed premise of Ligthart et al. is that there is forensically valuable (prognostic, deductive, or clinical) utility for XR. However, based on the evidence cited in the manuscript, this assumption stands on shaky foundations. While there is evidence that forensic VR interactions can be used to assess deviant sexual preferences (Fromberger, Jordan, and M€ uller 2018), to date no evidence has emerged to support the hypothesis that XR interactions are able to alter thoughts and behaviors effectively for rehabilitative purposes (Tuente et al. 2020). A first step in evaluating XR applications thus consists in researching their effectiveness. Indeed, to proceed sans evidence raises moral questions on its own, as the nature of our evaluation will depend on the results of this evidence. For example, if XR applications are not effective in rehabilitative contexts but only in assessment contexts, this raises concerns that the technology will be used not for the good of incarcerated people, but in ways that serve other problematic interests. Suppose, though, that we find evidence that XR applications in forensic contexts can be effective in the way the authors claim—that is, in both assessment and rehabilitative contexts. In this case, we should analyze them using extant evaluative frameworks, rather than viewing XR as something altogether new. That’s the approach Ligthart et al. take, and in this regard we agree. In what follows, we therefore briefly introduce three frameworks we feel will be helpful in analyzing XR applications in forensic contexts, should they be effective in the way Ligthart et al. assume. First, consider the distinction between active and passive interventions Focquaert and Schermer (2015) lay out. An intervention is active to the degree it actively involves its user—that is, to the degree that it requires effort on the part of the agent—and passive to the degree that it does not require the active participation of its user or agent. The active/passive distinction lies along a continuum, and interventions are more active or passive relative to some other