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Summary Law and Neurosciences (LAW3021)
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A summary of all literature, tutorials, knowledge clips and lectures for the course Law and Neurosciences (LAW3021)
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LAW3021 – Law and NeurosciencesSession 1....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Session 2...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Session 3...................................................................................................................................................... 17
Session 4...................................................................................................................................................... 22
Session 5...................................................................................................................................................... 33
Session 6...................................................................................................................................................... 44
Session 7...................................................................................................................................................... 60
Knowledge clip 1.......................................................................................................................................... 75
Knowledge clip 2.......................................................................................................................................... 78
Knowledge clip 3.......................................................................................................................................... 81
Knowledge clip 4.......................................................................................................................................... 84
Knowledge clip 5.......................................................................................................................................... 88
Lecture week 1............................................................................................................................................. 91
Lecture week 2............................................................................................................................................. 96
Lecture week 3........................................................................................................................................... 101
Lecture week 6........................................................................................................................................... 109
Lecture week 7........................................................................................................................................... 114
1
,Session 1
1. Neuroscience is not a unitary and generic discipline but covers a number of
different techniques and technologies. It may therefore be better to talk
about neurosciences (plural). In what way might these different techniques
and technologies aid the law in answering some of its perennial questions?
Neuroscientific evidence might aid law in at least 7 ways:
- Buttressing:
By increasing juror confidence in a conclusion to which other, non-
neuroscientific evidence already independently points
o In questions of diminished capacity
- Challenging:
By calling into question or contradicting either other evidence in a case or a
relevant assumption.
- Detecting:
By identifying the existence of legally relevant facts (injuries, lies, pain)
- Sorting:
By separating people into useful categories
o Who is likely to respond to rehabilitation?
- Intervening:
By providing new methods to achieve legal goals
o Pharmacological interventions that would help to reduce recidivism
- Explaining:
By illuminating decision pathways with information that may lead to more
informed and less biased decisions.
- Predicting:
By improving law’s ability to estimate probabilities of future behavior.
2
, (Jones, Marois, Farah & Greely)
To get a deeper and broader understanding of the underlying factors of (criminal)
behavior and thereby improving the fairness and the effectiveness of the criminal
setting.
Maybe if you can scan a person’s brain, you can learn something meaningful about
how to adjudicate that person’s liability and appropriate sentencing (Jones)
Experts say it’s almost inevitable that neurosciences and law will become yet more
intertwined. After all, while neuroscience seeks to find out how the brain functions
and affects behavior, the law’s main concern is with regulating behavior (Helland)
(Vincent)
2. The legal notion of ‘responsibility’ is not a single concept, but at least in
criminal law may cover six different meanings. Please make an inventory of
these meanings and illustrate the possible relevance of the
neurosciences for each of these responsibility-concepts.
In philosophical discussions, responsibility is often talked about as if it were a single,
unitary and generic concept. However, at least within the criminal law, the word
“responsibility” refers to at least 6 distinguishable ideas:
- Virtue responsibility:
o Example (1) Smith had always been an exceedingly responsible person
o Smith was normally a dependable person, someone who took his duties
seriously, and who normally did the right thing
o Is P a responsible or an irresponsible person?
About the person’s character and history (are they good/bad)
- Role responsibility:
o Example (2) As captain of the ship, Smith was responsible for the
safety of his passengers and crew.
3
, o As the ship’s captain, Smith had certain duties to various parties, both
on and off his ship
o What were P (person)’s responsibilities, and were they breached?
Whether the person was culpable in having acted like that (mens
rea)
We have a role responsibility to not knowingly do such things
Neuroscience might help us to answer this question in 2 ways:
Subjectively culpable: Did they commit an actus reus in
any way?)
Objectively culpable: Did they fail to do something that
they ought to have done, or did something that they ought
not to have done
- Outcome responsibility:
o Example (3) However, on his last voyage he drank himself into a stupor
and he was responsible for the loss of his ship and many lives
o It is alleged that various states of affairs/outcomes (loss of the ship and
lives) are rightly attributable to him as something he did
o Is P (person) responsible for O (outcome)?
Was the accused guilty of the crime?
Criminal addresses this question indirectly via 2 inquiries:
Actus reus
Mens rea
- Causal responsibility:
o Example (4) Smith’s defense attorney argued that the alcohol and
Smith’s transient depression were responsible for his misconduct
o Smith’s defense lawyer alleged that Smith’s aberrant behavior was
caused by the alcohol and depression
o Were P’s actions responsible for O?
About how the accused person acted and what effects those
actions had (actus reus)
Neuroscience might be useful in the following ways:
Lie detection to reveal whether witnesses are intentionally
trying to deceive us
To compel them to tell us the truth (new truth drugs or
TMS to temporarily subdue parts of the brain that are
allegedly involved in intentional deception)
- Capacity responsibility:
o Example (5) But the prosecution’s medical experts confirmed that Smith
was fully responsible when he started drinking since he was not
suffering from depression at that time
o Since Smith was not suffering from depression at that time, the
prosecution therefore argued that his mental capacities were fully intact
and hence that his moral agency was unimpaired
o Is P a fully responsible person?
About the accused person’s moral agency
Are they fully responsible moral agents?
Mental capacities an individual requires to be a fully capacity
responsible person
Rationality
4
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