I argue that neuroscience poses no such radical threat now and in the immediate future and it is unlikely ever to pose such a threat unless it or other sciences decisively resolve the mind-body problem. I suggest that until that happens, neuroscience might contribute to the reform of doctrines that do not accurately reflect truths about human behavior, to the resolution of individual cases, and to the efficient operation of various legal practices. If the power to predict and prevent dangerous behavior becomes sufficiently advanced, however, traditional notions of responsibility and guilt might simply become irrelevant.
One of my top favorites, Stephen Morse, on Neuroscience and the Future of Personhood and Responsibility.
Key phrase: “…until that happens...”
![“The Anatomy of Evil”
In folk neuroscience there is a conception that at some point, brain malfunction overrides free will and cases like the Kansas man’s or psychopathy appear. But this is not quite true; brain function underlies everything we do: the good, the bad, and the utterly mundane (or else what is operating your muscles to move, or allowing you to proceed from one thought to the next?). It’s a fact that lies implicit in every theory of human behaviour and the human condition – law, psychology, philosophy, economics. As many neuroscientists and philosophers argue, this doesn’t undermine the idea of free will; it’s just an interpretation of how free will works in terms of neural connections.
It is undisputed that new research in the brain sciences is having an increasing effect in the law courts, and there are worries over whether juries are capable of understanding the significance of such medical evidence that might be presented to them, not least because of the tendency to think that if something’s in the brain, it’s not a person’s fault. An understanding of how brain abnormalities produce impulsive or immoral behaviour is changing how we think of “evil” – but whether this knowledge can relieve perpetrators of responsibility, or even eradicate the old-fashioned conceptions of evil and morality remains to be seen. [via]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1lyl9VYVf1qan221o1_400.jpg)
“The Anatomy of Evil”
In folk neuroscience there is a conception that at some point, brain malfunction overrides free will and cases like the Kansas man’s or psychopathy appear. But this is not quite true; brain function underlies everything we do: the good, the bad, and the utterly mundane (or else what is operating your muscles to move, or allowing you to proceed from one thought to the next?). It’s a fact that lies implicit in every theory of human behaviour and the human condition – law, psychology, philosophy, economics. As many neuroscientists and philosophers argue, this doesn’t undermine the idea of free will; it’s just an interpretation of how free will works in terms of neural connections.
It is undisputed that new research in the brain sciences is having an increasing effect in the law courts, and there are worries over whether juries are capable of understanding the significance of such medical evidence that might be presented to them, not least because of the tendency to think that if something’s in the brain, it’s not a person’s fault. An understanding of how brain abnormalities produce impulsive or immoral behaviour is changing how we think of “evil” – but whether this knowledge can relieve perpetrators of responsibility, or even eradicate the old-fashioned conceptions of evil and morality remains to be seen. [via]
![“Brain research: “watching” the brain as it makes decisions”
…seconds before a decision is made, activity in the pre-frontal cortex, part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex at the front of the brain, indicates what the result of the decision will be.
This is particularly true for quick decisions. “Often, we only establish a reason for what we have done later. We invent it.”
-via Thomas Klausberger from the Centre for Brain Research at the MedUni Vienna
[img]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0w1a2oXwv1qan221o1_250.jpg)
“Brain research: “watching” the brain as it makes decisions”
…seconds before a decision is made, activity in the pre-frontal cortex, part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex at the front of the brain, indicates what the result of the decision will be.
This is particularly true for quick decisions. “Often, we only establish a reason for what we have done later. We invent it.”
-via Thomas Klausberger from the Centre for Brain Research at the MedUni Vienna
[img]
The End of Free Will? This time w. Dr. Joy Hirsch. Yeah, I was going to work in her lab...but... insert determinism joke.
If someone has a brain tumor in the frontal lobe (which we know is associated with areas involving judgment), is that person as responsible for a violent crime as someone with a brain that is not known to have a specific anomaly?
Hirsch responds: There is no black and white answer here. There are arguments that go back and forth – but I’m very comforted by the fact that the legal system is taking these issues, these very important issues, in a thoughtful, contemplative manner… The law will emerge, but no one can predict exactly how or how precedent will be established. (via)
Think about it. "Inducing Disbelief in Free Will Alters Brain Correlates of Preconscious Motor Preparation: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not"
From the Neuroethics and Law blog:
Abstract
The feeling of being in control of one’s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought.
The question is this: Does modern neuroscience deepen our ideas about determinism, and, with more determinism, is there less reason for retribution and punishment? Put differently, with determinism there is no blame, and, with no blame, there should be no retribution and punishment. This is the simmering idea that people are worried about. If we change our mind about these things as a culture, then we are going to change how we deal with this unfortunate aspect of human behavior involving crime and punishment. VIA
Next on my reading list.
“The controversial science of free will”
Q&A with Michael S. Gazzaniga
So it’s as though consciousness is distributed. Being conscious of something occurs because that sensation takes prominence over other brain activity at a particular time?
It’s absolutely distributed. I use an arcade game to describe it. Do you know the game Whack-A-Mole? It’s the same with consciousness. When you’re conscious, it’s as though a mole is popping up at one place in your brain. When one mole has popped up, the other is down. We might have a sensation of a unified integrated consciousness, but it’s actually individual sensations popping up with whatever you’re particularly conscious of in one moment. Via Image
Here, then, are my conclusions: determinism is a red herring, neuroscience has ominous implications only for closet Cartesians, Mr. Puppet is a defective intuition pump, and there is a consequentialist, compatibilist justification of the just deserts clause. Thank you for your attention.
- Dennett, shutting it down. Max Weber Lecture, Florence-2010
"After A Magnetic Pulse to the Brain, Study Subjects Cannot Tell a Lie"
Terrible headline from Popular Science on this one. The study they are talking about is titled Effect of prefrontal transcranial magnetic stimulation on spontaneous truth-telling (a little different, huh?) and used transcranial magnetic stimulation to send a tiny electrical pulse to a specific part of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -see below. This area has been found to play a large role in deception and complex thinking.
So in this experiment 16 people (it’s really tough to get a large number of people willing to let you zap thier brain for some reason) had left or right hemisphere stimulation to “ test whether spontaneous propensity to lying can be changed by brain stimulation”. The eight people who had their left DPC stimulated lied more often, the researchers said. The ones with the right DPC stimulated were more likely to tell the truth. Although not as flashy, the actual study is more amazing than a science writer’s grabby headline, since it’s closer to the truth, on more than one level.
La Résistance
Suppose that advances in neuroscience suggest that human agents do not have free will, or that our attributions of personhood to one another are fictions generated by the brain, or that there is no good evidence for the existence of a “self” who is in control of our actions. Some commentators make a normative claim that we have to change the way we think about ethics since neuroscience reveals these truths about the ethical brain. Via
The Supposed Obligation to Change One’s Beliefs About Ethics Because of Discoveries in Neuroscience wants us to consider what we know about free will, the brain and consciousness and argues these should not influence our views on ethics, offering:
- First, in order to conceive of ourselves as able to follow rational norms in the first place, we must make substantial assumptions about our own free will, selfhood, and personhood. Thus, there cannot be a rational norm to dispense with these concepts.
- Second, the concepts contested by advances in neuroscience are highly valued components of our ethical worldview. From the perspective of instrumental rationality, it is rational to preserve our belief in free will, selfhood, and personhood. Via
Several camps have spouted up in the neuroscience world (that have spread to the legal field & downsized to two) taking sides on “who” is in control of our actions: us or our brains? Noted neuroscientist David Eagleman firmly states that “we ARE our brains” while others reserve caution stating we don’t know nearly enough about consciousness in the brain to make such claims, and still others remain faithful to arbitrary beliefs since if we believe we are in control, we behave better and some just remain all over the place to cover the bases. This article seems to suggest our ethical beliefs of self can co-exist with new discoveries on neuroscience. Sounds friendly enough to me, but is it true…or does it just feel good to think so?
Rather than simply giving us a new subject matter—the ethical issues arising from neuroscience—to attend to, neuroethics offers us the opportunity to refine the tools we use. Via
Kaposy, C. (2010). The Supposed Obligation to Change One’s Beliefs About Ethics Because of Discoveries in Neuroscience, AJOB Neuroscience
Levy, N. (2011). Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics, AJOB Neuroscience
Experimental Philosophy and the Problem of Free Will
Via @velascop
Many philosophical problems are rooted in everyday thought, and experimental philosophy uses social scientific techniques to study the psychological underpinnings of such problems. In the case of free will, research suggests that people in a diverse range of cultures reject determinism, but people give conflicting responses on whether determinism would undermine moral responsibility. When presented with abstract questions, people tend to maintain that determinism would undermine responsibility, but when presented with concrete cases of wrongdoing, people tend to say that determinism is consistent with moral responsibility. It remains unclear why people reject determinism and what drives people’s conflicted attitudes about responsibility. Experimental philosophy aims to address these issues and thereby illuminate the philosophical problem of free will.
Related to my regular jams: neurolaw and determining culpability.
Re: Intergrating NeuroLaw
Neuroscience provides a new lens to examine the concept of freedom underlying moral and legal responsibility. Recent scholarship integrating neuroscience into debates over moral and legal responsibility, however, largely concede that criminal law must fundamentally alter its view of human actions and of human behavior and restructure its concept of responsibility to conform to these new technologies. (…) research into the neural processes involved in choice, and cutting edge neuro-technology, such as brain-machine interface, may offer new insights into human agency and responsibility.
These insights bolster existing theories of freedom of choice and freedom of action, lending credence to concept of agency underlying both. The grounding neuroscience offers to agency-based concepts of freedom confers an immediate benefit to institutions built upon presumptions of human agency, but thin in their existing defense. This is particularly true for the concept of legal free will underpinning responsibility in criminal law. Legal free will has traditionally relied upon consequentialist or compatibilist justifications for responsibility, rather than a theoretically stronger account of freedom. Rather than eschewing theoretical free will as unnecessary to criminal responsibility, legal free will could embrace advances in neuroscience to supplement a theory of freedom that comports with moral responsibility and provide it with a more robust foundation. Via
