Posts tagged metaphysics

For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything

“Of course, scientific respectability is not everyone’s first priority.
However, the law in most Western states is a public institution
designed to function in a society that respects a wide range of religious
and otherwise metaphysical beliefs. The law cannot function in this
way if it presupposes controversial and unverifiable metaphysical facts
about the nature of human action, or anything else. Thus, the law
must restrict itself to the class of intersubjectively verifiable facts, i.e.
the facts recognized by science, broadly construed. This practice need
not derive from a conviction that the scientifically verifiable facts are
necessarily the only facts, but merely from a recognition that verifiable
or scientific facts are the only facts upon which public institutions in a
pluralistic society can effectively rely.”