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Why Neuroscience Matters for Law

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Neuroscience and Law

Abstract

This chapter explores how the advances of neuroscience matter to the law. The American tradition of Legal Realism justifies using the lessons of science in formulating policy and doctrine in order to create a better society. Neuroscience has expanded our understanding of the sequence of stimulus, thought, and behavior that is central to how legal rules are designed and applied. While some efforts to put neuroscience to work in law have been more successful than others, the successes are sufficient to validate the core premise that the insights of neuroscience can be useful. Two subjects illustrate this: criminal responsibility and civil capacity. The responsibility discussion has often gone down the wrong road, getting tangled in considerations of free will that are not, in fact, the basis for the existing legal standard. The civil law standard of capacity, which is at the heart of the law of consent, is a more promising target. With realistic expectations, neuroscience has a definite role to play in legal scholarship, doctrine and even individual cases.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From the conference presentation of the same title at University Center for Bioethics and Center for Studies in European and International Affairs: Neuroscience and Law: Implications and Perspectives, University of Parma, October 6, 2017.

  2. 2.

    Those seeking in depth knowledge on Neurolaw, with perhaps an English language emphasis, should consult the invaluable resource set out in the Law and Neuroscience Bibliography, part of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience initiative, at http://www.lawneuro.org/bibliography.php.

  3. 3.

    Goodenough and Tucker (2010).

  4. 4.

    “The new field of neuroeconomics looks at how economic decision-making actually happens inside the brain.” Cohen (2010).

  5. 5.

    “Neurosociology is a multilevel, integrative perspective that does not replace, but rather strengthens and is strengthened by, more established sociological traditions. It is a tract of common ground with the neurosciences and other “neuro friendly” social sciences, and so it heralds an exciting period of discovery through an unprecedented synthesis of ideas.” Kalkhoff et al. (2016).

  6. 6.

    “Studies of culturally-based phenomena within neuroscientific frameworks represent one of the most dynamic tendencies in contemporary cognitive science.” Dias (2010), and see Lende and Downey (2013).

  7. 7.

    “Neurocomputing publishes articles describing recent fundamental contributions in the field of neurocoputing. Neurocomputing theory, practice and applications are the essential topics being covered.” Neurocomputing, https://www.journals.elsevier.com/neurocomputing.

  8. 8.

    “The Center for NeuroHumanities is a multi-departmental coalition dedicated to exploring the nexus where humanities and cognitive theory come together. Drawing on discourses in the sciences and the humanities, the Center promotes and develops research that explores not only an empirical understanding of the mind as found in Psychology, Biology, Neuroscience, and Information Theory, but also its theoretical development in Philosophy, and its representation in Literature, and the discursive relationship between all of the ‘kinds of minds.’” Purdue (2019).

  9. 9.

    Patterson (2018), p. 11.

  10. 10.

    This brief discussion necessarily presents a simplification of a rich jurisprudential tradition. For a more complete discussion of Realism, see, e.g. Zaremby (2013), Tumonis (2012), Fisher et al. (1993) and Llewellyn (1931).

  11. 11.

    Goodenough (2008).

  12. 12.

    Jones (2001).

  13. 13.

    E.g. Holmes (1881).

  14. 14.

    Frank (1930).

  15. 15.

    Elliott (1985), p. 35.

  16. 16.

    Morse (2006, 2014).

  17. 17.

    543 U.S. 551 (2005).

  18. 18.

    560 U.S. 548 (2010).

  19. 19.

    See, e.g. Feld (2017).

  20. 20.

    Drobac (2006, 2015, 2016) and Drobac and Hulvershorn (2014).

  21. 21.

    Goodenough and Tucker (2010).

  22. 22.

    E.g. Ormachea et al. (2016).

  23. 23.

    E.g. Kolber (2007).

  24. 24.

    Goodenough and Tucker (2010), Jones et al. (2013), and Haselager and Mecacci (2018). See Kraft and Giordano (2017).

  25. 25.

    Goodenough and Tucker (2010), p. 67.

  26. 26.

    E.g., Catley (2016) and Greely et al. (2008).

  27. 27.

    The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, Owen D. Jones, Director http://www.lawneuro.org/. Accessed 18 March, 2019.

  28. 28.

    NIH (2019).

  29. 29.

    See for example, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, Owen D. Jones, Director http://www.lawneuro.org/; the Center for Science and Law, David Eagleman, Director https://scilaw.org/.

  30. 30.

    Farahany (2016).

  31. 31.

    See the latest session series here on such topics as addiction, criminal responsibility, https://www.fjc.gov/subject/neuroscience?title=&field_date_value%5Bvalue%5D&field_authors_value=&page=1.

  32. 32.

    On law and emotion generally, see Bandes and Blumenthal (2012).

  33. 33.

    Federal Judicial Center (2019) “Neurodevelopment, Adversity, and Trauma: What Research Tells Us and Why it Matters for Criminal Justice Professionals” – A Conversation with Dr. Robert Kinscherff “I would argue that in criminal justice, the more complicated the individual, the more adverse their history, the more individualized our response has to be to achieve the common outcome of reduced recidivism.” https://www.fjc.gov/publications/paper-episode-9-neurodevelopment-adversity-and-trauma-what-research-tells-us-and-why-it.

  34. 34.

    E.g., Pardo (2018).

  35. 35.

    Langleben (2016).

  36. 36.

    Danaher (2018).

  37. 37.

    Lacy and Stark (2013).

  38. 38.

    Davis et al. (2017), p. 625.

  39. 39.

    Uhl (2019).

  40. 40.

    E.g. Jones et al. (2013), Brooks (2014), Alces (2018) and Greely and Farahany (2019).

  41. 41.

    http://www.lawneuro.org/bibliography.php. Accessed 16 March 2019.

  42. 42.

    E.g., Moore (2018), Nichols and Knobe (2007) and Greene and Cohen (2004).

  43. 43.

    E.g. Nichols and Knobe (2007) and Morse (2010, 2015).

  44. 44.

    Nichols and Knobe (2007), p. 663.

  45. 45.

    E.g. Balaguer (1999, 2004).

  46. 46.

    E.g. Sinnott-Armstrong (2014), Donnelly-Lazarov (2018), Murphy (2013), Vincent (2013), Morse (2010, 2015), Blumenthal (2016), Santosuosso and Bottalico (2009) and O’Hara (2004).

  47. 47.

    Goodenough (2004).

  48. 48.

    Goodenough (2004).

  49. 49.

    Goodenough (2004).

  50. 50.

    Morse (2015, 2018).

  51. 51.

    E.g. Bennett (2016).

  52. 52.

    Drobac (2006, 2015, 2016), Drobac and Hulvershorn (2014) and Drobac and Goodenough (2015). This summary is drawn largely from Drobac and Goodenough (2015).

  53. 53.

    Drobac (2016).

  54. 54.

    Hartley and Somerville (2015).

  55. 55.

    E.g. Samanez-Larkin (2013) and Sparrow and Spaniol (2018).

  56. 56.

    Starcke and Brand (2012).

  57. 57.

    Danziger et al. (2011). But see critique at Glöckner (2016).

  58. 58.

    E.g. Ruff and Fehr (2014) and Lee (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vermont Law School, South Royalton, VT, USA

    Oliver R. Goodenough

  2. Hershenson, Carter, Scott, & McGee, P.C., White River Junction, VT, USA

    Micaela Tucker

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  1. Department of Law, Politics and International Studies, University Center for Bioethics, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

    Antonio D’Aloia  & Maria Chiara Errigo  & 

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Goodenough, O.R., Tucker, M. (2020). Why Neuroscience Matters for Law. In: D’Aloia, A., Errigo, M.C. (eds) Neuroscience and Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38840-9_3

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