Responsible Brains Neuroscience, Law, and Human Culpability

by Hirstein, William; Sifferd, Katrina L.; Fagan, Tyler K.

• ISBN13: 9780262549271
• ISBN10: 0262549271
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-09-19
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

An examination of the relationship between the brain and culpability that offers a comprehensive neuroscientific theory of human responsibility.

When we praise, blame, punish, or reward people for their actions, we are holding them responsible for what they have done. Common sense tells us that what makes human beings responsible has to do with their minds and, in particular, the relationship between their minds and their actions. Yet the empirical connection is not necessarily obvious. The “guilty mind” is a core concept of criminal law, but if a defendant on trial for murder were found to have serious brain damage, which brain parts or processes would have to be damaged for him to be considered not responsible, or less responsible, for the crime? What mental illnesses would justify legal pleas of insanity? In Responsible Brains, philosophers William Hirstein, Katrina Sifferd, and Tyler Fagan examine recent developments in neuroscience that point to neural mechanisms of responsibility. Drawing on this research, they argue that evidence from neuroscience and cognitive science can illuminate and inform the nature of responsibility and agency. They go on to offer a novel and comprehensive neuroscientific theory of human responsibility.

The authors' core hypothesis is that responsibility is grounded in the brain's prefrontal executive processes, which enable us to make plans, shift attention, inhibit actions, and more. The authors develop the executive theory of responsibility and discuss its implications for criminal law. Their theory neatly bridges the folk-psychological concepts of the law and neuroscientific findings.

Author Biography

William Hirstein is Professor of Philosophy at Elmhurst College, Illinois and the author of Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation (MIT Press).

Katrina L. Sifferd is Professor of Philosophy at Elmhurst College.

Tyler K. Fagan is Lecturer in Philosophy at Elmhurst College.

Table of Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The Science of Executive Processes 17
3 Moral Responsibility 43
4 Criminal Responsibility 71
5 Consciousness versus the Executive Processes 91
6 Judgments and Claims of Responsibility 115
7 Responsible Lives, Responsible Acts 133
8 Responsibility under Development 155
9 Responsibility, Capacity, and Insanity 177
10 Blame, Desert, and Punishment 199
11 Epilogue 227
Notes 237
References 253
Name Index 283
Subject Index 287