Neuroethics & Law Blog

NYT: "Consciousness awareness test" for executions (Murphy)

Articles in the media this week have reported on the SCOTUS ruling giving a stay of execution to a Texas death row inmate and its effects on executions around the country.  A nice review of the legal confusion can be found here at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog.  Two blurbs from yesterday and today's NYT caught my eye, possibly suggesting that neuroscience may help inform whether or not lethal injections are cruel and unusual, by determining if inmates are conscious or experiencing pain.

In Alabama, where politicians rarely challenge the death penalty, the state is developing a “consciousness awareness test” for inmates being executed, but state officials maintained that the action was unconnected to the Supreme Court decision.

“Somebody would come in and do something to assess consciousness, after the anesthesia is delivered,” Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said. For now, he said, "the consciousness-awareness is being done visually by the warden.” (NYT link)

Does anybody know a source for this "consciousness awareness test" being developed by Alabama?  Perhaps it is the same as the "bispectral index monitor" used already in two executions:

Execution opponents say they believe North Carolina is the only state using a device common in operating rooms to measure brain activity. The state Corrections Department anesthetizes the inmates and waits for their brain activity to dip to a level indicating they are sedated before pushing in the lethal drug. (NYT link)

(The bispectral index monitor does not seem to have wide peer-reviewed acceptance in the medical community and is somewhat controversial as to its efficacy.)

Perhaps the Supreme Court will be receiving more amicus briefs from medical and neuroscientific associations if the assessment of inmate consciousness and pain experience proves central to the determination of the "cruel and unusual" status of lethal injection.

Liability for Loss of Chance

John Darley (Princeton, Psychology), Lawrence Solan (Brooklyn, Law), Matthew Kugler (Princeton, Psychology), & Joseph Sanders (Houston, Law) will be presenting "Liability For Risk: Citizens’ Perspectives On Liability For Loss of Chance" on Tuesday, October 10 at 4pm at Brooklyn Law School's Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition Workshop. Those interested in attending might try to contact Larry Solan, Associate Dean of Brooklyn Law School and director of the center, about available space.

Neuroethics Week in San Diego

The Ethics Center in San Diego is putting together a weeklong series of neuroethics events from October 1-6.  The agenda is below and you can get more information here.

Date & Time	Monday, Oct. 1, 5-6:30 p.m.
Location	Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Event	Keynote Lecture
Speaker	Henry T. "Hank" Greely Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, Stanford University
Moderators	Stephanie Bird and Michael Kalichman
A leading expert and author on the legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding health law and the biosciences, Professor Greely specializes in the legal implications of new biomedical technologies, especially those related to genetics, neuroscience, and stem cells. Read additional information about the speaker.

Date & Time	Tuesday, Oct. 2, 5-6:30 p.m.
Location	The Neurosciences Institute
Event	Science Panel
Panelists	Marta Kutas (UCSD), Darren Schreiber (UCSD), and Thomas R. Scott (SDSU)
Moderators	Lawrence M. Hinman (USD) and Michael Kalichman (UCSD)
This panel will feature San Diego scientists with expertise in some of the new and proposed technologies for detecting what is going on in our brains.

Date & Time	Wednesday, Oct. 3, 5-6:30 p.m.
Location	California Western School of Law
Event	Law Panel
Panelists	Peter J. Hughes (Peter J. Hughes A Professional Corporation) Charles Sevilla (Charles Sevilla Law Offices) Judge Michael Wellington (San Diego Superior Court)
Moderators	Mark Frankel (AAAS) and Michael Kalichman (UCSD)
The panelists for this discussion have expertise in the law and will help us to think about some of the legal implications of existing and possible technologies.

Date & Time	Thursday, Oct. 4, 5-6:30 p.m.
Location	University of San Diego
Event	Religion Panel
Panelists	Christopher Frost (SDSU) and Lekshe Tsomo (USD)
Moderators	Lawrence M. Hinman (USD) and Michael Kalichman (UCSD)
The goal of this panel will be to promote discussion of the implications of some of these technologies for people of different faith traditions.

Date & Time	Friday, Oct. 5, 5-6:30 p.m.
Location	San Diego State University
Event	Promises and Perils
Panelists	Lawrence M. Hinman (USD) and Michael Kalichman (UCSD)
Drs. Lawrence Hinman and Michael Kalichman, Co-Directors of the Ethics Center, will present some of the key themes that will have been articulated in events during the week. This summary event will be complemented with opportunities for comments, questions, and discussion with members of the audience.

Date & Time	Saturday, Oct. 6, 4-6:30 p.m.
Location	Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
Event	Erasing Memories: Ethical Implications of Developments in Neuroscience - Movie & Discussion
Moderator	Mary Devereaux (UCSD)
Will technologies being developed now allow us to erase memories, become smarter, or decrease fear and other negative emotions?  This will be the focus of our Neuroethics Week in 2008 and will be the focal point while viewing the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*. At the conclusion of the movie, the moderator will lead the audience in a discussion of some of the ethical implications of a technology that would allow us to erase memories. *Rated R. Not suitable for children under 17 Read additional information about the movie.

Coffee Discussions with Graduate Students:

Several graduate students in neuroscience and cognitive science have volunteered to meet for informal discussions over coffee to discuss science and ethics. Registration will be on a first come, first served basis. Information about the specific location will be sent by e-mail to all who register.
Discussion #1	Wednesday, Oct. 3, 9:30-11 a.m., near UCSD/UTC area Measuring personality traits and intellectual skills: Can we? Should we? Graduate Students: Leo Trottier and Vicente Malave
Discussion #2	Saturday, Oct. 6, Noon-1:30 p.m., near UCSD/UTC area Brain-Computer Interfaces: Reading the Mind's Intentions Graduate Students: Miro Enev and David Matthews

Shameless self promotion (Levy)

My book has been out for around a month now in the United States. It seems to be selling well (relative to academic title) so far as I can tell. It's not the first monograph on neuroethics but I hope it will help set the agenda.

One thing I hope to accomplish is to have my very broad conception of the field accepted.

By 'neuroethics' I mean not only the ethical issues raised by neuroscience and the technologies its helps to develop, but also the ways in which all the sciences of the mind - cognitive, social and evolutionary psychology, as well as AI to some extent - help us to understand all aspects of human cognition insofar as it leads to morally relevant behavior. So I have chapters not only on mind reading and control, but also on free will and moral responsibility, self-deception, and moral cognition. All of these are topics are illuminated by the sciences of the mind, I believe, and they are therefore all neuroethical.

The other thing I hope to do is to argue for what I call (following Andy Clark and David Chalmers) the 'parity principle': the principle that manipulations of the mind using means internal to the agent (eg, psychopharmaceuticals) should not be regarded as problematic just because they are internal. It is the results that matter, not the means. This conflicts with an emerging neuroethical dogma, I believe. For a brief presentation of the view, you could save the expense of the book and read my perspectives paper in the latest issue of AJOB - Neuroscience.

Liberal brain, conservative brain? As Nature Neuroscience reports... (Murphy)

A short article published recently in Nature Neuroscience suggests that the brains of self-reported liberals showed greater conflict-related anterior cingulate cortex activity (ERP)  in a Go/No-go task (when errors were made or when inhibition of the pre-potent response was required) than did the brains of self-reported conservatives.  Liberalism was also associated with greater accuracy on no-go trials, leading the authors to suggest that "a more conservative orientation is related to greater persistence in a habitual response pattern, despite signals that this response pattern should change."  In an interview given to the LA Times, lead author David Amodio (NYU)

...cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

"Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."

A simple study that may be more provocative than informative, given the acknowledged limitations, but with plenty of room for interpretive commentary.  Also, interestingly timed with the political primaries around the corner.  Would ERPs and Go/No-go performance in early adolescence predict political orientation when future voters come of age?  Maybe parties interested in long-term political dominance would be keen to find out.  Will this article become a lightning rod for those involved in the liberal/conservative culture wars, now that neuroscience has been added to several decades of political psychology research?

Psychological Enhancement Preferences

Jason Riis (NYU, Business), Joseph P. Simmons (Yale, Management), and Geoffrey P. Goodwin (Princeton, Psychology) have posted Preferences for Psychological Enhancements: The Reluctance to Enhance Fundamental Traits to SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Four studies examined young healthy individuals' willingness to take drugs intended to enhance various social, emotional, and cognitive abilities. We found that people were much more reluctant to enhance traits believed to be highly fundamental to the self (e.g., social comfort) than traits considered less fundamental (e.g., concentration ability). Moral acceptability of a trait enhancement strongly predicted people's desire to legalize those enhancements, but not their willingness to take those enhancements. Ad taglines that framed enhancements as enabling rather than enhancing the fundamental self increased people's interest in a fundamental enhancement, and eliminated the preference for non-fundamental over fundamental enhancements.

(Hat tip: Jeremy Blumenthal)

Neuroscience/Neuroethics Book Reviews

Prof. Christian Perring has sent me links to a number of book reviews that may interest Neuroethics & Law Blog readers:

Review - The Accidental Mind
by David J. Linden
Belknap Press, 2007
Review by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski

Review - Cerebrum 2007
by Bruce S. McEwen (Editor)
Dana Press, 2007
Review by Roy Sugarman, Ph.D.

Review - Neuroscience and Philosophy
by Maxwell Bennett, Peter Hacker, Daniel Dennett, and John Searle
Columbia University Press, 2007
Review by James Sage, Ph.D.

Review - Neuroethics
by Judy Illes (Editor)
Oxford University Press, 2006
Review by Christian Perring, Ph.D.

Accuracy of Psychological and Psychiatric Testimony

Edward Imwinkelreid (UC Davis, Law) has posted The Case Against Abandoning the Search for Substantive Accuracy (forthcoming in the Seton Hall Law Review) to SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Professor Christopher Slobogin's new book, PROVING THE UNPROVABLE (2007), is one of the most provocative Evidence texts released in recent years. In the book, he argues in favor of a more relaxed standard for admitting psychologists' and psychiatrists' testimony about a person's prior mental state. He contends that a person's earlier mental state is essentially unprovable and that it is impossible to gauge the validity of such testimony in the sense of its substantive accuracy. He concludes that the nature of such testimony precludes the application of the normal expert testimony standards prescribed by Daubert and Kumho.

Instead, Professor Slobogin proposes generally accepted content validity as the standard for admissibility. His proposal is a step in the right direction. The proposal would at least ensure that the expert's opinion represents something more than the expert's personal ipse dixit. Moreover, his analysis is balanced. While he states that “scientifically verified evidence” is “usually” unavailable as a basis for expert testimony about past mental state, he adds the qualification that “[i]n those few instances when scientifically reliable information material to [the] issue [of past mental state] is available, the expert should rely on it.”

My fear, though, is that some may not read PROVING THE UNPROVABLE closely enough and will lose sight of the important qualifications Professor Slobogin adds. The book is argued so forcefully that readers may instead focus on the broad language suggesting that the very nature of the topic precludes policing the substantive accuracy of the relevant expert testimony.

I have grave doubts about the wisdom of a general call to abandon the search for substantive accuracy in psychological and psychiatric testimony. The purpose of this short article is to explain the source of those doubts. The first part of this article is a descriptive survey of the state of the art of determining malingering by subjects of psychological and psychiatric interviews. The second part of the article is a critical evaluation of the state of that art. The third and final part of the articles inquires what light the state of the art of malingering detection sheds on the question of whether it is necessary to abandon the attempt to ensure the substantive accuracy of testimony by psychologists and psychiatrists about a person's prior mental state.

Alex the Parrot, R.I.P.

More information here and here. (AP Photo/Brandeis University, Mike Lovett)

Teaching the history of Law and the Human Sciences (Buccafusco)

Last Spring, Alison Winter and I designed and co-taught a course on Human Sciences and the Law for law, graduate, and undergraduate students.  Alison is an historian of science (her first book is on mesmerism in Victorian Britain), and her new research focuses on the history of law and psychology in 20th-century America.  The course's goal was to provide an introduction to major themes in the field from the Wigmore-Munsterberg debate in 1908-09 to the Scooter Libby trial in 2007. 

I'm posting the course syllabus after the break, and I welcome comments.  The University of Chicago is on the quarter system, so a number of interesting topics (capital punishment, behavioral law & econ, etc) had to be left out.  Our units are similar to those in other courses on the history of law and psychology, but those courses are often arranged thematically.  We chose, however, to present the material chronologically hoping to convey a better sense of the historical changes in psychological and legal thinking.  Thus, whereas most courses teach Frye and Daubert together, we introduced Frye with American Legal Realism and taught Daubert with imaging technologies.