On the Philosophical Foundations of Law & Neuroscience (Goldberg)

Via the Professor comes word of an important new paper authored by Michael S. Pardo and Dennis M. Patterson, entitled Philosophical Foundations of Law and Neuroscience.  Here is the Abstract: 

According to a wide variety of scholars, scientists, and policymakers, neuroscience promises to transform law. Many neurolegalists - those championing the power of neuroscience for law - proceed from problematic premises regarding the relationship of mind to brain. In this Article, we make the case that their accounts of the nature of mind are implausible and that their conclusions are overblown. Thus, their claims of the power of neuroscience for law cannot be sustained. We discuss a wide array of examples including lie detection, criminal-law doctrine, economic decision-making, moral decision-making, and jurisprudence.

Given the lively discussion on exactly these matters we've had over the last 10 days here on N&L Blog, I would think this paper is both timely and important.  While I am less familiar with Pardo's work, I know Patterson's work very well, as he is one of the more important philosophers of law and the preeminent authority on Wittgenstein and the law.  I am quite excited to read this paper, and will update this post with my thoughts after doing so.

UPDATE: I have now reviewed the paper, and I think it is a marvelous piece of work.  In referring to Vul et al.'s paper on 'voodoo correlations,' I said that while the latter was a sophisticated critique of some of the conclusions drawn in social neuroscience, I was more interested in a philosophical, conceptual critique of some of the basic assumptions that animate the enterprise.  This paper fits squarely within the latter, and is an important contribution.

As I remarked to Peter privately, my view is that this paper is intended as a radical challenge to some of the bedrock assumptions of contemporary neuroscience.  If in fact the mind is not the brain -- with which I absolutely agree -- then a very large portion of neuroscientific practice is immediately headed down a long, dark rabbit hole.  But note again my insistence that the proposition that the mind is not (merely) the brain hardly means neuroscience itself is infirm or weak.  Quite the contrary; as Pardo and Patterson emphasize, there is still a great deal of important work to be done on the brain that can best be demonstrated through neuroscientific methods.  But the work is just that -- on the brain, and the constant leap from brain to mind cannot be sustained, if Pardo and Patterson are correct.  The consequence is not that neuroscience is unimportant or not worth doing, but simply that neuroscientific modalities are not totalizing; they cannot explain or account for all of what it means to be conscious, to have mind, and ultimately, to be a person.

Meaning, in other words, cannot be reduced to neurons.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Adam Kolber]

Yes, I quite enjoyed reading an earlier draft of the paper.

[Anibal]

The article-which a look forward to read- seems to be in similar vein to the condition diagnosticated by Stephen Morse (2006): "brain overclaim syndrome" (the tendency to believe that everything depends on what the brain does, or what neuroscience tell us that the brain does, impacting many areas of human existence)

My question is: is this not true?, that what the brain does affect every and all sphere of our human existence.

[Daniel S. Goldberg]

Hey Anibal,

My best answer to your question is to focus in on the first four letters of the fallacy P&P are concerned with: m-e-r-e. P&P do not deny that what the brain does affects every and all spheres of our human existence. Their argument is rather that we as persons, our minds, our consciousness, is not merely brains, is not reducible to brains. In Searle's terms, brain is a sine qua non, but it does not follow that mind is nothing but brain. The latter is the focus of their critique; they readily concede the former (as do most serious thinkers on this matter, IMO).

[pete mckenna]

Had a quick read of the paper. Still the ghost in the machine i think. Furthermore it would appear that there is nothing that can be said about the mind and we know what Witgenstien said about that, one of the few things he said that made sense to me.