Neuroethics & Law Blog

What is Psychopathy? (1) (Andrew Vierra)

Thank you Adam for inviting me to guest post on your fantastic blog. My name is Andrew Vierra, and I am a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hamburg Department of Law in Germany where I research psychopathy and criminal law. While I have this excellent platform, I plan on doing a series of posts on the question “What is psychopathy?”

At first glance, the question seems simple enough. Indeed, we have handy and widely used diagnostic tools like The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) that provide definitions.

But the scientific, philosophical, and legal literature is full of disagreements and inconsistencies. For example, there is no consensus on whether psychopathy is a mental disorder. Some, like Nicole Vincent, suggest that psychopaths may just be bad people--a sharp turn from the DSM-5 or PCL-R. Others, like Friedrich Nietzsche, argue that it may be the people who (unlike psychopaths) experience guilt that are sick.

I’ll start with a post overviewing the DSM-5 and PCL-R. Next, I’ll follow up with a few posts on whether psychopathy is a mental disorder. Finally, I’ll look at amazing new research that suggests that chimpanzees can be psychopaths and explore some of the implications of psychopathic chimps. I may also post on current events that catch my attention if, like last week, they pertain to neurolaw. I’m also very open to posting on topics that readers find interesting--just let me know =)   

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

The Strange, Rare Medical Condition that Leads People to Insist They Don’t Actually Exist, Quartz    Generation Adderall, New York Times Magazine Brain Implant Restores Sense Of Touch To Paralyzed Man, NPR Shots Blog What Happens When You Give an AI a Working Memory?, MIT Technology Review Your Next Friend Could Be a Robot, The Wall Street Journal The UK Could Become a Leader in AI Ethics—If This EU Data Law Survives Brexit, Quartz Neurotechnology and The Timing of Ethics, Neuroethics and Law Blog Chimps May Be Capable of Comprehending the Minds of Others, Scientific American Ethically Sound Episode 5: Gray Matters, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues The Human Remembering Machine, The Atlantic Nobel Prize-Winning Autophagy Research Laid Groundwork for Potential Parkinson’s Treatment, The Conversation Amoral Enhancement, BMJ Blogs   How a Good Run Could Help Repair the Brain, Discover Magazine Can Great Apes Read Your Mind?, The Conversation Learning From Dogs as They Sniff Out Their World, The New York Times Are There Too Few Jobs In Neuroscience?, Discover Magazine Doctors Can Predict If Antidepressants Will Work For You, Time Magazine We Aren’t Meant to Be Happy All the Time—and That’s a Good Thing, Quartz Japanese Robotics Giant Gives Its Arms Some Brains, MIT Technology Review Prescribing the Placebo Effect, The Neuroethics Blog Facebook Begins Its Push to Make Us Socialize in Virtual Reality, MIT Technology Review Rethinking Irreversibility and Its Implications on Determining Death, The Neuroethics Blog How Brain Cells Move Through Newborn Babies’ Brains, New Scientist Frontiers Plenary, The White House Frontiers Conference BRAIN Initiative: Research Career Enhancement Award for Investigators to Build Skills in a Cross-Disciplinary Area (K18), NIH   Human Brains Teach Us a Surprising Lesson, Science Magazine Apes Know What Others Believe, Science Magazine Unsupervised Learning in Probabilistic Neural Networks with Multi-State Metal-Oxide Memristive Synapses, Nature Communications Motor Cortex Activity Predicts Response Alternation During Sensorimotor Decisions, Nature Communications Cosmic Radiation Exposure and Persistent Cognitive Dysfunction, Scientific Reports Episodic Social Media Impact on Users, Inderscience Publishers

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

Reevaluating Swinburne: Neuro-interventions and the Morality of Homosexuality (Andrew Vierra)

In a recent presentation at the Society for Christian Philosophers, Richard Swinburne (Oxford) argued that homosexuality—i.e. exclusive, erotic, attraction to members of the same-sex—is a disability that ought to be eliminated. Towards this end, he suggested that we should “encourage research into how the orientation can be cured” (see the full paper here). Not surprisingly, Swinburne has met harsh criticisms from philosophers, the mainstream media, and even the Society for Christian Philosophers.

One of these criticisms, raised by Rob Hughes, a young moral, political, and legal philosopher teaching in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, targets what Hughes takes to be Swinburne’s “false and unjustified empirical assertion” that sexual orientation is or could be “to a considerable extent reversible.” Hughes claims that there is no credible evidence (at least that Swinburne cites) that suggests that sexual orientation can be changed. Indeed, to the contrary, available evidence suggests that attempting to change one’s sexual orientation through so-called conversion therapies can actually be harmful. Hughes concludes that Swinburne’s argument is unsound.

I share Hughes’ conviction that something is wrong with Swinburne’s argument, but I don’t believe it is this premise, and I think his objection misses Swinburne’s larger conceptual point. Hughes is correct that given the current state of the relevant sciences, conversion therapies cannot reorient sexual orientations. But, as Swinburne points out, “medicine has made great strides in recent years. Diseases of mind or body hitherto believed incurable have proved curable; it would be odd if sexual orientation was the only incurable condition.”   

Though I don’t believe that being gay is a disease, I agree with Swinburne that one day sexual orientation may be reversible. Indeed, as Brian Earp and I have argued elsewhere, “based on current scientific research, it is not unlikely that medical researchers – in the not-too-distant future – will know enough about the genetic, epigenetic, neurochemical and other brain level factors that are involved in shaping sexual orientation that these variables could in fact be successfully modified.”

And here is the important point. If such neuro-interventions become available, Hughes’ objection will no longer be sound, and what happens then?  

I think a more promising approach is to object to the far weaker premise that homosexuality is a disability. If homosexuality is not a disability, and it is not morally wrong to have sex with members of the same sex, then it is not clear why we ought to invest in research on conversion therapy or encourage the use of such therapies if they become available. Without this weaker premise, Swinburne’s argument is not successful.

"Neuroethics and the Scientific Revisions of Common Sense"

"Neuroethics and the Scientific Revisions of Common Sense" by Nada Gligorov has recently been published in the Springer series Studies in Brain and Mind:

About this book

This book is focused on the examination of the particular relationship between developments in neuroscience and commonsense concepts, such as free will, personal identity, privacy, etc., which feature prominently in moral discourse.  In the book common sense is recast as an ever-shifting repository of theories from many domains, including science. Utilizing this alternative characterization of common sense, the book reexamines the impact of neuroscience on commonsense moral conceptions.

Neuroethics is one of the newest, developing branches of Bioethics. Topics often raised include issues of free will, personal identity and the self; the possible ethical implication of memory manipulation; brain imaging and mind-reading; brain stimulation/enhancement and its impacts on personal identity; and brain death.

Neurotechnology and the timing of ethics [Pim Haselager]

Thanks to Adam for the invitation to contribute to his great Neuroethics & Law blog. I have been working in philosophy of mind and cognitive science for quite some years now. I am a PI at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour of the Radboud University, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Last month I participated in the 2016 Kavli Futures symposium on the ethical foundations of novel neurotechnologies at Colombia University in New York. Many great speakers presented lectures on Identity and mind reading, Agency and brain stimulation, and Normality and brain enhancement, followed by a roundtable discussion with members of the NIH BRAINI Neuroethics committee.

One of the many issues that kept me thinking long afterwards arose out of Jack Gallant’s talk. He presented his well-known brain decoding research (sometimes referred to as ‘brainreading’), and in particular about decoding semantic categories from brain states while seeing a movie, or listening to a story, see e.g. his paper in Nature. He clearly expressed his ethical concerns regarding brain decoding, and suggested that privacy measures should be taken. According to him, the question is no longer whether it will happen, only when. His bet, he said, was within another 20-50 years. Of course, that’s quite a margin, and others may have different estimates, but the question I’d like to raise here applies to almost any estimate:

How long does it take to develop a fully functional ethical and legal framework that could guide a responsible societal introduction of a now still emerging neurotechnology? Specifically, when would we have to start developing such a framework, in order not to have started too early or too late?

A lot of energy is spent these days on estimating current and to be developed technologies. For instance, Gartner’s ‘hype cycles’ have become quite famous and they pride themselves on the amount of research that goes into it. I’m showing a slightly modified version here.

 

 

Shouldn’t a similar amount of effort go into estimating appropriate time frames for ethical and legal safeguards surrounding such technologies? Thinking about this made me wonder what exactly the methodology is (or could or should be) for determining when one is about to ‘miss the regulatory boat’. Start too early, and you run the risk of regulating for ‘Jetsons’ technology’ as Patricia Churchland put it in her talk at the same session. She pointed out that it could be a waste of time to develop ethical or legal frameworks for all possibly developing types of technologies, as many or most of them may not come to real applications (see the ‘Valley of Oblivion’ in the picture above).

I agreed, but during my own talk also emphasized the other half of the worry, namely that if we start too late, we may witness a similar disaster as with the Internet and privacy. In the 1990s we woke up too late and now are still struggling to get some privacy back. Perhaps you remember that famous statement: ‘You have zero privacy anyway. Now get over it’. I wouldn’t like to see that repeated by some CEO in relation to brainreading.

There is another reason to consider the importance of methodically addressing the ‘when to start working seriously on an ethical and legal framework’ question. In the discussion after the first session, Pat Churchland warned for the dangers of neuroscientists hyping the results of their research. Rightly so, as it leads to disappointments, shakes public confidence, and jeopardizes funding. In addition, I suggested that it was important to realize that it’s not only the neuroscientists that are contributing to the hype, but the ethicists as well (or perhaps even more so?). In order to get to examples where the consequences of applying the neurotechnology becomes ethically clear and interesting, we often need to extrapolate technology in a way that may strengthen the ‘peak of inflated expectations’. Philosophers grow up discussing thought experiments, so we’re kind of used to it. But seriously discussing the ethical implications of rather fancy, currently non-existing applications may distort the public’s perception of the field, of what is possible and what one could hope for or fear. For this reason as well, we may need to develop a methodology for deciding when to seriously start setting up the ethical and legal frameworks for a specific application of neurotechnology.

"When Empathy Bites Back: Cautionary Tales from Neuroscience for Capital Sentancing"

Recently published on SSRN (and forthcoming in Fordham Law Review, Vol.85):

 

"When Empathy Bites Back: Cautionary Tales from Neuroscience for Capital Punishing"

 

SHERI LYNN JOHNSON, Cornell Law School
AMELIA COURTNEY HRITZ, Cornell University
CAISA E. ROYER, Cornell University
JOHN H. BLUME, Cornell Law School

Empathy lies at the core of the capital trial. If jurors come to see the defendant as “different,” “other,” or not “fully human,” they are more likely to determine that the defendant “deserves” the ultimate punishment, making what the Supreme Court has described as essentially a moral judgment about the value of the life of the accused. Conversely, if jurors can identify with the defendant, imagine his “walk in life,” or “see the world through his eyes,” they are less likely to choose the death penalty. Despite its importance and decades of research, empathy is not clearly understood, and its implications for capital trials are largely unexplored. This Article examines the implications of emerging neuroscientific findings regarding empathy for capital trials. We consider implications for jury selection, the presentation of evidence, and arguments by counsel. We conclude that the neuroscience findings we have summarized provide additional support for our prior conviction: It is not possible for a system of capital punishment to neutrally determine which defendants “deserve” death.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Americans Wary of Using Chip Implants to Boost Brain Power for the Healthy, Pew Research Center    Google Builds a Robotic Hive-Mind Kindergarten, MIT Technology Review The Strange, Rare Medical Condition that Leads People to Insist They Don’t Actually Exist, Quartz Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test, NPR: Shots This Scientist Is Trying To Unravel What Sugar Does To The Brain, NPR: The Salt Can Electricity Stimulate Your Brain To Work Faster? Discover Magazine Guilty or Not Guilty: Policy Considerations for Using Neuroimaging as Evidence in Courts, The Neuroethics Blog The Stain of the Spotless Mind: Policy Recommendations for Memory Erasure, The Neuroethics Blog Doll Therapy May Help Calm People With Dementia, But It Has Critics, NPR: Shots Embedded Beings: How We Blended Our Minds with Our Devices, Aeon Neuroimaging in Predicting and Detecting Neurodegenerative Diseases and Mental Disorders, The Neuroethics Blog   Neurolegislation: How U.S. Legislators are Using Brain Science, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology Spermidine Suppresses Age-Associated Memory Impairment by Preventing Adverse Increase of Presynaptic Active Zone Size and Release, PLoS Biology

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"Neurolegislation: How U.S. Legislators are Using Brain Science"

Recently Published on SSRN (and in Harvard Journal of Law and Technology (2016)):

 

"Neurolegislation: How U.S. Legislators are Using Brain Science"

 

FRANCIS X. SHEN, University of Minnesota Law School

There is growing interest in neuroscience generally, and in neurolaw in particular. But scholarship has too narrowly conceptualized the “law” part of neurolaw as limited to what happens in courtrooms. In doing so, scholarship has overlooked the role that brain science is playing, and might one day play, in legislatures. This Article thus focuses on “neurolegislation,” defined as legislation that explicitly mentions the brain or brain sciences.

The Article explores two related empirical questions. First, what types of neurolegislation have been proposed in U.S. state legislatures? Second, what can be said about the type of legislators who propose these brain bills? Based on an original database of proposed bills in U.S. state legislatures from 1992 through 2009, the analysis finds that brain science has been mentioned in nearly 1000 bills. Brain science is mentioned most frequently in bills related to brain injury, insurance, mental health, education, veterans' affairs, and sports concussions. In addition, over 70 other types of bills mentioned the brain or neuroscience.

I argue that legislative use of neuroscience is growing in breadth but not yet depth. Neuroscience does not yet appear to be revolutionary in the sense that it persuades large numbers of legislators to change previously established policy positions. Neuroscience may be in many instances just window dressing, invoked because it is thought to be helpful in persuading others. Looking to the future, I argue that to be more truly transformative, neurolegislation will require scientific advances, innovative legislators, and the construction of successful neuroscience narratives.