Law and the brain

The past 20 years have seen unparalleled advances in neurobiology, with findings from neuroscience being used to shed light on a range of human activities - many historically the province of those in the humanities and social sciences - aesthetics, emotion, consciousness, music. Applying this new knowledge to law seems a natural development - the making, considering, and enforcing of law of course rests on mental processes. However, where some of those activities can be studied witha certain amount of academic detachment, what we discover about the brain has considerable implications for how we consider and judge those who follow or indeed flout the law - with inevitable social and political consequences. There are real issues that the legal system will face as neurobiologicalstudies continue to relentlessly probe the human mind - the motives for our actions, our decision making processes, and such issues as free will and responsibility.This volume represents a first serious attempt to address questions of law as reflecting brain activity, emphasizing that it is the organization and functioning of the brain that determines how we enact and obey laws. It applies the most recent developments in brain science to debates over criminal responsibility, cooperation and punishment, deception, moral and legal judgment, property, evolutionary psychology, law and economics, and decision-making by judges and juries. Written and edited byleading specialists from a range of disciplines, the book presents a groundbreaking and challenging new look at human behaviour.
Contents: INTRODUCTION; 1. Law and the Brain - an introduction; INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS; 2. The neuroeconomic path of the law; 3. How neuroscience might advance the law; LAW, BIOLOGY AND THE BRAIN; 4. Law and the sources of morality; 5. Law, evolution and the brain: applications and open questions; 6. A neuroscientific approach to normative judgment in law and justice; NEUROECONOMICS AND LAW; 7. The brain and the law; 8. Neuroeconomics; DECISION MAKING AND EVIDENCE; 9. A cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding causal reasoning and the law; TRUTHFULNESS; 10. A cognitive neurobiological account of deception: evidence from functional neuroimaging; PROPERTY IN BIOLOGY AND THE BRAIN; 11. The property ´instinct´; CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT; 12. For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything; 13. The frontal cortex and the criminal justice system; 14. The emergence of consequential thought: evidence from neuroscience; 15. Responsibility and punishment: whose mind? A response