Naturalizing Responsibility. The Role of Neuroscience in Addressing the Question of Moral Responsibility in Law and Clinical Practice

In the contemporary debate on the use of the neurosciences in ethics and law, numerous arguments have been bandied about among scientists and philosophers looking to uphold or reject the reliability and validity of the scientific findings obtained by brain imaging technologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging, and among the most vexing questions in that regard is, Can we trust that technology? One point of disagreement is whether brain scans offer a window through which to observe the functioning of the mind, in such a way as to enable lawyers, judges, physicians and lawmakers to detect anomalies in brain function that may account for criminal, unconsciousness behaviour. Those who stand behind brain imaging believe that this can indeed be achieved, while those in the opposite camp stress that brain scans are highly open to interpretation: The data they give us is insufficient to establish a causal connection to specific psychiatric, consciousness disorders, much less can it be shown to bear on the complex cognitive capacities that matter when judging the behaviour of defendants in court. The question essentially comes down to whether technology can reliably be used to determine the intentions of the individual, for example establishing mens rea and hence responsibility. It is on this latter notion that I focus in this paper, discussing whether we can rely on the neurosciences to shed light on it as a complex form of moral and legal reasoning, and what the role of the neurosciences has been in reawakening a philosophical and legal interest in trying to set responsibility on an empirical basis.