Welcome to the The Law and Neuroscience Blog--which we have created to provide an on-line forum where the members of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience can share their ideas and interact with not only other researchers but also with the interested public more generally. One of the main goals of the blog is to provide a resource with information about cutting edge research at the cross-roads of neuroscience, law, and philosophy.
Larry Steinberg, member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, and distinguished university professor of psychology at Temple University, writes on What the Brain Says About Maturity in The Opinion Pages of the New York Times.
Register now for the 2012 Public Defender's Justice Summit in San Francisco
Former gang members, top law enforcement officials, leading neuroscientists and drug reform pioneers will gather for a frank and fascinating discussion at the 2012 Public Defender’s Justice Summit on Tuesday, May 29 at San Francisco Main Library.
The summit, JUSTICE ON TRIAL:
Gangs, Neuroscience and Drug Reform, will be held in the library’s Koret
Auditorium from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is free, but seating is limited.
All attendees must register at sfpublicdefender.org.
The Justice Summit is the premier criminal justice conference on the West Coast. This year’s lineup
focuses on the most hotly-debated subjects: gang violence, drug decriminalization and how neuroimaging is changing our ideas about criminal culpability.
The Justice Summit is co-sponsored by the Bar Association of San Francisco, Attorneys attending the
conference will earn 4 MCLE units.
Schedule:
9 a.m.: Registration
9:30 a.m.: Keynote Speaker: UCLA Professor Jorja
Leap, author of Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love
and Redemption.
10 a.m. Panel I: Jumped In: Strategies to Reduce Gang
Violence
11:15 a.m. Panel II: The Brain on Trial: Is Free Will
Truly Free?
12:30 p.m.: Lunch provided
1:30 p.m. Panel III: Drugs: From Felonies to Misdemeanors?
Panelists:
Moral & Criminal Responsibility and Neuroscience
Workshop 18-19th June, 2012
Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London AHRC ‘Science in Culture’ Project: Neuroscience and the Law – Free Will, Responsibility and Punishment.
Call for Abstracts
This workshop aims to bring together early-career researchers in law, philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology to explore in what way, if any, recent findings in neuroscience (broadly construed) can inform debates on the source of voluntary action and the related notions of moral and criminal responsibility.
Issues that might be addressed are: Should we hold criminals diagnosed with psychopathy less accountable for their crimes given that studies show that psychopaths have reduced moral judgment and/or empathy? Does evidence from neuroscience and behavioral genetics have any implications
for the scope of circumstances that are understood as “mitigating”? Does such evidence have any bearing on whether the purpose of punishment for criminal acts should be conceived as a matter of retribution or rehabilitation? Do the “timing experiments” by Benjamin Libet and others fundamentally undermine the voluntary control condition that many compatibilists claim is a condition for moral accountability? If so, does it in turn also undermine the condition for criminal responsibility?
Keynote Speakers:
Stephen Morse Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law
& Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the University of
Pennsylvania
Thomas Nadelhoffer Assistant Professor of Philosophy at
Dickenson College
Abstract submission: We invite PhD students and early-career researchers from philosophy, law, neuroscience and psychology to submit abstracts for presentation. We welcome any submission that addresses responsibility in the three-way intersection between law, neuroscience, and philosophy. All extended abstract submissions should be no more than 1000 words and in PDF-format. They should also be properly prepared for blind refereeing. The abstract should state the primary discipline of your paper (e.g. philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, or law) and be sent to Marion Godman, marion.godman@sas.ac.uk by May 28th
(***Note approaching deadline ***).
Successful applicants will be sent an invitation to attend by May 31st. We will pay speakers’ travel (within the UK) and accommodation costs. Anyone who applies but is not selected to present will be
welcome to attend the event free of charge, but we cannot subsidize travel and accommodation.
This meeting is organized as part of an AHRC ‘Exploratory Awards’ grant (‘Science in Culture’ Project: Neuroscience and Law Project – Free Will, Responsibility and Punishment). Organisation: Marion Godman (Institute of Philosophy, London) & Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham & Institute of Philosophy London)
Contact: marion.godman@sas.ac.uk
For more information see: http://ahrcfreewill.wordpress.com/
"Neuroscience shows that the adolescent brain is still developing. The question is whether that should influence the sentencing of juveniles."
Lizzie Buchen, Science in Court: Arrested Development, 304 Nature 484 (2012).
Nita Farahany blogs on her Law and Biosciences Digest, “a daily digest of legal opinions featuring cognitive neuroscience and behavioral genetics.”
"Free will has long been a fraught concept among philosophers and theologians. Now neuroscience is entering the fray."
The Chronicle of Higher Education presents pieces from Jerry A. Coyne, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Hilary Bok, Owen D. Jones, and Paul Bloom. Click here to read more.
Laurence Steinberg is a professor of psychology at Temple University, and a member of the Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. Click here to read his CNN Opinion: Don't put juveniles in jail for life.
The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience distributes Neurolaw News, which highlights important items of interest for the neurolaw community. These include notifications of new publications, news of upcoming neurolaw conferences, and the like. To avoid inbox clutter, distributions occur approximately once every 2 months.
To subscribe to the listserv, please visit: http://www.lawneuro.org/listserv.php
For the latest edition of Neurolaw News, please visit: http://www.lawneuro.org/listserv.php#archives
We are pleased to report that law schools at two major research universities, the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Vanderbilt, have launched joint JD/PhD programs in law and neuroscience. Both programs contemplate that students will typically take seven years to obtain the two degrees, which will be significantly less than the time required when the degrees are pursued sequentially. For additional information on these program, see:
Dual Degree Program in Neuroscience & Law at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
Watch this conference here: http://www.livestream.com/uchastings
Law and Policy of the Developing
Brain: Neuroscience from Womb to Death
2/10/2012, 8:30 am – 7:00 pm
Location: UC Hastings College of the Law, 200 McAllister Street, Alumni
Reception Center
2/11/2012, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Location: Stanford Law School, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Room 190
