Over the past 20 years, cognitive neuroscience has revolutionized our ability to understand the nature of human thought. Working with the understandings of traditional psychology, the new brain science is transforming many disciplines, from economics to literary theory. These developments are now affecting the law and there is an upsurge of interest in the potential of neuroscience to contribute to our understanding of criminal and civil law and our system of justice in general. The international and interdisciplinary chapters in this volume are written by experts in criminal behaviour, civil law and jurisprudence. They concentrate on the potential of neuroscience to increase our understanding of blame and responsibility in such areas as juveniles and the death penalty, evidence and procedure, neurological enhancement and treatment, property, end-of-life choices, contracting and the effects of words and pictures in law. This collection suggests that legal scholarship and practice will be increasingly enriched by an interdisciplinary study of law, mind and brain and is a valuable addition to the emerging field of neurolaw.

This volume offers a novel look at the intricate relationship between the cognitive sciences and various dimensions of the law.

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 with a 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 neurobiological studies 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 by leading specialists from a range of disciplines, the book presents a groundbreaking and challenging new look at human behaviour.

Cognitive neuroscientists have deepened our understanding of the complex relationship between mind and brain and complicated the relationship between mental attributes and law. New arguments and conclusions based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and other increasingly sophisticated technologies are being applied to debates and processes in the legal field, from lie detection to legal doctrine surrounding criminal law, including the insanity defense to legal theory. In Minds, Brains, and Law, Michael S. Pardo and Dennis Patterson analyze questions that lie at the core of implementing neuroscientific research and technology within the legal system. They examine the arguments favoring increased use of neuroscience in law, the scientific evidence available for the reliability of neuroscientific evidence in legal proceedings, and the integration of neuroscientific research into substantive legal doctrines. The authors also explore the basic philosophical questions that lie at the intersection of law, mind, and neuroscience. In doing so, they argue that mistaken inferences and conceptual errors arise from mismatched concepts, such as the disconnect between lying and what constitutes "lying" in many neuroscientific studies. The empirical, practical, ethical, and conceptual issues that Pardo and Patterson seek to redress will deeply influence how we negotiate and implement the fruits of neuroscience in law and policy in the future. This paperback edition contain a new Preface covering developments in this subject since the hardcover edition published in 2013.

Joseph J. Fins calls for a reconsideration of severe brain injury treatment, including discussion of public policy and physician advocacy.

Applying our new found knowledge from neuroscience to the discipline of law seems a natural development - the making, considering, and enforcing of law of course rests on mental processes. However, there are real issues that the legal system will face as neurobiological studies continue to relentlessly probe the human mind. This volume represents the 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.

This landmark publication offers a unique comparative and interdisciplinary study of criminal insanity and neuroscience. Criminal law theories and ideologies which underpin the regulation of criminal insanity have always been the subject of controversy. The history of criminal insanity is characterised by conceptual and empirical tension between two disciplinary realms: the law and the mind sciences. The authors in this anthology explore in depth the state of the art of legal insanity and the numerous intricate, fascinating, pioneering and sophisticated questions raised by the integration of different criminal law and behaviour theories, diverse disciplines and methodologies, in a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective. This volume will serve as a practical guide for the comparative legal scholar and the judge, as well as stimulating scholarly reading for the neuroscientist, the social scientist and the philosopher with interdisciplinary scientific interests.