Neuroscience, Normativity, and Retributivism

THE FUTURE OF PUNISHMENT, Thomas Nadelhoffer, ed., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming

U of Alabama Public Law Research Paper No. 1968552

29 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2011

See all articles by Michael S. Pardo

Michael S. Pardo

Georgetown University Law Center

Dennis Patterson

Rutgers University School of Law, Camden; University of Surrey - School of Law

Date Written: December 5, 2011

Abstract

Advocates for the increased use of neuroscience in law have made bold and provocative claims about the power of neuroscientific discoveries to transform the criminal law in ways large and small. Perhaps the boldest and most provocative of these claims are made in an influential article by Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen. They claim that neuroscience will reveal that criminal defendants are not morally responsible for their actions and that this revelation will thereby undermine retributivist justifications for criminal punishment. In the process of resolving previously intractable debates between consequentialism and retributivism, neuroscience will also, they contend, resolve age-old debates about free will. In this essay, we discuss several serious problems with their argument. We maintain that no neuroscientific discoveries will lead to the sorts of changes predicted by Greene and Cohen and, even if they did, those changes would not be the product of neuroscientific insight but result from unwarranted and problematic inferences which ought to be resisted.

Keywords: neuroscience, criminal punishment, retributivism, consequentionalism, moral responsibility, free will, determinism, compatibilism, folk psychology

Suggested Citation

Pardo, Michael S. and Patterson, Dennis, Neuroscience, Normativity, and Retributivism (December 5, 2011). THE FUTURE OF PUNISHMENT, Thomas Nadelhoffer, ed., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, U of Alabama Public Law Research Paper No. 1968552, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1968552

Michael S. Pardo (Contact Author)

Georgetown University Law Center ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/michael-s-pardo/

Dennis Patterson

Rutgers University School of Law, Camden ( email )

Camden, NJ 08102-1203
United States
856-225-6369 (Phone)
856-751-8752 (Fax)

University of Surrey - School of Law ( email )

United Kingdom

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