Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-xh45t Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-15T02:44:17.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Determinism, neuroscience and responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2007

James Grant
James Grant*
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Fears that new scientific advances on the mind and the brain which establish that behaviour is determined by causes in one’s mind/brain and/or various past and present internal and external environments will undermine the attribution of legal responsibility are misplaced. Taking responsibility to inhere where conduct reflects upon an individual and where, properly understood, the individual could have done otherwise, determinism, operating in the right sort of way, should be embraced as a condition for responsibility.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 221 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ashworth, Andrew (1997) Principles of Criminal Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ayer, A. J. (1954) Philosophical Essays. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bazelon, D. (1976) ‘The Morality of the Criminal Law’, Southern California Law Review, 49: 385.Google Scholar
Burchell, J. (2005) Principles of Criminal Law. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Chris (2005) Understanding Criminal Law. London: Sweet & Maxwell.Google Scholar
Cremona, Marise and Herring, Jonathan (1998) Criminal Law. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (2003a) ‘Free will, but not as we know it’, New Scientist, No. 2396, 24 May 2003, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (2003b) Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Descartes, René (1641/1996) ‘Sixth Meditation’ in Meditations on First Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. M. (2002) ‘Frankfurt-style Examples, Responsibility and Semi-compatibilism’ in Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry (1969) ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, Journal of Philosophy, 66: 829–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. (2004) ‘Free Will in the Twenty-first Century: A Discussion of Neuroscience and the Law’, in Garland, B. (ed.), Neuroscience and the Law: Brain, Mind, and the Scales of Justice. New York: Dana Press.Google Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. and LeDoux, J. (1978) The Integrated Mind. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. and Steven, M. S. (2005) ‘Neuroscience and the Law’, Scientific American Mind, April.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleick, James (1987) Chaos. New York: Viking Penguin.Google Scholar
Honoré, Tony (1999) Responsibility and Fault. Oxford: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1748/1993) Enquiries concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, R. (2002a) ‘Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem’, in Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kane, R. (ed.) (2002b) Free Will, Blackwell Readings in Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kutz, C. (2002) ‘Responsibility’, in Coleman, J. and Shapiro, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Leon, M. (1999) ‘On the Value and Scope of Freedom’, Ratio, XII(2): 162–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leon, M. (2002) ‘Responsible Believers’, The Monist, 85(3): 422–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leon, M. (2004) ‘About Responsible Believing’, Personal Communication to J. Grant, 16 January.Google Scholar
Libet, B. (1991) ‘Consciousness vs. Neural Time’, Nature 352: 27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Libet, B. (1999) ‘Do We Have Free Will’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6: 45.Google Scholar
Moore, Michael (1984) Law and Psychiatry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, M. S. (1999) ‘Choice, Character, and Excuse’, in Katz, L., Moore, M. S. and Morse, S. J. (eds.), Foundations of Criminal Law. New York: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Morse, Stephen J. (2004a) ‘New Neuroscience, Old Problems’, in Garland, B. (ed.), Neuroscience and the Law: Brain, Mind, and the Scales of Justice. New York: Dana Press.Google Scholar
Morse, Stephen J. (2004b) ‘Reasons, Results, and Criminal Responsibility’, Illinois Law Review 363–444.Google Scholar
Morse, Stephen J. (2006) ‘Indeterminacy’, Personal Communication to J. Grant, 14 February.Google Scholar
Morton, A. (1996) Philosophy in Practice: An Introduction to the Main Questions. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nielsen, K. (1971/2002) ‘Reason and Practice’, in Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Platt, M. and Glimcher, P. (1999) ‘Neural Correlates of Decision Making in Parietal Cortex’, Nature 400: 233.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reznek, L. (1997) Evil or Ill: Justifying the Insanity Defence. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rumpff, F. (1967) Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Responsibility of Mentally Deranged Persons and Related Matters, p. 69.Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert (1949) ‘Descartes’ Myth’, in The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Scruton, Roger (2004) Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey. London: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Snyman, C. R. (2002) Criminal Law. Durban: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1995) Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings (2nd edn). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (2001) Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings (3rd edn). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (2005) Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text with Readings (4th edn). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Spurgeon Hall, R. A. (2000) The Ethical Foundations of Criminal Justice. New York: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan (2002) ‘Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility’, in Kane, R. (ed.), Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Young, Jock (1994) ‘Incessant Chatter: Recent paradigms in Criminology’, in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar