Law, neuroscience, and criminal culpability

Abstract/Description

This chapter examines the relationship between explanations of human behaviour drawn from neuroscientific imaging and the approach adopted by the criminal law to establishing the legal framework for evaluating guilt or innocence. It considers what brain imaging may tell us about culpability and concludes by considering whether the present philosophical basis of the law is sufficiently robust to withstand some claims that are being made about what neuroscience tells us about brain states.