Jillian Craigie  & Alicia Coram, “Assessing capacities for agency in the context of private decisions and criminal acts: What can neuroscience contribute?”

Lisa Bortolotti, “‘Bad’ personal narratives, autonomy and moral responsibility”

Marion Godman, “The insanity defence and current (neuro)science of the ‘mentally ill’”

Anneli Jefferson, “Psychopathy as a testcase for moral responsibility”

Federico Faroldi, “Law as rule-following: Liability regardless of moral responsibility”

Our confirmed speakers so far are:

Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham)

Jillian Craigie (UCL, London)

Federico Faroldi (Pavia)

Anneli Jefferson (Jülich)

Paul Catley & Lisa Claydon (UWE)

(some other speakers will be confirmed shortly)

This workshop is by invitation only. If you are interested in participating, please get in touch with Marion Godman, marion.godman@sas.ac.uk

Anneli Jefferson, “To what extent can neuroscience inform our judgments of moral responsibility?”

Markus Schlosser, “Conscious will, reason-responsiveness, and responsibility”

Hannah Maslen & Imogen Goold, “Cognitive enhancement: Implications for legal responsibility”

Georgia-Martha Gkotsi, “Neuroscience in the court: The moral responsibility of the mentally ill”

Alfred Mele, “Free will and substance dualism: The real scientific threat to free will?”

A N D  N E U R O S C I E N C E

Monday 18 June – Tuesday 19 June

Supported by the AHRC, ‘Science in Culture’ Exploratory Award

Day 1, Monday June 18, Room STB3, Stewart House (basement)

12.00            Coffee

12.15             Introductions

12. 30           Stephen Morse (Pennsylvania)

Keynote: Neuroscience and criminal responsibility

2.00             Lunch

2.45              Rebecca Simpson (Manchester)

Philosophical problems with the partial defence of provocation: How neuroscience and behavioural genetics may assist

4.00             Coffee

4.15               Anneli Jefferson (Jülich)

To what extent can neuroscience inform our judgments of moral responsibility?

5.30              Close

7.00             Dinner (Location to be confirmed)

Dinner (Location to be confirmed)

Day 2, Tuesday June 19, Court Room, Senate House (first floor)

10.00           Sofia Jeppson (Stockholm)

Compatibilism and neuroscience

11.15           Coffee

11.30           Hannah Maslen (Oxford/Delft) and Imogen Goold (Oxford)

Cognitive enhancement: Implications for legal responsibility

12.45           Lunch

1.30             Markus Schlosser (Leiden)

Conscious will, reason-responsiveness, and moral responsibility

2.45               Coffee

3.00              Georgia-Martha Gkotsi (Lausanne)

Neuroscience in court: The criminal responsibility of the mentally ill

4.15               Close

***This workshop is invitation only***

A podcast of our first workshop is now available, featuring talks by Alfred Mele, Marcel Brass, Lisa Claydon, Paul Catley.

A N D  N E U R O S C I E N C E

Workshop 18-19th June, 2012

Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London

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 28^th (***Note approaching deadline ***).

Successful applicants will be sent an invitation to attend by May 31^st. 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.

Organization committee: Marion Godman (Institute of Philosophy) and Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham and Institute of Philosophy London)

This project aims to explore the extent to which a three-way collaboration between philosophers, lawyers and neuroscientists can shed light on questions concerning free will, responsibility and punishment.

Recently there has been a huge amount of academic debate about, and public and legal practitioner interest in, the general question of how or whether neuroscientific discoveries should prompt us to reconsider the theoretical underpinnings of, or the actual practice of, the legal system. Developments in neuroscience increasingly uncover the underlying causal mechanisms in the brain that generate our behaviour, thus raising the question whether it is ‘us’ or instead our brains that are really responsible for what we do. This raises questions both about whether we act freely – something that is central to both the moral and legal notions of responsibility – and about whether the purpose of punishment for criminal acts should be conceived as a matter of retribution or rehabilitation.

However, the academic debate has largely been focussed on specifically philosophical issues (involving neuroscientists and philosophers) or specifically legal issues (involving neuroscientists and lawyers). Philosophy can bring conceptual clarity and a significant body of relevant philosophical discussion to the debate about law and neuroscience; while the law, in turn, brings a practical dimension to philosophical debates about free will, moral responsibility and punishment. This project therefore aims to look at these issues by bringing together philosophers, neuroscientists and lawyers.

The project, running from April to August 2012, is based at the Institute of Philosophy and is funded by an AHRC ‘Exploratory Awards’ grant as part of the ‘Science in Culture’ theme. Participants include Prof Helen Beebee, Associate Director of the Institute of Philosophy; a postdoctoral researcher, Dr Marion Godman, and Dr Thomas Nadelhoffer.