Criminal Responsibility, Mental Disorder, and Behavioural Neuroscience
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
12-23-2024
Abstract
Mental disorder, especially severe mental disorder, intellectual disability, and the new behavioural neuroscience are all thought to present a challenge to conventional accounts of criminal responsibility. The central thesis of this chapter is that mental disorders do in some cases undermine an agent’s responsibility for criminal actions, but they pose no general threat to criminal responsibility. Whilst it is often argued that the new behavioural neuroscience, fuelled by neuroimaging studies, will substantially alter our concept of criminal responsibility, this chapter makes the case that claims made based on the new neuroscience, especially the more radical claims, are highly controversial for both conceptual and empirical reasons. It does this by addressing two key challenges to criminal responsibility from neuroscience: determinism and the death of agency.
Publication Title
Routledge International Handbook on Criminal Responsibility
Repository Citation
Morse, Stephen, "Criminal Responsibility, Mental Disorder, and Behavioural Neuroscience" (2024). Book Chapters. 475.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_chapters/475
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003297260
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003297260