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"Neuroscientific Challenges to Retributivism"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this notable book chapter by Professors Michael Pardo and Dennis Patterson available via SSRN. Here is the abstract: We examine two recent challenges to retribution-based justifications for criminal punishment based on neuroscientific evidence.  The first seeks to undermine retributivism because of the brain activity of subjects engaged in punishment decisions for retributive (as opposed to consequentialist) reasons.  This challenge proceeds by linking retributivism with deontological moral theories and the brain activity correlated with deontological moral judgments.  The second challenge seeks to undermine retributivism by exposing, through neuroscientific information, the purportedly implausible foundation on which retributivism depends: one based on free will and folk psychology...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 25, 2011 (boomark / email).