The book does not have an official slogan regarding the place of neuroscience in these debates, but if it did, it would be this: no empirical contribution in the face of conceptual confusion. The main point of the book is to counsel against certain kinds of incautious philosophical and legal deployments of the results of fMRI brain scans and EEG scans, among other kinds of neuroscientific evidence. Pardo and Patterson are committed naturalists; they are not neuroscience skeptics. Indeed, they are careful throughout to identify potential uses of neuroscientific findings, along with the potential or actual abuses. What they are skeptical about are some of the more sweeping claims made by Patricia Churchland, Joshua Greene, Oliver Goodenough, Deborah Denno, and others concerning the reduction of the mind to the brain, the implications of neuroscientific findings for moral theory, the existence of free will, the viability of our conception of ourselves as intentional actors, and the implications of all of this for our legal systems. Pardo and Patterson generally do not take sides regarding the ultimate philosophical truth on these matters. Their argumentative focus is on what neuroscience can and does show us, and (for much of the book), on what it cannot and does not show us, despite what has been claimed.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 03:15:17 +0000
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