Neuroethics: from Lab to Law. A Scientific Scrutiny of Sociability, Responsibility and Criminality

Neuroethics is a new field of science that focuses on the neurobiological foundations of many critical aspects of society. It covers both the neuroscience of ethics and the ethics of neuroscience. The former mainly refers to breakthroughs in neurosciences, which provide a scientific explanation for many topics related to ethics, like moral judgment, legal responsibility in decision-making and genetic predisposition to criminality. The ethics of neuroscience, on the other hand, deals with the ethical implications that go along with neuroscience and genetic knowledge in transcendental issues like predicting antisocial behavior, using neuroimaging to attribute legal responsibility, using invasive medical technology to treat and prevent addictive behavior or the use of chemical substances to improve cognitive performance.

What can neuroimaging techniques contribute on moral judgment, decision-making or empathy? What knowledge does psychiatry provide in attributing responsibility in psychopathy, addition or gambling? What can genetics predict regarding prosocial predisposition? What resources are currently available and what resources should we develop in the future to identify and prevent criminality, terrorism or addiction? These issues, and more, are what these debate sessions organized by B-Debate, the UAB and the Social Brain Chair aim to resolve.

The debates will feature national and international experts from complementary disciplines like social neuroscience, psychiatry, psychopharmacology, social sciences, education, anthropology and evolutionary biology. 

Presentations:

• Varieties of Dehumanization, Susan Fiske

• Individualistic Versus Social Motives for Justice Judgments, Jan-Willem van Prooijen

• Crime and Punishment, Antoni Gomila