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11 Hous. J. Health L. & Pol'y 321 (2011)
Against Reductionism in Law & Neuroscience

handle is hein.journals/hhpol11 and id is 337 raw text is: 11 Hous. J. HEALTH L. & PoL'Y 321-46 321 Copyright C 2011 Daniel S. Goldberg Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy ISSN 1534-7907 AGAINST REDUCTIONISM IN LAW & NEUROSCIENCE Daniel S. Goldberg, J.D., Ph.D.* I. INTRODUCTION: NEUROREDUCTIONISM IN CRIMINAL LAW SHOULD BE REJECTED. The history of cognitive neuroscience and criminal law does not inspire confidence that the consequences of the union will be beneficial for either the field or for society as a whole. This obviously does not mean that present or future exchanges will necessarily follow the dark paths of past efforts, but the history by itself suggests extreme caution is warranted in drawing connections between violence and individual brains. In addition, scholars of the U.S. criminal justice system have noted its individualistic bias,' a point unsurprising given the dominance of individualism in American political culture.2 Focusing on individual brains, in predictions of future dangerousness, both reflects this bias, and more *Assistant Professor, Department of Biocthics & Interdisciplinary Studies, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University. Daniel S. Goldberg earned his B.A. with honors in philosophy from Wesleyan University, his J.D. magna cum laude with a focus in health law and policy from the University of Houston Law Center, and his Ph.D in the medical humanities from the University of Texas Medical Branch. His faculty page can be found here: http://www.ccu.edu/cs- dhs/medhum/goldberg.cfm. The author would like to acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Kenneth A. DeVille and Paul A. Lombardo. 1 See, e.g., Craig Haney, Criminal Justice and the Nineteenth-Century Paradigm: The Triumph of Psychological Individualism in the Formative Era, 6 L. & HUM. BEHAV. 191 (1982). 2 See John W. Kingdon, The Reality of Public Policy-Making, in ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF HEALTH POLICY 97-116 (Marion Danis, Carolyn Clancy, & Larry Churchill eds., 2002); John W. Kingdon, AMERICA THE UNUSUAL (1999).

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