Review: Patterson, D. and Pardo, M.S., eds. (2016). Philosophical Foundations of Law and Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 272 рp
The collaborative monograph edited by M.S. Pardo and D. Patterson is dedicated to comprehension of the scientific concerns arisen in the application of neuroscientific research findings in the field of law. The authors discuss the prospects of changing the conceptual system in jurisprudence as a result of theoretical "intrusion" of neurosciences, thus demonstrating that the legal instruments will be inevitably changing provided that the neuroscientific findings are absorbed. The strengthened focus of social science community on brain researches conducted by physiologists, psychologists and neuropathologists has become evident over the last two-three decades and is attributable to technological advances. Since it became possible to monitor cerebral activity in real time mode without any recourse to surgical intervention, many psychologists and philosophers invented a hypothesis about an indispensable and explicit linkage between the behavior (macro-level) and neural, i.e. cellular mechanisms (micro-level). Consistent with this hypothesis, such disciplines as neuromarketing, neuroculturology and neuroethics start to emerge. The main emphasis in each of these disciplines is to observe physical causal interpretation of this or that activity. Neurojurisprudence falls under the scope of this trend too. Potentially, any legal concept and any legal issue may fall within the range of interests of this new discipline. However, the principal legal concern lies not in its subject, which is yet difficult to denote, but in the method. As a main assumption, underpinning all neuropsychological findings for lawyers, serves a reductive mindset (attitude) where the build-up of certain properties at the macro-level (personality) may lead to changes at the micro-level (cellular cerebral structures). This, however, causes a phenomenon where most legal categories lose its own meaning. Thus, a category of free will in case of acknowledging a legal entity as being programmed and subordination of his/her behavior to physical laws becomes a fiction the fact that entails impossibility of imposing legal responsibility. The governmental policy with regard to preventive measures aimed at preventing delinquency becomes not very effective if a will-driven nature of a moral choice is lacking. The monograph under review provides the analysis of neuroscientific challenges in the context of developing sector-wise legal sciences, including criminal law and criminology, presents socio-cultural and moral & ethical implications of the conducted neuroscientific research where the legal behavior of an entity is linked with the functioning of different areas of the brain. The paper provides a broad presentation of findings concerning the impossibility of reducing a legally relevant human behavior down to its mental and cerebral activity, the fact that makes it appealing and useful for lawyers.