[NetBehaviour] Liberalism and neurology - Free to choose?
marc
marc.garrett at furtherfield.org
Sat Dec 23 13:33:37 CET 2006
Liberalism and neurology - Free to choose?
Economist print edition.
Modern neuroscience is eroding the idea of free will.
IN THE late 1990s a previously blameless American began collecting child
pornography and propositioning children. On the day before he was due to
be sentenced to prison for his crimes, he had his brain scanned. He had
a tumour. When it had been removed, his paedophilic tendencies went
away. When it started growing back, they returned. When the regrowth was
removed, they vanished again. Who then was the child abuser?
His case dramatically illustrates the challenge that modern neuroscience
is beginning to pose to the idea of free will. The instinct of the
reasonable observer is that organic changes of this sort somehow absolve
the sufferer of the responsibility that would accrue to a child abuser
whose paedophilia was congenital. But why? The chances are that the
latter tendency is just as traceable to brain mechanics as the former;
it is merely that no one has yet looked. Scientists have looked at anger
and violence, though, and discovered genetic variations, expressed as
concentrations of a particular messenger molecule in the brain, that are
both congenital and predisposing to a violent temper. Where is free will
in this case?
more...
http://wapurl.co.uk/?4O0NB8R
More information about the NetBehaviour
mailing list