Neuroscience Challenges Legal Accountability and Folk Psychology

The article examines how neuroscientific evidence, such as brain scans revealing tumors, is challenging the legal system's reliance on folk psychology—the belief that individuals are rational agents in control of their actions. It discusses two key cases: Mr. Oft, a teacher whose acquired pedophilia was linked to a removable brain tumor, and Herbert Weinstein, who killed his wife and whose PET scan showed a brain tumor used in an insanity defense. The article argues that while neuroscience can explain behavior, the law distinguishes between causation and responsibility, requiring both a voluntary act (actus reus) and a culpable mental state (mens rea). Legal scholar Rebecca Dresser notes that biological influence does not automatically defeat the presumption of rationality. Law professor Stephen Morse contends that neuroscience would need to disprove mental causation to upend the law. The article concludes that neuroscience is unlikely to revolutionize the legal system directly but may indirectly shape folk psychology and provide supplementary evidence, such as lie detection, while the system remains primarily behavioral and normative.