It has been a busy summer. In late June, I gave a paper on successful versus unsuccessful psychopaths (co-written with Bill Hirstein) at the Society for Philosophy of Psychology annual meeting in Boulder. In early July, I travelled to Paris to the Personality and Character conference (organized by Jon Webber and Alberto Marsala) at the Paris-Sorbonne University. The paper I gave there attempted to use traditional virtue theory to critique modern methods of punishment. I’ll post a synopsis of the paper, “Neuro-rehabilitation and the Criminal Character,” in a few days.
This Monday, July 30, I leave for Neuroscience Boot Camp at UPenn. My attendance is funded by the MacArthur Foundation and a grant for interdisciplinary research from Elmhurst College. Boot Camp is an intensive summer workshop for academics, policy researchers, lawyers, judges, and other professionals who could use an in-depth understanding of neuroscience to further their work. Given I have already been writing in the area of neuroscience and criminal responsibility, I desperately need a better understanding of the tools of neuroscience (such as fMRIs) and the data generated by such tools.
I’ll be using this blog as a platform for mulling over what I learn at boot camp. In particular, I hope to think deeply about what cutting edge neuroscientific methods and findings mean for the criminal law and criminal punishment.
If these sorts of issues interest you, stay tuned.
Pleas and Excuses 