Does that mean murderers or rapists can beat the rap by pleading that they had no choice but to do evil? Far from it. You are still responsible for your deeds, even if much of what you do happens on an unconscious level…Eagleman argues that a better understanding of neuroscience should change our approach to crime and punishment, and perhaps even governance in general.
The founding fathers may have declared that all men are created equal, but science shows that all brains are not. And in Eagleman's view, we don't control the brain. The brain controls us ... whatever "us" means.
Q: Some people talk about the view that we have a "zombie brain," the unconscious part of the brain that takes care of everything that's done when you drive home along a familiar route, for example. A lot of the activity that we undertake day to day really is part of that zombie brain. Does that get us in trouble, to have so much going on in our brain that's below the level of consciousness?
E: I don't think it gets us in trouble so much as that it is the thing that "drives the boat." Almost everything that we think and do, act and believe is generated by these systems under the hood that we don’t have access to — whether it’s lifting a cup of coffee to your lips, or recognizing someone’s face, or falling in love. I wouldn’t say these systems get us in trouble.
Your conscious mind, the part of you that switches on the light when you get up in the morning — that is the smallest bit of what’s happening in the brain…the conscious mind is like a stowaway on a transatlantic steamship who is taking credit for the journey without acknowledging the massive engineering underfoot.
Q: Who’s really to blame for bad behavior? If there’s a criminal mind out there, it’s really more the brain’s fault, under the hood, than it is the conscious mind’s fault.
E: …blameworthiness is the wrong question to ask. Brain development is the result of genes, and environment, and their very complicated interaction with one another…you don’t choose your genes, and you don’t choose your childhood environment…it doesn’t really make sense to blame people or credit people, just as you wouldn’t take credit for having color vision or blame for having colorblindness.
…blameworthiness…is not a useful concept…with a biologically compatible system of jurisprudence, we could do customized sentencing, and customized rehabilitation, instead of turning to incarceration as a one-size-fits-all solution.
Nobody "gets a break." A rabid dog doesn’t get a break. It’s not the rabid dog’s fault that it’s rabid, but we don’t give it a break as a result of that. It’s the same thing with crime…Some people are really dangerous...and some people aren't. Right now we treat all these things equally, but we need to understand what’s different about different brains.
…in rehabilitation…people in prison undergo behavioral changes because they have something wrong with their brain…our prison system has become our de facto mental health care system. …It’s criminogenic, which means it causes more crime.
… you are not one thing…the brain is a neural parliament, where you have different political parties battling it out to control your behavior...a "team of rivals"…which "you" is you?…we don’t have to fall into this simplistic path of asking, "Is this person a racist or not a racist?"… For better or worse, it’s perfectly possible that there are racist parts of your brain and non-racist parts.
from MSNBC's Cosmic Log by Alan Boyle - recommended by Steven Beckerman
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