The Emotional Brain and the Guilty Mind

Novel Paradigms of Culpability and Punishment
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5099-3429-4
Verlag: Hart Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

This book seeks to reframe the normative narrative of the 'culpable person' in American criminal law through a more humanising lens. It embraces such a reframed narrative to revise the criteria of the current voluntarist architecture of culpability and to advance a paradigm of punishment that positions social rehabilitation as its core principle.

The book constructs this narrative by considering behavioural and neuroscientific insights into the functions of emotions, and socio-environmental factors within moral behaviour in social settings. Hence, it suggests culpability notions that reflect a more contextualised view of human conduct, and argues that such revised notions are better suited to the principle of personal guilt. Furthermore, it suggests a model of 'punishment' that values the dynamic power of change of individuals, and acknowledges the importance of social relationships and positive environments to foster patterns of social (re)integration.

Ultimately, this book argues that the potential adoption of the proposed models of culpability and punishment, which view people through a more comprehensive lens, may be a key factor for turning criminal justice into a less punitive, more inclusionary and non-stigmatising system.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Coppola, Federica

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)
• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The Rationalist Soul of Culpability: An Analysis of the Guilty Mind

I. Introduction

II. The 'Broad' Nature of Culpability

III. Autonomy and Rationality: Framing the Model of the 'Person' in Criminal Law

IV. The Voluntarist Architecture of Culpability: Choice, Capacity, and Fair Opportunity

V. Voluntarism and Legal Doctrine

A. Mental Capacity and Excuses: Legal Insanity

B. Fair Opportunity and Excuses: Duress

VI. Voluntarism, Emotions, and Socio-Environmental Factors

A. A Mechanistic Conception of Emotions

i. Emotions and the Law of Homicide

ii. Emotional Incapacity and Legal Insanity

B. The Irrelevance of the Social Environment

VII. Emotions and Socio-environmental Factors in Sentencing

VIII. Conclusion

2. From the Guilty Mind to the Punished Person: Criminal Culpability through the 'Evolution' of Punishment

I. Introduction

II. Rational Individualism and the Enlightenment

III. Between Libertarian and Scientific Individualism

IV. The Rise and Fall of Treatmentist Rehabilitation: From Penal Modernism to the Model Penal Code

V. Voluntarism and the Resurgence of Retribution

VI. Backlashes

A. Harsh Punitiveness

B. Social Exclusion and Stigmatisation

VII. Conclusion

3. Critiques of the Model of the 'Person' in Culpability and Punishment

I. Introduction

II. A Th in Account of Human Agency

A. A Flawed Conception of Emotions

B. The (Political) Exclusion of the Social Context

III. A Static View of the Culpable Person

IV. Dehumanisation

V. Conclusion

4. Emotions, the Social Environment, and the Brain

I. Introduction

II. The Emotional Brain

A. Definition(s) of Emotions

B. Modern Theories of Emotions: The Emotion/Cognition Ambiguous Divide

C. From Emotion Generation to Emotion Regulation: Insights from Neuroscience

D. Emotion and Decision-making

III. Emotions, Empathy, and Moral Behaviour

A. Social/Moral Emotions

B. Empathy

C. The Neuromoral Network

D. Emotions, Morality, and Self-regulation

IV. From the Emotional Brain to the Social Brain: How the Social Environment Becomes Embedded and Informs
Social Behaviour

V. Emotional Plasticity, Social Connections, and Positive Behavioural Change

VI. The Pain of Social Exclusion

VII. Conclusion

5. Holistic and Situated Culpability

I. Introduction

II. Autonomy and Rationality as Multidimensional Concepts: Reframing the 'Person' in Criminal Law

III. Holistic and Situated Culpability: Revising the Architecture of the Current Paradigm

A. Normative Competence

B. Situational Control

C. Situational Control and the Role of Context: Situating the Fair Opportunity to do Otherwise

IV. Implications for Legal Doctrine

A. Legal Insanity

i. Moral Capacity Test

ii. Control Capacity Test

B. Diminished Opportunity, Diminished Culpability: A Re-interpretation of Stephen Morse's Proposed
'Generic Partial Excuse' Doctrine

V. Holistic and Situated Culpability, and the Personal Guilt Principle

VI. Conclusion

6. Social Rehabilitation

I. Introduction

II. Dynamic Personhood

III. Social Rehabilitation: Theory, Pillars, and Normative Value

A. Definition and Distinguishing Features

B. Social Rehabilitation, Dynamic Personhood, and Crime Desistance

C. Social Rehabilitation, Human Dignity, and the (Neuro)Science of Change

D. Social Rehabilitation and Other Justifications for Punishment
i. Retribution

ii. Incapacitation
iii. Special Deterrence

E. Social Rehabilitation and Restorative Justice

IV. Practical Corollaries

A. Humanising Sentencing

B. Banning Mandatory Life Sentences

C. Transforming Incarceration

D. Abolishing (or Profoundly Reforming) Solitary Confinement

V. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Coppola, Federica
Federica Coppola is Robert A Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at the Centre for Science and Society at Columbia University, USA. She was previously Lecturer in Criminal Law and Neuroscience at Columbia Law School.

Federica Coppola is Robert A Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at the Centre for Science and Society at Columbia University, USA.