신경과학과 법을 둘러싼 논쟁

Recently, enormous progress in neuroscience has been made to enhance our understanding of the human brain and its functions, but this progress also provokes various controversies and debates concerning the implications of neuroscience on legal and ethical issues. Scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds such as neuroscience, neuroethics, philosophy, and law have participated in such controversies and debates. In order for legal scholars to find legal implications from them, it is necessary not only to embrace novel neuroscientific information but to understand various points in such disputes more analytically. For this purpose, this paper classifies complex issues emerging from the interactions between neuroscience and law into three topics: 1) the problematization of the concept of free will as a prerequisite for legal responsibility, 2) the disagreement of the legal efficacy of PET or fMRI brain images in court, and 3) the desirable relationship between neuroscience and the law in moral, legal and social senses. By analyzing and discussing these three important topics, this study will elucidate various ways in which new brain science interacts with law, and help to develop an appropriate criteria for the adoption neuroscience into the legal system of our society.