Nicole Vincent
I am a philosopher. The concept of responsibility occupies centre stage in my scholarly pursuits, which span across the fields of neuroethics, neurolaw, ethics, philosophy of tort and criminal law, and political philosophy. My approach is analytic and empirically-informed, and my past work has devoted equal attention to tackling conceptual, normative, metaphysical and practical problems. For example, I have written about such topics as the different meanings of the term “responsibility”, the compatibility of responsibility and determinism, medical interventions to make criminal offenders competent for execution, how neuroscience and behavioural genetics fit into criminal responsibility adjudication procedures, tort liability for failure to use cognitive enhancement medications, and whether people who live unhealthy lifestyles should have de-prioritised access to public health care resources and to organ transplants.
In 2007 I obtained my PhD in philosophy of law from the University of Adelaide with a dissertation entitled “Responsibility, Compensation and Accident Law Reform”. From late 2007 until early 2011 I worked in the Philosophy Section at Technische Universiteit Delft in The Netherlands on a neurolaw research project entitled “The Brain and The Law”. Since February 2011 I have been a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia working on a project entitled “Reappraising the Capacitarian Foundation of Neurolaw”. I retain a concurrent appointment at Technische Universiteit Delft where I head up the research project “Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and legal responsibility”.
In August 2013 I will join the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University as Associate Professor of Philosophy, Law and Neuroscience.
Please see my personal home page for a list of publications and presentations. http://nicolevincent.net/
Phone: +31654363692
Address: Department of Philosophy
Macquarie University
Sydney NSW 2109
AUSTRALIA
In 2007 I obtained my PhD in philosophy of law from the University of Adelaide with a dissertation entitled “Responsibility, Compensation and Accident Law Reform”. From late 2007 until early 2011 I worked in the Philosophy Section at Technische Universiteit Delft in The Netherlands on a neurolaw research project entitled “The Brain and The Law”. Since February 2011 I have been a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia working on a project entitled “Reappraising the Capacitarian Foundation of Neurolaw”. I retain a concurrent appointment at Technische Universiteit Delft where I head up the research project “Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and legal responsibility”.
In August 2013 I will join the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University as Associate Professor of Philosophy, Law and Neuroscience.
Please see my personal home page for a list of publications and presentations. http://nicolevincent.net/
Phone: +31654363692
Address: Department of Philosophy
Macquarie University
Sydney NSW 2109
AUSTRALIA
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For instance, might some people – e.g., surgeons working long shifts in hospital – have a responsibility to take cognitive enhancement drugs to boost their performance, and would they be negligent or even reckless if they failed or refused to do this? Alternatively, once enhanced, would people acquire new and possibly greater responsibilities in light being more capable? Could they be blamed for failing to discharge those greater responsibilities, and does this make them more vulnerable to liability if things go wrong?
The off-label use of prescription drugs such as Modafinil and Ritalin is on the rise, but although the current literature covers issues such as safety, effectiveness, coercion and justice, these drugs’ effects on people’s responsibility have not been investigated. The standards which the law currently uses to assess people’s responsibility presuppose that human mental capacities are capped at a particular level. But if humans can surpass this level of mental capacity through cognitive enhancement, then this calls for a re-assessment of those standards.
For instance, might some people – e.g., surgeons working long shifts in hospital – have a responsibility to take cognitive enhancement drugs to boost their performance, and would they be negligent or even reckless if they failed or refused to do this? Alternatively, once enhanced, would people acquire new and possibly greater responsibilities in light being more capable? Could they be blamed for failing to discharge those greater responsibilities, and does this make them more vulnerable to liability if things go wrong?
The off-label use of prescription drugs such as Modafinil and Ritalin is on the rise, but although the current literature covers issues such as safety, effectiveness, coercion and justice, these drugs’ effects on people’s responsibility have not been investigated. The standards which the law currently uses to assess people’s responsibility presuppose that human mental capacities are capped at a particular level. But if humans can surpass this level of mental capacity through cognitive enhancement, then this calls for a re-assessment of those standards.
ABSTRACT (from the published version):
Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label "neuroscience"; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks - at least one for each responsibility concept - and, I will suggest, a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question.