On April 25th, 2013, CLBB will host an evening of discussion with experts from different disciplines to understand the roots of human behavior, and how neuroscience may be able to inform so-called “Models of the Mind” used in the justice system.
The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Edward Hundert, who in the 50-minute talk here presents a synthesis of ideas about the mind from philosophers, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists in an effort to find a common language through which these diverse views can contribute insights to one another. Drawing on thinkers from Plato, Kant, Freud, Hegel, and Hume to modern neuroscientists and researchers in artificial intelligence, Dr. Hundert compares the ways various fields interpret the “nature-nurture debate” around the question of how our basic concepts of the world find their way into our brains. He concludes by comparing all of these cognitive theories of knowledge with moral theories of justice, challenging us to appreciate just how interactive the relationship is – in the realms of both knowledge and values – between the human brain and the world we share.
A psychiatrist, ethicist, and educator, Dr. Hundert is Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning as well as Senior Lecturer in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the faculty of the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. Dr. Hundert holds degrees in mathematics and the history of science and medicine from Yale University, in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, and in medicine from Harvard Medical School. Many of the ideas in this lecture were first put forward in his books Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience: Three Approaches to the Mind (Oxford University Press) and Lessons from an Optical Illusion: On Nature and Nurture, Knowledge and Values (Harvard University Press).