The role of law and lawyers in neuroethics discussion
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1
University of Tokyo, Department of Law, Japan
The advance of neuroscience, BMI in particular, may pose hard issues in various fields including law. First, since law is the minimum of ethics, the participation of lawyers would be necessary for neuroethics discussion. In that case, it should be noted that law has not only played a regulatory role with certain sanctions, but also a supportive role for the advancement of technology and innovation. For instance, lawyers can make advice on how the governance of research in the neuroscience should be established through learning lessons of previous accidents or scandals in research.
Second, lawyers are forced to take interest in the development of neuroscience, since it would give much influence upon the law itself. There are many possibilities in the future. It could make a great change in the process of trial, for example. So far the credibility of witness testimony is up to the jury in the U.S., and to the judge in Japan and many other countries. The neuroscience could make the reliability more visualized and objectively done. In the substantive law area, the influence could be much more profound. We assume that the defendant should have capacity of liability in civil cases, and capacity of criminal responsibility in criminal cases. It is the most basic ethical principle of law. The advancement of neuroscience, however, would change the fundamental element of law.
These are just two simple reasons for lawyers to get involved in neuroethics discussions. It is always hard to find out good lawyers, though, and even good lawyers would find these issues a great challenge.
Conference:
2015 International Workshop on Clinical Brain-Machine Interfaces (CBMI2015), Tokyo, Japan, 13 Mar - 15 Mar, 2015.
Presentation Type:
Oral presentation / lecture
Topic:
Clinical Brain-Machine Interfaces
Citation:
Higuchi
N
(2015). The role of law and lawyers in neuroethics discussion.
Conference Abstract:
2015 International Workshop on Clinical Brain-Machine Interfaces (CBMI2015).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.218.00031
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Received:
23 Apr 2015;
Published Online:
29 Apr 2015.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Norio Higuchi, University of Tokyo, Department of Law, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, nhiguchi@j.u-tokyo.ac.jp