Swansea University College of Law and the Centre for Global Legal Priorities, Swansea University, present Minds Brains and Law A Multidisciplinary Conference on Law and Neuroscience
The Abbey, Swansea University
11-12th December 2014

Developments in neuroscience, and in particular the ability of neuroscientific technologies to probe the depths of mind and brain, have growing significance for law. To what degree, for example, should neuroscientific evidence be admissible in courts? For what purposes? If our actions are the result not of conscious choice but rather the work of synapses and neuronal events, can we really say that anyone is responsible for their actions? Such questions are fundamental to criminal law and to the very idea of punishment. And not only in criminal law: cognitive theory may also bear upon contractual issues such as the proper extent of freedom of contract, or the appropriate weight to be given to issues such as error.

The conference will explore these and other conundrums in a professionally and academically integrated setting. In addition it will discuss, and mark the recent publication of, Minds Brains and Law, by Professor Dennis Patterson (Swansea) and Professor Michael Pardo (University of Alabama): a book considered likely to ‘profoundly affect the current perception of the relation between law and neuroscience’ (Peter Hacker, St John’s College,
Oxford).