Brain Scans Explain and Excuse All Behavior So Just Do What You Want
Brain scans can tell whether you'll become an alcoholic. Brain scans can tell you're a hoarder. Brain scans can tell how old you are. Brain scans can tell if you're being ironic. And now: brain scans can literally give you your freedom.
A new study says that introducing brain scan results as mitigating evidence can totally help explain to a judge why you had to hit that guy and hit that guy and hit that guy and hit that guy. From the NYT:
The new experiment focused on sentencing by judges, not jury verdicts. It found that neurobiological evidence reduced judges' sentences by an average of about 7 percent for a fictional defendant convicted of battery and identified as a psychopath.
This raises fundamental philosophical questions that go to the heart of the debate over free will and determinism which would be very interesting to debate here except for the fact that my brain scan determined I would be a mere internet blogger rather than a philosopher, and among internet blogger brains, we don't "do that."
