So, if you have a genetic predisposition to aggression, you can get a reduced sentence for murder. In Italy, at least.
As I mention in 13 Things, Patrick Haggard is trying to avoid a similar problem: defence lawyers want to use scientific arguments (such as “he has no free will”) to sway legal judgements. Haggard, an expert on the neuroscience of free will, says he can’t be sure enough of anything that neuroscience is saying to testify about it in court.
What’s more, would we even want him to? I don’t think anybody in their right mind likes the idea of a murderer being released earlier because he is predisposed to aggressive behaviour. And we feel that way precisely because of what the science says, not in spite of it!
At the risk of repeating myself, this all plays into the same tricky territory as the Nutt case. Who says science is a neutral, implication-free pursuit of the truth, or that we should blindly say that if the scientific evidence says something, that trumps experience, culture and context?
On yesterday's George Lamb show, I mentioned how researchers have discovered that there might be gene variants that can make you a bad driver. Does this mean these people should be excused from prosecution if they kill someone in an accident? Or does it mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to drive?
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