Summary Of The Brain On Trial By David Eagleman

Even though some people view it's unfair to bring a scientific approach into a courtroom sentencing, David Eagleman states “It is time to understand the advances in brain science”. Society needs to be cognizant of every experience throughout a person's life can modify their genetic code. David Eagleman associate professor at Stanford University, a leading neuroscientist, and the writer of “The Brain on Trial”, states “With a forward thinking legal system in place informed by scientific insights into the brain, we can allow courtrooms to stop using prisons as a one size fits all solution. Presently, our prisons are overcrowded with drug addicts and the mentally ill. With a better rehabilitation in place for these mentally ill patients, they …show more content…

With that being said, our legal system presumes that we are all practical reasoners with free will, but this concept has flaws and, therefore, is problematic. Eagleman uses patients of Tourette’s Syndrome as an example. To illustrate, Tourette patients prove actions occur in the absence of free will or free won’t. (Eagleman) Unfortunately, these patients cannot control what subconscious parts of their brain have decided to do. In a like manner, another phenomenon in people is a condition known as chorea, a condition where an individual has involuntary actions of the hands, arms, legs, and facial expressions. (Eagleman) “While patients with this condition claim they have no restraint over these actions, they cannot not do these actions, these movements are not theirs to freely start or stop”. With that said, Eagleman illustrates that high-level behaviors can take place in absence of free will or free won’t. With this in mind, hidden drives and desires can lurk in the minds of these people