Freedom, Responsibility, and Neuroscience (Morse/Wax)
Faculty
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| Amy Wax Robert Mundheim Professor of Law awax@law.upenn.edu |
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| Stephen J. Morse Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry; Associate Director, Center for Neuroscience & Society smorse@law.upenn.edu |
Additional Information
Skills Training
Oral Presentations
Expository Writing
Other Professional Skills: Rigorous analysis.
Grading
15% Participation,
85% Paper
With Permission of Instructor
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- If you are absent, due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can ask for volunteers among your classmates to share their notes with you.
- When you are better, please make an appointment to meet with me and I will review/answer questions about what you missed.
Meeting Times/Location
T 4:30PM - 6:30PM
Silverman Hall 270
Category
Seminar
Credits
3.0
This seminar will intensively read two books, Christian List, "Why Free Will is Real," and Joshua May, "Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science." Both are philosophical, but have immense relevance to legal and moral debates about responsibility, agency and freedom. Both are very readable. No prior training in philosophy is necessary.
We will assign the material in weekly chunks. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required. The only other requirement is a paper on a related topic of the student's choice.
Skills Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of the individual course skill; Demonstrate the ability to receive and implement feedback; Demonstrate an understanding of how and when the individual course skill is employed in practice.
Constitutional Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of constitutional law; Perform legal analysis in the context of constitutional law; Communicate effectively on topics related to constitutional law; Demonstrate an understanding of constitutional law affects other areas of law.
Criminal Law and Procedure Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of criminal law and procedure; Perform legal analysis in the context of criminal law and procedure; Communicate effectively on topics related to criminal law and procedure; Demonstrate an understanding of the role criminal law and procedure play in society and their impact on other areas of law and society.
Family Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of family law; Perform legal analysis in the context of family law; Communicate effectively on topics related to family law; Demonstrate an understanding of how family law affects other areas of law.
Health Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of health law and policy; Perform legal analysis in the context of health law and policy; Communicate effectively on topics related to health law and policy; Demonstrate an understanding of the interconnection among health law and policy and issues of access to services, public and private financing of health industries, and the political and economic issues surrounding issues of health law and health services.
Perspectives on the Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of how the law affects, and is affected by, the individual course topic; Perform legal analysis in the context of the individual course topic; Communicate effectively on the legal and other aspects of the individual course topic; Demonstrate the ability to use other disciplines to analyze legal issues relevant to the individual course topic, including economics, philosophy, and sociology, as appropriate.
Public Interest Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of the varied legal aspects of public interest law; Perform legal analysis in the context of public interest law; Communicate effectively on topics related to public interest law; Demonstrate an understanding of how public interest law is connected to and affected by a wide variety of legal and regulatory structures and doctrines.
Textbooks
"Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science" by Joshua May |