Interview with Professor Joshua Greene

From The Project on Law & Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS):

Here is an outstanding interview of Joshua Greene by Harvard Law Student Jeff Pote. The interview, titled “On Moral Judgment and Normative Questions” lasts just over 58 minutes. It was conducted as part of the Law and Mind Science Seminar at Harvard.

Bio:

Joshua D. Greene is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He received his A.B. at Harvard University in 1997 where he was advised by Derek Parfit. He received his PhD in Philosophy at Princeton University in 2002 having written a dissertation on the foundation of ethics advised by David Lewis and Gilbert Harman. From 2002 to 2006, when he began at Harvard, he studied as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton in the Neuroscience of Cognitive Control Laboratory under Jonathan Cohen. He is currently the Director of the Moral Cognition Lab.

* * *

* * *

Table of contents:

• 00:00 — Title Frame
• 00:23 — Introduction
• 00:54 — How did your professional interests develop?
• 04:58 — What are the questions that interest you?
• 06:07 — What research projects are you currently working on?
• 08:32 — Could you describe the original experiment that supported a dual-process view of moral judgment?
• 13:13 — Has further research supported the dual-process view of moral judgment?
• 16:43 — Could you explain how this, or any, psychological understanding could bear on normative questions of law and policy?
• 24:39 — Could you provide an example of a situation where we should not rely on “blunt intuition?”
• 30:42 — Can you see other places where psychological research illuminates normative questions of law or policy?
• 37:40 — Do any of our moral judgments represent an objective moral reality (or moral facts)?
• 44:38 — Could you provide an example of a “moral objectivist” solution that you find unpersuasive?
• 49:33 — What is the problem of “free will” and what is its relevance for legal responsibility and punishment?
• 56:26 — How will this emerging scientific understanding of the human animal affect law and moral philosophy?

Duration: 58:04

* * *

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Joshua Greene To Speak at Harvard Law School,” “2010 Law and Mind Sciences Conference,”  “The Interior Situation of Honesty (and Dishonesty),” “Moral Psychology Primer,” “Law & the Brain,” “Pinker on the Situation of Morality,” “The Science of Morality,” and “Your Brain and Morality.”

Thomas Nadelhoffer on Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Law

From The Project on Law & Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS):

Below is a fascinating and enlightening 51-minute interview of Thomas Nadelhoffer by Harvard Law Student Brian Wood.  The interview, titled “Developments in Neuroscience and their Implications for Criminal Law,” lasts just over 51 minutes.  It was conducted the Law and Mind Science Seminar at Harvard (taught by Situationist Editor Jon Hanson).

Bio:

Situationist Contributor Dr. Thomas Nadelhoffer was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He has earned degrees in philosophy from The University of Georgia (BA), Georgia State University (MA), and Florida State University (PhD). Since 2006, he has been an assistant professor of philosopy and a member of the law and policy faculty at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is currently at Duke University as a Visiting Scholar in the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

His main areas of research include moral psychology, the philosophy of action, free will, punishment theory, and neurolaw. He is particularly interested in research at the cross roads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind. His articles have appeared in journals such as Analysis, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Mind & Language, Neuroethics, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He is the coordinator of the blogs Flickers of Freedom and the Law and Neuroscience Blog. He is also a contributing author to blogs such as The Situationist, The Leiter Reports, and Experimental Philosophy.

* * *

Vodpod videos no longer available.

* * *

Table of contents:

• What have you been working on recently?  0:22
• What are some areas of the legal system in which this science is relevant? 1:07
• What are the problems with the traditional approaches to using science in the criminal system, and how are new scientific methods relevant to fixing them? 2:15
• How could these newer scientific methods be employed? 4:09
• What are the rationales society has traditionally cited as justifying criminal punishment? 6:55
• Can you explain what Compatibalism is? 10:17
• Aren’t there problems with notions of moral responsibility under Compatibalism? 12:26
• How do neuroscience, Compatibalism, and determinism relate to our notions of law? 12:55
• What do you see as the problems with the classic approaches to punishment? 15:25
• Is there anything especially strange about Retributivism to you? 20:37
• Can you detail what you believe to be the just reasons for punishment and how society can punish people more justly? 23:41
• In your view, how would you punish psychopaths under the consequentialist rationale? 30:40
• Can you give an example of the distinctions psychopaths cannot draw? 34:50
• What’s the most interesting experiment you have conducted? 37:01
• Do you think these participants just misunderstood what determinism is? 38:15
• What qualities do you believe you and other researchers and philosophers need to be successful? 40:03
• How has what you have learned through your research influenced the way you live you life? 41:35
• How do you see the relationship of law and mind science developing in the future? 44:55

The Situation of “Being Forced”

From Youtube: Experimental philosophers take on one of philosophy’s most revered figures, Aristotle, by seeing if ordinary people agree with Aristotle’s conclusions about when one is forced to do something and when one does it freely.

* * *

* * *

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Video Introduction to Experimental Philosophy” and “Quick Introduction to Experimental (Situationist?) Philosophy.”

Video Introduction to Experimental Philosophy

Comedian Eugene Mirman explaining a famous study from the new ‘experimental philosophy’ movement.

* * *

For more on experimental philosophy, see “Quick Introduction to Experimental (Situationist?) Philosophy” and visit the blogs, Experimental Philosophy and The Garden of Forking Paths.

Morality and Religion

For a worthwhile discussion on the bloggingheads, check out this exchange between psychologist Paul Bloom and experimental philsopher Joshua Knobe.