Do we have free will?
Published 5:44 pm, Thursday, September 13, 2012
He left a typed note in his home, which police found the day after the shootings. He said he had been overwhelmed recently with violent impulses and had no rational explanation for killing his wife or the others. He had even gone to see a psychiatrist and suspected that something had changed in his brain. He requested that an autopsy be conducted to find out.
He was right. He had a nickel-size tumor pressing on his amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates emotions such as aggression and fear and that, when damaged, causes social and emotional disturbances. Whitman's crimes were likely a result of the damage being done to his brain by the tumor.
Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine who directs the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law, sees Whitman's story as only one of numerous instances in which criminal behaviors can be linked to conditions involving the brain. Moreover, stories like these push researchers - scientists, philosophers, theologians and others - to question a long-held belief about human beings that grounds our legal system and our notions of right and wrong: the belief in free will, or freedom of choice.
What: "The Brain on Trial," a lecture by Dr. David Eagleman, followed by a panel discussion about developments in neuroscience and the implications for the church, mental health and criminal justice.
When: 9 a.m.-noon Sept. 22
Where: Christ Church Cathedral, Reynolds Hall, 1117 Texas
Admission: Free; registration is required at www.christchurchcathedral.org
Sponsor: The Justice and Peace Council and the Houston Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
Eagleman will speak on "The Brain on Trial" in an event sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral's Justice and Peace Council and the Houston Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. After his talk, a panel will discuss the church, mental health and the courts in the context of neuroscience. Panelists include the Rev. George Bement, a counselor at The Beacon Clinic; Dr. Ed Poa, assistant professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine; and 184th Criminal Court Judge Jan Krocker, head of the Harris County Felony Mental Court.
"We all feel we are making free choices," Eagleman says. "But there's a tension between this intuition and our growing knowledge of the brain. … It's important to have a more realistic understanding about how we make choices. In fact, brains are very different from one another, and it's impossible for us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, neurally speaking."
In other words, the fact that you or I wouldn't choose to shoot innocent people doesn't mean that Whitman had the same access to that choice. Whitman's brain is not your brain, or mine. Operating with his brain, instead of my own, I may very well have climbed that tower just like he did. And so would you.
These are uncomfortable notions, mainly because they call into question a fundamental basis of our laws and moral codes, including our criminal justice system: the virtually equal human ability to make free choices. When people commit crimes, they are assumed to have chosen their actions freely and rationally. They are held responsible and sentenced accordingly.
But "choice" for all of us, not just criminals, is determined to a large extent by the circuitry and chemistry of our brains. And people's brains are not equal, despite our commitment to equality under the law.
Eagleman's research, as well as that of other scientists, increasingly demonstrates the biological basis of so much of who we are and what we do. Perhaps the most obvious place in which this is seen is in the use of pharmaceuticals to address psychiatric conditions. Eagleman points out that when threatening, ostracizing, exorcism and even the "talking cure" of therapy don't work to cure schizophrenia, depression, mania or myriad other disorders, lithium, fluoxetine, risperidone and other drugs often work beautifully.
Why? Because human behaviors and thoughts are biologically grounded.
"Acts cannot be understood separately from the biology of the actors," Eagleman says in an article he wrote for Atlantic Monthly about his research. "The more we discover about the circuitry of the brain, the more we tip away from accusations of indulgence, lack of motivation, and poor discipline - and toward the details of biology."
Does this mean Charles Whitman should not be blamed for his actions? Should someone with a brain tumor who commits sexual assault not be held responsible for his crimes?
The question of blame is the wrong question, Eagleman says. The better question is how to create a legal system that reflects emerging brain science. "There are many different reasons why a crime can be committed - a mental illness, a brain tumor, a psychopathy, drugs, the ways the person was raised, past traumatic experiences - and these all call for different approaches for solving the problem."
Eagleman envisions a more nuanced, refined and cost-effective legal system than the current "one size fits all" system, which views all people as equal in possessing the same capacities for choice and behavior management. In the current system, people who commit crimes are mostly sent to some form of incarceration, regardless of the biological or neural conditions that led to their behaviors. Once in prison, very little attention is given to treatment or rehabilitation, especially at the neural level.
Emerging brain science, however, could change that. Criminal sentencing and rehabilitation could be customized and tailored based on each criminal's unique biological, neurological condition. This would save money, reduce recidivism and more effectively treat conditions that are actually treatable.
"America currently leads the world in the percentage of people we put behind bars," Eagleman says. "This has little utility, it's very expensive, and it doesn't solve the problem. As we understand the differences between people, we can customize sentencing and rehabilitation."