Neuroscience, Moral Psychology and Law: First Lines on the (Im)possibility of Rational Persuasion

Abstract

Although Law is often influenced by values, nowadays a widely held expert opinion is that the application of law is a result or rational reasoning. It is believed that those applying legal rules consider the conflicting arguments from both parties, and come to a decision by rational means. Nevertheless, new discoveries from Neuroscience and Moral Psychology show that many of these moral judgments that inevitably underlie legal judgments occur unconsciously and not rationally. Once such judgments are passed, they are immune to any dissenting rational  argument.  Through  literature  review,  we  discuss  in  the  present  paper  some derivations  of  these  new  findings  to  Law.  For  instance,  it  is  advisable  that  deeper philosophical training is installed in professional qualification for lawyers and magistrates, making  these  people  more  open-minded  towards  reasons  against  their  own  moral convictions. Furthermore, it is important to consider limiting the mandate of Hight Courts Ministers, in order to prevent that the moral convictions of these people pervade for too long.