Category: Amanda Pustilnik

TOMORROW at 12PM: Moral Decisions in the Law: What’s the Brain Got to Do with It?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Moral Decisions in the Law: What’s the Brain Got to Do with It?

brainscan_colored_slide_270_174_85April 8, 2015 12:00 PM

Harvard Law School
Wasserstein Hall, Room 3019
1585 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA [Map]

Law – particularly criminal law – is infused with moral judgment and calls upon prosecutors, judges, and jurors to make morally-informed decisions. But where does morality come from? How do we “do” moral decision-making? Come join experimental philosopher and neuroscientist Fiery Cushman for a fascinating and provocative discussion of the current state of neuroscience research on morality. Dr. Cushman will present his computational models of learning and moral decision-making to describe how we learn what morality is within our own cultures, how we internalize moral rules, and how we make moral judgments about others. Amanda Pustilnik, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience at the Petrie-Flom Center and the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, will respond.

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

 Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience.

NEXT WEEK (4/8): Moral Decisions in the Law: What’s the Brain Got to Do with It?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Moral Decisions in the Law: What’s the Brain Got to Do with It?

brainscan_colored_slide_270_174_85April 8, 2015 12:00 PM

Harvard Law School
Wasserstein Hall, Room 3019
1585 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA [Map]

Law – particularly criminal law – is infused with moral judgment and calls upon prosecutors, judges, and jurors to make morally-informed decisions. But where does morality come from? How do we “do” moral decision-making? Come join experimental philosopher and neuroscientist Fiery Cushman for a fascinating and provocative discussion of the current state of neuroscience research on morality. Dr. Cushman will present his computational models of learning and moral decision-making to describe how we learn what morality is within our own cultures, how we internalize moral rules, and how we make moral judgments about others. Amanda Pustilnik, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience at the Petrie-Flom Center and the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, will respond.

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

 Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience.

Tomorrow (2/12): A Dialogue on Agency, Responsibility, and the Brain with Stephen Morse

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

MorseA Dialogue on Agency, Responsibility, and the Brain with Stephen Morse

Thursday, February 12, 2015, 12:00 PM

Wasserstein Hall, 3019                       Harvard Law School                                       1585 Massachusetts Avenue                     Cambridge, MA 02138 [Map]

Join guest speaker Professor Stephen J. Morse, JD, PhD, former MacArthur Foundation Law & Neuroscience Project co-Chair and co-Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Society and CLBB Faculty members Judge Nancy A. Gertner and Professor Amanda C. Pustilnik for a conversation about how – or whether – new knowledge about the brain is changing legal concepts of agency and responsibility.

Stephen J. Morse is the Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry; and Associate Director, Center for Neuroscience & Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Morse works on problems of individual responsibility and agency. Morse was Co-Director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. Morse is a Diplomate in Forensic Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology; a past president of Division 41 of the American Psychological Association; a recipient of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology’s Distinguished Contribution Award; a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mental Health and Law; and a trustee of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience.

Upcoming Event (2/12): A Dialogue on Agency, Responsibility, and the Brain with Stephen Morse

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

MorseA Dialogue on Agency, Responsibility, and the Brain with Stephen Morse

Thursday, February 12, 2015, 12:00 PM

Wasserstein Hall, 3019                       Harvard Law School                                       1585 Massachusetts Avenue                     Cambridge, MA 02138 [Map]

Join guest speaker Professor Stephen J. Morse, JD, PhD, former MacArthur Foundation Law & Neuroscience Project co-Chair and co-Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Society and CLBB Faculty members Judge Nancy A. Gertner and Professor Amanda C. Pustilnik for a conversation about how – or whether – new knowledge about the brain is changing legal concepts of agency and responsibility.

Stephen J. Morse is the Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry; and Associate Director, Center for Neuroscience & Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Morse works on problems of individual responsibility and agency. Morse was Co-Director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. Morse is a Diplomate in Forensic Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology; a past president of Division 41 of the American Psychological Association; a recipient of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology’s Distinguished Contribution Award; a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mental Health and Law; and a trustee of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience.

Exploring the Brain in Pain: An Applied Neuroscience & Law Initiative

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Amanda C. Pustilnik

I am excited to join the Petrie-Flom Center as the first Senior Fellow in Law & Applied Neuroscience. This fellowship is the product of an innovative partnership between the Petrie-Flom Center and the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior (CLBB) at Massachusetts General Hospital. This partnership aims to translate developments in neuroscience into legal applications, remaining sensitive to the normative dimensions of many – if not all – legal questions. The field of law & neuroscience is large and growing, addressing questions that intersect with nearly every area of law and a huge range of social and human concerns. CLBB is bringing together scientists, bioethicists, and legal scholars to look at questions ranging from criminal responsibility and addiction, to mind-reading and brain-based lie detection, to how the brain’s changes over our lifecourse affect our capacities to make decisions.

In the first year of this joint venture, we will be focusing on a set of issues with potentially huge implications for the law: The problem of pain. Pain is pervasive in law, from tort to torture, from ERISA to expert evidence. Pain and suffering damages in tort add up to billions of dollars per year; disability benefits, often awarded to people who suffer or claim to have chronic pain, amount to over one hundred billion annually. Yet legal doctrines and decision-makers often understand pain poorly, relying on concepts that are out of date and that can cast suspicion on pain sufferers as having a problem that is “all in their heads.”

Now, brain imaging technologies are allowing scientists to see the brain in pain – and to reconceive of many types of pain as diseases of the central nervous system. Brain imaging shows that, in many cases, the problem is literally in sufferers’ heads: Long-term pain changes the structure and function of the brain, perpetuating non-adaptive pain and interfering with cognitive and emotional function. Read More

Introducing New Blogger Amanda C. Pustilnik

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Amanda C. Pustilnik is joining Bill of Health as a regular contributor.

Pustilnik Amanda C. Pustilnik is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law, where she teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and Law & Neuroscience. Her current research includes work on models of mind in criminal law, evidentiary issues presented by neuroscientific work on memory, and the role of pain in different legal domains. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, she was a Climenko fellow and lecturer on law at Harvard Law School. Before entering the legal academy, she practiced litigation with Covington & Burling and with Sullivan & Cromwell, where she focused on white collar criminal matters. Prof. Pustilnik also clerked for the Hon. Jose A. Cabranes on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated Yale Law School and Harvard College, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, Emmanuel College, in the History and Philosophy of Science department. Prof. Pustilnik has also worked at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant and is a member of the board of directors of the John Harvard Scholarships. During Spring 2015, Professor Pustilnik will be serving as a Senior Fellow in Law & Neuroscience of the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital.  This Center is a collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Law School.

Selected Publications: Read More