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

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.

TWO Upcoming Events (5/7-5/9): “After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar’s, What Is God’s?” & “Law, Religion, and Health in America”

Pre-Conference Session

Hobby_Lobby_slide_270_174_85“After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar’s, What Is God’s?”
May 7, 2015, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East BC
Harvard Law School,
1585 Massachusetts Ave.,
Cambridge, MA [Map]

As prelude to the 2015 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference, “Law, Religion, and Health in America,” please join us for a pre-conference session examining the role of religion in the American public sphere. Our expert panel will discuss the nature of conscience and conscientious objection, religious freedom, and religious accommodation from philosophical, theological, historical, legal, and political perspectives.

Panelists:

  • J. Dionne, Jr., Columnist, The Washington Post; Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
  • Diane L. Moore, Senior Lecturer on Religious Studies and Education and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School
  • Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
  • Frank Wolf, Representative, Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, U.S. House of Representatives, 1981-2015 (retired)
  • Moderator: Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government, Harvard University and Director, Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University
  • Moderator:  Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center

The panel will be followed by a light reception.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limitedRegister online!

 Full Conference:
stethoscope_bible_slide“Law, Religion, and Health in America”
May 8-9, 2015
Wasserstein Hall
Milstein East ABC

Harvard Law School
1585 Massachusetts Ave.,
Cambridge, MA [Map]

Religion and medicine have historically gone hand in hand, but increasingly have come into conflict in the U.S. as health care has become both more secular and more heavily regulated.  Law has a dual role here, simultaneously generating conflict between religion and health care, for example through new coverage mandates or legally permissible medical interventions that violate religious norms, while also acting as a tool for religious accommodation and protection of conscience. 

This conference will identify the various ways in which law intersects with religion and health care in the United States, understand the role of law in creating or mediating conflict between religion and health care, and explore potential legal solutions to allow religion and health care to simultaneously flourish in a culturally diverse nation.

Highlights:

Keynote Lecture: Religious Liberty, Health Care, and the Culture Wars

 Plenary Session: The Contraceptives Coverage Mandate Litigation

The conference is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. View the full agenda and register online!

The pre-conference session is co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center and the Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. Initiative on Religious Freedom and Its Implications at the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University.

The 2015 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference, Law, Religion, and Health in America, is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

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

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.

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlueCheck out the March 20th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

KIngKing v. Burwell and the Future of the Affordable Care Act

April 1, 2015

8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East B
Harvard Law School
1585 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA

A full agenda is available on our website. Register here!

This Term, in King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Affordable Care Act permits the government to extend tax-credit subsidies to citizens of states that have chosen not to establish their own insurance exchange. If the Court rules that these subsidies are not permitted under the law, the fallout will be extensive and possibly devastating to state insurance markets, and countless local, state, and federal actors will have to decide how to move forward.  This event will bring together scholars and practitioners in the fields of law, public health, and economics to evaluate the oral argument in the case and consider how the Court is likely to rule before exploring the likely impacts of a decision against the government and finally beginning to build groundwork for politically-viable fixes at all levels of public and private involvement.

This event is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

For more on news and events at Petrie-Flom, see the full newsletter.

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlueCheck out the March 6th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

KIngKing v. Burwell and the Future of the Affordable Care Act

April 1, 2015

8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East B
Harvard Law School
1585 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA

A full agenda is available on our website. Register here!

This Term, in King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Affordable Care Act permits the government to extend tax-credit subsidies to citizens of states that have chosen not to establish their own insurance exchange. If the Court rules that these subsidies are not permitted under the law, the fallout will be extensive and possibly devastating to state insurance markets, and countless local, state, and federal actors will have to decide how to move forward.  This event will bring together scholars and practitioners in the fields of law, public health, and economics to evaluate the oral argument in the case and consider how the Court is likely to rule before exploring the likely impacts of a decision against the government and finally beginning to build groundwork for politically-viable fixes at all levels of public and private involvement.

This event is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

For more on news and events at Petrie-Flom, see the full newsletter.

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlueCheck out the February 20th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

child_pediatrician_slide_270_200_85_c1FREE REGISTRATION!
Families Matter: Ethically, Legally, and Clinically

March 18 – 20, 2015
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

We often talk, in bioethics, about individual autonomy.  Yet our most challenging ethical, legal and clinical controversies in health care often center around family roles and responsibilities: How should we handle parents’ refusals of medically recommended treatment or, conversely, parents’ requests to medicate or surgically alter their children?  What should be known, and by whom, about a child’s genome, especially when genetic information effects other family members?  What weight should be given to family interests in decisions about a child’s health care?  How should we think about 3-parent embryos? Gamete donors? Gestational mothers? What rights and responsibilities should fathers have with regard to decisions about abortion and adoption, for example, as well as health care decisions for their offspring?  Health care decisions might be messier, but maybe they would also be better if we gave more attention to family matters, and how families matter. Read More

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlueCheck out the February 6th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

genderreassignment_slideGender (Re)assignment:Legal, Ethical, and Conceptual Issues

Tuesday, February 10, 2015, 12:00 PM

Pound Hall 102 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA [Map]

Trans and intersex individuals face a series of legal, medical, and social challenges. This panel explores these overlapping issues, including: healthcare coverage of treatments such as gender reassignment therapy, the legal recognition of trans identities, intersexuality, and asexuality.  Join us for a wide-ranging panel discussion. Panelists include: Noa Ben-AsherElizabeth F. EmensGerald L. NeumanMatthew J.B. Lawrenceand I. Glenn Cohen.

For more on news and events at Petrie-Flom, see the full newsletter.

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlue

Happy New Year! Check out the January 9th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

Harvard Law School 2013-05-03 Petrie-Flom Center Food ConferenceOutbreak: Developing New Medical Products for Epidemics, A lecture by Peter Hutt                                Thursday, January 15, 2015, 12:30 PM                         Hauser Hall 102,                                     1575 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

 

The recent outbreak of Ebola has called attention to the substantial difficulties associated with developing and testing new products for time-sensitive epidemics. What are the legal, ethical, and economic barriers to getting essential treatments and preventative measures from the lab into the hands of patients – and how can they be overcome?

Please join the Petrie-Flom Center for a discussion of these issues by Peter Barton Hutt, Partner at Covington & Burling, LLP, and Lecturer on Law at HLS. Rachel Sachs, Petrie-Flom Center Academic Fellow, will respond.

For more on news and events at Petrie-Flom, see the full newsletter.

Check out the latest news from the Petrie-Flom Center!

PFC_Banner_DrkBlue

Check out the December 19th edition of the Petrie-Flom Center’s biweekly e-newsletter for the latest on events, affiliate news and scholarship, and job and fellowship opportunities in health law policy and bioethics.

Featured in this edition:

Harvard Law School 2013-05-03 Petrie-Flom Center Food ConferenceOutbreak: Developing New Medical Products for Epidemics, A lecture by Peter Hutt                                                                                                            Thursday, January 15, 2015, 12:30pm                           Hauser Hall 102,                                                   1575 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

The recent outbreak of Ebola has called attention to the substantial difficulties associated with developing and testing new products for time-sensitive epidemics. What are the legal, ethical, and economic barriers to getting essential treatments and preventative measures from the lab into the hands of patients – and how can they be overcome?

Please join the Petrie-Flom Center for a discussion of these issues by Peter Barton Hutt, Partner at Covington & Burling, LLP, and Lecturer on Law at HLS. Rachel Sachs, Petrie-Flom Center Academic Fellow, will respond.

For more on news and events at Petrie-Flom, see the full newsletter.