Summary Of The Brain On Trial By David Eagleman

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In “The Brain on Trial”, David Eagleman argues that the justice system needs to change due to advances in neuroscience. Eagleman uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to present his viewpoint. The most important one is his use of examples and reasoning. Therefore, by using mostly examples and reasoning, along with direct address to the readers, Eagleman is able to argue that the legal system has to modify its sentencing policies in accordance with advances in neuroscience due to the increase in the amount of accused and/or convicted people who have been found to have harbored some kind of brain disease or damage. In other words, their actions were not entirely voluntary.
Eagleman uses examples of cases and diseases …show more content…

In fact, he states that the legal system has been operating under the assumption that everyone has the ability to think before acting on desires. However, the increasing advances in neuroscience have proven that there are limits to which this assumption can be made. The acts of one person cannot be distinguished from his/her biology. In fact, Eagleman states that if free will does exist, it has very little space to operate in. As an example, he tells the story of Kenneth Parks, a Canadian who killed his mother-in-law and assaulted his father-in-law, while sleepwalking. Because his actions were found to be completely involuntary, he was declared not guilty. Eagleman also cites chorea, a condition in which the actions of the face, hands, arms and legs seem voluntary even though they aren’t. He also cites alien-hand syndrome, a condition developed by split-brain patients in whom the actions of one hand are completely opposite to the actions of the other hand. With this in mind, Eagleman proposes that the legal system should be changed in a way that fits with those advances. He also realizes the implications that these advances could have on the way in which people are legally punished for their crimes. This would challenge the validity of declaring someone guilty for his/her …show more content…

He explicitly states that he is not opposed to incarceration either. He is just opposed to using incarceration as the only practical solution to keep criminals off the streets. Instead, those who are convicted and have brain diseases should be sent to a rehabilitation facility or trained to deprive him/herself from acting on his/her desires or compulsions. By being careful to make these statements in his essay, Eagleman demonstrates that he anticipates the readers’ skeptical reactions towards his statements. He expects readers to feel uncomfortable with his ideas and find them absurd but expects them to read through his essay in order for them to understand the point that he really is trying to get across. Eagleman mainly achieves this through the use of direct address, which makes the audience feel more comfortable accepting his ideas as valid. This, therefore, strengthens his credibility and allows him to defend his point of view more

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