Behavioral Genetics and Attributions of Moral Responsibility

"DNA Doesn't Lie:" Genetic Essentialism and Determinism in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) (1999-present) is a popular primetime drama that spotlights the use of genetic information to solve crimes. Despite the show's heavy reliance on the forensic use of DNA evidence, the role of genetics in defining family and identity arises in complex ways. Many episodes wrestle with social, ethical, and legal questions that reflect assumptions about genetic essentialism and genetic determinism, but counterarguments about the importance of non-biological relationships, social factors, and legal entitlements are given equal or greater weight. For this study, we identified and viewed 38 episodes from SVU's first twenty seasons centered on genetic themes in non-forensic contexts. Two recurring themes emerged: (1) that the role DNA plays is only one factor in a complex web of biological and social considerations that shape our understanding of kinship; and (2) that genetic predispositions to behavioral traits such as mental illness or violence should not be seen as obscuring the responsibility of personal choice. By treating genetics as a complex source of information requiring social context to be understood, SVU allows audiences to play an active role in interpreting its meaning.

Biological Essentialism Correlates With (But Doesn't Cause?) Intergroup Bias

People with biological essentialist beliefs about social groups also tend to endorse biased beliefs about individuals in those groups, including intensified emphasis on the group, stereotypes, and prejudices. These correlations could be due to biological essentialism causing bias, and some experimental studies support this causal direction. Given this prior work, we expected to find that biological essentialism would lead to increased bias compared with a control condition and set out to extend this prior work in a new direction (regarding "value-based" essentialism). But although the manipulation affected essentialist beliefs and essentialist beliefs were correlated with group emphasis (Study 1), stereotyping (Studies 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c), prejudice (Studies 3a), there was no evidence that biological essentialism caused these outcomes (NTotal = 1,903). Given these findings, our initial research question became moot. We thus focus on reexamining the relationship between essentialism and bias.

Philosophy of psychiatry: theoretical advances and clinical implications

Work at the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry has an extensive and influential history, and has received increased attention recently, with the emergence of professional associations and a growing literature. In this paper, we review key advances in work on philosophy and psychiatry, and their related clinical implications. First, in understanding and categorizing mental disorder, both naturalist and normativist considerations are now viewed as important - psychiatric constructs necessitate a consideration of both facts and values. At a conceptual level, this integrative view encourages moving away from strict scientism to soft naturalism, while in clinical practice this facilitates both evidence-based and values-based mental health care. Second, in considering the nature of psychiatric science, there is now increasing emphasis on a pluralist approach, including ontological, explanatory and value pluralism. Conceptually, a pluralist approach acknowledges the multi-level causal interactions that give rise to psychopathology, while clinically it emphasizes the importance of a broad range of "difference-makers", as well as a consideration of "lived experience" in both research and practice. Third, in considering a range of questions about the brain-mind, and how both somatic and psychic factors contribute to the development and maintenance of mental disorders, conceptual and empirical work on embodied cognition provides an increasingly valuable approach. Viewing the brain-mind as embodied, embedded and enactive offers a conceptual approach to the mind-body problem that facilitates the clinical integration of advances in both cognitive-affective neuroscience and phenomenological psychopathology.

Out of their minds? Externalist challenges for using AI in forensic psychiatry

Harnessing the power of machine learning (ML) and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques promises substantial improvements across forensic psychiatry, supposedly offering more objective evaluations and predictions. However, AI-based predictions about future violent behaviour and criminal recidivism pose ethical challenges that require careful deliberation due to their social and legal significance. In this paper, we shed light on these challenges by considering externalist accounts of psychiatric disorders which stress that the presentation and development of psychiatric disorders is intricately entangled with their outward environment and social circumstances. We argue that any use of predictive AI in forensic psychiatry should not be limited to neurobiology alone but must also consider social and environmental factors. This thesis has practical implications for the design of predictive AI systems, especially regarding the collection and processing of training data, the selection of ML methods, and the determination of their explainability requirements.

Genetic determinism, essentialism and reductionism: semantic clarity for contested science

Research linking genetic differences with human social and behavioural phenotypes has long been controversial. Frequently, debates about the ethical, social and legal implications of this area of research centre on questions about whether studies overtly or covertly perpetuate genetic determinism, genetic essentialism and/or genetic reductionism. Given the prominent role of the '-isms' in scientific discourse and criticism, it is important for there to be consensus and clarity about the meaning of these terms. Here, the author integrates scholarship from psychology, genetics and philosophy of science to provide accessible definitions of genetic determinism, genetic reductionism and genetic essentialism. The author provides linguistic and visual examples of determinism, reductionism and essentialism in science and popular culture, discusses common misconceptions and concludes with recommendations for science communication.

How "is" shapes "ought" for folk-biological concepts

Knowing which features are frequent among a biological kind (e.g., that most zebras have stripes) shapes people's representations of what category members are like (e.g., that typical zebras have stripes) and normative judgments about what they ought to be like (e.g., that zebras should have stripes). In the current work, we ask if people's inclination to explain why features are frequent is a key mechanism through which what "is" shapes beliefs about what "ought" to be. Across four studies (N = 591), we find that frequent features are often explained by appeal to feature function (e.g., that stripes are for camouflage), that functional explanations in turn shape judgments of typicality, and that functional explanations and typicality both predict normative judgments that category members ought to have functional features. We also identify the causal assumptions that license inferences from feature frequency and function, as well as the nature of the normative inferences that are drawn: by specifying an instrumental goal (e.g., camouflage), functional explanations establish a basis for normative evaluation. These findings shed light on how and why our representations of how the natural world is shape our judgments of how it ought to be.

The effect of neuroscientific evidence on sentencing depends on how one conceives of reasons for incarceration

Neuroscientific evidence is increasingly utilized in criminal legal proceedings, prompting discussions about how such evidence might influence legal decisions. The effect of neuroscientific testimony on legal decisions remains uncertain, with some studies finding no effect, others reporting that neuroscience has a mitigating impact, and some indicating neuroscience evidence has an aggravating effect. The present study attempts to explain these divergent findings by showing that the effect of neuroscience evidence on sentencing interacts with beliefs about the goals of the criminal legal system. Using a between-subjects design, participants (N = 784) were asked to assume different rationales for imprisonment, before receiving neuroscientific evidence about antisocial behavior and its potential relation to the defendant. Participants recommended a sentence for the defendant prior to and after reading the neuroscientific evidence. Participants who were given the rationale of retribution as the primary goal of imprisonment significantly decreased their sentencing recommendations. When the goal of imprisonment was to protect the public from dangerous people, participants provided longer post-testimony sentences. Lastly, when the goal was to rehabilitate wrongdoers, participants also increased sentences from pre to post. Thus, the impact of neuroscientific evidence is not monolithic, but can lead to either mitigated or aggravated sentences by interacting with penal philosophy.

True self-attributions shape judgments of blame in the context of addiction-relevant crime

In three studies, we examined how attributing the criminal actions of a drug-addicted offender to their "true self" influences perceptions of their blameworthiness. Study 1 revealed that attributing a drug-addicted offender's crime (theft) to his true self positively predicted judgments of the offender's blameworthiness for the crime. Study 2 employed an experimental design and revealed that information connecting a crime (vs. not connecting) to an addicted offender's true self led to greater judgments of blame, whereas learning that the offender had (vs. did not have) a genetic predisposition to addiction mitigated blame. In Study 3, participants read a vignette about a drug-addicted thief whose addiction began with a doctor's prescription, a drug-addicted thief whose addiction began with recreational drug use, or a thief with no mention of addiction. Participants in the prescription condition, but not the recreational use condition, attributed theft to the offender's true self less and ascribed less blame for the crime, relative to the no addiction condition. Furthermore, participants attributed the addiction less to the offender's true self and assigned less blame to the offender for his addiction in the prescription (vs. recreation) condition. Overall, our studies suggest that lay intuitions about true selves robustly guide people's judgments about blame in the context of crimes involving drug-addicted offenders.

Genetic attributions and perceptions of naturalness are shaped by evaluative valence

Genetic influences on human behavior are increasingly well understood, but laypeople may endorse genetic attributions selectively; e.g., they appear to make stronger genetic attributions for prosocial than for antisocial behavior. We explored whether this could be accounted for by the relationship of genetic attributions to perceptions of naturalness. Participants read about positively or negatively valenced traits or behaviors and rated naturalness and genetic causation. Positively valenced phenotypes were rated significantly more natural and significantly more genetically influenced than negatively valenced phenotypes, and the former asymmetry significantly mediated the latter (Experiments 1 and 2). Participants' interpretation of what "natural" meant was not synonymous with valence or genetic attributions (Experiment 3). People ascribe differing degrees of genetic influence to the same phenotype depending on whether it is expressed in socially favored or disfavored ways, potentially representing a significant threat to public understanding of genetics.

Born which Way? ADHD, Situational Self-Control, and Responsibility

Debates concerning whether Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) mitigates responsibility often involve recourse to its genetic and neurodevelopmental etiology. For such arguments, individuals with ADHD have diminished self-control, and hence do not fully satisfy the control condition for responsibility, when there is a genetic or neurodevelopmental etiology for this diminished capacity. In this article, I argue that the role of genetic and neurobiological explanations has been overstated in evaluations of responsibility. While ADHD has genetic and neurobiological causes, rather than embrace the essentialistic notion that it directly diminishes self-control and, therefore, responsibility, we ought to think of ADHD as constraining only some self-control practices. In particular, situational self-control strategies remain feasible for people with ADHD. However, not all individuals have access to these strategies. I suggest a way to evaluate responsibility in terms of situational rather than agential pleas, which tracks whether the individual had access to self-control behaviors. While I restrict my discussion to ADHD, the access-based approach is also relevant for assessments of responsibility for other cases where self-control failures are at stake.

Asymmetrical genetic attributions for prosocial versus antisocial behaviour

Genetic explanations of human behavior are increasingly common. While genetic attributions for behavior are often considered relevant for assessing blameworthiness, it has not yet been established whether judgments about blameworthiness can themselves impact genetic attributions. Across six studies, participants read about individuals engaging in prosocial or antisocial behavior and rated the extent to which they believed that genetics played a role in causing the behavior. Antisocial behavior was consistently rated as less genetically influenced than prosocial behavior. This was true regardless of whether genetic explanations were explicitly provided or refuted. Mediation analyses suggested that this asymmetry may stem from people’s motivating desire to hold wrongdoers responsible for their actions. These findings suggest that those who seek to study or make use of genetic explanations’ influence on evaluations of (e.g., antisocial) behavior should consider whether such explanations are accepted in the first place, given the possibility of motivated causal reasoning.