“The Neuroscience of Responsibility”—Workshop Report

Nicole A Vincent, Pim Haselager, Gert-Jan Lokhorst

This is a report on the 3-day workshop "The Neuroscience of Responsibility" that was held in the Philosophy Department at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands during February 11th-13th, 2010. The workshop had 25 participants from The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, Canada and Australia, with expertise in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry and law. Its aim was to identify current trends in neurolaw research related specifically to the topic of responsibility, and to foster international collaborative research on this topic. The workshop agenda was constructed by the participants at the start of each day by surveying the topics of greatest interest and relevance to participants. In what follows, we summarize (1) the questions which participants identified as most important for future research in this field, (2) the most prominent themes that emerged from the discussions, and (3) the two main international collaborative research project plans that came out of this meeting.