As the cognitive sciences reveal more and more to us about the ways in which ours brains function, legal scholars, philosophers, and bioethicists are but a few of the academics that will have accommodate this increasing knowledge into theory and practice. Herein, I argue that several problematic areas in the United States legal system might be ameliorated in coming years by augmenting our conception of mental capacity. While the term is broad and carries many possible applications, I focus on two particular applications, patient decision making capacity in hospitals, and the capacity of mentally ill defendants to form a guilty mindset, or mens rea. Through these two examinations, I show that other closely related terms, such as diminished capacity, mental competency, and legal insanity, already in use in our legal system are insufficient to capture the exact nature of some cases better examined through the lens of actual capacities for thoughts, mental states, or cognitive processes. Additionally, I attempt to indicate a trajectory through which advances in cognitive legal theory might take, guided by an interdisciplinary union between theorists, scientists, and legal scholars.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07182014-142823 |
| Date | 18 July 2014 |
| Creators | Green, Blake Allen |
| Contributors | John Lachs, Larry May |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07182014-142823/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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