ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the approach is neuroethical as well as neurolegal, because the meaning of neuroscience for criminal responsibility is the topic of interest. The debate on the neuro-threat to free will is just one topic in neuroethics, but it is a central issue with respect to neuroscience and criminal responsibility. One might argue that, although in the teacher’s case a psychiatric diagnosis was made, pedophilia, it is basically a neurological case, involving the effects of a brain tumor, rather than the effects of a strictly psychiatric disorder. The chapter discusses the central conceptual problem concerning criminal responsibility: free will and the brain. Looking more carefully at the M’Naghten Rule, it becomes evident that what counts – apart from a mental disorder resulting in a defect of reason – is a lack of knowledge: knowledge about the nature and quality or wrongfulness of the act.
