1. Legal scholars should employ the insights of behavioral biology
and related fields.
2. Any approach to jurisprudence that
contradicts scientific principles is invalid and worthless.
3. The
human brain, and thus human behavior, evolved in the same manner as physical
characteristics, such as opposable thumbs and the eye. The human brain
evolved through natural selection by increasing reproductive
success.
4. Human behavior is based on both genetics and learning.
5. Because of this, behaviorism (the theory that all human
behavior derives from cultural learning) is invalid. Consequently, any
jurisprudence that is based on behaviorism is illegitimate.
6.
Similarly, scientists have debunked the notion of the Blank Slate. The
self is not just a Blank Slate that society writes upon, but an individual whose
mind is significantly created by biology. Thus, any approach to
jurisprudence that is predicated on the mind as a Blank Slate is
invalid.
7. Because human behavior is significantly shaped by
biology, morality and law are not purely social constructs. Morality and
law developed to aid survival.
8. Scientists have discovered
hundreds of universals, such as including classification, crying, daily
routines, envy, etiquette, facial expressions, jokes, language, law, leaders,
logical notions, play, and social structure. Universals also exist in the
law, including a concept of fairness, distinguishing right and wrong,
inheritance rules, murder proscribed, normal distinguished from abnormal states,
property, rape proscribed, reciprocal exchanges of labor, goods, or services,
redress of wrongs, and some forms of violence proscribed.
9. The
fundamentals of human behavior derived from how our brains evolved with the
details of behavior arising from how a particular culture reacted to how
differing geography, ecology, and social conditions affected
survival.
10. Because the foundation of human behavior is
biological, strong moral relativism does not exist. Since strong moral
relativism is the basis of postmodern legal thought, postmodern approaches to
jurisprudence are fallacious.
11. What is natural is not
necessarily good, and nature does not creates “musts.” What was adaptive
in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness may no longer be proper in modern
life. Obviously, violence was part of our evolutionary past, but this is
not a trait that we want to encourage today. However, biology limits
what is morally possible, and it tells us about human motivation.
Moreover, it is easier to adopt a positive natural trait than repress it because
it is part of the human behavioral system. In other words, it is more
efficient to enforce positive human traits, than repress them.
12.
Behavioral biology can protect against racism better than postmodern legal
thought because it stresses the genetic similarities among racial groups and it
shows that the mind is fundamentally the same in all humans. It also
stresses the importance of the individual and human dignity. On the other
hand, moral relativistic theories provide no protection against racism because
under moral relativism anything goes.
13. Behavioral biology contradicts
the argument that homosexuality is against nature. On the other hand,
homosexuality may have been an evolutionary advantage. Close relatives of
homosexuals may have been able to have more children as a result of their
presence.
14. Human actions are not genetically predetermined.
Genes create a modular mind, and behavior derives from the interaction of these
modules, which are often in conflict. Furthermore, mental mechanisms help
humans learn culture and how to react to the environment.
15. Much
of our law is based on how human behavior developed during the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptedness. For example, several scholars have shown how property
rules developed to aid survival. Similarly, this author has demonstrated
how contract law developed from reciprocal altruism.
16. Rights
come not from God or externally from nature, but from human behavior–how our
minds evolved. These rights are anthropocentric rights.
Edwin Scott
Fruehwald. Neurojurisprudence Website.
Law & Human Behavior: A Study in Behavioral Biology, Neuroscience, and the Law by Edwin Scott Fruehwald (Vandeplas Publishing 2011) (Barnes & Noble) (New)
SSRN page at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=395356
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