Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Behavior Genetics and Agent Responsibility

  • Submitted Paper
  • Published:
Zeitschrift für Ethik und Moralphilosophie Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Recent evidence from psychological science and genetics suggests that genetic influences underlie all behavior as well as the most worrisome social inequalities. This may be considered to call into question traditional conceptions of agency and agent responsibility. They could be thought to be undermined if gene-environment transactions were sufficiently potent in influencing behaviors. Here we identify the theoretical parameters that require investigation and the conceptual challenges to agent responsibility that arise from research in behavior genetics. We (i) introduce the empirical basis of the discussion, (ii) identify the particular questions that arise from considering the connection between behavior genetics and agent responsibility in the context of the legal system, (iii) bring into focus the general challenges to agent responsibility, and (iv) outline a potential resolution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Additionally or alternatively, consequentialist considerations may give reason to assign blame, praise, punishment, or reward. With regard to punishment, such considerations are typically discussed under the header of deterrence. Here we focus on questions of agent responsibility that are distinct from issues in deterrence theory.

  2. Bobzien (1998).

  3. Feresin (2009). This sentence reduction was specified independently of a different sentence reduction that was made due to the defendant’s psychiatric illness.

  4. See Aspinwall et al. (2012a, 2012b) but also Denno (2013). For a discussion, see section 3 below.

  5. Doudna and Sternberg (2017).

  6. See e.g. Wasserman and Wachbroit (2001), Wasserman (2004, 2006).

  7. See Farahany and Coleman (2006, Part II), Farahany and Bernet (2006), Bernet et al. (2007), Denno (2006, 2011) and also Coffey (1993), Johnson (1998), Stone (2003), and Feresin (2009).

  8. Farahany and Bernet (2006) and Farahany and Coleman (2006, Part II). See also Denno (2009) and Baum (2013). See also the literature reviewed in Scurich and Appelbaum (2016, p. 141-3).

  9. Scurich and Appelbaum (2017, p. 772) contended that the “introduction of genetic evidence of a predisposition to violent or impulsive behaviour is on the rise in criminal trials” but argued that “its use in the legal process is likely to diminish” because, “a panoply of data suggests that such evidence is ineffective at reducing judgements of culpability and punishment”. Morse (2011, p. 208) lamented that “[i]t is seldom explained why a genetically driven predisposition justifies a sentence reduction”. That said, he noted that “[t]he use of G x E for making decisions about criminal responsibility and sentencing will surely increase”.

  10. But also see Scurich and Appelbaum (2017, 2016); Appelbaum et al. (2015); as well as Appelbaum and Scurich (2014, p. 96); and Denno (2013). For evidence of the continued relevance of behavior genetic information in the law see González-Tapia and Obsuth (2015); Kogel and Westgeest (2015); Farahany (2015); as well as McSwiggan et al. (2017).

  11. See Greene and Cohen (2004, p. 1781) and Kaebnick (2006, p. 223-224).

  12. See e.g. Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer and Turner (2006), Knobe (2014); Nahmias et al. (2014) as well as Scurich and Appelbaum (2016, p. 155). Knobe (2014, section 2) reported the surprising yet well replicated result that study participants who are asked to pass judgement on agents who are stipulated to be fully casually determined tend to assign them full moral responsibility. However, as Nichols and Knobe (2007) have observed, this result seems to persist only in cases where subjects pass judgment on concrete agents and cases. The abstract question of whether persons are fully morally responsible in a causally determined universe elicits the opposite and incompatibilist response. Knobe (2014, section 2) reported that no conclusive explanation of the divergence between abstract and concrete judgements has been presented. The intuitive explanation that concrete cases elicit emotional responses which bias judgements, while abstract cases elicit no such responses has been observed to be insufficient to explain the discrepancy (Knobe 2014). Knobe (2014, note 2) hypothesized that people simply do not rely on deterministic understandings of human action if the case presented is sufficiently concrete. Standard non-deterministic interpretations of human decision-making is hypothesized to override descriptions of determinism in these cases. According to Murray and Nahmias (2014) the incompatibilist judgements of study participants (holding agents not to be morally responsible in a deterministic universe) can be explained by a mistaken interpretation of determinism. The inferred mistake lies in interpreting “determinism to imply that agents’ mental states are bypassed by the causal chains that lead to their behavior” (p. 434). Once study participants realize that no such bypassing occurs and that human decision-making remains operative and tied to mental states even in a deterministic universe “significantly higher scores for agents’ moral responsibility, free will, and blameworthiness in the abstract scenarios” result (p. 452). These differences in scholars’ interpretations of study participants’ attributions aside, acceptance of determinism does not necessarily lead them to reject agency and responsibility.

  13. Appelbaum (2014, p. 946-7).

  14. On the subject of prediction see e.g. Wasserman (2004), Walsh (2014), and Buckholtz and Meyer-Lindenberg (2014).

  15. Kane (1996, p. 35). See also Kane (2011a, 2011b).

  16. See, for instance, Wolf (1990, p. 7-15).

References

  • Appelbaum, Paul S. 2005. Behavioral genetics and the punishment of crime. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) 56 (1): 25–27. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.56.1.25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Paul S. 2014. The double helix takes the witness stand: behavioral and neuropsychiatric genetics in court. Neuron 82 (5): 946–949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.026.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Paul S., and Nicholas Scurich. 2014. Impact of behavioral genetic evidence on the adjudication of criminal behavior. The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 42 (1): 91–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelbaum, Paul S., Nicholas Scurich, and Raymond Raad. 2015. Effects of Behavioral Genetic Evidence on Perceptions of Criminal Responsibility and Appropriate Punishment. Psychology, public policy, and law: an official law review of the University of Arizona College of Law and the University of Miami School of Law 21 (2): 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000039.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lisa G. Aspinwall; Teneille R. Brown; James Tabery. (2012b). Supplementary Materials for: The Double-Edged Sword: Does Biomechanism Increase or Decrease Judges’ Sentencing of Psychopaths? http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2012/08/15/337.6096.846.DC1/1219569.Aspinwall.SM.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lisa G. Aspinwall; Teneille R. Brown; James Tabery. (2012a). The double-edged sword: does biomechanism increase or decrease judges’ sentencing of psychopaths? Science (New York, N.Y.) 337 (6096): 846–849. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1219569.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum, Matthew L. 2013. The Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Genetic Predisposition to Impulsive Violence: Is It Relevant to Criminal Trials? Neuroethics 6 (2): 287–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-011-9108-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernet, William, Cindy L. Vnencak-Jones, Nita Farahany, and Stephen A. Montgomery. 2007. Bad nature, bad nurture, and testimony regarding MAOA and SLC6A4 genotyping at murder trials. Journal of forensic sciences 52 (6): 1362–1371. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00562.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and freedom in stoic philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, Teneille R., Jim Tabery, and Lisa Aspinwall. 2016. Understanding Validity in Empirical Legal Research: The Case for Methodological Pluralism in Assessing the Impact of Science in Court. Hastings LJ 67: 1067–1086.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, Allen, Dan. W. Brock, and Daniel Wikler. 2000. From chance to choice. Genetics and justice, 1st edn. Cambridge u. a.: Cambridge Univ. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Buckholtz, Joshua W., and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg. 2014. MAOA and the Bioprediction of Antisocial Behavior: Science Fact and Science Fiction. In Bioprediction, biomarkers, and bad behavior: Scientific, legal, and ethical challenges, ed. Ilina Singh, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Julian Savulescu. Oxford series in neuroscience, law, and philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christopher F. Chabris; James J. Lee; David Cesarini; Daniel J. Benjamin; David I. Laibson. 2015. The Fourth Law of Behavior Genetics. Current directions in psychological science 24 (4): 304–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415580430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coffey, Maureen. 1993. The Genetic Defense: Excuse or Explanation? William & Mary Law Review 35 (1): 353.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, Terrence William. 2012. Incomplete nature. How mind emerged from matter, 1st edn. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denno, Deborah W. 2006. Revisiting the Legal Link Between Genetics and Crime. Law and Contemporary Problems 69 (1): 209–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denno, Deborah W. 2009. Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: 1994–2007. In The impact of behavioral sciences on criminal law, ed. Nita A. Farahany, 317–354. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Denno, Deborah W. 2011. Courts’ Increasing Consideration of Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: Results of a Longitudinal Study. Michigan State Law Review 2011: 967–1047.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denno, Deborah W. 2013. What real-world criminal cases tell us about genetics evidence. Hastings LJ 64: 1591–1618.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doudna, Jennifer A., and Samuel H. Sternberg. 2017. A crack in creation. Gene editing and the unthinkable power to control evolution: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farahany, Nita A. 2015. Neuroscience and behavioral genetics in US criminal law: An empirical analysis. Journal of law and the biosciences 2 (3): 485–509. https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsv059.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farahany, Nita, and William Bernet. 2006. Behavioural Genetics in Criminal Cases: Past, Present and Future. Genomics, Society & Policy 2 (1): 72–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farahany, Nita, and James Coleman. 2006. Genetics and Responsibility: To Know the Criminal From the Crime. Law and Contemporary Problems 69 (1/2): 115–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feresin, Emiliano. 2009. Lighter sentence for murderer with ‘bad genes’. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2009.1050.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • John Martin Fischer; Mark Ravizza. 1998. Responsibility and control. A theory of moral responsibility. Cambridge studies in philosophy and law: Cambridge Univ. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, Harry G. 1969. Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. The Journal of Philosophy 66 (23): 829–839. https://doi.org/10.2307/2023833.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, Harry G. 1971. Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1): 5–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024717.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • González-Tapia, María Isabel, and Ingrid Obsuth. 2015. “Bad genes” & criminal responsibility. International journal of law and psychiatry 39: 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2015.01.022.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greene, Joshua, and Jonathan Cohen. 2004. For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 359 (1451): 1775–1785. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2004.1546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hagerty, Barbara Bradley. 2010. Can Your Genes Make You Murder? https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128043329&t=1550138520953. Accessed 14 February 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, Paul J. 2015. Recent genetic findings in schizophrenia and their therapeutic relevance. Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) 29 (2): 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881114553647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, William G. 2005. Genetics. A century of corn selection. Science (New York, N.Y.) 307 (5710): 683–684. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1105459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, Thomas. 1651/1998. Leviathan. Oxford world’s classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb. 2014. Evolution in Four Dimensions. Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Life and Mind. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, Marcia. 1998. Genetic Technology and Its Impact on Culpability for Criminal Actions. Cleveland State Law Review 46 (3): 443.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaebnick, Gregory E. 2006. Behavioral Genetics and Moral Responsibility. In Wrestling with behavioral genetics: Science, ethics, and public conversation, ed. Erik Parens, Audrey R. Chapman and Nancy Press, 220–234. Baltimore Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kane, Robert. 1996. The significance of free will. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kane, Robert. (2011a). Rethinking free will: new perspectives on an ancient problem. In The Oxford handbook of free will, ed. Robert Kane, 381–404, 2nd edn. Oxford handbooks in philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kane, Robert (ed.). (2011b). The Oxford handbook of free will, 2nd edn. Oxford handbooks in philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaye, Anders. 2004. Resurrecting the Causal Theory of the Excuses. Neb. L. Rev. 83: 1116–1177.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, Joshua. 2014. Free Will and the Scientific Vision. In Current controversies in experimental philosophy, ed. Edouard Machery and Elizabeth O’Neill. Current controversies philosophy. NewYork, NY: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kogel, C. H. de, and E. J. M. C. Westgeest. 2015. Neuroscientific and behavioral genetic information in criminal cases in the Netherlands. Journal of law and the biosciences 2 (3): 580–605. https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsv024.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Michelle Luciano; Saskia P. Hagenaars; Gail Davies; W. David Hill; Toni-Kim Clarke; Masoud Shirali; Sarah E. Harris; Riccardo E. Marioni; David C. Liewald; Chloe Fawns-Ritchie; Mark J. Adams; David M. Howard; Cathryn M. Lewis; Catharine R. Gale; Andrew M. McIntosh; Ian J. Deary. 2018. Association analysis in over 329,000 individuals identifies 116 independent variants influencing neuroticism. Nature genetics 50 (1): 6–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-017-0013-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKenna, Michael. 2011. Contemporary compatibilism: mesh theories and reasons-responsive theories. In The Oxford handbook of free will, ed. Robert Kane, 175–198, 2nd edn. Oxford handbooks in philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McSwiggan, Sally, Bernice Elger, and Paul S. Appelbaum. 2017. The forensic use of behavioral genetics in criminal proceedings: Case of the MAOA-L genotype. International journal of law and psychiatry 50: 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.09.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morse, Stephen J. 2011. Genetics and criminal responsibility. Trends in cognitive sciences 15 (9): 378–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, Dylan, and Eddy Nahmias. 2014. Explaining Away Incompatibilist Intuitions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2): 434–467. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00609.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, Eddy, Stephen G. Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner. 2006. Is Incompatibilism Intuitive? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1): 28–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00603.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, Eddy, Jason Shepard, and Shane Reuter. 2014. It’s OK if ‘my brain made me do it’: people’s intuitions about free will and neuroscientific prediction. Cognition 133 (2): 502–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.07.009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin, Dana Kay. 2011. Making sense of freedom and responsibility. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, Shaun, and Joshua Knobe. 2007. Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions. Nous 41 (4): 663–685. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien, Sean. 2008. When Life Depends on It: Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty Cases. Hofstra Law Review 36 (3): 693–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parshley, Lois. 2016. Can Your Genes Make You Kill?: Science’s search for the roots of violence. https://www.popsci.com/can-your-genes-make-you-kill. Accessed 14 February 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plomin, R., and I. J. Deary. 2015. Genetics and intelligence differences: five special findings. Molecular psychiatry 20 (1): 98–108. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prasad, Rashmi B., and Leif Groop. 2015. Genetics of type 2 diabetes-pitfalls and possibilities. Genes 6 (1): 87–123. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes6010087.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scurich, Nicholas, and Paul Appelbaum. 2016. The Blunt-Edged Sword: Genetic Explanations of Misbehavior Neither Mitigate Nor Aggravate Punishment. Journal of law and the biosciences 3 (1): 140–157. https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsv053.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scurich, Nicholas, and Paul S. Appelbaum. 2017. Behavioral Genetics in Criminal Court. Nature human behaviour 1: 772–774. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0212-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stockard, Charles R. 1921. Developmental rate and structural expression: An experimental study of twins, ‘double monsters’ and single deformities, and the interaction among embryonic organs during their origin and development. American Journal of Anatomy 28 (2): 115–277. https://doi.org/10.1002/aja.1000280202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, Robert D. 2003. The Cloudy Crystal Ball: Genetics, Child Abuse, and the Perils of Predicting Behavior. Vanderbilt Law Review 56 (5): 1557.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vihvelin, Kadri. 2013. Causes, laws, and free will. Why determinism doesn’t matter. Oxford u. a.: Univ. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, Charlotte K. 2014. Bioprediction in Youth Justice. In Bioprediction, biomarkers, and bad behavior: Scientific, legal, and ethical challenges, ed. Ilina Singh, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Julian Savulescu. Oxford series in neuroscience, law, and philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, David. 2004. Is there value in identifying individual genetic predispositions to violence? The Journal of law, medicine & ethics: a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics 32 (1): 24–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, David. 2006. Genetic Predispositions to Violent and Antisocial Behavior: Responsibility, Character, and Identity. In Wrestling with behavioral genetics: Science, ethics, and public conversation, ed. Erik Parens, Audrey R. Chapman and Nancy Press, 303–327. Baltimore Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, David T., and Robert Samuel Wachbroit (eds.). 2001. Genetics and criminal behavior. Cambridge studies in philosophy and public policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, Gary. 1975. Free Agency. The Journal of Philosophy 72 (8): 205–220. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024703.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilder, Harris Hawthorne. 1908. The morphology of cosmobia; speculations concerning the significance of certain types of monsters. American Journal of Anatomy 8 (1): 355–440. https://doi.org/10.1002/aja.1000080113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, Susan. 1990. Freedom within reason. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, A. R., Esko, T., Yang, J., Vedantam, S., Pers, T. H. & Gustafsson, S., et al. 2014. Defining the role of common variation in the genomic and biological architecture of adult human height. Nature genetics 46 (11): 1173–1186. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3097.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the research group “Genetic and Social Causes of Life Chances” at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld and the research initiative “Genetics and Human Agency” funded by the John Templeton Foundation for supporting our research as well as audiences at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and at the University of Virginia, the editors, and the anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Joachim Wündisch

  2. Department of Philosophy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Rüdiger Bittner

  3. Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Wendy Johnson

Authors
  1. Joachim Wündisch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rüdiger Bittner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wendy Johnson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joachim Wündisch.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wündisch, J., Bittner, R. & Johnson, W. Behavior Genetics and Agent Responsibility. ZEMO 2, 21–34 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42048-019-00037-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42048-019-00037-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation