Embodied Cognition, Law, and Justice
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Saint Louis University Law Journal Volume 54 Number 4 Remaking Law: Moving Beyond Article 8 Enlightenment Jurisprudence (Summer 2010) 2010 The Body of the Mind: Embodied Cognition, Law, and Justice Adam Benforado Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Adam Benforado, The Body of the Mind: Embodied Cognition, Law, and Justice, 54 St. Louis U. L.J. (2010). Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol54/iss4/8 This Childress Lecture is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Saint Louis University Law Journal by an authorized editor of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact Susie Lee. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW THE BODY OF THE MIND: EMBODIED COGNITION, LAW, AND JUSTICE ADAM BENFORADO* ABSTRACT Recent research from embodied cognition strongly contests the dualist notion of the mind as distinct and apart from the biological machine of the body—a conception that has powerfully shaped our laws, legal practices, theories, and institutions for centuries. According to the embodied (or grounded) cognition perspective, the body is involved in the constitution of the mind. Thus, beyond our conscious awareness, an abstract concept, like trustworthiness, may be primed by sensorimotor experience, like feeling physical warmth. This Article introduces recent insights from this budding field, discusses some of the potential implications of experiments in embodied cognition for courtroom interactions, and addresses the significant challenges to using this research as a means to reform. * Assistant Professor of Law, Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law, 3320 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215.571.4809, [email protected]. I would like to extend my gratitude to students in my Law and Mind Sciences seminar over the last two years who have eagerly debated the value and implications of embodied cognition research, and to Brooke Bailer, Kathryn Brady, and Geoff Goodwin for helpful comments. I am also indebted to the participants at the 2009 Childress Lecture, particularly the hardworking members of the Saint Louis University Law Journal, Joel Goldstein, and the great john powell. 1185 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 1186 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 54:1185 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1187 A. The Legacy of Dualism ................................................................... 1187 B. Learning from the Mind Sciences ................................................... 1190 I. EMBODIED COGNITION .......................................................................... 1194 A. Overview ......................................................................................... 1194 B. Three Experiments .......................................................................... 1196 1. Warmth ................................................................................... 1196 2. Weight .................................................................................... 1198 3. Cleanliness ............................................................................. 1199 C. The Broader Field ........................................................................... 1200 D. The Unlicensed Cognitive Expert ................................................... 1203 II. IMPLICATIONS FOR LAW AND LEGAL THEORY ...................................... 1204 A. Overview ......................................................................................... 1204 B. Experiments in Context ................................................................... 1205 1. Warmth ................................................................................... 1205 2. Weight .................................................................................... 1207 3. Cleanliness ............................................................................. 1209 III. THE CHALLENGE OF APPLICATION ........................................................ 1211 A. An Inextricable Tangle .................................................................... 1212 B. A Threat to the Legitimacy of the Law ............................................ 1213 C. Meeting the Challenge .................................................................... 1214 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 1215 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2010] THE BODY OF THE MIND 1187 [T]he principal error and the commonest . consists in my judging that the ideas which are in me are similar or conformable to the things which are outside me . – René Descartes1 Although . I possess a body with which I am very intimately conjoined, . it is certain that this I [that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am], is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist without it. – René Descartes2 INTRODUCTION A. The Legacy of Dualism There is the body. There is the mind. They are separate and distinct. This is the language of the law and the core of our culture. This is the discourse of Western existence. Mens rea and actus reus; mind over matter; body and soul. The conception of the body and the mind as dissimilar, interacting entities can be traced back at least as far as Plato and the ancient Greeks, but it is the seventeenth-century French rationalist René Descartes who is most often associated with the idea of dualism.3 For Descartes, humans were made up “of two distinct substances—res cogitans, unextended thinking substance, or mind, 1. RENÉ DESCARTES, DISCOURSE ON METHOD AND MEDITATIONS 82 (Elizabeth S. Haldane & G.R.T. Ross trans., DOVER PUBS. 2003). 2. Id. at 112. 3. Marleen Rozemond, The Nature of the Mind, in THE BLACKWELL GUIDE TO DESCARTES’ MEDITATIONS 48, 48 (Stephen Gaukroger ed., 2006) (“[L]ong before Descartes, a central component of the Christian tradition had been the idea that the human soul is immortal and this idea was often (although not always) supported by arguments to the effect that it is incorporeal.”). Certain scholars have challenged the notion that Descartes actually held beliefs commonly understood as Cartesian dualism, while nevertheless acknowledging the influence and pervasiveness of this formulation. See, e.g., GORDON BAKER & KATHERINE J. MORRIS, DESCARTES’ DUALISM 1 (1996). Other scholars have suggested that humans are born Cartesian dualists. As Paul Bloom writes, We can explain much of what makes us human by recognizing that we are natural Cartesians—dualistic thinking comes naturally to us. We have two distinct ways of seeing the world: as containing bodies and as containing souls. These two modes of seeing the world interact in surprising ways in the course of the development of each child, and in the social context of a community of humans they give rise to certain uniquely human traits, such as morality and religion. PAUL BLOOM, DESCARTES’ BABY: HOW THE SCIENCE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT EXPLAINS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN, at xii (2004); id. at xiii (“[B]efore they can speak or walk or control their bowels, babies see the world as containing both physical things, which are governed by principles such as solidity and gravity, and immaterial minds, which are driven by emotions and goals. Babies are natural-born dualists.”). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 1188 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 54:1185 and res extensa, extended corporeal substance, or body.”4 Thus, sense- perception was not a necessary component of the fully conceived mind: a mind needed only to have intellectual capacities “and the ability to perform the kind of willing involved in judgment.”5 Although varying somewhat in form and articulation over the centuries, this dualist notion of the mind as independent and apart from the biological machine of the body has had an incredible influence on our beliefs, practices, customs, and institutions.6 Indeed, it has been offered as an explanation for not only libertarian tendencies and religious convictions concerning a divine creator, but also for our appreciation of art and even certain types of humor.7 In line with broader societal trends, our laws and legal theories have not been immune to the power of the dualist conception.8 The moral intuitions about responsibility and free will underlying (and justifying) our legal frameworks are based on an understanding of the mind as an independent 4. JOHN COTTINGHAM, DESCARTES 119 (1986) [hereinafter COTTINGHAM, DESCARTES]; see also John Cottingham, The Mind-Body Relation, in THE BLACKWELL GUIDE TO DESCARTES’ MEDITATIONS, supra note 3, at 179, 184-85 (discussing the two kinds of substance and positing that there may be a third); TOM SORRELL, DESCARTES: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION 78 (Very Short Introduction ed., 2000). 5. SORRELL, supra note 4, at 77; see also COTTINGHAM, DESCARTES, supra note 4, at 119 (“Descartes’ claim that an act of thinking or doubting ‘needs no place and depends on no material thing’ (e.g., requires no brain) . .”). As scholars have argued, A . notorious problem for dualism is the problem of interaction between mind and body. [Descartes] explicitly remarks that we know from our experience that mind acts upon, and is acted upon by, body. But since mind and body are defined by Descartes in terms of not just distinct but mutually incompatible