Biography

Professor Tyler is the University Professor of Psychology and Chair of Psychology at NYU. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Columbia in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from UCLA in 1974 and 1978. At NYU, he heads the Tyler Lab, where he and his students research the dynamics of authority and motivations within groups, organizations, and societies. Much of Prof. Tyler’s work centers on social justice and the psychology of procedural justice — the topics addressed in this interview.

Table of Contents

0:17 — Tell us a little about your general research interests.

1:11 — Can you tell us about your research methods?

2:23 — Can you tell us about your work on procedural justice?

4:24 — What is your argument about an instrumentalist versus a values-based system as it applies to criminal law?

7:21 — What do you see as the reasons behind America’s move away from rehabilitation in the prison context?

9:43 — How do you see a values-based approach being implemented in the criminal justice system?

11:19 — How does your research on instrumentalism apply to anti-terrorism efforts?

13:18 — How does neuroimaging research complement your research findings?

14:09 — How does a values-based approach account for differences in values among a population?

18:33 — Is an over-reliance on instrumentalism a distinctly American phenomenon, or is it more universal?

19:04 — Does the relevance of your work extend beyond the context of criminal law?

20:34 — Do you have any recommendations to lawyers based on the research you’ve done?

22:29 — How do you see the relationship between law and psychology developing in the future?

From The Project on Law & Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS):

Here is an outstanding interview of Joshua Greene by Harvard Law Student Jeff Pote. The interview, titled “On Moral Judgment and Normative Questions” lasts just over 58 minutes. It was conducted as part of the Law and Mind Science Seminar at Harvard.

Bio:

Joshua D. Greene is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He received his A.B. at Harvard University in 1997 where he was advised by Derek Parfit. He received his PhD in Philosophy at Princeton University in 2002 having written a dissertation on the foundation of ethics advised by David Lewis and Gilbert Harman. From 2002 to 2006, when he began at Harvard, he studied as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton in the Neuroscience of Cognitive Control Laboratory under Jonathan Cohen. He is currently the Director of the Moral Cognition Lab.

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Table of contents:

From The Project on Law & Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS):

Below is a fascinating and enlightening 51-minute interview of Thomas Nadelhoffer by Harvard Law Student Brian Wood. The interview, titled “Developments in Neuroscience and their Implications for Criminal Law,” lasts just over 51 minutes. It was conducted the Law and Mind Science Seminar at Harvard.

Bio:

Dr. Thomas Nadelhoffer was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He has earned degrees in philosophy from The University of Georgia (BA), Georgia State University (MA), and Florida State University (PhD). Since 2006, he has been an assistant professor of philosopy and a member of the law and policy faculty at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is currently at Duke University as a Visiting Scholar in the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

His main areas of research include moral psychology, the philosophy of action, free will, punishment theory, and neurolaw. He is particularly interested in research at the cross roads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind. His articles have appeared in journals such as Analysis, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Mind & Language, Neuroethics, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He is the coordinator of the blogs Flickers of Freedom and the Law and Neuroscience Blog. He is also a contributing author to blogs such as The Situationist, The Leiter Reports, and Experimental Philosophy.

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Table of contents:

• What have you been working on recently? 0:22
• What are some areas of the legal system in which this science is relevant? 1:07
• What are the problems with the traditional approaches to using science in the criminal system, and how are new scientific methods relevant to fixing them? 2:15
• How could these newer scientific methods be employed? 4:09
• What are the rationales society has traditionally cited as justifying criminal punishment? 6:55
• Can you explain what Compatibalism is? 10:17
• Aren’t there problems with notions of moral responsibility under Compatibalism? 12:26
• How do neuroscience, Compatibalism, and determinism relate to our notions of law? 12:55
• What do you see as the problems with the classic approaches to punishment? 15:25
• Is there anything especially strange about Retributivism to you? 20:37
• Can you detail what you believe to be the just reasons for punishment and how society can punish people more justly? 23:41
• In your view, how would you punish psychopaths under the consequentialist rationale? 30:40
• Can you give an example of the distinctions psychopaths cannot draw? 34:50
• What’s the most interesting experiment you have conducted? 37:01
• Do you think these participants just misunderstood what determinism is? 38:15
• What qualities do you believe you and other researchers and philosophers need to be successful? 40:03
• How has what you have learned through your research influenced the way you live you life? 41:35
• How do you see the relationship of law and mind science developing in the future? 44:55

• Tuesday, April 20, 4 to 6 pm
  Building the Parallel Distributed Brain, How Do We Know?
  From Hebb, Lashley, and Sperry, and through modern research, the basics of brain organization are reviewed at both the cellular and neurological level, including a personal history of split-brain research that all lead up to the view of a parallel and distributed brain. Post-talk commentary by Professor Albert Galaburda (Neurology / HMS).

• Wednesday, April 21, 4 to 6 pm
  Automatic Brains, Interpretive Minds
  With a massively parallel and distributed and automatic brain, how is it we believe we experience a unified conscious life? How does the sense of psychological unity become established and how does it work in the brain? Post-talk commentary by Professor Güven Güzeldere (Philosophy / FAS).

• Thursday, April 22, 4 to 6 pm
  Feeling Free in a Mechanistic World: Where the Brain Meets the Law
  The idea of determinism and mechanism rings out from every quarter of science and society. What does this mean for the concept of personal responsibility and how might ideas on the issue impact our ideas of justice and the law? Post-talk commentary by Professor Joshua Greene (Psychology / FAS).

Psychedelic pioneer Timothy Leary, whose research into therapeutic uses of hallucinogenic drugs is being taken up once again in the US. Photo via AP/Wide World Photos.

“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”

…thus explains retired clinical psychologist Clark Martin in today’s New York Times his first psychedelic experience, as part of a medical study on the effect of psilocybin on cancer patients.

Noting that federal regulators have recently begun again to approve controlled experiments with psychedelics, the article highlights some of the research currently being conducted from Johns Hopkins to Harvard to UCLA. Nevertheless, the NYT notes, federal funding is not so forthcoming. Studies like the one Martin participated in are mostly funded by nonprofits — notably MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, whose annual conference is taking place this weekend in California.

For more on the history of the psychedelic therapy movement, and the central role of Harvard University, see Don Lattin’s new book, The Harvard Psychedelic Club.

FYI, the Project on Law and Mind Sciences is hosting a panel discussion this Thursday on moral biology, addressing specifically the question: How should developments in mind sciences and behavioral biology alter our understanding of law and morality?

See details below:

Thurs. April 15

5:30pm

Harvard Law School

Austin Hall, West Classroom

Free and Open to the Public

This panel discussion will examine how developments in evolutionary biology and the mind sciences should inform law, philosophy, and economics, focusing on subjects such as punishment, responsibility, racism, addiction, and cooperation. Participants will include

I. Glenn Cohen, Joshua Greene, William Fitzpatrick, Adina Roskies, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Thomas Scanlon

Co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center and the Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School,  the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, and the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project  with support from the Cammann Fund for Law and Medicine at Harvard.

“The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. … Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet. Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright laws that were not designed for the digital era.”

The FMA is affiliated with Jersey City-based freeform radio station WFMU and features 15 genres of music. The website has curators who filter through submissions to determine which pieces to upload, and visitors can listen to the full length and download anything that’s on the site.

It’s official: Justice John Paul Stevens has announced that he will retire at the end of the term.  But Justice Stevens’ announcement signaled much more than the end of his honorable service; the announcement was, in effect, a signal that the Capitol should prepare for battle.  Warring factions – political parties, advocacy groups, lobbyists – have already sprung into action, releasing news releases, action messages, and flash reports excoriating one potential nominee or another.  (Political) war is coming.  And through all the chaos and cacophony of a Supreme Court nomination, one man must sift through a massive amount of chatter and make a decision.  President Obama must make a choice – a complex and sensitive choice, after healthcare reform and before the midterm election, with an inspired left and an apoplectic right.

Given the complexity and sensitivity of his task, perhaps Obama should gather all the information possible, view the situation from every angle, chew the decision over and over in his mind, ruminate and reflect – all part of a process of reaching the optimal political and moral decision.

Or, maybe he should just go with his gut.  After the jump, I introduce some classic research in cognitive science to explain why an emotional decision could be better than a holistic decision – even when a judicial nomination is at stake.

Walter Dellinger, a Supreme Court litigator, predicts that President Obama – a constitutional scholar who deeply and sincerely cares about the composition of the Court – is  likely to base his decision as much on “passion” as on “politics”:

“I think that in choosing a Supreme Court justice,” Mr. Dellinger said, “the president is less likely to compromise and more likely to go with his heart than on any other matter.”

The risk that the President will base an important political decision on his “heart” (which is not, in fact, part of the brain) will unnerve his base and galvanize the opposition.  After all, the conventional wisdom is that “snap,” hot decision-making is worse than deliberate, cold decision-making.  Emotions cloud reason.  We’re told: “Don’t make a critical decision when you’re emotional.  Sit back, relax, and wait until you cool off.  Otherwise, you’ll regret it.”

In sharp contrast, holistic decision-making is highly valued.  Benjamin Franklin once explained that the proper method to make a decision was to execute “prudential algebra”:

“I divide a half Sheet of Paper by a line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con.  Then during three or four Days Consideration, I put down under different Heads short Hints of the different Motives . . . for or against the Measure.  When I have thus got them all together in one View, I endeavor to estimate their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. . . .  [T]hus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies.”  (Quoted in Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart.)

With all due respect to Ben Franklin, however, the conventional faith we place in prudential algebra is misplaced.  Indeed, three classics of cognitive science reveal the wisdom of heuristic, emotional decision-making.

First, consider the research of the ABC Research Group and Gerd Gigerenzer, outlined in Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (1999).  Gigerenzer’s research proceeds from Herbert Simon’s fundamental insight of “bounded rationality.”  Because the computational prowess of our neural architecture is limited, the boundedly-rational mind must rely on an adaptive toolbox of heuristics, or cognitive shortcuts, to simplify and to make sense of the otherwise overwhelming primary stimuli and sensory data of our elaborate world.  Granted, heuristics sometimes misfire and generate poor decisions.  But heuristics are fast, frugal, and accurate – even relative to more sophisticated statistical decision-making mechanisms, such as multiple regression analysis.  The Take the Best heuristic, for example, is a lexicographic, cybernetic procedure that counsels the decision-maker to choose between two options by (1) searching through rank-ordered cues, (2) comparing the options along each successive cue, and (3) stopping as soon as one option is the clear winner along a specific cue.  Surprisingly, the researchers found that Take the Best often matches or outperforms the accuracy of multiple regression analysis, especially where information in scarce, redundant, or noisy and the decision-maker is experienced enough to rank order the cues.

Second, consider Descartes’ Error (1994) by Antonio R. Damasio.  According to Damasio’s somatic-marker hypothesis, neural representations of body states, known as somatic markers, associate behavioral choices with affective significance.  Emotions imbue options that yield bad outcomes with unpleasant visceral feelings and options that yield good outcomes with pleasant visceral feelings.  As we focus on decisions associated with good visceral feelings and ignore decisions associated with bad visceral feelings, we limit the available options in our choice set to those laden with positive affect.  Although Damasio himself did not connect his theory to Gigerenzer’s research, it’s obvious that emotions can serve as fast, frugal, and accurate heuristics in the adaptive toolbox.  If, through past experience and learning, we’ve developed a negative association with a certain option, then we’ll feel a negative emotion when considering the option, and thus eliminate it from our choice set.

Third, consider the seminal work of Robert Frank, Passions within Reason (1988).  Frank suggests that emotions are strategic tools to solve commitment problems.  They steer us from short-term temptations toward long-term gains.  For one, emotions prevent us from defecting in response to cooperators in sequential PDs (as we’ve discussed on our blog before).  By counseling cooperation, emotions help us engender a reputation for being cooperative; an altruistic reputation, in turn, attracts like-minded altruists and ensures a series of fitness-enhancing cooperative partnerships.  Conversely, emotions incite us to reject unfair ultimatum offers (which we’ve also discussed).  A willingness to punish unfairness lends credibility to threats; a strong reputation of doggedness earns future rewards by deterring free-riding and compelling others to act fairly.

These three classics undermine the conventional wisdom that President Obama will be ill-served to go with his gut instinct.  For a nomination with countless political and moral implications, it will be impossible for Obama to collect all the information relevant to his nominating decision and execute prudential algebra.  With respect to each candidate, Obama must evaluate:

• the extent to which the nomination itself will [hurt/harm] [Obama/the Democratic Party/the Republican Party/our society] in the [short-run/intermediate-run/long-run];
• the extent to which the candidate itself will [hurt/harm] [Obama/the Democratic Party/the Republican Party/our society] in the [short-run/intermediate-run/long-run];
• the extent to which the [nomination/candidate] will [advance/impair] [Obama’s judicial philosophy/Obama’s legacy/our society];
• and so forth.

If Obama attempts to measure the expected utility of each candidate along each political/moral dimension, he will inevitably neglect a certain dimension not listed above, miscalculate the weight of a dimension, miscalculate the true utility of a candidate along a certain dimension, and so on.  Each additional, marginal token of information can pull the decision in the wrong direction, widening the gap between expected utility and actual utility (measured at some future point with hindsight).  Put simply: The more information, the greater the likelihood of error.

Instead, Obama should incorporate lessons from the classics of cognitive science.  First, he shouldn’t fear making a snap judgment, for as noted above, complicating the decision could confuse him into considering a factor that objectively doesn’t deserve consideration, thus leading him to select an inferior candidate.  The informational environment is noisy (i.e., the amount of potentially relevant information is enormous and the amount of actually verifiable information is scarce), and Obama has sufficient experience at least to rank order some criteria.  Second, he should accept that one acceptable heuristic to prune his decision tree is to rely on his gut instinct.  If the thought of nominating a certain candidate gives him an ulcer, he should trust his unconscious judgment and stay away, as there’s likely a reason – based on past experience and learning – that he associates the candidate with ulcerous feelings.  Third, he should take solace in the possibility that even if he makes a bold decision based on passion, he will enhance his own reputation as a bold decision-maker.  By “removing the steering wheel” and unflinchingly committing to the candidate that most inspires him, he can signal to Republicans that their threats won’t deter him – perhaps making them realize that compromise, not confrontation, is the way to deal with our passionate leader.