‘Neuralizing’ Injustice: How Brain Science Misunderstands Racism, Addiction, and Crime
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In his capstone thesis, Christopher Iyer examines the pitfalls of applying modern psychology and neuroscience to racism, addiction, and criminality. He considers how the individual-focused methods of brain science have "over-individualized" our views of (and proposed solutions to) these issues, obscuring structural and environmental root causes. Moreover, he criticizes how applying brain science to these issues has "over-neuralized" them, leading us to believe that racism, addiction and crime should be understood (and intervened upon) as features of our brains—divorced from social conditions, and divorced even from ourselves as empowered agents. Scapegoating the brain allows us to show mercy towards individuals without grappling with collective responsibility for the conditions of social injustice truly at the heart of racism, addiction, and criminality. Finally, he outlines recommendations for conscientious and socially embedded brain science research that is responsive to social injustice.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | December 7, 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Iyer, Christopher |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | Drug addiction |
|---|---|
| Subject | Neurosciences > Moral and ethical aspects |
| Subject | Racism in the social sciences |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Iyer, C. (2022). ‘Neuralizing’ Injustice: How Brain Science Misunderstands Racism, Addiction, and Crime. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/mh353rg5893
Collection
Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Minor in Human Rights Capstone Projects
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