Free will, action and responsibility: Philosophical and legal analysis

In legal philosophy, the question of the applicability of legal responsibility for an offense committed by a subject is of fundamental importance. On the one hand, a state's use of coercion is aimed to support the regime of legitimacy and encourage lawful actions. However, the justifiability and adequacy of the sanctions and punishments applicable to the subjects of the offenses remain the topic of philosophical and legal discussions. To what extent do discoveries in neuroscience may affect a final conclusion supported by arguments? Is it a real need to re-evaluate the degree of “freedom” of an individual in making a rational moral and legally significant choice of behavior? The main question for discussion is grounds for determination and application of responsibility measures to the offender. In general, it relates to free will, that is a conscious decision of a person to perform actions contrary to legal norms, or prescribed norms. The offender deliberately poses challenges to the community, or he can express his unlawful position publicly, while responsibility measures restore the balance between rights and obligations. The decision made correlates with brain activity or type of brain activity, which means that it is possible to predetermine human actions, considering not only a free choice that is not affected by something from the outside. Additionally, the important concepts of the theory of legal responsibility, such as mens rea, mental adequacy, competence and voluntariness, can be re-evaluated when empirical neuroscience data is considered. The central thesis of logical behaviorism of Gilbert Ryle, which remains a basis for many discussions, is not to look for specific metaphysical aspects of consciousness to prove its immaterial nature. Instead, mental states can be understood from the observation of human behaviors. People act the way they think. From the view of psychology and neuroscience, this conclusion seems unreasonable, but, in jurisprudence, it is of fundamental importance. The general objectives of legal argumentation are resolution of conflicts, elimination of harm caused with the use of legal means, and formulation of the rules of conduct governing (but not physically determining) actions of individuals. That is why linguistic phenomena that construct a legal reality and the context of the usage of legal terms that creates grounds for the enablement of legally significant behavior can be viewed not in terms of neuroscience but rather in terms of logical behaviorism.

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