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Andrea Lavazza

Università Telematica Pegaso, Facoltà di Scienze Umane, della Formazione e dello Sport, Faculty Member

Università degli Studi di Milano - State University of Milan (Italy), Department of Oncology and Hematology, Adjunct

Centro Universitario Internazionale, Neuroethics, Faculty Member

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Andrea Lavazza, a scholar of cognitive sciences and a philosopher, is an associate professor of Moral Philosophy at Pegaso University and a senior research fellow at Centro Universitario Internazionale, Arezzo, Italy. His main field of research is neuroethics, which he has helped to introduce in Italy. In this field, he has published mainly papers on free will, human enhancement, brain organoids, and memory manipulation. His interests are focused on moral philosophy, free will, and law at the intersection with cognitive sciences and new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence. He is also working on naturalism and its relations with other kinds of causation and explanation in philosophy of mind and philosophical anthropology. Lavazza is the author or the editor of 13 books and over 170 scientific papers and chapters in edited volumes.

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Papers by Andrea Lavazza

That’s Why is Worth Continuing to Think About Our Successors – A Reply to Erler

Philosophy & technology, Apr 25, 2024

Human Extinction and AI: What We Can Learn from the Ultimate Threat

Philosophy & technology, Feb 1, 2024

Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Jun 1, 2016

Neurolaw and Punishment: a Naturalistic and Humanitarian View, and its Overlooked Perils

Neurolaw is the approach that attempts to apply recent progress in neuroscience to the classical ... more Neurolaw is the approach that attempts to apply recent progress in neuroscience to the classical conceptions of law, often with the aim of pushing legal institutions (especially in criminal law) to be more in line with scientific knowledge. It is essentially a process of naturalization of the law, which also applies to punishment, its aims, its methods of implementation and its justification. A relevant line of naturalization of criminal law relies on developments in neuroscience so as to try to prove that (if not always, at least most times) our actions are not free according to the classic definition of freedom – where the agent is capable of knowingly, voluntarily and consciously undertaking a course of action by choosing between alternatives. According to the proponents of this view, one cannot but follow the logical sequence deriving from the experimental data, which leads to the unavoidable pragmatic conclusion of choosing a consequentialistic kind of law and punishment. Consequentialist punishment is deemed to be more humane because it is not afflictive and is only targeted to protect society. But the fact that the charged person is regarded as more mad than bad, so to speak, turns her into a sort of “broken machine”, with the risk of legitimizing preventive treatments or ones of indefinite duration. The objections to this approach are therefore related to the gaps of knowledge we still have, to the risks of “political” abuse, and to the Strawsonian line of thought for which we cannot treat our fellow human beings as broken machines to be repaired, depriving them of their nature of free and rational agents (except in exceptional and rare cases). I suggest a more nuanced assessment of these possible developments and defend a moderate form of retributivism.

Not Too Risky. How to Take a Reasonable Stance on Human Enhancement

Filosofia Unisinos, Nov 16, 2022

Artigo está licenciado sob forma de uma licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional.

Introduction—Dualism: What, How, and Why

Problems of Physicalism Regarding the Mind

I&#39;ve attempted to argue that a monistic, physicalist approach to the mind could lead to t... more I&#39;ve attempted to argue that a monistic, physicalist approach to the mind could lead to the validation of the idea of &quot;conceptual super-schemes&quot;. This idea also seems to question the acceptability of thought experiments on the mind. This seems to lead to a disjunction: either one must follow the physicalist conception of the mind and thus admit conceptual super-schemes and the non-acceptability of thought experiments on the mind, or one can reject conceptual super-schemes and preserve the acceptability of thought experiments and thus must consider some sort of realism or Fregean dualism.

Cognitive science, moral responsibility, and the law: an inchoate challenge to consolidated categories

In a number of recent papers, advocates of the so-called â€œExperimental Philosophyâ€ movement h... more In a number of recent papers, advocates of the so-called â€œExperimental Philosophyâ€ movement have launched a quite radical attack against traditional philosophical methods â€“ such as conceptual analysis, thought experiments, and appeal to intuitions. Against such an attack, in this paper I defend the thesis that once we interpret the traditional methods of philosophical in- quire in broadly Quinean terms, the sort of empirical evidence that experimental philosophers employ turns out to be irrelevant.

La sfida delle neuroscienze al libero arbitrio

Dialoghi, 2015

Neuropolitica. Come le scienze del cervello possono modifica l'agenda pubblica

il Mulino, 2007

Neuroetica e neuropolitica. Le scienze del cervello tra riflessione intellettuale e dibattito pubblico

Iride, 2008

If Criminal Intentions Are Nonvoluntary, Mandatory Neurointerventions Might Be Permissible

Ajob Neuroscience, Jul 3, 2018

Documentality, Emotions, and Motivations. Why We Need a Kind of Internal Memory

Rivista di Estetica, Nov 1, 2014

Memory, as is well known, makes up a large part of our identity (even though the criterion of thi... more Memory, as is well known, makes up a large part of our identity (even though the criterion of this “identity” is controversial). Documents – understood as inscriptions – make up our external memory in a peculiar way: they constitute both a stable anchor and a reference-point for our personal transformations over time. There is, however, also an internal memory, residing in our brain. This is based in part on external documentation; but it is of course not exclusively tied thereto. Rather it evolves dynamically over time, in part reflecting ethical debates which we carry on within ourselves and which is influenced also by emotional factors, for example as we try to erase memories that are unpleasant. If, for example, the internal memory of some offense against our person is erased, then the motivation to testify against those who offended against us no longer exists or is greatly reduced, and this is so even though the documents that record the offense remain. Our motivations here depend on the emotional factor in our memories; once this has been lost, even though the autobiographical, episodic memory still remains, then the value-significance of the event fades from our view, and with it the impulse to act. Emotions are in large part responsible for creating a bond with documents; they make it possible for our internal and external memories to have significance. There must be some degree of emotional resonance in inscriptions relating to events in the past, which arises out of our own experience of these events and from our memory of these experiences, for these inscriptions to have significance in our lives. Documents are thus fundamental. But for ourselves and for our social lives, they must be supplemented by internal memories.

L'idea di giustizia globale al vaglio del naturalismo neuroscientifico

Filosofia e questioni pubbliche, 2007

Not so Fast. On Some Bold Neuroscientific Claims Concerning Human Agency

Neuroethics, Nov 14, 2009

Do Neurodegenerative Diseases Affect Creativity? Divergent Thinking in Frontotemporal Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease

Creativity Research Journal, Jan 2, 2019

Ways of Addressing Human Extinction – a Reply to Glannon

Philosophy & technology, Mar 1, 2024

A Neurobioethical Perspective on Informed Consent

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Mar 21, 2019

Retributivism, Consequentialism, and the Role of Science

Springer eBooks, 2021

Why do we punish? And are we justiﬁed in punishing an offender?These questions, traditionally per... more Why do we punish? And are we justiﬁed in punishing an offender?These questions, traditionally pertaining to philosophical thinking (moral philosophy and philosophy of law), are nowadays characterized by many scientiﬁc aspects and concern neuroscience as well. Recent neuroscien-tiﬁc ﬁndings related to brain mechanisms that are deemed responsible for various types of behaviour, including that of criminals, have intro-duced a deterministic perspective on human decision-making.

Darwin spiega proprio tutto

Nuova informazione bibliografica, 2015

That’s Why is Worth Continuing to Think About Our Successors – A Reply to Erler

Philosophy & technology, Apr 25, 2024

Human Extinction and AI: What We Can Learn from the Ultimate Threat

Philosophy & technology, Feb 1, 2024

Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Jun 1, 2016

Neurolaw and Punishment: a Naturalistic and Humanitarian View, and its Overlooked Perils

Neurolaw is the approach that attempts to apply recent progress in neuroscience to the classical ... more Neurolaw is the approach that attempts to apply recent progress in neuroscience to the classical conceptions of law, often with the aim of pushing legal institutions (especially in criminal law) to be more in line with scientific knowledge. It is essentially a process of naturalization of the law, which also applies to punishment, its aims, its methods of implementation and its justification. A relevant line of naturalization of criminal law relies on developments in neuroscience so as to try to prove that (if not always, at least most times) our actions are not free according to the classic definition of freedom – where the agent is capable of knowingly, voluntarily and consciously undertaking a course of action by choosing between alternatives. According to the proponents of this view, one cannot but follow the logical sequence deriving from the experimental data, which leads to the unavoidable pragmatic conclusion of choosing a consequentialistic kind of law and punishment. Consequentialist punishment is deemed to be more humane because it is not afflictive and is only targeted to protect society. But the fact that the charged person is regarded as more mad than bad, so to speak, turns her into a sort of “broken machine”, with the risk of legitimizing preventive treatments or ones of indefinite duration. The objections to this approach are therefore related to the gaps of knowledge we still have, to the risks of “political” abuse, and to the Strawsonian line of thought for which we cannot treat our fellow human beings as broken machines to be repaired, depriving them of their nature of free and rational agents (except in exceptional and rare cases). I suggest a more nuanced assessment of these possible developments and defend a moderate form of retributivism.

Not Too Risky. How to Take a Reasonable Stance on Human Enhancement

Filosofia Unisinos, Nov 16, 2022

Artigo está licenciado sob forma de uma licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional.

Introduction—Dualism: What, How, and Why

Problems of Physicalism Regarding the Mind

I&#39;ve attempted to argue that a monistic, physicalist approach to the mind could lead to t... more I&#39;ve attempted to argue that a monistic, physicalist approach to the mind could lead to the validation of the idea of &quot;conceptual super-schemes&quot;. This idea also seems to question the acceptability of thought experiments on the mind. This seems to lead to a disjunction: either one must follow the physicalist conception of the mind and thus admit conceptual super-schemes and the non-acceptability of thought experiments on the mind, or one can reject conceptual super-schemes and preserve the acceptability of thought experiments and thus must consider some sort of realism or Fregean dualism.

Cognitive science, moral responsibility, and the law: an inchoate challenge to consolidated categories

In a number of recent papers, advocates of the so-called â€œExperimental Philosophyâ€ movement h... more In a number of recent papers, advocates of the so-called â€œExperimental Philosophyâ€ movement have launched a quite radical attack against traditional philosophical methods â€“ such as conceptual analysis, thought experiments, and appeal to intuitions. Against such an attack, in this paper I defend the thesis that once we interpret the traditional methods of philosophical in- quire in broadly Quinean terms, the sort of empirical evidence that experimental philosophers employ turns out to be irrelevant.

La sfida delle neuroscienze al libero arbitrio

Dialoghi, 2015

Neuropolitica. Come le scienze del cervello possono modifica l'agenda pubblica

il Mulino, 2007

Neuroetica e neuropolitica. Le scienze del cervello tra riflessione intellettuale e dibattito pubblico

Iride, 2008

If Criminal Intentions Are Nonvoluntary, Mandatory Neurointerventions Might Be Permissible

Ajob Neuroscience, Jul 3, 2018

Documentality, Emotions, and Motivations. Why We Need a Kind of Internal Memory

Rivista di Estetica, Nov 1, 2014

Memory, as is well known, makes up a large part of our identity (even though the criterion of thi... more Memory, as is well known, makes up a large part of our identity (even though the criterion of this “identity” is controversial). Documents – understood as inscriptions – make up our external memory in a peculiar way: they constitute both a stable anchor and a reference-point for our personal transformations over time. There is, however, also an internal memory, residing in our brain. This is based in part on external documentation; but it is of course not exclusively tied thereto. Rather it evolves dynamically over time, in part reflecting ethical debates which we carry on within ourselves and which is influenced also by emotional factors, for example as we try to erase memories that are unpleasant. If, for example, the internal memory of some offense against our person is erased, then the motivation to testify against those who offended against us no longer exists or is greatly reduced, and this is so even though the documents that record the offense remain. Our motivations here depend on the emotional factor in our memories; once this has been lost, even though the autobiographical, episodic memory still remains, then the value-significance of the event fades from our view, and with it the impulse to act. Emotions are in large part responsible for creating a bond with documents; they make it possible for our internal and external memories to have significance. There must be some degree of emotional resonance in inscriptions relating to events in the past, which arises out of our own experience of these events and from our memory of these experiences, for these inscriptions to have significance in our lives. Documents are thus fundamental. But for ourselves and for our social lives, they must be supplemented by internal memories.

L'idea di giustizia globale al vaglio del naturalismo neuroscientifico

Filosofia e questioni pubbliche, 2007

Not so Fast. On Some Bold Neuroscientific Claims Concerning Human Agency

Neuroethics, Nov 14, 2009

Do Neurodegenerative Diseases Affect Creativity? Divergent Thinking in Frontotemporal Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease

Creativity Research Journal, Jan 2, 2019

Ways of Addressing Human Extinction – a Reply to Glannon

Philosophy & technology, Mar 1, 2024

A Neurobioethical Perspective on Informed Consent

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Mar 21, 2019

Retributivism, Consequentialism, and the Role of Science

Springer eBooks, 2021

Why do we punish? And are we justiﬁed in punishing an offender?These questions, traditionally per... more Why do we punish? And are we justiﬁed in punishing an offender?These questions, traditionally pertaining to philosophical thinking (moral philosophy and philosophy of law), are nowadays characterized by many scientiﬁc aspects and concern neuroscience as well. Recent neuroscien-tiﬁc ﬁndings related to brain mechanisms that are deemed responsible for various types of behaviour, including that of criminals, have intro-duced a deterministic perspective on human decision-making.

Darwin spiega proprio tutto

Nuova informazione bibliografica, 2015

Disturbi dell’attaccamento e agire morale

In "Psicopatologia e scienze della mente Dalla psichiatria organicistica alla neuroscienza cognitiva clinica", a cura di Rossella Guerini e Massimo Marraffa Carocci , 2019

Nell’ambito delle patologie del comportamento umano e delle sue cause, ad approcci più classici s... more Nell’ambito delle patologie del comportamento umano e delle sue cause, ad approcci più classici si è andato affiancando,
con una prospettiva spesso totalitaria e sostitutiva, l’approccio delle
neuroscienze cognitive che riconduce al livello di spiegazione del funzionamento elettrochimico del cervello l’intero spettro della condotta
umana. Ciò si traduce in protocolli terapeutici che sono principalmente orientati a ripristinare un alterato equilibrio dei neurotrasmettitori.
In questo breve contributo, si vuole mettere a fuoco la contrapposizione tra un monismo esplicativo e un approccio multifattoriale, che
si declina tipicamente nella psicoterapia. Il caso di studio ha come oggetto la teoria dell'attaccamento.

Manipolare la Memoria. Scienza ed etica della rimozione dei ricordi

Chemical substances have been proven to be able to inhibit bad memories. This can be positive for... more Chemical substances have been proven to be able to inhibit bad memories. This can be positive for many people suffering from PTSD, restoring or increasing their wellbeing. But the use of memory-erasing drugs could also have negative effects for society. For example, a shocked witness of a crime who took that pill would no longer be able to testify. The book is one of the first monographs on this hot topic in neuroscience and ethics.

Frontiers in Neuroethics. Conceptual and Empirical Advancements

Neuroethics is surely a young discipline, but it is already full of promising developments in var... more Neuroethics is surely a young discipline, but it is already full of promising developments in various directions. Therefore, it makes sense to propose a collection of contributions that show its current wealth and potential. In particular, the present volume (edited by Andrea Lavazza) contains papers that focus on some theoretical perspectives and others that provide significant examples of its experimental aspects. Together, they constitute a good introduction to neuroethics as well as a suggestion for further investigations.

Le menti non sono documenti (e viceversa)

by giovanni tuzet and Andrea Lavazza

Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 2021

Per la teoria della documentalità gli oggetti sociali sono atti iscritti e per la teoria della me... more Per la teoria della documentalità gli oggetti sociali sono atti iscritti e per la teoria della mente estesa le menti si estendono a processi o dispositivi esterni al corpo. Pur per motivi diversi, le due teorie convergono nel ridurre le differenze fra menti e documenti, e hanno a loro supporto la dimensione semiotica di menti e documenti; eppure, in una certa lettura, tali teorie risultano implausibili se si considera che le proprietà delle cose che chiamiamo "menti" non sono identiche alle proprietà delle cose che chiamiamo "documenti" (così come, per altro verso, le proprietà degli oggetti sociali non sono identiche alle proprietà degli atti che li costituiscono). Ciò chiama in causa una implicita tesi comune alle due teorie, quella di un esternismo forte che può essere messo in discussione in favore di un esternismo moderato o interazionista.