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Vincent, N.A. (Nicole)

Research profile

I am an academic philosopher. My research focuses on theories of responsibility, and in particular on how these theories inform and are informed by ethical, political and legal debate.

In 2007 I obtained my PhD from the University of Adelaide in Australia with a dissertation in philosophy of law entitled ”Responsibility, Compensation and Accident Law Reform”. My dissertation advanced two main arguments. First, it defended no-fault systems from two related allegations: one, that they under- and over-compensate; and two, that they let people get away without having to properly take responsibility for what they have done. Second, it also argued that no-fault systems are properly conceived of not as accident law systems per se but rather as a form of social welfare. Since obtaining my PhD I have worked full-time as a researcher in the area of neurolaw with a specific focus on the topic of responsibility.

From late 2007 until early 2011 I worked solely at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands on a research project entitled ”The Brain and The Law”. In this project I argued that we must adopt a broadly capacitarian framework in order to understand how neuroscience is relevant to legal responsibility adjudications, and that responsibility must be treated not as a single, unitary and generic concept but rather as a group of concepts with related variegated legal questions. My paper ”On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility” provides a good overview of the position that I developed in this project. Since mid-2011 I divide my time between The Netherlands and Australia while working on two closely related projects.

In The Netherlands I am based in the Philosophy Department at Delft University of Technology where I run the NWO-funded project ”Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and legal responsibility” which at a practical level addresses two questions. One, may some people, in virtue of what is at stake in the performance of their professional roles, be legitimately expected to cognitively enhance themselves - even if they would rather not do so - and would their failure to do this constitute negligence or even recklessness? Two, once a person becomes cognitively enhanced, may they be then legitimately expected to observe a higher standard of care than non cognitively enhanced counterparts, and should their breaches of such higher standards attract regulatory, civil and criminal sanctions? At a conceptual level, I expect that answers to these questions will help me to illuminate the limits of the capacitarian idea that responsibility tracks mental capacity.

In Australia I am based in the Philosophy Department at Macquarie University in Sydney, where I work on a research project entitled ”Reappraising the Capacitarian Foundation of Neurolaw” which has two main components. The first component investigates whether capacitarian intuitions about the relationship between mental capacity and responsibility � namely, that responsibility tracks (mental) capacity � still obtain in contexts where mental capacity has been restored or enhanced. The second component involves the development of an Australian Neurolaw Database that catalogues and appraises how neuroscience is used in legal settings in Australia.

Nicole�s Upcoming Presentations

• Please see my Macquarie University home page.

Nicole�s Recent Presentations

• Dec 8-10, 2010: invited speaker on the topic A Compatibilist Theory of Legal Responsibility. Law and the Science of Moral Judgement conference, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Nov 18-19, 2010: invited speaker on the topic Neurolaw: themes and issues at the meeting of the Agency and Moral Cognition Network, Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
• Oct 15-16, 2010: invited commentator at the Strawsonian and Consequentialist Views on Personal Responsibility workshop, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
• Sep 1-2, 2010: invited speaker on the topic The Restoration and Enhancement of Responsibility. Sentenced to treatment � the legitimacy of therapeutic justice and behavior control, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Jul 15, 2010: invited speaker on the topic A Compatibilist Theory of Legal Responsibility. Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Germany.
• Jun 16, 2010: invited lecture, On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Download presentation as Quicktime movie.
• Mar 24, 2010: invited speaker on the topic On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility. Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Canada.
• Feb 27, 2010: invited speaker on the topic Enhancing Responsibility. Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), University of Tilburg, The Netherlands.
• Jan 27, 2010: invited speaker on the topic On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility. Centre for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• Oct 26-31, 2009: invited speaker on the topic Conceptual and Practical Limitations to the use of Neuroimaging in Informing Responsibility Assessments. Law and Neuroscience conference, Marateia, Italy.  poster and programme
• Oct 20-1, 2009: invited speaker on the topic Cognitive Enhancement and Increased Responsibility. Human Enhancement: What should be permitted? symposium held at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Sep 24-26, 2009: paper presentation on the topic Madness, Badness and Neuroimaging-Based Responsibility Assessments. BRAIN matters - New Directions in Neuroethics conference, Halifax, Canada.  poster and programme
• Aug 24-27, 2009: paper presentation on the topic A Structured Taxonomy of Responsibility Concepts. Moral Responsibility: Neuroscience, Organization & Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
• Aug 20-22, 2009: invited lecture on the topic Thinking About Responsibility.IDEA League Summer School: Responsibility and Engineers of the Future, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
• Jul 6-7, 2009: paper presentation on the topic On The Relevance of Neuroscience to the Law�s Responsibility Practices. UCL Law & Neuroscience Colloquium, University College London, London, UK.  poster
• Jul 2-4, 2009: paper presentation on the topic History and Meta Task Responsibilities (w/ Jeroen van den Hoven). European Conference on Computing and Philosophy �09, Universitat Aut�noma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
• Jun 25, 2009: guest speaker on the topic The neurobiology of crime. What about Responsibility? �Neurobiological Society� seminar organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• Apr 29, 2009: guest speaker on the topic of Cognitive Enhancement and Increased Responsibility. James Martin Advanced Research Seminar, University of Oxford, UK.
• Mar 17-18, 2009: invited speaker at the Brains in Dialogue conference. Cambridge, UK.
• Nov 21-23, 2008: Taking Responsibility for Voluntary Disadvantages, conference paper presented at the 3rd International Applied Ethics Conference in Sapporo, University of Hokkaido, Japan.
• Aug 21-26, 2008: A Structured Taxonomy of Responsibility Concepts, conference paper presented at the Sixth European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, Jagiellonian University, Krak�w, Poland.
• Aug 8, 2008: Functional Neuroimaging and Responsibility Assessments under the Capacity Conception of Responsibility, Guest Speaker, Department of Philosophy, University of Adelaide, Australia.
• Jun 7, 2008: Neuroscience and Legal Responsibility, conference paper presented at the International Workshop on Neuroethics, Centre for Neurosciences of the RWTH, Aachen, Germany.

3TU.Ethics Projects

Neuroethics: ethical, legal and conceptual aspects of neuroscience and neurotechnology

The Brain and the Law

Teaching

Nicole has taught a diverse range of philosophy subjects � e.g. critical thinking, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of law � and she also has an academic and professional background in information technology and computer science.