Libre de faire le mal ?

Abstract

In the Eighties, Benjamin Libet demonstrated that we become aware of an action that happens several hundred milliseconds after the onset of the brain activity, suggesting that our voluntary decisions escape to our consciousness. This original experimental study has been replicated several times with the same results-even if their interpretations differ, which challenges scientifically the issue of free will. Thus, criminal Intentionality of psychopathic individuals could be re-examined. Using Edelman‘s Neural Darwinism, we developed the hypothesis that free will materializes in neural networks and we illustrate this by clinical case analysis. These have developed and perpetuated during the child development via their sensory experiences indexed with emotional values. These networks are stored in memory, and constitute a collection of our own individual habits which serve as a model for all our future decisions. General human and particularly psychopathic criminals would have even less latitude to act freely since their complexes have developed uniformly and rigidly during their childhood.