Published on Wednesday, April 06, 2016
Abstract
The transformation of groups of previously nonviolent individuals into repetitive killers of defenseless members of society has been a recurring phenomenon throughout history. This apparent transition of large numbers of seemingly normal, “ordinary” individuals, to perpetrators of extreme atrocities is one of the most striking variants of human behavior, but often appear incomprehensible to victims and bystanders and in retrospect even to the perpetrators themselves and to society in general. This transition is characterized by a set of symptoms and signs for which a common syndrome has been proposed, Syndrome E (Fried, Lancet, 1997). The purpose of such designation is not to medicalize this form of human behavior, but to provide a framework for future discussion and multidisciplinary discourse and for potential insights that might lead to early detection and prevention.
Announcement
Presentation
The transformation of groups of previously nonviolent individuals into repetitive killers of defenseless members of society has been a recurring phenomenon throughout history. This apparent transition of large numbers of seemingly normal, “ordinary” individuals, to perpetrators of extreme atrocities is one of the most striking variants of human behavior, but often appear incomprehensible to victims and bystanders and in retrospect even to the perpetrators themselves and to society in general.
This transition is characterized by a set of symptoms and signs for which a common syndrome has been proposed, Syndrome E (Fried, Lancet, 1997). The purpose of such designation is not to medicalize this form of human behavior, but to provide a framework for future discussion and multidisciplinary discourse and for potential insights that might lead to early detection and prevention.
“Arguably the biggest challenge for interdisciplinary dialogue across the fields that consider brain and behavior…a bold and important attempt to bring interdisciplinary approach to one of the biggest questions facing humanity", Nature, 521:260, 2015 (Editorial on the First Paris Conference on Syndrome E)
Program
Monday, May 9th
Introduction:
09:00 - Gretty Mirdal (Paris IAS), Alain Berthoz (College de France): Introduction and welcome
09:15 - Itzhak Fried (UCLA / Paris IAS): The Brains that Pull the Triggers: Syndrome E, 2016
Empathy and Dehumanization
- 10:15 - Emile Bruneau (MIT): Intergroup empathy and dehumanizations: consequences, neural basis, intervention
10:45 - Break
- 11:00 - John Decety (Univ. of Chicago): Empathy and Morality
- 11:30 - Alain Berthoz (College de France): The question of multiple identities
12:00 - Discusion
12:45 - Lunch break
Pathology: One of us or one unlike us?
- 14:15 - Asne Seierstad (Norway): Breivik and Beyond: “One of us” behind the Trigger
- 14:45 - David Cohen (Université Pierre & Marie Curie): The road to mass killing: a pathological process?
- 15:15 - Richard Rechtman (EHESS): Questioning the predictive value of syndrome-E
15:45 - Break
- 16:00 - Thomas Boraud (Univ Bordeaux): Syndrome E: pathological process or inheritance of evolution?
16:30 - Discussion
18:00 - Cocktail
Tuesday May 10th
Valuation and Violence
- 09:00 - Ray Dolan (University College London): Self and Other Valuation
- 09:30 - Matthias Pessiglione (ICM): What's wrong with the valuation system in a terrorist brain?
- 10:00 - Etienne Koechlin (ENS Paris): Rules and Values
10:30 - Discussion
11:15 - Break
Clinical Correlations and Parallels
- 11:45 - Michel Botbol (CHU Brest): What can the clinic of “difficult” adolescents tell us about Syndrome E?
- 12:15 - Lionel Nachache (ICM): Is society subject to “epileptic seizures”? Communication within the brain microcosm and communication within the societal macrocosm
12:45 - Lunch Break
- 14:00 - Trevor Robbins (Oxford): Derangements of Affective Cognition
14:30 - Discussion
Responsibility and Intervention
- 15:15 - Patrick Haggard (UCL / Paris IAS): Why I didn't do it... can other people reduce individual responsibility for action?
- 15:45 - Ken Paller (Northwestern): Changing hearts and minds — A perspective from memory research
- 16:15 - Xabier Agirre Aranburu (International Criminal Court): Obedience, Responsibility, Punishment
16:45 - Discussion
17:30 - Itzhak Fried (UCLA / Paris IAS): Concluding Remarks
Subjects
Places
- Institut d'études avancées de Paris, Hôtel de Lauzun - 17 quai d'Anjou
Paris, France (75004)
Date(s)
- Monday, May 09, 2016
- Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Keywords
- brain, neuroscience, neurosciences, cerveau, esprit, mind, violence
Contact(s)
- IEA Informations
courriel : information [at] paris-iea [dot] fr
Information source
- Élodie Saubatte
courriel : elodie [dot] saubatte [at] paris-iea [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« The brains that pull the triggers », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, April 06, 2016, https://doi.org/10.58079/uua