Proceedings of the 53rd International Academic Conference, Dubai

EDUCATING AND PUNISHING THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

THOMAS SIMON

Abstract:

The American Psychological Association submitted a brief in the Supreme Court in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), arguing that given that adolescents had similar cognitive skills as adults, they should not be required to notify their parents before having an abortion. Yet, it submitted a brief in Roper v Simmons (2005) arguing that since science had demonstrated that adolescent brains were not as developed as adult brains, they lacked the ability to take moral responsibility for their decisions. Many commentators found these positions inconsistent while others tried to reconcile them. We need to (1) recognize the complex interplay between the cognitive and the emotive, which has legal and educational implications; (2) more effectively integrate the cognitive capacities and so-called emotive short-comings of adolescents; (3) more seriously consider the implications of neuroscientific claims about the adolescent brain; and (4) recognize, encourage, and facilitate the cognitive capacities of people to make moral judgments at a very early age.

Keywords: abortion, adolescents, brain development, cognitive ability, moral responsibility

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2020.053.017

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