Nita A. Farahany focuses on the legal, philosophical, and social issues arising from biosciences, particularly related to behavioral genetics and neuroscience. As a leading expert in the intersection between law, philosophy, and the biosciences, her published work has appeared in legal, philosophical, and scientific publications, as well as the mainstream media. Farahany is the editor of The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law (Oxford University Press), which includes essays from experts in science, law, philosophy and policy on the emerging use of behavioral genetics and neuroscience in criminal law. In her current research, she uses biosciences to study agency and responsibility theory, and to challenge existing interpretations of the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Before joining Vanderbilt, Farahany clerked for the Honorable Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in genetics and cellular biology, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in biology where her thesis, Prescribing Culpability, critiqued the use of scientific criteria to define normative legal concepts. She earned her J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy of biology and jurisprudence at Duke University, where her doctoral dissertation, Rediscovering Criminal Responsibility through Behavioral Genetics, established the scientific and philosophical limitations to informing individual responsibility with behavioral genetics. She presents her work widely and to varied audiences, including past presentations to the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, the National Judicial College, the Stanford Center for the Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.

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Representative Publications

Books

The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law, Oxford University Press (2009) (editor of collected volume)

Articles

"Cruel and Unequal Punishment," 86 Washington University Law Review 859 (2009)

“Law and Behavioral Morality,” Evolution and Morality: NOMOS LIII, NYU Press (forthcoming) (Sanford Levinson, ed.)

“The Interface Between Freedom and Agency,” Stanford Technology Law Review (forthcoming 2009)

"Bad Nature, Bad Nurture, and Testimony in Murder Trials," 52 Journal of Forensic Science 1362 (2007) (with William Bernet, Cindy L. Vnencak-Jones and Stephen A. Montgomery)

"Behavioural Genetics in Criminal Cases: Past, Present and Future," 1 Genomics, Science & Policy Journal 2 (2006) (with William Bernet)

"Foreword," 69 Law & Contemporary Problems 1 (2006)

"Genetics and Responsibility: To Know the Criminal from the Crime," 69 Law & Contemporary Problems 115 (2006) (with James E. Coleman Jr.)

Working Papers

"Incriminating Thoughts"

"Punishment and Behavioral Genetics: To Know the Criminal and the Crime"

"Search and Self-Identity"