The Neural Correlates of Killing? a Critical Review of Social Neuroscience of Violence

This contribution analyses social neurosciences and their studies of violent behaviors.

Following the development of neuroscience, this specialized field of inquiry has developed in the United States from the beginning of 2000 with the objective of establishing biological explanations of social life. Violent behaviors are in its scope of interest as they question the relations between cognitive functions, emotional expressions and social interactions.

Investigating these neuroscientific studies on violence is relevant to the sociology of science and technology for at least three reasons: first, it highlights neuroscientists’ representations about violent situations and violent behaviors. Then, it questions how the neuroscientific research program appraises the “social”: critical neurosciences (Choudhury, 2012) have pointed the role of technologies (Dumit, 2004), scientific routines and moral concepts (Vander Valk, 2012) in the production of neuroscientific knowledge. Finally, it challenges the physiological assumptions that are admitted in sociological studies on violence, such as in the works of Collins (2008) on violent interactional processes.

This contribution relies on a lexicographic study of academic articles on violence published in two scientific journals dedicated to social neuroscience: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and Social Neuroscience. After presenting this field of inquiry and its research program, I qualify its appraisal of violent behaviors – what social situations are studied? By which disciplines and according to which methodologies? I eventually stress the conceptual differences that appear between the analyses of individual and collective violence in order to initiate a critical dialogue with sociology.

Collins, R. (2008), Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory, Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Choudhury S. (ed.) (2012), Critical neuroscience: a handbook of the social and cultural contexts of neuroscience, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Dumit J. (2004), Picturing personhood, Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Vander Valk F. (ed.), Essays on neuroscience and political theory: thinking the body politic, New York: Routledge.