This essay responds to Hirstein, Sifferd and Fagan’s book, Responsible Brains (MIT Press, 2018), which claims that executive function is the guiding mechanism that supports both responsible agency and the necessity for some excuses. In contrast, I suggest that executive function is not the universal acid and the neuroscience at present contributes almost nothing to the necessary psychological level of explanation and analysis. To the extent neuroscience can be useful, it is virtually entirely dependent on well-validated psychology to correlate with the neuroscientific variables under investigation. The essay considers what executive function is and what the neuroscience adds to our understanding of it. Then it addresses moral and legal responsibility generally, and specific doctrines. Executive function is seldom found to be the most perspicuous approach to any of the general or specific moral and legal questions.

这篇文章是对 Hirstein、Sifferd 和 Fagan 的著作《Responsible Brains》（麻省理工学院出版社，2018 年）的回应，该书声称执行功能是支持负责任代理和某些借口必要性的指导机制。相比之下，我认为执行功能不是万能的，神经科学目前对解释和分析的必要心理水平几乎没有贡献。就神经科学的有用程度而言，它实际上完全依赖于经过充分验证的心理学，以将其与正在研究的神经科学变量相关联。这篇文章考虑了执行功能是什么以及神经科学为我们对它的理解增加了什么。然后是一般的道德和法律责任，以及具体的学说。