In this chapter, we begin with a brief introduction to the recent developments in the biological sciences. We go on to examine how these are joining with older projects to improve the human condition. We review the origins of these projects in the natural yearning for a utopia, free from misery, disorder and disease. We then trace the ascendency of developmental psychology and ‘infant determinism’ which has always been a key part of the project of human improvement.

The application of molecular biology and neuroscience to the treatment of diseases such as cancer or Parkinson's disease may be relatively morally uncontroversial, but we are seeing a shift in the range of matters to which biological understandings are being applied. This is why the exploration of their translation into policy and practice is so pressing. The ‘neuro’ prefix, for example, is now applied to disciplines as disparate as economics, the law, aesthetics, pedagogy, theology and organisational behaviour. The term ‘neuromania’ has been coined (Legrenzi and Umilta, 2011; Tallis, 2011) to refer to this proliferation.

Although some critics have lampooned this ebullience, speaking flippantly of parts of the brain ‘lighting up’ in overly simplistic laboratory experiments, there are many, very real implications in seeing the human condition in this way. Social policy is making increasingly significant use of neuroscientific evidence to warrant particular claims about both the potentialities and vulnerabilities of early childhood, and the proper responses of the State to these. Neuroscience is also making its mark in the area of criminal justice, where it often appears to offer ‘liberalising’ benefits: developmental neuroscience has been used, for example, to make the case for raising the age of criminal responsibility. However, alongside these apparently progressive trends, there lies the seductive (and somewhat sinister) idea that violent crime can be attributed to a small group of intrinsically aggressive individuals, and that neuroimaging (or genetics) can yield ‘biomarkers’ which may be used to identify risky people and to ‘target’ interventions at them. This potentially prefigures a future in which new biological technologies play an increasing role in pre-emptively isolating risky subgroups and identifying how to prevent their predicted deviance.