ɩ Essays in Honour of Jaap Spier 55 Giovanni Comandé * Awarding Damages for Non-Pecuniary Losses: from Full to Personalized Compensation. A Quest towards Neurocognitive Research Abstract: This paper illustrates a shit from full to personalized compensation in non-pecuniary damage. It moves from the multiform language used to de- scribe these losses in various legal systems to analyse how the awarding criteria they use can serve the principle of making the victim whole as well as reshape this principle. As a final outcome, the paper closes with a return back to the ac- tual nature and role of the notion of » making the victim whole « suggesting an innovative path for research based on neurocognitive science insights. I. Making the victim whole: a principle, a fundamental right or an illusory promise ? Jurists oten use seemingly vague notions and adjectives to qualify for com- pensation for non-pecuniary damage such as » full « compensation ( or making the victim whole ), » fair « or » just « compensation. 1 Although referring to age old, * Prof. Dr. Giovanni Comandé, full professor of comparative law at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and director of LIDER-Lab <www.lider-lab.org > g.comande@sssup.it. 1 The language is clearly included in J. S. Rakoff and J. S. Siffert, Modern Federal Jury Instruc- tions Civil ( LexisNexis Book, 2015 ) 4–77 § 77-3: » The purpose of the law of damages is to award, as far as possible, just and fair compen- sation for the loss… you must award the plaintiff sufficient damages to compensate him or her for any injury proximately caused by the defendant’s conduct. These are known as › compensatory damages.‹ Compensatory damages seek to make the plaintiff whole that is,