New at Reason
Ron Bailey says that modern brain science is confirming the moral theories of Adam Smith.
Comments to "New at Reason":
GILMORE | November 21, 2007, 4:12pm | #
Another, "When all you've got is neuroscience, every problem looks like a monkey's brain hooked to a supercomputer?" situation here? Dancing about Architecture?Again, no one argues it's *bad* to look to biological basis for ethics, but nothing makes it the most enlightening tool simply because it involves scalpels and protractors etc. It often raises chicken or the egg questions = can biology evolve for the needs of the conscious mind? Are we moral because we've got an Adam Smith lobe, or did we grow one because moral monkeys got more mates?
In any case, EEG's be damned, it still says a shitload less than a few random excerpts from Marcus Aurelius
NotThatDavid | November 21, 2007, 4:25pm | #
The bleeding hiker vs. starving family argument is pretty flawed, I think. The hiker is dying now, and, presumably, there's nobody else around who can take him to a hospital. The family in Africa is in danger, not actively hurt, wouldn't get the help immediately anyway, and there's always the rationalization that the charity can still send money even if I don't personally donate. The moral landscape's different in more ways than just distance.SIV | November 21, 2007, 5:01pm | #
< i>modern brain scienceAt one time phrenology was the cutting edge of "brain science". How did that work out?
Later, Moniz won a Nobel Prize for his contribution to "brain science":
His method involved drilling holes in patients' heads and destroying the tissue connecting the frontal lobes by injecting alcohol into them. Moniz won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1949 for this work.
Russell Seitz | November 21, 2007, 5:24pm | #
I empathize with Ron's identification with Adam Smith, but this work more mirrors the early neurophysiological work of McCulloch and Lettvin, who ascertained that the frog's brain, what there is of it, and its retina, are hardwired to recognize just four things: water,food, things that eat frogs, and frogs with potential as significant others.As for Moniz, he was a reptile's reptile:
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/10/the-penmanship-.html
Edward | November 21, 2007, 6:44pm | #
Let's face it: everything confirms our sacred cows; otherwise they wouldn't be sacred cows.[cynic]When I help the bleeding hiker I know he gets the help. It's too easy for the $200 to be siphoned off by the government responsible for the starvation.[/cynic]
matthew hogan | November 21, 2007, 9:34pm | #
"Let's face it: everything confirms our sacred cows; otherwise they wouldn't be sacred cows."Are sacred cows the Prime Mooover?
AlmightyJB | November 21, 2007, 11:05pm | #
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. hmmmm. ok.S. McCandless | November 21, 2007, 11:38pm | #
It seems to me that empathy is being confused with compassion or sympathy. Empathy, the ability to comprehend the feelings of others, can be used to harm or to help others. In order to act with the intention of harming another person the aggressor would have to empathize the victim's feelings. Schopenhauer in his treatise on ethics wrote, "...the pains and sufferings of others are for malice and cruelty ends in themselves, and their attainment is a pleasure." For a person lacking empathy, both compassion and malice would be impossible.tsehov | November 22, 2007, 6:37am | #
> But we do not have to be the slaves of our evolved moral intuitions. By showing us the neural workings of our moral sense, neuroscience is giving us the tools to understand and improve our moral choices.This is BS. What difference does it make if there's a biological confirmation of a human charasteristic that's been known to man through out ages?
Guy Montag | November 22, 2007, 6:46am | #
This is BS. What difference does it make if there's a biological confirmation of a human charasteristic that's been known to man through out ages?Because it is an easier argument for grant money than 'I just want to hang around a lab all day'.
Exactly. 'Gosh! means cash'. If there's no 'gosh!' better make one up.
wayne | November 22, 2007, 8:28am | #
"The family in Africa is in danger, not actively hurt, wouldn't get the help immediately anyway, and there's always the rationalization that the charity can still send money even if I don't personally donate. The moral landscape's different in more ways than just distance."
Indeed, I agree. Another thing that keeps me from donating is that most of these "charities" are just con jobs. When $199.00 of a $200.00 donation goes toward supplying mansions and Rolls Royces for the "CEO" of the charity, it tends to suppress one's naivity.
wayne | November 22, 2007, 8:31am | #
His method involved drilling holes in patients' heads and destroying the tissue connecting the frontal lobes by injecting alcohol into them. Moniz won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1949 for this work.I take my alcohol orally, on the rocks. It does seem to have the same brain destroying effects though. Where is my Nobel prize?
GILMORE | November 22, 2007, 12:55pm | #
. By showing us the neural workings of our moral sense, neuroscience is giving us the tools to understand and improve our moral choices.I agree with Guy above - Neuroscience may be a "tool", but it doesnt "explain" anything aside from "ethics seems to be located on X part of Y lobe and responds to Z stimuli"
How this leads to "improved moral choices" is a stretch. In the end, they're going to need far more from the soft sciences to make use of any 'information' gleaned. Information isnt knowledge, and science has a long way to go before replacing (or even practically complimenting) 1000s of years of ethical philosophy.
GILMORE | November 22, 2007, 1:02pm | #
I learned a new word today which may apply to the facination with this kind of research ="Measurbation" - compulsive technical analysis that may or may not produce any meaningful data, but provides the practitioner temporary sense of self-satisfaction and purpose
rudecrusade | November 22, 2007, 1:13pm | #
"Gosh! for cash." I'm so stealing that.I look at the brain like a brand new computer motherboard. The capacity to become "something" is there. It just depends on what we add to it as we put it together (or grow up) that determines how the thing will perform.
I think the neural science may explain how the brain works (like how we understand how a computer works) but there is so much INDIVIDUAL choice in how to put it together that determines what the end result is.
If I saw a bleeding hiker, I'd tell him to pull himself up by his bootstraps, start his own business, and make enough money to afford to get airlifted out of there. The nerve of some mooches who think just by lying there bleeding they are entitled to a claim on my car seat!
GILMORE | November 23, 2007, 1:06am | #
a lot of interesting thoughts here... aside from the previous post :)GILMORE | November 23, 2007, 1:07am | #
meaning = e | November 22, 2007, 11:15pm | #Cesar | November 23, 2007, 12:30pm | #
If I saw a bleeding hiker, I'd tell him to pull himself up by his bootstraps, start his own business, and make enough money to afford to get airlifted out of there. The nerve of some mooches who think just by lying there bleeding they are entitled to a claim on my car seat!No, being a liberal you'd tell him to go to the nearest welfare office then drive off.
Neu Mejican | November 23, 2007, 12:35pm | #
Here's a related brain study:http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/11/men-motivated-b.html
A wrong answer, and no payment, resulted in a reduction in blood flow to the "reward region". But the area "lit up" when volunteers earned money, and interestingly showed far more activity if a player received more than his partner. This indicated that stimulation of the reward centre was not merely linked to individual success, but to the success of others.
This one is about incentives, but I can't help but think about the moral implications surrounding the issue of reward for competitive advantage.
I tend to think the African family is the condition i's in because of the collective social and political attitudes of all the African families in that country.
The last paragraph in this article is the rather typical result whenever science studies ethics/morals. Inevitably, those scientists make a leap into assuming that science can replace those morals -- based on nothing more than being able to describe how they might work. Shame really - because everything before that last paragraph was quite interesting.
Shezmu | November 23, 2007, 8:57pm | #
Morality as a evolutionary advantage, eh? Well, there went another creation argument.Guy Montag | November 23, 2007, 10:40pm | #
Toady,I tend to think the African family is the condition i's in because of the collective social and political attitudes of all the African families in that country.
Have you actually traveled that continant or are you just speaking from distanced knowledge?
I have never been there, but since I was a child in the 1960s I knew that there were urban areas with cosmopilitan aspects in Africa and many "rural" parts too. Today, I undersand from the people I have met from there, that there are more urban areas.
Oh, if you don't know, Africa is a continent, not a county.
I happen to be a fan of rural areas, but still, your comment deserves expansion.
Stevie Stardust | November 25, 2007, 6:51am | #
When one picks up the bike rider himself. He knows he will get him to the hospital. However, the $200 may or may not, get to or be used properly by the family in Africe. A ridiculous comparison. Also one meant to subvert the help of the bicyclist by alluding to an alleged racial factor that may or may not exist.