The Neurobiological Basis of Morality

Suhler, Christopher L.; Churchland, Patricia Smith

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199570706.013.0023

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…If the human mind were made up of modules, we should expect the organization of the brain to refl ect the existence of these modules. 70 However, the anatomy of our central nervous system makes the ideas of informational encapsulation and domain specifi city implausible.…”

Section: Shortcomings Of the Moral Foundations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over 80 percent of synaptic contacts present in V1 do not come from LGN, but from other brain regions. 71 As a result, the V1 operation depends on what is going on in these other regions.…”

Section: Shortcomings Of the Moral Foundations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…how humans are prepared to acquire moral norms. 77 Similarly, Nichols' claim that our emotions favour the adoption of certain norms needs a more thorough explanation. Haidt and Nichols do not unveil the details of how cognitive processes lead to the production of moral judgements.…”

Section: Shortcomings Of the Moral Foundations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Rex

Abrantes

2016

Dialogue

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This paper scrutinizes two research programs that advocate respectively for the existence of a universal moral grammar and a predisposition to moralize behaviours with certain contents. It focuses on how the arguments commonly used to ground each program fare at relevant contemporary research in cognitive science and how well they meet constructivist arguments proposed by Jesse Prinz and Kim Sterelny, among others. We argue that there is little evidence that our moral judgements follow the model of principles and parameters. At the same time, ‘ease of learning’ suggests that the human brain is somehow prepared to learn moral rules.

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Section: Shortcomings Of the Moral Foundations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over 80 percent of synaptic contacts present in V1 do not come from LGN, but from other brain regions. 71 As a result, the V1 operation depends on what is going on in these other regions.…”

Section: Shortcomings Of the Moral Foundations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Rex

Abrantes

2016

Dialogue

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“…L. Young and Dungan, 2012). Furthermore, there is still no consistent, over-arching theory of the neurobiology of im-/morality (Suhler and Churchland, 2011). Though the contemporary neuroscience of the immoral person is nascent only, the present surge in brain-based descriptions of being human and the associated practices of diagnosing, policing and potentially treating people in terms of their brains might catapult the project from the kerb to the center of science and society.…”

Section: A New Controversy: a Contemporary Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19^th-century controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains

Schirmann

2013

History of the Human Sciences

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In the second half of the 19th-century, a group of psychiatric experts discussed the relation between brain malfunction and moral misconduct. In the ensuing debates, scientific discourses on immorality merged with those on insanity and the brain. This yielded a specific definition of what it means to be immoral: immoral and insane due to a disordered brain. In this context, diverse neurobiological explanations for immoral mind and behavior existed at the time. This article elucidates these different brain-based explanations via five historical cases of immoral persons. In addition, the article analyses the associated controversies in the context of the period’s psychiatric thinking. The rendering of the immoral person as brain-disordered is scrutinized in terms of changes in moral agency. Furthermore, a present immoral person is discussed to highlight commonalities and differences in past and present reasoning.

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“…Alas, doing justice to these various diversities requires more space than I can afford here. In my defense, I'm not trying to offer a comprehensive review of research on morality (for recent ones, see Haidt and Kesebir 2010;Suhler and Churchland 2011) but to identify one widespread and influential approach. 1 160 Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43(2)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What the Science of Morality Doesn’t Say About Morality

Abend

2012

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

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In this article I ask what recent moral psychology and neuroscience can and can’t claim to have discovered about morality. I argue that the object of study of much recent work is not morality but a particular kind of individual moral judgment. But this is a small and peculiar sample of morality. There are many things that are moral yet not moral judgments. There are also many things that are moral judgments yet not of that particular kind. If moral things are various and diverse, then empirical research about one kind of individual moral judgment doesn’t warrant theoretical conclusions about morality in general. If that kind of individual moral judgment is a peculiar and rare thing, then it is not obvious what it tells us about other moral things. What is more, it is not obvious what its theoretical importance is to begin with—that is, why we should care about it at all. In light of these arguments, I call for a pluralism of methods and objects of inquiry in the scientific investigation of morality, so that it transcends its problematic overemphasis on a particular kind of individual moral judgment.

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The Neurobiological Basis of Morality

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19^th-century controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains

What the Science of Morality Doesn’t Say About Morality

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The Neurobiological Basis of Morality

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Moral Nativism: Some Controversies

Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19th-century controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains

What the Science of Morality Doesn’t Say About Morality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

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Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19^th-century controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains