Part 2 - "This is Your Brain on Morality"

Patricia Churchland speaking at the "Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark" conference in October 2008. Her talk concerns the potential ethical implications of findings in the neurosciences.

This is Part 2 of 2.

For similar videos visit:
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-candles-in-the-dark

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Neuroethics
• Neurophilosophy
• Churchland
• Neuroscience
• Morality
• Metaethics
• Ethics
• Is
• Ought
• Gap
• Fact
• Value
• Dichotomy

[qwertyp1234]

The assumption being made here is that all humans experience these moral oughts i.e. that all humans follow normative morality and that the only difference between cultures lies in which norms are adopted. Whereas, in fact this is only the experience of one culture.

[LennyBound]

Interesting point.

Could you give me an example of a culture or society that lacks normative ethical statements?

[qwertyp1234]

Today when social scientists study cultures like that of India they expect Indians to also conceive of ethics as adopting and following certain moral norms. This expectation itself is due to a secularised belief of the Christian belief that God has written the moral law in the hearts of men.

[LennyBound]

That's extremely interesting. Maybe it's just my Western bias, but I can't even imagine a society that lacks normative language.

If they don't use normative language, then how do Indians advocate that individuals abstain from murder?

[qwertyp1234]

Here's a link to some of his works:

colonial(dot)consciousness(dot­)googlepages(dot)com(slash)pub­lications

The paper 'Comparative Anthropology and Moral Domains: An Essay On Selfless Morality and The Moral Self' should give you some sort of an answer to your question.

[LennyBound]

Wow, really interesting article.

Thanks for pointing it out. :-)

[kwalk30]

You're right on the first count, but not on the second..

[maddtappin]

well that's just being mean, and condescending. That's not a scientific or reasonable attitude.

[kwalk30]

I'm pretty sure you have no idea what I'm talking about, or what you're talking about for that matter.

[maddtappin]

I'm pretty sure neuroscience tries to unravel mysteries of the mind, including emotions, thought, and behavior.

[kwalk30]

What answers? The answer to why there are no categorical imperatives? That is not a question that neurosci. tries to answer.

Neurosci. tries to answer why people think there are categorical imperatives. My question is: would the fact that we can give an evolutionary explanation for why people believe torturing babies is wrong mean that there is no objective moral fact about it?  or would it just mean that it turns out such a belief is adaptive AND it still might be true.

[maddtappin]

we'll see. I think neuroscience in the next 20 or so years will have those answers.

[kwalk30]

She's assuming error theory, which is fine. I think there are only hypothetical imperatives too, but you can't get an argument against categorical moral facts from looking at the brain. Can you?

[qwertyp1234]

You're welcome. I'm still trying to understood many aspects of his work. It's quite complicated but utterly fascinating all the same. Another paper from that site "Comparative anthropology and action sciences..." is also quite interesting and relevant to this topic.