Robins School hosts Economics Symposium (Elias Khalil presentation)

How much rational and moral behavior is hard-wired in the brain, as opposed to being learned?

An assembly of leading researchers from around the world -- including Reinhard Selten, 1994 Nobel economics prize winner; Paul Zak, discoverer of the neuroeconomic effects of trust on the hormone oxytocin; and Leonardo Fogassi, co-discoverer of the mirror-neuron system in the brain -- focused on that question March 21-22, 2009 at the University of Richmond.

The Symposium on Emotions, Natural Selection and Rationality celebrated the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's book, "Theory of Moral Sentiments," in which Smith proposed how morality depends on emotional projection. The mirror-neuron system, conceivably the basis of sympathetic emotions, highlights the fact that there is a biological basis of moral and rational behavior.

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