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Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring
by Robert Lee Hotz, WSJ.com
Thanks to Ranjani for the link.
Reposted from:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117884235401499300-search.html?KEYWORDS=hauser&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month
Most of us feel a rush of righteous certainty in the face of a moral challenge, an intuitive sense of right or wrong hard to ignore yet difficult to articulate.
A provocative medical experiment conducted recently by neuroscientists at Harvard, Caltech and the University of Southern California strongly suggests these impulsive convictions come not from conscious principles but from the brain trying to make its emotional judgment felt.
Using neurology patients to probe moral reasoning, the researchers for the first time drew a direct link between the neuroanatomy of emotion and moral judgment.
Knock out certain brain cells with an aneurysm or a tumor, they discovered, and while everything else may appear normal, the ability to think straight about some issues of right and wrong has been permanently skewed. "It tells us there is some neurobiological basis for morality," said Harvard philosophy student Liane Young, who helped to conceive the experiment.
In particular, these people had injured an area that links emotion to cognition, located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow. The experiment underscores the pivotal part played by unconscious empathy and emotion in guiding decisions. "When that influence is missing," said USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, "pure reason is set free."
Bringing medical tools to bear on moral questions, cognitive scientists are invading the territory of philosophers, theologians and clerics.
Usually, the human brain is of two minds when it comes to morality -- selfish but self-sacrificing, survivalist yet altruistic, calculating but also compassionate. Many dilemmas force a choice between the lesser of two evils, invoking a clash of competing neural networks, said Harvard neuroscientist Joshua Greene. Intuition tempers rational deliberation, especially when our actions to help some people will harm others.
At this level of inquiry, the mind is a special effect generated by neurons. Trust is a measure of neuropeptide levels, while fairness is an electromagnetic pattern in the right prefrontal cortex. Disrupt it with a strong magnet, as did University of Zurich researchers in 2006, and any sense of fair-dealing fades away like a radio station subsumed by static.
Is morality innate or learned? Join Robert Lee Hotz and other readers in a discussion.Not everyone reasons through moral conundrums in the same way, of course. Decisions hinge on family values, cultural heritage, legal traditions and religious beliefs -- or on the kind of brain you can bring to bear on the problem.
At the University of Iowa Hospital, the researchers singled out six middle-age men and women who had injured the same neural network in the prefrontal cortex. On neuropsychological tests, they seemed normal. They were healthy, intelligent, talkative, yet also unkempt, not so easily embarrassed or so likely to feel guilty, explained lead study scientist Michael Koenigs at the National Institutes of Health. They had lived with the brain damage for years but seemed unaware that anything about them had changed.
To analyze their moral abilities, Dr. Koenigs and his colleagues used a diagnostic probe as old as Socrates -- leading questions: To save yourself and others, would you throw someone out of a lifeboat? Would you push someone off a bridge, smother a crying baby, or kill a hostage?
All told, they considered 50 hypothetical moral dilemmas. Their responses were essentially identical to those of neurology patients who had different brain injuries and to healthy volunteers, except when a situation demanded they take one life to save others. For most, the thought of killing an innocent prompts a visceral revulsion, no matter how many other lives weigh in the balance. But if your prefrontal cortex has been impaired in the same small way by stroke or surgery, you would feel no such compunction in sacrificing one life for the good of all. The six patients certainly felt none. Any moral inhibition, whether learned or hereditary, had lost its influence.
The effort to understand the biology of morality is far from academic, said Georgetown University law professor John Mikhail. The search for an ethical balance of harm is central to medical debates on vaccine safety, organ transplants and clinical drug trials. It colors political disputes over embryonic stem-cell research, capital punishment and abortion. It is the essence of much military strategy and the underlying logic of terrorism.
For Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser, the moral-dilemma experiment is evidence the brain may be hard-wired for morality. Most moral intuitions, he said, are unconscious, involuntary and universal. To test the idea, he gathered data from thousands of people in hundreds of countries, all of whom display a remarkable unanimity in their basic moral choices. A shared innate capacity for morality may be responsible, he concluded.
Many scientists think his theory needs more proof. Since no two brains are exactly alike, each brain's ability to perceive right and wrong might be unique. The world is a thicket of moral maxims we readily ignore. Even so, it would be curious if, in the neural substrates of morality, we find common ground.
Reposted from:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117884235401499300-search.html?KEYWORDS=hauser&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month
Most of us feel a rush of righteous certainty in the face of a moral challenge, an intuitive sense of right or wrong hard to ignore yet difficult to articulate.
A provocative medical experiment conducted recently by neuroscientists at Harvard, Caltech and the University of Southern California strongly suggests these impulsive convictions come not from conscious principles but from the brain trying to make its emotional judgment felt.
Using neurology patients to probe moral reasoning, the researchers for the first time drew a direct link between the neuroanatomy of emotion and moral judgment.
Knock out certain brain cells with an aneurysm or a tumor, they discovered, and while everything else may appear normal, the ability to think straight about some issues of right and wrong has been permanently skewed. "It tells us there is some neurobiological basis for morality," said Harvard philosophy student Liane Young, who helped to conceive the experiment.
In particular, these people had injured an area that links emotion to cognition, located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow. The experiment underscores the pivotal part played by unconscious empathy and emotion in guiding decisions. "When that influence is missing," said USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, "pure reason is set free."
Bringing medical tools to bear on moral questions, cognitive scientists are invading the territory of philosophers, theologians and clerics.
Usually, the human brain is of two minds when it comes to morality -- selfish but self-sacrificing, survivalist yet altruistic, calculating but also compassionate. Many dilemmas force a choice between the lesser of two evils, invoking a clash of competing neural networks, said Harvard neuroscientist Joshua Greene. Intuition tempers rational deliberation, especially when our actions to help some people will harm others.
At this level of inquiry, the mind is a special effect generated by neurons. Trust is a measure of neuropeptide levels, while fairness is an electromagnetic pattern in the right prefrontal cortex. Disrupt it with a strong magnet, as did University of Zurich researchers in 2006, and any sense of fair-dealing fades away like a radio station subsumed by static.
Is morality innate or learned? Join Robert Lee Hotz and other readers in a discussion.Not everyone reasons through moral conundrums in the same way, of course. Decisions hinge on family values, cultural heritage, legal traditions and religious beliefs -- or on the kind of brain you can bring to bear on the problem.
At the University of Iowa Hospital, the researchers singled out six middle-age men and women who had injured the same neural network in the prefrontal cortex. On neuropsychological tests, they seemed normal. They were healthy, intelligent, talkative, yet also unkempt, not so easily embarrassed or so likely to feel guilty, explained lead study scientist Michael Koenigs at the National Institutes of Health. They had lived with the brain damage for years but seemed unaware that anything about them had changed.
To analyze their moral abilities, Dr. Koenigs and his colleagues used a diagnostic probe as old as Socrates -- leading questions: To save yourself and others, would you throw someone out of a lifeboat? Would you push someone off a bridge, smother a crying baby, or kill a hostage?
All told, they considered 50 hypothetical moral dilemmas. Their responses were essentially identical to those of neurology patients who had different brain injuries and to healthy volunteers, except when a situation demanded they take one life to save others. For most, the thought of killing an innocent prompts a visceral revulsion, no matter how many other lives weigh in the balance. But if your prefrontal cortex has been impaired in the same small way by stroke or surgery, you would feel no such compunction in sacrificing one life for the good of all. The six patients certainly felt none. Any moral inhibition, whether learned or hereditary, had lost its influence.
The effort to understand the biology of morality is far from academic, said Georgetown University law professor John Mikhail. The search for an ethical balance of harm is central to medical debates on vaccine safety, organ transplants and clinical drug trials. It colors political disputes over embryonic stem-cell research, capital punishment and abortion. It is the essence of much military strategy and the underlying logic of terrorism.
For Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser, the moral-dilemma experiment is evidence the brain may be hard-wired for morality. Most moral intuitions, he said, are unconscious, involuntary and universal. To test the idea, he gathered data from thousands of people in hundreds of countries, all of whom display a remarkable unanimity in their basic moral choices. A shared innate capacity for morality may be responsible, he concluded.
Many scientists think his theory needs more proof. Since no two brains are exactly alike, each brain's ability to perceive right and wrong might be unique. The world is a thicket of moral maxims we readily ignore. Even so, it would be curious if, in the neural substrates of morality, we find common ground.
Comments 1 - 50 of 61 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #43252 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 2:48 am
Are non-evidential religious beliefs equivalent to stroke and surgery?
Interesting thought. I was particularly wondering if it is possible to supress this signal in the prefrontal cortex in the same way that meditation can supress your sense of "self"? If this "revulsion" for the sacrifice of human life is something that can be damaged, then it sounds plausible that you could induce a state of mind where it is suppressed. We may even find it to be part of the techniques used to make seemingly ordinary young men into suicide bombers. Someone should investigate this further.
Other Comments by Luthien
3. Comment #43253 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 2:48 am
What simple-minded research. Of course 'moral' decision are based on emotions, to a certain extent. But the question is, why do we value such emotions as 'good' in the first place? Why not say that such emotion-based decisions are a form of mental weakness (as thought Plato, the Imperial Romans, and Nietzsche, amongst others), and that 'cold'/emotionless decisions are a sign of strength – that one can control one's emotions?In other words, to 'prove' this morality presupposes another morality behind it. So it proves absolutely nothing.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
4. Comment #43257 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 2:55 am
Of course 'moral' decision are based on emotions, to a certain extent. But the question is, why do we value such emotions as 'good' in the first place?
Emotional based morals are "good" because they allow faster decision making in a dangerous situation when you may not have time to think everything through. They act as a good rule of thumb for preserving yourself and those important to you (not perfect by any means, but better than inaction through indecision).
Other Comments by Luthien
5. Comment #43260 by Zappi on May 21, 2007 at 3:05 am
I wonder if there is any relationship between this kind of brain damage and Alexithymia. An alexithymic displays normal behaviour but is incapable of expressing his emotions verbally or processing emotions at a conscious level and therefore acts in an emotionally somewhat weird way if judged by a normal person. Alexithymics are unable to express their own internal emotional states, even to themselves. In this sense, they are unaware of their own feelings, mistaking them sometimes with physiological sensations.Other Comments by Zappi
6. Comment #43264 by Logicel on May 21, 2007 at 3:10 am
In particular, these people had injured an area that links emotion to cognition, located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex several inches behind the brow. The experiment underscores the pivotal part played by unconscious empathy and emotion in guiding decisions. "When that influence is missing," said USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, "pure reason is set free."_______
This study, along with past studies on brain-damaged people, is pointing to the complexity of morality, that is both emotional and rationally based. Just like some cling to either the nurture or nature side, some also cling to either the rational or emotional side in terms of morality. These studies show that such a cleaving is not possible in humans, unless it has been made possible by brain damage.
Luthien, as brain damage can affect the transmission of neurons, etc., it seems highly probable that unusual mental states, like mediation, praying, could pull off some interesting effects. Happily, neuroscientists are focused on these aspects, and we can look forward to some breakthrough discoveries on this front.
Other Comments by Logicel
7. Comment #43269 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 3:19 am
Luthien:That does not explain why, say, sympathy is good for someone unknown to you.
You miss the point. This research bases itself on Christian morality ('slave morality').
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
8. Comment #43274 by BillySands on May 21, 2007 at 3:28 am
From other studies, it seems they are on the right track, but the sample numbers are very small.Henri
What I take from this is that moral decision making has a physical and not spiritual basis. I would say that we get our ability to decide what is good or bad from natural selection
Other Comments by BillySands
9. Comment #43293 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 4:29 am
That does not explain why, say, sympathy is good for someone unknown to you.
Henri, it does explain why. We evolved to live in small groups, not large cities. Emotions will make the shortcut assumption that what is good for someone else is good for you, because they assume that the "stranger" is part of the group you depend on for support. Essentially your brain will "reward" you with a good feeling when you help a stranger.
You miss the point. This research bases itself on Christian morality ('slave morality').
No, it is just a study of instinctive emotional reactions. Emotions are not a "form of mental weakness", but of strength. A cold and "emotionless" response to an extreme situation would take far too long to process, and by the time you reached a decision you would be too late to do anything.
In other words, to 'prove' this morality presupposes another morality behind it. So it proves absolutely nothing.
No, it doesn't presuppose any morality. It just looks at the instinctual responses that are common to all humans. These will be the evolved "rules" of conduct that best helped us to survive.
Other Comments by Luthien
10. Comment #43299 by Chris Davis on May 21, 2007 at 4:38 am
@BillySands: Agreed. It seems inevitable to me that much, if not all, morality is innate, genetic and heritable - and common to all social animals.Without a fundamental instinctive drive to treat others according to a form of Golden Rule, I don't see how any society could form. Chimps, meerkats and other social animals display such behaviour.
CD
Other Comments by Chris Davis
11. Comment #43325 by MIND_REBEL on May 21, 2007 at 5:53 am
Humans have an innate moral code, which can only be corrupted by intense indoctrinazation. The reason why religous people are so immoral is because their memes have taken control of their brains, and it's causing them to fight and steal for thier "God". Other Comments by MIND_REBEL
12. Comment #43333 by staredowntheflood on May 21, 2007 at 6:10 am
This is not "simple minded research".Antonio Damasio, the neuroscientist pictured in the article, wrote a book called Descatres' Error where he presented his Somatic Marker Hypothesis. It posits that without an emotional compass i.e. gut feelings, we couldn't make advantageous rational choices. It's becoming more and more evident that such lofty concepts such as morality can finally be grounded in the physical reality of neuroscience.
Other Comments by staredowntheflood
13. Comment #43337 by elfinabout on May 21, 2007 at 6:21 am
And yet again, I find an article on the front page that I emailed in over a week ago, the finding of which is credited to someone else. I'm actually getting annoyed about this now, especially since I've had no answer to my questioning of this from the site admins.I can't see any email addresses other than contact@richarddawkins.net anywhere on the site, and nobody replies to emails sent there! Does anyone here know if there is another email address, or a recognised article submission procedure? I can't find anything...
Yours in frustration,
elfinabout
Other Comments by elfinabout
14. Comment #43339 by BaronOchs on May 21, 2007 at 6:27 am
elfinabout you need to send the email to:design@richarddawkins.net
Other Comments by BaronOchs
15. Comment #43342 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 6:33 am
Luthien:A 'cold' response is just as quick as an emotional one, if not faster as it bypassses the necessity for emotion.
Aggression is also an evolved response. Therefore to say that altruism is 'better' than aggression is to make a presupposed value judgement.
It is a shame that us atheists do not recognise the subliminal religious ethics that underlie our thought.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
16. Comment #43346 by elfinabout on May 21, 2007 at 6:39 am
Thanks, BaronOchs. Out of interest, does anyone know if that is noted anywhere on the site? Other Comments by elfinabout
17. Comment #43348 by pewkatchoo on May 21, 2007 at 6:40 am
Henri, I don't think they said that it proved anything. This simply opens up a wonderful area for experimentation and analysis. It would be hilarious if it proved categorically that religious upbringing, rather than being a moral plus, is actually a negative influence. I think that is the more likely outcome of this type of research than the opposite. Other Comments by pewkatchoo
18. Comment #43349 by BaronOchs on May 21, 2007 at 6:44 am
Contact Us
RichardDawkins.net
The Official Richard Dawkins Website
Please DO NOT send any attachments to our email addresses, they will be deleted. Thank you.
General Email: contact@richarddawkins.net
Media Contact Email (This email is only for interviews, lectures or other media related requests): mediacontact@richarddawkins.net
Website Technical Issues (Josh):design@richarddawkins.net
Mailing Address:
RichardDawkins.net
P.O. Box 13604
Savannah, GA 31416
USA
elfinabout when you click on Contact Us at the top, it lists those three email addresses, but yeah it's not very explicit and other people have had the same problem.
Other Comments by BaronOchs
19. Comment #43350 by pewkatchoo on May 21, 2007 at 6:46 am
Mind_Rebel, you don't half talk some nonsense. Please learn proper English spelling and grammar too! Inate, indoctrination, religious, their. Other Comments by pewkatchoo
20. Comment #43358 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 7:06 am
Luthien:
A 'cold' response is just as quick as an emotional one, if not faster as it bypassses the necessity for emotion.
No, there is clear experimental evidence that emotional decisions are much quicker than those made without / with less emotion. I do wish you would stop inventing "facts" to support your opinions.
Aggression is also an evolved response. Therefore to say that altruism is 'better' than aggression is to make a presupposed value judgement.
No, aggression can be the better reaction in some circumstances, just not the ones were we have to work together to a common goal.
It is a shame that us atheists do not recognise the subliminal religious ethics that underlie our thought.
I realy think you should read up on something called "confirmation bias" before you are completely consumed by your paranoid fantasies.
Other Comments by Luthien
21. Comment #43361 by EG on May 21, 2007 at 7:20 am
Perhaps someone here can help clarify something for me. With this talk of morality, I find the article interesting. However, Richard, in his book River Out of Eden (p.133), says that in this universe there is "no evil and no other good." Is he really saying what I think he is saying? Good and evil don't exist? I haven't heard his further explanation of this writing. Help me to understand if I have misunderstood. Thanks. Other Comments by EG
22. Comment #43368 by elfinabout on May 21, 2007 at 7:31 am
Thanks, BaronOchs. Yes, it could be substantially clearer. Other Comments by elfinabout
23. Comment #43377 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 8:04 am
Luthien:That a 'common goal' should be 'good' is your fantasy. Read something intelligent and we'll be able to continue this debate.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
24. Comment #43381 by Phaeonix on May 21, 2007 at 8:11 am
Every single time an article like this adds to the delicate kindle of religious faith, I think on the closing gaps and I sing to myself the opening and closing chorus of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. "O Fortuna...."
Other Comments by Phaeonix
25. Comment #43383 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 8:22 am
Luthien:
That a 'common goal' should be 'good' is your fantasy. Read something intelligent and we'll be able to continue this debate.
Have you never seen the documentary "Nice Guys Finish First", by Richard Dawkins, or read "The Selfish Gene"? They explain why this is so in detail.
...of course while being altruistic we must remember the following rule:
Please do not feed the trolls.
Other Comments by Luthien
26. Comment #43389 by ghostbuster on May 21, 2007 at 8:46 am
I like looking at President Bush's face when he starts moralizing; he neither understands what he is saying nor does he believe it. He simply reads it.I forget who once said "the rich don't think like us"--but whenever you see them speaking about the poor, whoever they may be, there is often that blank stare enveloped in sincere language of care and concern. Then they place in policies and programs that cause more suffering.
Somewhat like a psychopath. Great scam artists. But they do well in positions of power and do not seem to be terribly upset by sending the common folks' children off to die and add yet more collateral damage so they can reap in yet more profits--or trash the earth for that matter in pure self-interest.
So while there may actually be physical damage to the brain to cause amoral or immoral decisions or suspension of morality, I think the brain can also be altered by what it is taught. Physically altered.
Other Comments by ghostbuster
27. Comment #43390 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 8:47 am
Reductio ad Trollum– a novel way of avoiding admission of defeat in an argument.
The points I made are serious. In sum, altruism is undoubtedly an evolved trait. Indeed it can be useful for gene proliferation. But 'immorality' can also be very useful (e.g. greed). Therefore to value morality over immorality cannot be explained by evolution itself. To do so requires a prior value schema.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
28. Comment #43395 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on May 21, 2007 at 9:07 am
But 'immorality' can also be very useful (e.g. greed). Therefore to value morality over immorality cannot be explained by evolution itself. To do so requires a prior value schema.I think what you are talking about is the templating of culture on top of the hard wiring. However modern morality has little in common with Christian morality.
That has to be made very clear. Religion is certainly one of many inputs into evolving cultural memes, but at this juncture literal application of religious morality could be fatal.
And, yes you are coming across as a troll, this is just a friendly observation.
Other Comments by briancoughlanworldcitizen
29. Comment #43396 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 9:12 am
Ok Henri, for your viewing pleasure, here is the explanation of why "greed" is not the best strategy for survival. The "Nice Guys Finish First" documentary with a very young Richard Dawkins in it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzeCn02l_Rw
Other Comments by Luthien
30. Comment #43399 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 9:21 am
Serious thinkers do not rely on TV documentaries for their knowledge. Even Dawkins writes (in the God Delusion) that a covertly greedy individual has evolutionary advantages. But all of that it beside the point I previously made; please try to understand.
Coughlan:
Det var inte vad jag menade, precis. Men jag tror ochså vad du säger om religion.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
31. Comment #43404 by Luthien on May 21, 2007 at 9:38 am
Serious thinkers do not rely on TV documentaries for their knowledge.
Ha ha ha ha...
Well, you did conveniently ignore the book I pointed you to (The Selfish Gene), in another blatent example of your confirmation bias.
*sigh*
Other Comments by Luthien
32. Comment #43406 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
Other Comments by arildno
33. Comment #43407 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
Other Comments by arildno
34. Comment #43408 by arildno on May 21, 2007 at 9:43 am
It is an intellectual fallacy to assume that the sole component of morality is/should be rational egotism.What you get out of that is just the morality of equally strong sociopaths having to live together.Empathy, the ability to feel pain at others' suffering and the ability feel joy at others' joy is an equally integral part of morality. It is a fact of consciousness.
This will yield different results than the impoverished sociopath morality. Fortunately.
Other Comments by arildno
35. Comment #43409 by Phaeonix on May 21, 2007 at 9:49 am
You probably only needed to post that once arildno. Other Comments by Phaeonix
36. Comment #43413 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 10:18 am
I read that book as a child. I moved on Luthien, along with Dawkins himself. I suggest you do as well. Other Comments by Henri Bergson
37. Comment #43419 by chance on May 21, 2007 at 10:39 am
Henri,Sorry to call you out like this, but your ramblings make little sense and your overweening arrogance is irritating and rather pathetic, given the limited cognitive abilities you have displayed.
Luthien has been more rational, pleasant, and fact-based and certainly deserves more well thought out responses. As more of a lurker here, I enjoy Luthien's contributions immensley, and admire her restraint and civility.
I am not quite so patient, I'm afraid. So you, on the other hand, may wish to either shut your trap, or actually engage your brain before submitting a response.
Other Comments by chance
38. Comment #43420 by jonecc on May 21, 2007 at 10:43 am
This is just a guess, but is research like this pointing towards the idea that evolutionary morality derives from empathy, whilst the actual moral rules we apply might be culturally determined? That would explain why most people have an ethical sense, but we're quite capable of ignoring it in certain situations.One might similarly conjecture that the sex drive is innate, but that individual predilections depend on their previous experiences.
Would this work for Luthien and Henri Bergson?
Other Comments by jonecc
39. Comment #43424 by Logicist on May 21, 2007 at 10:58 am
In connection with this interesting entry's theme, I have chanced upon what seems to be a minor mistake in page 225 of The God Delusion, an otherwise brilliant, admirable and courageous classic. I have already sent an email about it to contact@richarddawkins.net, although perhaps the possible minor mistake had already been noticed by Professor Dawkins himself or other people before; anyway, I am sure that, if the mistake is real, it will be corrected in future editions (would that believers could email God so that the contradictions in the Bible could be corrected in future editions). The possible mistake has to do with Ned's dilemma, which Professor Dawkins correctly describes (pp. 224-225): "Ned is standing by the railway track. Unlike Denise, who could divert the trolley onto a siding, Ned's switch diverts it onto a side loop which joins the main track again just before the five people. Simply switching the points doesn't help: the trolley will plough into the five anyway when the diversion rejoins the main track. However, as it happens, there is an extremely fat man on the diversionary track who is heavy enough to stop the trolley. Should Ned change the points and divert the train?" Then he writes: "Most people's intuition is that he should not." He links this with Kant's "means and ends" principle, which, incidentally, Schopenhauer, for example, seems to have rejected as indeterminately vague. Professor Dawkins's source is Marc Hauser's book Moral Minds, which unfortunately I don't have access to. However, Hauser himself (together with coauthors Fiery Cushman, Liane Young, R. Kang-Xing Jin and John Mikhail) has relatively recently published the article "A Dissociation Between Moral Judgments and Justifications" (Mind & Language, Vol. 22 No. 1 February 2007, pp. 1–21, available online as a pdf file at: www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2006.00297.x), whose references include, precisely, Moral Minds. In that article, it is reported that more than half of the subjects (56% of them all) answered that, pace Kant, it was morally permissible for Ned to throw the switch. This makes Ned's dilemma, among the subjects of the study (some 5,000 subjects electronically responding to the dilemmas), the most polemical of all four trolley dilemmas. The other three, which Professor Dawkins also describes in The God Delusion, are Denise's (85% responded affirmatively), Frank's (12% did), and Oscar's (72%). Perhaps Kant's principle is not as popular as it might seem. Needless to say, Professor Dawkins's main point that our moral sense has a Darwinian origin remains as valid as ever. Goodness "bless" you all!Other Comments by Logicist
40. Comment #43426 by Fedler on May 21, 2007 at 11:05 am
This is just a guess, but is research like this pointing towards the idea that evolutionary morality derives from empathy, whilst the actual moral rules we apply might be culturally determined? That would explain why most people have an ethical sense, but we're quite capable of ignoring it in certain situations.
Very good point, jonecc. I'm no neuroscientist (or neuro-moralist) but that seems plausible.
Other Comments by Fedler
41. Comment #43427 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 11:18 am
Sorry if I sound arrogant, but the argument I make (and it is not mine) is important and seldomly addressed. Possibly because it is not understood.I refer to the argument made by the German philosopher, Nietzsche; as well as many others.
Other Comments by Henri Bergson
42. Comment #43433 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on May 21, 2007 at 11:39 am
41. Comment #43427 by Henri Bergson on May 21, 2007 at 11:18 am Sorry if I sound arrogant, but the argument I make (and it is not mine) is important and seldomly addressed. Possibly because it is not understood.
Henry, I think we probably have a good grasp of the argument, it's something of a Christian staple.
It goes a bit like this. Without a foundational moral bedrock, a lawgiver, a platonic perfect moral guide, who can argue that what we subjectivley refer to as good and bad are in fact objectively good and bad. Feel free to correct me if thats not it.
Other Comments by briancoughlanworldcitizen
43. Comment #43438 by adocarbog on May 21, 2007 at 12:08 pm
If shown correct this will just go to prove that morality arose because it gave an evolutionary advantage to those who had it.Other Comments by adocarbog
44. Comment #43445 by pissinintothewind on May 21, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Hello everyone, could someone help please. Where did Dr Dawkins say "Atheism is a brave and splendid aspiration" and in what context was it said. I`ve just had it quoted at me and am ignorant about it. Cheers Tom.Other Comments by pissinintothewind
45. Comment #43453 by Logicel on May 21, 2007 at 1:49 pm
TGD, preface, page one, pissinintothewind Other Comments by Logicel
46. Comment #43455 by Logicel on May 21, 2007 at 1:55 pm
third paragraph, preface, page 1, TGD:I suspect--well, I am sure--that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness--raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. That is the first of my consciousness-raising messages. I also want to raise consciousness in three other ways, which I'll come on to.
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47. Comment #43461 by Tsjok45 on May 21, 2007 at 2:21 pm
People are creatures of flesh and blood and, like all living creatures, the product of a long evolution. This equally applies to one of our highest capacities: human morality.
For centuries, scientists have searched for the germs of this capacity in the human brain.
This search seldom showed any satisfactory results.
What precisely happens in the brain during moral judgements or social actions and how this activity arrived in the brain, remained a mystery.
At present, new instruments are available for unravelling this mystery.
With high technological medical equipment (MRI, PET, TMS), neurologists locate brain structures that enable these processes.
From an evolutionary hypothesis, biologists and evolution psychologists test much talked-about theories on the development and adaptation of moral and social behaviour.
Although both disciplines show great progress, researchers find too little fruitful inspiration in each other's work.
There is hardly any systematic confrontation, let alone any integration of their scientific work. We believe that more progress will be possible if researchers overcome those boundaries; if the new insights of evolution psychology are linked to the recent research results on the neurobiology of morality.
The moral brain is an initiative of the Department of Jurisprudence and Legal History and the Department of Philosophy and Moral Science, (Ghent University, Belgium).
The project aims to bring together researchers who are working on human morality from different biological perspectives.
website of this initiave with english info , abstracts of papers presented at "the moral brain " conferences and
a blog ...
http://www.themoralbrain.be/
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48. Comment #43467 by micronut on May 21, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Mind_Rebel: If your comments are genuinely the beliefs your young mind is struggling with, then I applaud you for having the gall to try and express them. I don't mean to take the moral high ground here, but it is obvious that there are posters on this site whose intellect far surpasses Mind Rebel's - maybe they should know better and try to be a little more sensitive when criticising him.On a more appreciative note, I am so glad to have come across the above article. I was in a relationship with someone whose beliefs were so important to him that I strongly suspected there was something not quite right with his moral perspectives. Interestingly, he was also unable to empathise and therefore did not realise the hurt and pain he would often cause.
One good thing that came out of the relationship though was that I questioned the existence of god and my very simple little brain just couldn't accept that 2 + 2 = 5.
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49. Comment #43468 by Logicel on May 21, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Tsjok45, thanks for the link. Your work is very much needed. Other Comments by Logicel
50. Comment #43489 by mnlandon on May 21, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Hmmm....I emailed this link a week ago and it was never put up. I sent it to the contact@richarddawkins.net. If I submit a link is there another email I should use??Other Comments by mnlandon
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1. Comment #43249 by Logicel on May 21, 2007 at 2:38 am
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Are non-evidential religious beliefs equivalent to stroke and surgery? Allowing the religious believer to suspend the morality in which is used in dealing with the in-group, but then said morality can be scratched in dealing with the out-group?
Excellent article and study, and much more needs to be done in this regard.
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