Category: Philosophy

Utilitarianism and the Brain

Guy Kahane has a discussion of Utilitarianism and the Brain over at Ethics Etc.  In particular, he is discussing Joshua Green’s fMRI studies of moral judgments that have claimed to distinguish between utilitarian and non-utilitarian thinking (and the latter claimed as more rational, the former more emotional and hence not quite as good).  Kahane in particular pays attention to the methods used to generate the evidence and claims, and finds it wanting—the experimental scenarios themselves don’t clearly distinguish between the two types.

The debate has taken place in Nature, and here is a link to the actual text of the Nature critique by Guy Kahane and Nicholas Schackel as well as the response by Michael Koenig and colleagues.

Hat Tip: Natural Rationality

Brain Enhancement: Beyond Either/Or

Benedict Carey writes, “Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?” covering the emerging debate on performance-enhancing drugs in academia and other intellectual pursuits.  This debate began in the journal Nature, and exploded since then.  (I’ve covered some similar issues in a previous post, Drugs and Biosociality.) 

Carey poses us this question, “Is prescription tweaking to perform on exams, or prepare presentations and grants, really the same as injecting hormones to chase down a home run record, or win the Tour de France?” 

Whatever our answer to that question is, and it is surely to be a complex answer (more on that in a second), it is clear to me that this is already happening.  In a recent paper, I showed how heavy users already engage in “functional use”—using methamphetamine, a stimulant, to work and play more, to deal with cognitive deficits, and to change their subjective state while continuing to interact in a normal social manner.  While I am almost hesitant to say it, in this matter, drug users are already on the avant-garde. 

Continue reading “Brain Enhancement: Beyond Either/Or”

Kwame Appiah

Kwame Appiah is a professor of philosophy at Princeton University, and has a new book Experiments in Ethics.  The book is interesting to me both because of his use of data, rather than just analysis, to think about ethics, and his emphasis on the contextual nature of morality.  NPR has an entertaining radio interview with Appiah, where he discusses his approach to “empirical philosophy.” 

There’s also a discussion of Appiah’s book in the NY Times, which presents a different take on trolleyology (discussed in our critical take on Pinker’s essay on morality).  Here’s what Paul Bloom writes in “Morality Studies“: 

[T]his book has teeth, particularly when Appiah looks hard at the emphasis on moral dilemmas like the trolley problems. These were originally developed to tap our intuitions about agency and responsibility, and are thought to bear on real-world issues like abortion and just war. But the dense trolley literature “makes the Talmud look like Cliffs Notes” even as its complexity fails, he argues, to capture the richness of morality in our everyday lives. Real moral problems don’t come in the form of SAT questions, and being a good person often requires figuring out for yourself just what the options are: “In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.”

 Here’s a review blurb by Cass Susstein: “This dazzlingly written book argues for reconnecting moral philosophy with the sciences, both natural and social–and demonstrates that the reconnection, while in a sense overdue, reconnects philosophy with its ancient interest in empirical issues. Appiah’s important argument promises to transform more than one field. It is not only wise and subtle; it is also inspiring.”

 And a summary from an Amazon reviewer raising a few critical points: 

1. In his chapter on “the varieties of moral experience,” the author discusses a number of “modules” that he feels characterize the human psyche: compassion, reciprocity, hierarchy, and so forth. He draws on other scholars who have posited such proclivities, and he also mentions Chomsky who, he says, has proposed a similar, presumably innate, human capacity for language. I do not find these “modules” persuasive as being human universals. There is very little in this discussion that would connect it to empirical science, for example to anthropology, not to speak of the findings of modern neuroscience. Indeed, the descriptions of modules are reminiscent of pre-scientific speculations concerning “four humors.”

2. The second chapter, “the case against character,” gives us a stimulating and challenging rundown of experiments that suggest that ethical choice is very much influenced by the immediate situation. So we learn, for example, that if you have just smelled the delicious odor of fresh-baked bread, you are more likely to be generous than you would be without such olfactory stimulus. The author seems to conclude (he does hedge this a bit) that there is no such thing as character, that everything depends on the situation.

The problem here is that in any of these situations there are minorities of subjects who don’t act as expected. Even with all that good smelling bread, some remain stingy; even without great smells, some are generous. So it would appear that these experimental situations explain some of the variance but not all.

Cracks in Our Rose-Tinted Glasses?

In the last week, several media outlets have addressed research that presents an alternative view on the happy emphasis on positive psychology and self-help that has swept through America in the past few years.  I’ll just excerpt some pieces from each, not a lot of commentary this time. 

First, three pieces from Sharon Begley’s article “Happiness: Enough Already” in Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/107569 

Excerpt #1: While careful not to extol depression—which is marked not only by chronic sadness but also by apathy, lethargy and an increased risk of suicide—[Diener] praises melancholia for generating “a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing.” This is not romantic claptrap. Studies show that when you are in a negative mood, says Diener, “you become more analytical, more critical and more innovative. You need negative emotions, including sadness, to direct your thinking” 
Continue reading “Cracks in Our Rose-Tinted Glasses?”

Beyond Right and Left

I came across David McKnight’s reflection on his own book of the same name, Beyond Right and Left, which tackles political ideas and the fight over “human nature.”  We’ve dealt with some similar ideas in the critical discussion we had over Steven Pinker and his essay on a moral instinct.  McKnight’s take seems to be more thoughtful. 

McKnight’s argument boils down to this: “Any plans for social reform must take account of the limitations presented by human nature. As remarkable as human diversity and capacity is, it is not unlimited. Any new political vision which assumes we can create societies without conflict or without self interest, is doomed to fail. Attempts at perfection, in politics or religion, have proven disastrous.” 
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Wending between Faust and Wimsatt

Is neuroanthropology just “social theory with technical jargon,” giving us “street cred”?  Are we doing anything “different from interpretive anthropology with its system of symbols”?  Why invoke brain biology, we haven’t spent years studying the minutiae of brain circuitry and chemical interactions like real brain experts.  Why even bother with the mention of neurotransmitters and such, which bastardizes the rich contribution that anthropology makes to understanding ourselves. 

These are some of the comments I’ve seen about our site, some on the Internet, some in emails.  In an initial answer to that, I pointed to Greg’s introduction, of listening to our informants and building explanations based on ethnography as well as to some of the limitations we bump up against in the dominant forms of social theory today. 
Continue reading “Wending between Faust and Wimsatt”