Patricia Churchland - Morality and the Mammalian Brain
Self-caring neural circuitry embodies self-preservation values, and these are values in the most elemental sense. Whence caring for others?
Social problem-solving, including policy-making, is probably an instance of problem-solving more generally, and draws upon the capacity, prodigious in humans, to envision consequences of a planned action. In humans, it also draws upon the capacity for improving upon current practices and technologies.
Unlike other mammals, humans have developed highly complex language, and highly complex cultures. This means that our sociality, and consequently ours systems of ethical values, have become correspondingly complex.
Professor Patricia Smith Churchland is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute.
Her current work focuses on morality and the social brain. She has been President of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Prize in 1991 and the Rossi Prize in 2008.
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Wow... This is great stuff. For me the crux is around 28:30, where the pain system that extends to the social domain expands out via the anticipation of social events in agents that have this capability. Whatever you think of Pat's overall platform here, via prototype theory, Humean pragmatism, etc, this is a tenable extension that can't be ignored. She may have downplayed neccessary and sufficient conditions categorically, but she's outlining sufficient natural moral machinery here IMHO.
Thank you Edinburgh and Patricia.
The giant lamp makes the speakers look small.
Awesome.
The last question regarding information overload as a possible source of neuronal disorder makes some sense in light of the activity of certain neuropeptides within the CNS which may be expressed due to high frequency electrical activity in the brain eg. CRF (Corticotropin release factor)
@LennyBound If it has your endorsement, I'm sure it will be quite good.
great but I do ask myself how much animals sufferings this has cost?
I found this talk full of empty conjecture, with only maybe 5 minutes of it worth my time. Talking of oxytocin without regard for the neurological structures that use it, as if all that matters is the quantity present in a given animal. Mixing all that with morality without any clear reason why, even without indicating what morality has to do with the behavior of the prairie voles or birds or chimpanzees mentioned. All I learned is that this person has no idea what she is talking about either regarding neuroscience or philosophy.
@nathanyoung1637
9 жыл бұрын
I would say it's clear who the fool is here.
@erichgroat838
7 жыл бұрын
You're quite right. But her obsession with oxytocin is the least of her problems: woe be to her if she thinks of morality as nothing but contingent social practice, analogous (as she puts it toward the end of this talk) to artifactual inventions tailored to their "survival" niche. What morality actually is can no more be explained by how brain chemistry/neurology/etc. functions than what physics actually is can be explained by how brain chemistry/neurology/etc. functions. What will she seek to explain away next? The science of brain chemistry/neurology/etc. in terms of brain chemistry/neurology/etc.?
@fernandov1492
2 жыл бұрын
I think she made enough disclaimers about all the aspects that are still unknown about oxitocyn and their implications on being or not able to draw conclusions from them yet... but what do i know