Identifying the neural mechanisms of moral cognition is especially difficult. In part, this is because moral cognition taps multiple cognitive sub-processes, being a highly distributed, whole-brain ...affair. The assumptions required to make progress in identifying the neural constituents of moral cognition might simplify morally salient stimuli to the point that they no longer activate the requisite neural architectures, but the right experiments can overcome this difficulty. The current evidence allows us to draw a tentative conclusion: the moral psychology required by virtue theory is the most neurobiologically plausible.
•DARPA's programs foster multi-disciplinary collaborations.•DARPA's BCI programs span four major challenges: detect, emulate, restore, & improve.•Aims: restore function after injury; improve ...performance of healthy individuals.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded innovative scientific research and technology developments in the field of brain–computer interfaces (BCI) since the 1970s. This review highlights some of DARPA's major advances in the field of BCI, particularly those made in recent years. Two broad categories of DARPA programs are presented with respect to the ultimate goals of supporting the nation's warfighters: (1) BCI efforts aimed at restoring neural and/or behavioral function, and (2) BCI efforts aimed at improving human training and performance. The programs discussed are synergistic and complementary to one another, and, moreover, promote interdisciplinary collaborations among researchers, engineers, and clinicians. Finally, this review includes a summary of some of the remaining challenges for the field of BCI, as well as the goals of new DARPA efforts in this domain.
Moral Markets Zak, Paul J; Jensen, Michael C
12/2010
eBook
Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and ...philosophy,Moral Marketsmakes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, butMoral Marketsshows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both,Moral Marketsprovides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics--one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis.Moral Markets, the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith (winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics), and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy.
We critically review themushrooming literature addressing the neuralmechanisms of moral cognition (NMMC), reachingthe following broad conclusions: (1) researchmainly focuses on three ...inter-relatedcategories: the moral emotions, moral socialcognition, and abstract moral reasoning. (2)Research varies in terms of whether it deploysecologically valid or experimentallysimplified conceptions of moral cognition. Themore ecologically valid the experimentalregime, the broader the brain areas involved.(3) Much of the research depends on simplifyingassumptions about the domain of moral reasoningthat are motivated by the need to makeexperimental progress. This is a valuablebeginning, but as more is understood about theneural mechanisms of decision-making, morerealistic conceptions will need to replace thesimplified conceptions. (4) The neuralcorrelates of real-life moral cognition areunlikely to consist in anything remotely like a``moral module'' or a ``morality center.'' Moralrepresentations, deliberations and decisionsare probably highly distributed and notconfined to any particular brainsub-system. Discovering the basic neuralprinciples governing planning, judgment anddecision-making will require vastly more basicresearch in neuroscience, but correlatingactivity in certain brain regions withwell-defined psychological conditions helpsguide neural level research. Progress on socialphenomena will also require theoreticalinnovation in understanding the brain'sdistinctly biological form of computationthat is anchored by emotions, needs, drives,and the instinct for survival.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In Natural Ethical Facts William Casebeer argues that we can articulate a fully naturalized ethical theory using concepts from evolutionary biology and cognitive science, and that we can study moral ...cognition just as we study other forms of cognition. His goal is to show that we have "softly fixed" human natures, that these natures are evolved, and that our lives go well or badly depending on how we satisfy the functional demands of these natures. Natural Ethical Facts is a comprehensive examination of what a plausible moral science would look like. Casebeer begins by discussing the nature of ethics and the possible relationship between science and ethics. He then addresses David Hume's naturalistic fallacy and G. E. Moore's open-question argument, drawing on the work of John Dewey and W. V. O. Quine. He then proposes a functional account of ethics, offering corresponding biological and moral descriptions. Discussing in detail the neural correlates of moral cognition, he argues that neural networks can be used to model ethical function. He then discusses the impact his views of moral epistemology and ontology will have on traditional ethical theory and moral education, concluding that there is room for other moral theories as long as they take into consideration the functional aspect of ethics; the pragmatic neo-Aristotelian virtue theory he proposes thus serves as a moral "big tent." Finally, he addresses objections to ethical naturalism that may arise, and calls for a reconciliation of the sciences and the humanities. "Living well," Casebeer writes, "depends upon reweaving our ethical theories into the warp and woof of our scientific heritage, attending to the myriad consequences such a project will have for the way we live our lives and the manner in which we structure our collective moral institutions."
The rhetoric of evil has been a mainstay in international affairs, although President
Bush’s use of the phrase ‘axis of evil’ has elevated
its prominence. Few, however, have attempted an analytically ...defensible definition
of evil as it relates to international events. I attempt this, identifying
commonalities that unite historical deployment of the term: an evaluation of evil
cuts across the traditional ethical axes of evaluation of
‘person’ (virtue theory), ‘nature of action’
(deontology), and ‘consequence’ (utilitarianism). This analysis
will help identify possible roles that the concept of evil plays in our
international linguistic economy and what purposes it serves. I briefly discuss
these roles (motivational, counterforce, divisional, and evaluational). Clarifying
the meaning of the term evil and its usage in global political discourse will
highlight the pitfalls that accompany the use of such rhetoric in international
relations, which include forestalling possibilities of redemptive reform.
Results from research in social psychology, such as findings about the fundamental attribution error and other situational influences on behaviour, are often used to justify attacking the existence ...of character traits. From this perspective, character development is an illusion, an impossibility, or both. We offer a different interpretation of how these issues interact with character development concerns. Rather than undermining the very idea of character traits, social psychology actually sheds light on the manner in which character development can occur. It reaffirms Spinozistic and Aristotelian points about character, namely that: (1) knowledge of the fundamental attribution error can help us minimize the influence environment and situation have on our behaviour, and (2) proper habituation only takes place in appropriately structured environments. Acknowledging these important results from social psychology helps us improve some of our character education practices rather than destroying their basis.
Identifying the neural mechanisms of moral cognition is especially difficult. In part, this is because moral cognition taps multiple cognitive sub-processes, being a highly distributed, whole-brain ...affair. The assumptions required to make progress in identifying the neural constituents of moral cognition might simplify morally salient stimuli to the point that they no longer activate the requisite neural architectures, but the right experiments can overcome this difficulty. The current evidence allows us to draw a tentative conclusion: the moral psychology required by virtue theory is the most neurobiologically plausible.
Casebeer argues that moral facts are reducible to functional facts and that one can treat functions just as evolutionary biologists do by using a modern-history conception of proper functioning. What ...one gets out of this position is a scientifically burnished neo-Aristotelian morality--a virtue theory for the 21st century.
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