ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
influence the more reflective phenomenon of “theory-of-mind” in social cognition.
The “human” social phenomena of cheating, punishment, hierarchy, cooperation, and
philanthropic grand-standing have a surprising number of parallels in studies of
animal behavior. In the sixth chapter, Churchland identifies brain areas (particularly
the prefrontal cortex [PFC]) integral in the sort of predictive social thought needed to
create and preserve extended networks of cooperation. While it is the seat of human
reflective consciousness, the PFC is not an organ of perfect rationality. Churchland
proposes that our focus on the moral or immoral actions of others (including
essentialized cultural and religious identities) serves a primarily strategic purpose –
shared morality is a means of predicting another’s behavior. As such, it is a heuristic
engine. We distrust those who don’t share our moral prejudices, even when their
beliefs can be shown to be more mutually beneficial than our own.
Qualified language
Any book that attempts to communicate the findings of cognitive science to the nonspecialist is bound to trick some readers into making untenable over-generalizations
about the scientific evidence or its implications. However, Churchland carefully
separates what in the study of moral origins can be empirically studied from what
cannot. She is reductionist in this sense, but not in the sense that the general public
uses the word (meaning a sort of intrusive cynic who does violence to the
transcendent object under study). She also inserts qualifying statements which
discourage the reader from jumping to single-cause explanations (e.g. “oxytocin
causes morality”). She reminds us that in even the simplest questions regarding the
neural correlates of morality, “the answers are certainly going to be complex, even in
voles, since the neurons affected are part of a wider system, meaning that what is
going on elsewhere – in perception, memory, and so forth – will have an impact” (50).
“Single genes seldom have big effects, but are part of multinode gene networks, and
part of gene-brain-environment networks with recurrent loops” (53). “[I]f a certain
form of cooperation, such as making alarm calls when a predator appears, has a
genetic basis, it is likely to be related to the expression of many genes, and their
expression may be linked to events in the environment” (102). These statements are
the dry, qualified, scientific versions of the humanists’ reminder of the roles of culture
and experience in individual development. Churchland goes on to question the
hypotheses of cognitive scientists such as Marc Hauser and Jonathan Haidt, whose
propositions about human morality are based on empirical evidence but might exceed
the parameters of the particular data. She even challenges claims by neuroscientists
Marco Iacoboni and Giacomo Rizzolatti, whose research in mirror neurons has
promoted a great deal of speculation about the nature of empathy and imitation.
Whereas mirror neurons have been assumed to cause one individual to understand
another by first understanding her/himself, Churchland argues that the causal order
could actually be reversed – that mirror neurons function primarily to simulate
another’s action to enable the individual to predict or imitate it. Rather than beginning
as self-representations, mirror neurons may be necessary in creating selfrepresentations from observed experience. While the reader might make the simplified
observation that Churchland plays the proper role of philosopher by carefully
analyzing logical inconsistencies in scientific hypotheses, the fact that her counterarguments are equally grounded in empirical research should lead us to ask why we
ever began to think that philosophy and science were different disciplines.
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