Well...
Posted on 01/27/2006 11:38:32 AM PST by neverdem
Cerebral scans for right and wrong
"Can you name a scientific discovery that has ever added to our understanding of morality?" asked Discovery Institute senior fellow, Wesley Smith, over dinner after our recent debate with science reporter Chris Mooney in New York City. Fortunately, I could.
Anyone who has ever taken an undergraduate course in moral philosophy will remember the moral dilemma posed in the "trolley problem": You are standing next to a switch in a trolley track and you notice that a runaway trolley is about to hit a group of five people who are unaware of their danger. However, if you switch the track, the trolley will hit only one person. What do you do? Most undergraduates say that they would switch the track; after all, five lives are worth more than one.
In the second version of the problem, you are standing on a bridge over a trolley track beside a fat person. Again you notice that the runaway trolley is headed toward five unaware people. Do you push the fat person onto the track to stop the trolley? Notice the moral calculus is the same, one life to save five. But in this second version most undergraduates say that they would not push the fat stranger onto the track. (We will simply ignore the issue of whether or not you should jump onto the track to save the five people—that's for a graduate level moral philosophy seminar.)
Moral philosophers have puzzled over the disparity in the answers to these two versions of the moral dilemma posed by the trolley problem. Then along came a graduate student in psychology at Princeton University, Joshua Greene, who had access to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine that allowed him to scan the changes in blood flow in human brains in real time. He put some undergraduates into the fMRI, posed both versions of the trolley problem to them, and found that their brains lit up differently in each case.
Greene and his colleagues found "that brain areas associated with emotion and social cognition (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus, and superior temporal sulcus/temperoparietal junction) exhibited increased activity while participants considered personal moral dilemmas, while 'cognitive' brain areas associated with abstract reasoning and problem solving exhibited increased activity while participants considered impersonal moral dilemmas." In other words, the first case (impersonal) runs straight through our prefrontal cortices that coldly balance costs and benefits, while the second case (personal) also engages those parts of our brains that cause us to feel empathy and which cause us to hesitate to shove someone off a bridge.
Granted, Greene's fMRI experiment does not tell us what the right answer to the trolley problem is, but it does tell us a bit about how many of us make moral decisions.
More recently (and after my dinner with Smith), researchers at the University College London have found that men enjoy retribution more than women do. Tania Singer and her colleagues set up an experiment in which 32 volunteers witnessed people play a financial game in which some players were fair and others were unfair. Later the volunteers were placed in fMRIs where they watched as both the fair and unfair players received a mild electric shock. When a fair player was shocked, the parts of brains associated with feelings of empathy lit up for both women and men. When an unfair player was shocked the brains of the women volunteers still lit up with empathy. However, in the men's brains, not only were the empathy areas silent, the parts of the brain indicating feelings of reward were activated in a big way. The men evidently felt happy when the bastards got what they deserved. I know I would have.
Singer noted that the male volunteers "expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment." She added, "This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment."
This kind of information about how men and women tend to differ in their moral judgments (or feelings of righteousness) will certainly be of interest to, say, lawyers when they select jury members.
Smith is right when he suggests that science cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong morally speaking. However, as the foregoing examples show, science can tell us more about why we make the moral decisions that we do. As neuroscience develops, I believe that the discoveries it makes about how our brains work will help us to make better moral decisions in the future.
For example, go ahead and heave that fat stranger onto the tracks.
Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent.
> "Can you name a scientific discovery that has ever added to our understanding of morality?"
Well, a whole bunch of 'em led to the industrial revolution... which led to the discovery that slavery was immoral.
So which were liberals, the one or the five?
Would it make a difference if it was a thin person standing next to you?
http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~tsinger/publications/Singer_NATURE_2006.pdf
or you can find the link here.
Hmmm. I tend to disagree. Inventions are just tools, and tools have no morals; the morals are based on what humans decide to do with the tools (do I use a hammer to build a house, or make a warhammer to kill with). I propose that the industrial age inventions simply made slavery less economical. A cotton gin could do the work of dozen slaves who needed to be fed, clothed, housed, etc.
Beat me by that, much!
> Inventions are just tools, and tools have no morals;
Slaves are just tools...
> I propose that the industrial age inventions simply made slavery less economical.
Exactly so. By removing the economic justification for slavery, a justification that had existed for millenia, men were freed up to see that Biblically-justified slavery was in fact morally wrong.
The rise of science, with its consequent impact on technology, changed morality.
No question about it; -- switch the track; after all, one person has a better chance to dodge than five.
In the second version of the problem, you are standing on a bridge over a trolley track beside a fat person. Again you notice that the runaway trolley is headed toward five unaware people. Do you push the fat person onto the track to stop the trolley?
No. There is no guarantee that the fat person would stop the runaway trolley.
(We will simply ignore the issue of whether or not you should jump onto the track to save the five people—that's for a graduate level moral philosophy seminar.)
'Graduate level?'. -- Hardly.. - Again -- how could your sacrifice guarantee to stop the trolley?
If we're talking about Ted Kennedy or Michael Moore, I'd say this is a trick question.
I'm still not sure I can agree. Even at the height of slavery, there were those disagreed with it and fought against it. What was their reading of the Bible? Also, almost all cultures including non-Judeo-Christian ones practiced it, so they didn't come at it from a Biblical justification. And of course, we have the case of Nazi Germany, which enslaved people and used them as slave labor, even though they were as technologically advanced as anyone (if not moreso, depending on who you believe). And they were Christian/Lutheran. I'll have to ponder this some more to get a coherant argument one way or the other. But for now, the economic angle seems to work for me. As you said, "Slaves are just tools." You're right, and what do you do when you get a better tools to replace the older one? Chainsaw vs. axe., washing machine vs. washboard, etc.
> Even at the height of slavery, there were those disagreed with it and fought against it. What was their reading of the Bible?
The Bible was used by both sides in the slavery debate. The Old Testament says nothing bad about slavery, while mentioning it fairly often; the New Testament says virtually nothing about slavery at all.
> we have the case of Nazi Germany, which enslaved people and used them as slave labor...
Yes, because it made economic sense to do so, thus flippign morality around again. It didn't hurt that they could simply declare the slaves "non-humans." A terribly effective way of bypassing many moral codes.
> And they were Christian/Lutheran.
Much of Germany was, yes. But the leadership... not so much. Hitler was just plain nuts, and bought into late 19th/early 20th century theosophical Madame Blavatsky wackiness about ascended masters and Golden Ages and Atlantis and whatnot. Nevertheless, whiel the Nazi leadership was not Christian by any reasonable definition, it wasn't Hitler and Goering out there running the ovens.
> and what do you do when you get a better tools to replace the older one? Chainsaw vs. axe.
I have an axe (several, actually) but no chain saw. "Better" is often subjective.
As to the specifics of slavery: you get a wide range of results. In some places, when slavery stopped making economic + moral sense, it simply ended with the passage ofa few laws and the freeing of the slaves (the slave states in the North, frex). But in other places, you got things like The War Of Southern Aggression. And had Hitler won WWII... most of the slaves, once their utility in the war industry ended, they'd likely been turned into fertilizer or ash.
But it's never a good idea to try to get a good grasp on concepts of reality by looking at the Third Reich. Them boys was *nuts.*
You're right there. I hesitated to use them as an example because they are so often used as an example of evil, it has become cliche. And you touched on something else I thought of in the mean time. We probably have to look at individual societies and their individual circumstances separately to determine why they practised slavery (or didn't). It could be economic (empire expansion for large societies, or resource competition for small ones), or it is simply what was done after a conquest (tribe overuns another tribe), or genetic (Mars needs women...(sorry)), or population control. All I can say is I'm glad we live in era and land where generally, slavery is no longer acceptable.
Well...
Hopefully the train would be far away and moving slowly, or you'd probably on be halfway through working out the answers to the question when the train made the decision for you.
Ultrasound
Thanks to ultrsound we can now see the living baby growing in the womb, thus we have a higher % of the population now that is pro-life.
Te discovery of global warming led to the understanding the SUVs were immoral.
lol, Yes.
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin.
And, since I am such an amoral atheist, some would attempt to falsely label me as “sociopath” - - just as the constipated psychologists want to label anyone they see as “homophobic” with a mental illness for opposing the radical homosexual activists.
Today, “morals” are defined by a religious pagan philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
A greater number of “atheists” and “pagans” adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a false Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of “sin,” but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy.
They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of “avoiding sin” with “morals.”
Anyone who says I am immoral is no different than any preacher or rabbi saying I am a sinner. I am not an orthodox atheist, nor am I an ecumenical atheist - - there is no such thing!
Objectivists have failed to see that gaping hole in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, whose egotism is taken directly from Thomas Hobbes, minus the Biblical arguments, and with a smattering of nihilism from Neitzche thrown in to sell books.
The Geneology of Morals, borrowing from Neitzche's title, is much like the geneology of drama from the ancient Greeks - - it is nothing more than an extension of religion, a psychodramatic game.
The National Socialists were pagans at war with the Judaic culture.
The National Socialists exterminated twice as many Christians as they did Jews.
The occultism of the Third Reich is well documented.
Aleister Crowley, who openly supported the National Socialists, was affiliated with Ordo Templi Orientis, A.A. (Order of the Silver Star) and such occult lodges all across Germany. Crowley engaged in all manner of deviancy, homoeroticism, sadomasochism and murder. Much of the occultism in National Socialism is derived directly from there. Crowley envisioned himself as the Great Beast (To Mega Therion), just as der Fuhrer made himself in that image. Hitler's life as a struggling, inept artist was where that association blossomed.
Crowley's creed, “Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the Law,” (which is actually from Francois Rabelais) and used by Neo-Pagan nutcases without attribution for obvious politically correct reasons, is with certainty no different than the National Socialist “will to power,” or their ubermensch mentality.
It is also no accident Nietzsche's “over-man” and nihilist philosophy and resulting insanity from venereal disease closely mirrors the insanity of der Fuhrer.
These occult orders, sex and drug cults still survive today, as do the Neo-pagan, Neo-Nazi groups, black supremacist Rastafarian potheads, prison gangs and other related filth.
Crowley occultism is also from where L. Ron Hubbard emerges with Scientology. Note the NAZI symbolism of that kooky cult of weirdos and their deviant adherents who advocate homoeroticism and other perversions. Hollywood Cultural Marxists love Scientology.
Ah, Hollywood! The fountain of fantastical images, perverts and hypocrisies! It is by no accident the Cultural Marxists of Hollywood are flaming haters of America, Israel and Christendom, who advocate the most bizarre and psychotic.
Abortion is a ritual murder upon an altar of conceit performed before an idol of vanity. It has a similitude to the Teutonic paganism of Adolph Hitler, whose idolatry was the idea of a master race, among many other things. In effect, both are mass human sacrifices to such pagan idols.
The abortionists, like the National Socialists, also incinerate the remains of their victims. The Islamics also practice ritual murder (some were actually video taped for our viewing).
Islamics, National Socialists, abortionists, sex perverts, serial killers, liberals... It is not any different with one group of ritual murderers and deviants than another group of the same, especially since Western Civilization is a target of them both.
INTREP - the brain activity is more likely a response to the decisions, not the instigator of the responses
There are laws and there is an army of law enforcers.
The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law.
The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of a monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.
>Historically, this is proven over and over again with the succsessive conflicts between the forces of paganism and the Judaic culture. It is being played out here and all over the world today.
Observing this as an atheist, I prefer the paradigm of a Judaic culture to the chaotic death cult of New Age neo-pagan absurdity.
If you just have to label me, put me in the secular Zionist column, slap a Star of David on my old chief warrant officer's uniform and pass me some of that 7.62mm ammunition, we are going to need it...
The article posted for this thread reminded me of the National Socialists making measurements of human skulls to determine the viability of people's lives. How appropriate the NAZIs became a topic of discussion (initiated, not by myself, but by someone else). The Gaystapo will continue this vein of research, if it wasn't initiated there to begin with, in a pathetic attempt to assert it is perfectly “moral” to institute some homosexual angle on it.
Cultural Marxists have the same agenda. They are at war with Genesis, just as the National Socialists were. This is why we have attacks on the Ten Commandments and the attempt to usurp the Judaic, Adam and Eve model of heterosexual monogamy. These people are really attacking Moses and the Jews by proxy in their quest to usurp Creationism and Christians.
This is nothing new. Almost 2000 years ago it was written in the last book of the Bible that slave traders (chattel slavery) are going to hell.
P.S.
Do you also think it is by accident, given the history of occultism within the Third Reich, that Germany is pretty heavy handed with the Scientologists?
I say it is no accident.
> The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law.
Welll... that, and pagan Greek/Roman concepts of republican law and government, and a big fat helping of pagan Norse/Germanic law ("law" being a Norse word, and the US system of laws descending directly from pre-Christian Saxon common law).
> The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of a monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.
But then, so is the idea of Divine Right of kings. Read up on what happened to those Israelites who dared challenge Moses' dictatorial rule or even suggested some form of democracy. See Numbers 16 for an exciting account of God wiping out representatives of the people, and then wiping out 17,000 more people for being upset about their representatives being wiped out. Lesson: don't question your leader.
The Divine Right of Kings came from the pagans who later used the Bible as their excuse after the advent of Christianity. Pharaoh was considered to be a god, as was Caesar or Alexander. This is why the translation of the Bible into common languages was such a big deal in Europe.
According to the Biblical account, Moses was not a king or a dictator. He could have been Pharaoh of Egypt. He did not enter the Promised Land. God was supposed to be the sole king of the Israelites, not a man.
The Israelites could have easily thrown the old man Moses to the wolves, but they chose to do those things that they believed their God had commanded. The worshipers of the golden calf suffered because they chose to govern themselves by their own appetites instead of the laws of God.
Of course, this is taking the literature of the Bible in context of what it actually says, not out of context as to what you want it to mean.
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("law" being a Norse word, and the US system of laws descending directly from pre-Christian Saxon common law).
The idea of law has nothing to do with the English etymology of the word. Romans had laws, so did the Greeks, they just called them something else...
The system of laws in the U.S.A. are derived from the Ten Commandments (prominently displayed at the United States Supreme Court) and the foundation of constitutional rights are derived from Genesis in this document right here...
The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…"
> Moses was not a king or a dictator.
No? He was the unquestionable leader. His word was law. How's that different from "dictator?"
> The Israelites could have easily thrown the old man Moses to the wolves...
Those whoa sked that Moses simply share power were, if you believe the Bible, destroyed to the last man, and many thousands more who just happened to be in the area.
> The system of laws in the U.S.A. are derived from the Ten Commandments
Utter unfactual hogwash.
"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta." Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10, 1814.
For even more deomnstration ofwhy your statement is wrong: compare the First Amendments freedom of religion provision to the Ten Commandments. Go ahead and *try* to find a parallel.
Moses delivered the words of God, not his own. God was the leader, not Moses.
Rome had laws, Athens had laws, Egypt had laws, Israel had laws. Laws are nothing new to civilization.
You just have an ax to grind about Judaism and Christianity.
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“Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.”
Judaism precedes Christianity, Greece, Rome, and even Egypt... Jefferson overlooked something, and so did you... history occurred long before that...
Conquered by the Assyrians, some scattered tribes of Israel joined the Scythians and the Cimmerians (later becoming Gauls, Danes and Celts).
Even the genealogy of English common law you cited earlier as coming from Anglo-Saxons is directly from Judaism. 700 B.C. is one hell of a lot earlier than the 598 A.D Jefferson talked about.
The turn towards natural rather than theological interpretations had begun in earnest in the middle ages.
Considering that the planets were supposed to be made of perfect elements, unlike the earth, and that in the popular Christian mind Satan was at the center of the geocetnric universe, I'm not quite sure that the rejection of geocentrism changed much. Pop-science writers always claim it made a huge change, but they're generally repeating lazy 19th century historiography.
Now Newton's mechanistic physics, by misapplication, certainly impacted morality but not for the better.
>>He was the unquestionable leader. His word was law.
> Moses delivered the words of God, not his own.
Uh-huh. Same logic used by tyrants throughout history.
> You just have an ax to grind about Judaism and Christianity.
No, just against inaccuracy about history.
>Judaism precedes Christianity, Greece, Rome, and even Egypt... Jefferson overlooked something, and so did you... history occurred long before that...
Wow. Way to go off on an irrelevant and meaningless tangent. Back to the point: many people, such as yourself, claim that US law is based on the 10C. When the simple and incontrovertible fact is that it is based on *pagan* law.
Again: try reconciling the 10C with "freedom of religion." Where in US law does it say not to make or even worship graven images? Where are the blasphemy laws that somehow circumvent "freedom of speech?" How about laws requiring respect for ones parents, or not working on Saturday, or having some other god? How about laws against wanting to have the same useless overpriced crap your neighbors have?
Face it: your arguement doesn't work. The US has laws against murder, perjury, theft and on occaision adultery. But these are hardly unique.
> Even the genealogy of English common law you cited earlier as coming from Anglo-Saxons is directly from Judaism.
Hogwash.
All the tyrants of history were pagans...
Jefferson overlooked something, and so did you... history occurred long before that...
Conquered by the Assyrians, some scattered tribes of Israel joined the Scythians and the Cimmerians (later becoming Gauls, Danes and Celts, etc.).
Even the genealogy of English common law you cited earlier as coming from Anglo-Saxons is directly from Judaism.
700 B.C. is one hell of a lot earlier than the 598 A.D Jefferson talked about.
Our system of laws as evidenced by the words of the Declaration of Independence and the judicial system (as evidenced by the Ten Commandments displayed prominently there) are all based on the Mosaic Law.
Now, if you got an ax to grind with the Chistians and the Jews, fine. But history shows you are clearly wrong.
> All the tyrants of history were pagans...
Pagans, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheist commies... every group big enough to get a tyrant, gets a tyrant.
> Our system of laws as evidenced by the words of the Declaration of Independence and the judicial system (as evidenced by the Ten Commandments displayed prominently there) are all based on the Mosaic Law.
Doesn't matter how many times you repeat nonsense, it remains nonsense. And since you've nothing to offer but repeats, I again challenge you: try reconciling the 10C with "freedom of religion." Where in US law does it say not to make or even worship graven images? Where are the blasphemy laws that somehow circumvent "freedom of speech?" How about laws requiring respect for ones parents, or not working on Saturday, or having some other god? How about laws against wanting to have the same useless overpriced crap your neighbors have?
So why do you repeatedly keep doing it?
Answer: You just have an ax to grind with the Jews and Christians. This is why you split hairs and nitpick.
Even though I am an atheist, I recognize the Christians and the Jews are the civilizing factor in the world.
Paganism in whatever form it takes, always leads to tyranny and they always go after the Jews because they hate what Moses brought into the world.
I'll bet you either follow some kooky pagan religion or you are just one of those pathetic anti-Christians.
So, you propose tearing the Ten Commandments off the U.S. Supreme Court? Or how about tearing the first sentence off of the Declaration of Independence because you don't like Genesis being the foundation of our civil rights?
I am not an ecumenical atheist... there is no such thing.
[Observing this as an atheist, I prefer the paradigm of a Judaic culture to the chaotic death cult of New Age neo-pagan absurdity.]
Makes sense to me.
> Even though I am an atheist....
Riiiiiiiiiight. And I'm the Pope.
> I recognize the Christians and the Jews are the civilizing factor in the world.
Except for the fact that the non-Judeao Christian world has known civilization for longer than there have been Jews.
Look. Your claims was that American law is base don the 10C. You've been challenged to back that up with facts; you have failed. You have, in fact, *avoided* answering the simple challenge in posts 40 and 42. I think that that, coupled with your weird ad hominems, speaks for themselves.
No. My claim was that Mosaic Law (of which the Ten Commandments is just a part) is the foundation of Western Civilization. Genesis is the primary focus of the Declaration of Independence, from where our Constitutional rights are derived. The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our judicial system.
You just want to tear it down and are the type who would break the crosses off of our war memorials... ain't gonna happen...
As always, your post was unrespeonsive and irrelevant.
So, goodbye.
Actually, the invention of the cotton gin may actually have made slavery profitable for the South: it allowed for a much greater productivity in "clean" cotton.
The problem with trying to set slavery against technology seem to leave out the fact that the two actually go together very nicely, and it leaves out human nature. And if your aggressive industrialist can trade chattel slavery for wage slavery -- which was the genesis of the Union movement -- then you get the best of both worlds.
The shriveling of the regions of the brain used to arrive at moral decisions is known as "Clinton Syndrome".
The trolley question is flawed - you don't switch the trolley or throw the fat stranger on the tracks - you warn the folks about to be hit and / or flag the trolley to brake.
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