Book Review Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan
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Science, Religion & Culture Book Review Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan, Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience (Oxford University Press), Pages: 392, Price: $35, ISBN-10: 0190460733 and ISBN-13: 978- 0190460730 Reviewed by Thomas W. Clark, Institute for Behavioral Health, Brandeis University. Email: twclark3@ gmail.com DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.src/2018.5.1.45.50 The Death of the Soul confers more self-responsibility (although some think it does, see below). The naturalization of human nature proceeds apace, driven by science, in particular neuroscience as it maps Something like this deflationary picture prompted the brain processes that mediate choice and behav- dear departed Tom Wolfe to write an entertaining ior. Where the soul once presided, there are, it turns 1997 essay, Sorry, but your soul just died, on the anxi- out, only neurons in fantastically complex structures eties about human agency generated by genetics, neu- which somehow maintain the coherent psychological roscience, and determinism. In Neuroexistentialism, and behavioral pattern – character, beliefs, desires – editors Gregg Caruso and Owen Flanagan present a that constitutes each of us as a person. The feeling of nicely varied and decidedly naturalistic set of respons- being a singular self that owns these characteristics is es to the same set of worries 20 years on. In seeking real enough, but there’s no indivisible thing to which some sort of post-soul equilibrium, no supernatural that feeling refers. Rather, it’s the result of a subset of hypotheses or claims are made anywhere in this col- neural goings-on tasked with reliably distinguishing lection; the authors all agree that empirical science, the physical person from the rest of the world, all in kept honest by philosophy, should arbitrate questions of what exists, all of which is within nature. Despite service to effective action. For reasons under investi- this common ground, they sometimes diverge sub- gation by neuroscientists and philosophers, doing that stantially on what the naturalization of agency means, job somehow produces the subjective sense of me be- or should mean, for us neurally-instantiated selves. ing me, of you being you. Is there any room for ultimate self-construction, and thus for deep, ultimate responsibility? If not, what Besides killing off the soul, the scientific story of how impact might this have on our interpersonal attitudes, each of us ends up exactly this person seems to ex- our concepts of authenticity, control, and moral re- plode the idea of any act of ultimate self-creation, of sponsibility, and on criminal justice policy? Most ba- any departure from law-like cause and effect as the sically, how, without recourse to the supernatural, can individual takes shape. If so, we can’t take or assign the we come to terms with the scientific picture of who sort of credit or blame for character and behavior that we are? (Wolfe ends his article suggesting we can’t supposes we could have turned out and acted other- help but re-inject God.) This volume presents a wide wise as our lives unfolded. Add some randomness if range of enlightening interdisciplinary perspectives you like, so that things might have turned out differ- from scientists and philosophers on discovering our- ently (although they didn’t), but it isn’t clear how that selves to be fully natural, physical creatures. 2018 | Volume 5 | Issue 1 | Page 45 Science, Religion & Culture The Third Wave possibly corrosive effects of neuroscience on morality, and reassure us that even though the literature sug- The introduction by Caruso and Flanagan motivates gests we are sometimes mistaken in our moral judg- the collection by locating neuroexistentialism as the ments, there’s no good reason to think we are always third wave in the historical rise of existentialism, con- deceived in making them. Their paper is a model of ceived of as responses to the threat of nihilism. The careful philosophical argumentation in light of the first wave was driven by the challenge to religion: if experimental science of belief-formation. Neurosci- we doubt God and divine purposes, from whence entist Edmund Rolls considers the genetically trans- meaning and morality? The Enlightenment purport- mitted neuro-behavioral roots of our moral sense, and edly came to the rescue in its appeal to human sol- again finds a robust biological basis for both our intu- idarity and reason: we can build a meaningful and itive ethics and our talent for constructing systems of moral earthly paradise, or something close enough, by rights and responsibilities. So even though evolution nurturing our better natures. Sadly, this hasn’t quite didn’t have culture in mind, we needn’t be more than panned out, hence the second existentialist wave, evolved creatures to suppose that our socially-medi- exemplified by Sartre and Camus, who produced a ated moral practices, albeit improvable, at least have strongly individualist response to the horrors of 20th prima facie validity given the sorts of creatures we are. century war: there is no salvation either in heaven or That said, in his essay philosopher Jesse Prinz points on Earth; the only honest stance is to face the fact of out that although our values often seem indisputa- our radical freedom in an absurd universe. But, ac- ble and timeless, they are in fact contingent products cording to neuroscience and other sciences bearing of culture and biology. We don’t choose them from on human behavior, we are not radically free, so the a radically free Sartrean standpoint, so we necessari- Sartrean prescription doesn’t work either. Neuroexis- ly operate in terms of some pre-existing values when tentialism, the third wave, can thus be characterized undertaking the project of moral improvement. But as a response to the ever more explicit realization which ones should guide us? Prinz recommends we that physicalism and determinism hold in the human use science to test whether the factual claims used to person, however complex our mental and social lives buttress suspect moral claims are true (e.g., that rac- might be. (Again, feel free to add some indetermin- ism and sexism are warranted), and if they aren’t, we’ll ism and see where it gets you morally or practically.) have at least narrowed down the options when seek- What, then, are we to make of our situation and our- ing common ground. selves as the mechanisms of mind and behavior are laid bare? How do we cope with the death of the soul? Can Libertarian Free Will be Naturalized? Morality Naturalized Morality, then, survives the neuroexistentialist chal- lenge, even if political and tribal disputes about how For one thing, science can explain why we are moral values should be prioritized won’t ever go away (see animals, moral to such an extent that no amount of for example Jonathan Haidt’s work on how liberals science will end up debunking our hard-wired intui- and conservatives differ in their moral foundations). tions about ethics. Chapters by philosophers Patricia A more vulnerable target, however, receives the lion’s Churchland and Maureen Sei delve into the neuro- share of attention in this book: the (purportedly) free- science of altruism, cooperation and affection, driving ly-willing, rational, autonomous and authentic self, home the point that our virtuous inclinations, since the responsible originator of action that traditionally biologically installed, don’t need the top-down en- has been understood to stand at least a little apart or dorsement of a higher power to have hold on us. We above the natural world – a little god, so to speak. All can be and often are good without God, and without but one of the contributors (neuroscientist Peter Tse) any non-physical homunculus calling the shots. The would agree that we don’t have libertarian or con- very worry about moral foundations is testament to tra-causal free will – the freedom that would make us the reality of our moral natures, so learning they are a more responsible originator than were our choices modulated by such humble (or is it noble?) chemicals and actions fully determined by the circumstances in as oxytocin and vasopressin isn’t likely to render us play in actual situations. That is, they’d say indeter- morally incapacitated. Relatedly, philosophers Paul minism, should it exist at the micro or macro level Henne and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong consider the (and it might), wouldn’t help make us more free or 2018 | Volume 5 | Issue 1 | Page 46 Science, Religion & Culture responsible. So for all practical purposes they present niscient is exactly what’s needed to make a good stab themselves as naturalist determinists. How well do at a realistic authenticity. Still, we might miss: “We choice and agency fare under determinism? must recognize that we can never be confident that our most important choices were not influenced deci- Not that badly it turns out, but some readers may sively by facts we cannot endorse or that the reasons have to re-calibrate or re-think their criteria for what we entertain are the reasons for which we act.” Never counts as an authentic choice if we don’t evade de- completely confident perhaps, but nevertheless capa- terminism. For those who won’t or can’t let go of the ble of checking how our behavior might reflect the libertarian chooser, Peter Tse offers a neuro-biological nefarious influence of an unconscious module. hypothesis supporting the idea that we are, in fact, not completely embedded in a cause-and-effect world. A somewhat more reassuring version of existential- Naturalism, he says, still allows us to contribute some- ist authenticity is offered by philosophers Shaun thing to a choice that is neither fully determined by Gallagher, Ben Morgan and Naomi Rokotnitz.