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From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought' PERSPECTIVES 34. Churchland, P. S. Brain-wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy Acknowledgements usual Humean and Moorean reasons. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002). I thank P. M. Churchland and P. S. Churchland for their close 35. Churchland, P. M. Towards a cognitive neurobiology of reading of the manuscript and invaluable advice about its struc- Contemporary proponents of naturalized the moral virtues. Topoi 17, 83–96 (1998). ture and content. In addition, J. Greene’s sceptical remarks were ethics are aware of these objections, but in my 36. Wallis, J. D., Anderson, K. C. & Miller, E. K. Single extremely helpful. J. Moll also provided useful preprints of his neurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules. team’s work in this area. opinion their theories do not adequately meet Nature 411, 953–956 (2001). them. Casebeer, for example, examines recent 37. Casebeer, W. D. & Churchland, P. S. The neural mechanisms of moral cognition: a multiple-aspect Online links work in neuroscientific moral psychology and approach to moral judgment and decision-making. Biol. finds that actual moral decision-making looks Philos. 18, 169–194 (2003). FURTHER INFORMATION 8 38. Moreno, J. D. Neuroethics: an agenda for neuroscience MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences: more like what Aristotle recommends and and society. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 4, 149–153 (2003). http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/ less like what Kant9 and Mill10 recommend. 39. Cacioppo, J. T. et al. (eds) Foundations in Social Neuro- limbic system | moral psychology | social cognition | theory of science (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002). mind From this he concludes that the available 40. Rachels, J. The Elements of Moral Philosophy 4th Edn Online Bibliography of Cognitive Science and Ethics: neuroscientific evidence counts against the (McGraw-Hill, Columbus, 2002). http://hem.passagen.se/ollekillen/cogethics.html 41. Lapsley, D. Moral Psychology (West-view, Boulder, 1996). Access to this interactive links box is free online. moral theories of Kant and Mill, and in favour of Aristotle’s. This strikes me as a non sequitur.How do we go from ‘This is how we think’ to ‘This is how we ought to think’? Kant argued that our actions should exhibit a kind OPINION of universalizability that is grounded in respect for other people as autonomous rational agents9.Mill argued that we should act so as From neural ‘is’ to moral ‘ought’: what to produce the greatest sum of happiness10.So long as people are capable of taking Kant’s or are the moral implications of Mill’s advice, how does it follow from neuro- scientific data — indeed, how could it follow from such data — that people ought to ignore neuroscientific moral psychology? Kant’s and Mill’s recommendations in favour of Aristotle’s? In other words, how does it Joshua Greene follow from the proposition that Aristotelian moral thought is more natural than Kant’s or Many moral philosophers regard scientific moral properties with natural properties). Mill’s that Aristotle’s is better? research as irrelevant to their work because Prominent among those accused by Moore of Whereas I am sceptical of attempts to science deals with what is the case, whereas committing this fallacy was Herbert Spencer, derive moral principles from scientific facts, I ethics deals with what ought to be. Some the father of ‘social Darwinism’,who aimed to agree with the proponents of naturalized ethicists question this is/ought distinction, ground moral and political philosophy in ethics that scientific facts can have profound arguing that science and normative ethics evolutionary principles4.Spencer coined the moral implications, and that moral philoso- are continuous and that ethics might phrase ‘survival of the fittest’,giving Darwin’s phers have paid too little attention to relevant someday be regarded as a natural social purely biological notion of fitness a socio- work in the natural sciences. My understand- science. I agree with traditional ethicists that moral twist: for the good of the species, the ing of the relationship between science and there is a sharp and crucial distinction government ought not to interfere with normative ethics is, however, different from between the ‘is’ of science and the ‘ought’ nature’s tendency to let the strong dominate that of naturalized ethicists. Casebeer and of ethics, but maintain nonetheless that the weak. others view science and normative ethics as science, and neuroscience in particular, can Spencerian social Darwinism is long gone, continuous and are therefore interested in have profound ethical implications by but the idea that principles of natural science normative moral theories that resemble or are providing us with information that will prompt might provide a foundation for normative ‘consilient’ with theories of moral psychology. us to re-evaluate our moral values and our ethics has won renewed favour in recent years. Their aim is to find theories of right and conceptions of morality. Some friends of ‘naturalized ethics’ argue, wrong that in some sense match natural contra Hume and Moore, that the doctrine of human practice. By contrast, I view science as Many moral philosophers boast a well- the naturalistic fallacy is itself a fallacy, and offering a ‘behind the scenes’ look at human cultivated indifference to research in moral that facts about right and wrong are, in prin- morality. Just as a well-researched biography psychology. This is regrettable, but not ciple at least, as amenable to scientific discov- can, depending on what it reveals, boost or entirely groundless1. Philosophers have long ery as any others. Most of the arguments in deflate one’s esteem for its subject, the scien- recognized that facts concerning how people favour of ethics as continuous with natural tific investigation of human morality can help actually think or act do not imply facts about science have been rather abstract, with no us to understand human moral nature, and in how people ought to think or act, at least not attempt to support particular moral theories so doing change our opinion of it. in any straightforward way. This principle is on the basis of particular scientific research5,6. summarized by the Humean2 dictum that one Casebeer’s neuroscientific defense of Aristo- Neuroscience and normative ethics can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.In a similar telian virtue theory (this issue) is a notable There is a growing consensus that moral vein, moral philosophers since Moore3 have exception in this regard7. judgements are based largely on intuition — taken pains to avoid the ‘naturalistic fallacy’, A critical survey of recent attempts to ‘gut feelings’ about what is right or wrong in the mistake of identifying that which is naturalize ethics is beyond the scope of this particular cases11.Sometimes these intuitions natural with that which is right or good (or, article. Instead I will simply state that I conflict, both within and between individuals. more broadly, the mistake of identifying am sceptical of naturalized ethics for the Are all moral intuitions equally worthy of our NATURE REVIEWS | NEUROSCIENCE VOLUME 4 | OCTOBER 2003 | 847 PERSPECTIVES a Is it appropriate for you to not make a dona- tion to this organization in order to save money (FIG. 1b)? Most people say that it would not be wrong to refrain from making a donation in this case. And yet this case and the previous one are similar. In both cases, one has the option to give someone much needed medical attention at a relatively modest financial cost. And yet, the person who fails to help in the first case is a moral monster, whereas the person who fails to help in the second case is morally unexceptional. Why is there this difference? About thirty years ago, the utilitarian philosopher Singer argued that there is no real moral difference between cases such as these two, and that we in the affluent world ought b to be giving far more than we do to help the world’s most unfortunate people13. (Singer currently gives about 20% of his annual income to charity.) Many people, when confronted with this issue, assume or insist that there must be ‘some good reason’ for why it is alright to ignore the severe needs of unfortunate people in far off countries, but deeply wrong to ignore the needs of someone like the unfortunate hiker in the first story. (Indeed, you might be coming up with reasons of your own right now.) Maybe there is ‘some good reason’ for why it is okay to spend money on sushi and power windows while millions who could be saved die of hunger and treatable illnesses. But maybe this pair of moral intuitions has Figure 1 | Moral dilemmas and contradictions. People believe (a) that it would be deeply wrong to nothing to do with ‘some good reason’ and abandon a bleeding stranger by the side of the road in order to preserve one’s leather car seats, but (b) everything to do with the way our brains that it is morally acceptable to spend money on luxuries when that money could be used to save the lives happen to be built. of impoverished people. Some philosophers have questioned these beliefs, arguing that our obligation to To explore this and related issues, my help the world’s poor is as strong as our obligation to take a bleeding stranger to the hospital12,13. The colleagues and I conducted a brain imaging author argues that neuroscience can help to explain why we have this pair of putatively inconsistent attitudes and that an improved understanding of these attitudes might lead us to change them. study in which participants responded to the above moral dilemmas as well as many others14.The dilemma with the bleeding hiker is a ‘personal’ moral dilemma, in which the allegiance, or are some more reliable than blood will ruin the leather upholstery of your moral violation in question occurs in an ‘up- others? Our answers to this question will prob- car.
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