PERSPECTIVES
usual Humean and Moorean reasons.Contemporary proponents ofnaturalizedethics are aware ofthese objections,but in myopinion their theories do not adequately meetthem.Casebeer,for example,examines recentwork in neuroscientific moral psychology andfinds that actual moral decision-making looksmore like what Aristotle recommends
8
andless like what Kant
9
and Mill
10
recommend.From this he concludes that the availableneuroscientific evidence counts against themoral theories ofKant and Mill,and infavour ofAristotle’s.This strikes me as a
nonsequitur
.How do we go from ‘This is how wethink’to ‘This is how we oughtto think’? Kantargued that our actions should exhibit a kindofuniversalizability that is grounded in respectfor other people as autonomous rationalagents
9
.Mill argued that we should act so asto produce the greatest sum ofhappiness
10
.Solong as people are capable oftaking Kant’s orMill’s advice,how does it follow from neuro-scientific data — indeed,how could it followfrom such data — that people ought to ignoreKant’s and Mill’s recommendations in favourofAristotle’s? In other words,how does itfollow from the proposition that Aristotelianmoral thought is more natural than Kant’s orMill’s that Aristotle’s is better?Whereas I am sceptical ofattempts toderive moral principles from scientific facts,Iagree with the proponents ofnaturalizedethics that scientific facts can have profoundmoral implications,and that moral philoso-phers have paid too little attention to relevantwork in the natural sciences.My understand-ing ofthe relationship between science andnormative ethics is,however,different fromthat ofnaturalized ethicists.Casebeer andothers view science and normative ethics ascontinuous and are therefore interested innormative moral theories that resemble or are‘consilient’with theories ofmoral psychology.Their aim is to find theories ofright andwrong that in some sense match naturalhuman practice.By contrast,I view science asoffering a ‘behind the scenes’look at humanmorality.Just as a well-researched biographycan,depending on what it reveals,boost ordeflate one’s esteem for its subject,the scien-tific investigation ofhuman morality can helpus to understand human moral nature,and inso doing change our opinion ofit.
Neuroscience and normative ethics
There is a growing consensus that moral judgements are based largely on intuition —‘gut feelings’about what is right or wrong inparticular cases
11
.Sometimes these intuitionsconflict,both within and between individuals.Are all moral intuitions equally worthy ofour
34. Churchland, P. S.
Brain-wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy
(MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002).35. Churchland, P. M. Towards a cognitive neurobiology ofthe moral virtues.
Topoi
17
, 83–96 (1998).36. Wallis, J. D., Anderson, K. C. & Miller, E. K. Singleneurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules.
Nature
411
, 953–956 (2001).37. Casebeer, W. D. & Churchland, P. S. The neuralmechanisms of moral cognition: a multiple-aspectapproach to moral judgment and decision-making.
Biol.Philos.
18
, 169–194 (2003).38. Moreno, J. D. Neuroethics: an agenda for neuroscienceand society.
Nature Rev. Neurosci.
4
, 149–153 (2003).39. Cacioppo, J. T.
et al
. (eds)
Foundations in Social Neuro- science
(MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002).40. Rachels, J.
The Elements of Moral Philosophy 4th Edn
(McGraw-Hill, Columbus, 2002).41. Lapsley, D.
Moral Psychology
(West-view, Boulder, 1996).
Acknowledgements
I thank P. M. Churchland and P. S. Churchland for their closereading of the manuscript and invaluable advice about its struc-ture and content. In addition, J. Greene’s sceptical remarks wereextremely helpful. J. Moll also provided useful preprints of histeam’s work in this area.
Online links
FURTHER INFORMATION
MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences:
http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/ limbic system | moral psychology | social cognition | theory ofmind
Online Bibliography of Cognitive Science and Ethics:
http://hem.passagen.se/ollekillen/cogethics.html
Access to this interactive links box is free online.
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From neural ‘is’to moral ‘ought’:whatare the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology?
Joshua Greene
OPINION
Many moral philosophers regard scientificresearch as irrelevant to their work becausescience deals with what is the case, whereasethics deals with what ought to be. Someethicists question this is/ought distinction,arguing that science and normative ethicsare continuous and that ethics mightsomeday be regarded as a natural socialscience. I agree with traditional ethicists thatthere is a sharp and crucial distinctionbetween the ‘is’ of science and the ‘ought’of ethics, but maintain nonetheless thatscience, and neuroscience in particular, canhave profound ethical implications byproviding us with information that will promptus to re-evaluate our moral values and ourconceptions of morality.
Many moral philosophers boast a well-cultivated indifference to research in moralpsychology.This is regrettable,but notentirely groundless
1
.Philosophers have longrecognized that facts concerning how peopleactually think or act do not imply facts abouthow people ought to think or act,at least notin any straightforwardway.This principle issummarized by the Humean
2
dictum that onecan’t derive an ‘ought’from an ‘is’.In a similarvein,moral philosophers since Moore
3
havetaken pains to avoid the ‘naturalistic fallacy’,the mistake ofidentifying that which isnatural with that which is right or good (or,more broadly,the mistake ofidentifyingmoral properties with natural properties).Prominent among those accused by Moore of committing this fallacy was Herbert Spencer,the father of‘social Darwinism’,who aimed toground moral and political philosophy inevolutionary principles
4
.Spencer coined thephrase ‘survival ofthe fittest’,giving Darwin’spurely biological notion offitness a socio-moral twist:for the good ofthe species,thegovernment ought not to interfere withnature’s tendency to let the strong dominatethe weak.Spencerian social Darwinism is long gone,but the idea that principles ofnatural sciencemight provide a foundation for normativeethics has won renewed favour in recent years.Some friends of‘naturalized ethics’argue,contra Hume and Moore,that the doctrine of the naturalistic fallacy is itselfa fallacy,andthat facts about right and wrong are,in prin-ciple at least,as amenable to scientific discov-ery as any others.Most ofthe arguments infavour ofethics as continuous with naturalscience have been rather abstract,with noattempt to support particular moral theorieson the basis ofparticular scientific research
5,6
.Casebeer’s neuroscientific defense ofAristo-telian virtue theory (this issue) is a notableexception in this regard
7
.A critical survey ofrecent attempts tonaturalize ethics is beyond the scope ofthisarticle.Instead I will simply state that Iam sceptical ofnaturalized ethics for the
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PERSPECTIVES
Is it appropriate for you to not make a dona-tion to this organization in order to savemoney
(FIG.1b)
?Most people say that it would not bewrong to refrain from making a donation inthis case.And yet this case and the previousone are similar.In both cases,one hasthe option to give someone much neededmedical attention at a relatively modestfinancial cost.And yet,the person who fails tohelp in the first case is a moral monster,whereas the person who fails to help in thesecond case is morally unexceptional.Whyis there this difference?About thirty years ago,the utilitarianphilosopher Singer argued that there is no realmoral difference between cases such as thesetwo,and that we in the affluent world oughtto be giving far more than we do to helpthe world’s most unfortunate people
13
.(Singer currently gives about 20% ofhisannual income to charity.) Many people,when confronted with this issue,assume orinsist that there must be ‘some good reason’for why it is alright to ignore the severe needsofunfortunate people in far offcountries,but deeply wrong to ignore the needs of someone like the unfortunate hiker in the firststory.(Indeed,you might be coming up withreasons ofyour own right now.)Maybe there is ‘some good reason’for whyit is okay to spend money on sushi and powerwindows while millions who could be saveddie ofhunger and treatable illnesses.Butmaybe this pair ofmoral intuitions hasnothing to do with ‘some good reason’andeverything to do with the way our brainshappen to be built.To explore this and related issues,mycolleagues and I conducted a brain imagingstudy in which participants responded to theabove moral dilemmas as well as manyothers
14
.The dilemma with the bleeding hikeris a ‘personal’moral dilemma,in which themoral violation in question occurs in an ‘up-close-and-personal’manner.The donationdilemma is an ‘impersonal’moral dilemma,in which the moral violation in question doesnot have this feature.To make a long storyshort,we found that judgements in responseto ‘personal’moral dilemmas,compared with‘impersonal’ones,involved greater activity inbrain areas that are associated with emotionand social cognition.Why should this be?An evolutionary perspective is useful here.Over the last four decades,it has become clearthat natural selection can favour altruisticinstincts under the right conditions,and manybelieve that this is how human altruism cameto be
15
.Ifthat is right,then our altruisticinstincts will reflect the environment in whichblood will ruin the leather upholstery ofyourcar.Is it appropriate for you to leave this manby the side ofthe road in order to preserveyour leather upholstery
(FIG.1a)
?Most people say that it would be seriouslywrong to abandon this man out ofconcern forone’s car seats.Now consider a different case(also adapted from Unger
12
),which nearly allofus have faced.You are at home one daywhen the mail arrives.You receive a letter froma reputable international aid organization.The letter asks you to make a donation oftwohundred dollars to their organization.Theletter explains that a two-hundred-dollardonation will allow this organization toprovide needed medical attention to somepoor people in another part ofthe world.allegiance,or are some more reliable thanothers? Our answers to this question will prob-ably be affected by an improved understandingofwhere our intuitions come from,both interms oftheir proximate psychological/neuralbases and their evolutionary histories.Consider the following moral dilemma(adapted from Unger
12
).You are drivingalong a country road when you hear a plea forhelp coming from some roadside bushes.Youpull over and encounter a man whose legs arecovered with blood.The man explains that hehas had an accident while hiking and asks youto take him to a nearby hospital.Your initialinclination is to help this man,who will proba-bly lose his leg ifhe does not get to the hospitalsoon.However,ifyou give this man a lift,his
ab
Figure 1 |
Moral dilemmas and contradictions.
People believe (
a
) that it would be deeply wrong toabandon a bleeding stranger by the side of the road in order to preserve one’s leather car seats, but (
b
)that it is morally acceptable to spend money on luxuries when that money could be used to save the livesof impoverished people. Some philosophers have questioned these beliefs, arguing that our obligation tohelp the world’s poor is as strong as our obligation to take a bleeding stranger to the hospital
12,13
. Theauthor argues that neuroscience can help to explain why we have this pair of putatively inconsistentattitudes and that an improved understanding of these attitudes might lead us to change them.
PERSPECTIVES
As noted above,recent evidence fromneuroscience and neighbouring disciplinesindicates that moral judgement is often anintuitive,emotional matter.Although manymoral judgements are difficult,much moral judgement is accomplished in an intuitive,effortless way.An interesting feature ofmanyintuitive,effortless cognitive processes is thatthey are accompanied by a perceptualphenomenology.For example,humans caneffortlessly determine whether a given face ismale or female without any knowledge of how such judgements are made.When youlook at someone,you have no experience of working out whether that person is male orfemale.You just see that person’s malenessor femaleness.By contrast,you do not look ata star in the sky and see that it is receding.One can imagine creatures that automaticallyprocess spectroscopic redshifts,but ashumans we do not.All ofthis makes sensefrom an evolutionary point ofview.Wehave evolved mechanisms for making quick,emotion-based social judgements,for ‘seeing’rightness and wrongness,because ourintensely social lives favour such capacities,but there was little selective pressure on ourancestors to know about the movements of distant stars.We have here the beginnings ofadebunkingexplanation ofmoral realism:webelieve in moral realism because moral expe-rience has a perceptual phenomenology,andmoral experience has a perceptual phenome-nology because natural selection has outfittedus with mechanisms for making intuitive,emotion-based moral judgements,much as ithas outfitted us with mechanisms for makingintuitive,emotion-based judgements aboutwho among us are the most suitable mates.Therefore,we can understand our inclinationtowards moral realism not as an insight intothe nature ofmoral truth,but as a by-productofthe efficient cognitive processes we use tomake moral decisions.According to this view,moral realism is akin to naive realism aboutsexiness,like making the understandablemistake ofthinking that Tom Cruise is objec-tively sexier than his baboon counterparts.(Note that according to this view moral judgement is importantly different fromgender perception.Both involve efficient cog-nitive processes that give rise to a perceptualphenomenology,but in the case ofgenderperception the phenomenology is veridical:there really are mind-independent facts aboutwho is male or female.)Admittedly,this argument requires moreelaboration and support,and some philoso-phers might object to the way I have framedthe issue surrounding moral realism.Othersthey evolved rather than our present environ-ment.With this in mind,consider that ourancestors did not evolve in an environment inwhich total strangers on opposite sides oftheworld could save each others’lives by makingrelatively modest material sacrifices.Consideralso that our ancestors did evolve in anenvironment in which individuals standingface-to-face could save each others’lives,sometimes only through considerablepersonal sacrifice.Given all ofthis,it makessense that we would have evolved altruisticinstincts that direct us to help others in direneed,but mostly when the ones in need arepresented in an ‘up-close-and-personal’way.What does this mean for ethics? Again,weare tempted to assume that there must be‘some good reason’why it is monstrous toignore the needs ofsomeone like the bleedinghiker,but perfectly acceptable to spendour money on unnecessary luxuries whilemillions starve and die ofpreventablediseases.Maybe there is ‘some good reason’for this pair ofattitudes,but the evolutionaryaccount given above suggests otherwise:weignore the plight ofthe world’s poorest peoplenot because we implicitly appreciate thenuanced structure ofmoral obligation,butbecause,the way our brains are wired up,needy people who are ‘up close and personal’push our emotional buttons,whereas thosewho are out ofsight languish out ofmind.This is just a hypothesis.I do not wish topretend that this case is closed or,more gener-ally,that science has all the moral answers.Nor do I believe that normative ethics is on itsway to becoming a branch ofthe natural sci-ences,with the ‘is’ofscience and the ‘ought’of morality gradually melding together.Instead,I think that we can respect the distinctionbetween how things are and how thingsought to be while acknowledging,as the pre-ceding discussion illustrates,that scientificfacts have the potential to influence our moralthinking in a deep way.
Neuroscience and meta-ethics
Philosophers routinely distinguish betweenethics and ‘meta-ethics’.Ethics concerns par-ticular moral issues (such as our obligationsto the poor) and theories that attempt toresolve such issues (such as utilitarianism orAristotelian virtue ethics).Meta-ethics,bycontrast,is concerned with more founda-tional issues,with the status ofethics as awhole.What do we mean when we say some-thing like “Capital punishment is wrong”? Arewe stating a putative fact,or merely express-ing an opinion? According to ‘moral realism’there are genuine moral facts,whereas moralanti-realists or moral subjectivists maintainthat there are no such facts.Although thisdebate is unlikely to be resolved any timesoon,I believe that neuroscience and relateddisciplines have the potential to shed light onthese matters by helping us to understand ourcommon-sense conceptions ofmorality.I begin with the assumption (lamentably,not well tested) that many people,probablymost people,are moral realists.That is,theybelieve that some things really are right orwrong,independent ofwhat any particularperson or group thinks about it.For example,ifyou were to turn the corner and find agroup ofwayward youths torturing a straycat
16
,you might say to yourselfsomethinglike,“That’s wrong!”,and in saying this youwould mean not merely that you are opposedto such behaviour,or that some group towhich you belong is opposed to it,but ratherthat such behaviour is wrong in and ofitself,regardless ofwhat anyone happens to think about it.In other words,you take it that thereis a wrongness inherent in such acts that youcan perceive,but that exists independently of your moral beliefs and values or those ofanyparticular culture.This realist conception ofmorality con-trasts with familiar anti-realist conceptions of beauty and other experiential qualities.Whengazing upon a dazzling sunset,we might feelas ifwe are experiencing a beauty that isinherent in the evening sky,but many peopleacknowledge that such beauty,rather thanbeing in the sky,is ultimately ‘in the eye ofthebeholder’.Likewise for matters ofsexualattraction.You find your favourite movie starsexy,but take no such interest in baboons.Baboons,on the other hand,probably findeach other very sexy and take very little inter-est in the likes ofTom Cruise and NicoleKidman.Who is right,us or the baboons?Many ofus would plausibly insist that there issimply no fact ofthe matter.Although sexi-ness might seem to be a mind-independentproperty ofcertain individuals,it is ultimatelyin the eye (that is,the mind) ofthe beholder.The big meta-ethical question,then,mightbe posed as follows:are the moral truths towhich we subscribe really full-blown truths,mind-independent facts about the nature of moral reality,or are they,like sexiness,in themind ofthe beholder? One way to try toanswer this question is to examine what isin the minds ofthe relevant beholders.Understanding how we make moral judge-ments might help us to determine whether our judgements are perceptions ofexternal truthsor projections ofinternal attitudes.Morespecifically,we might ask whether the appear-ance ofmoral truth can be explained in a waythat does not require the reality ofmoral truth.
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From Neural 'is' to moral 'ought': What are the Moral Implications of Neuroscientific Moral Psychology?
By Joshua Greene
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