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| El Nido, Palawan, Philippines |
With the undeniable advancement on the study of the brain,
there is this general sentiment in science that we can finally unlock the
mystery of the human being. The ultramodern machines like brain imaging methods
and other sophisticated experiments provide a great help to researchers in
investigating the structure and function of the living brain, especially that
of the human being. Some neuroscientists and psychologists like John Rawls
believe that a substantial body of empirical evidence could challenge the
established views and morality. But the questions would be: Can machines really
read our mind? Could machines really reveal our plans, memories, and even our
innermost thoughts? Could these machines measure the hidden knowledge or conscience
in a human being? How accurate are they?
Julian Savulescu et al. of The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics
of the University of Oxford enumerate some of the recent significant findings
in the field of neuroscience[1]:
Employing neuroimaging and psychological experiments, Haidt (2001), Hauser
(2006) and others have documented unconscious influences on moral judgment with
little input from consciousness. In one influential study, Greene et al. (2001)
used fMRI to study the neural correlates of responses to moral dilemmas,
showing that subjects who responded in a non-utilitarian manner exhibited
strong activation in brain areas associated with emotion. These claims have
been supported by studies of patients with frontal damage (Koeings et al. 2007;
but see Kahane & Shackel 2008). Others studies show that the reasons people
adduce to justify moral judgments are often merely post-hoc rationalizations
(Haidt 2007). Finally, surveys of the intuitions of lay persons have shown
moral judgments vary across cultures and classes (Haidt 2001). Such research
has been claimed to support far-reaching conclusions such as the denial of the
viability of virtue ethics (Harman, 1999; Doris 2002) and of common views about
killing (Greene 2003), risk, punishment, and reproduction (Sunstein 2005).
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| Boracay , Aklan, Philippines |
In all these mentioned researches and claims, the main
argument is that all human aspects including the source of man’s morality,
rationality, and religiosity could be explained through the scientific
investigation of the human brain. They
equate rationality to utilitarian thinking: the human being uses his mind not
to detect what is right or wrong, but rather what is useful and pleasurable
that he must do and what is useless and harmful that he must avoid. Thus according
to the same article, Utilitarians such as Peter Singer claim that opposition to
utilitarianism is due to irrational emotions. Morality (not utilitarian but
based on virtues) and religiosity are consequently relegated to the realm of
the irrational emotions. Conscience then is not a rational judgment but simply
an emotional activity.
The article, however,
admits that “there are some serious philosophical questions about the methodology
and interpretation of this empirical research, its bearing on normative claims,
and its implications for ethical practice.” How far can the machines and
investigations reach to reveal the most profound aspects of the human
existence? Could rationality and morality be investigated empirically through
the study of the brain? Is the human being reducible to his brain? Some
neuroscientists try to reduce the human being to his brain the way they reduce
the animals they experimented with to their brains. The human mind, however, is
not and could not be reduced to the brain, although the former presupposes the
latter. Both the human beings and the lower animals have brains, but unlike the
lower animals, man is a rational being. The human being has a rational mind.
Those animals may have brains, but we can never attribute a mind to them. They do not have the conscience, sense of
duty, morality, faith, knowledge, etc. that the human beings have or are
capable of. Moreover, if these mentioned aspects are essentially connected to
the irrational emotions as some neuroscientists have argued, how come those
lower animals are not able to develop or to have them. If ethics or religion is
a product of emotion, how come those animals are neither ethical nor religious?
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| Isla Naburot, Guimaras, Philippines |
Jonathan Haidt believes that the human being’s moral judgments
are mostly intuitive and that human intuitions are powerfully shaped by the
institutions around them like family, religion, state, etc. If morality is just
an intuition and intuitions are simply influenced by institutions, therefore,
the institutions that the human beings have founded and that influence his moral
judgments are but products of his irrational emotions. If utilitarian morality is the true morality
that some neuroscientists insist on, how come that the animals do not have
morality to speak of since they are more utilitarian than the human beings? In
some recent investigations, some scientists claim that they have found or
located the part of the brain where lies the decision-making in animals. The
question is: are animals capable of decision- making? We know that
decision-making involves a rational mind, and we know that rats, dogs, and the
rest of the animals do not have this.
What I am confused with is they try to equate or even lower
the human beings to the level of the animals while at the same time try to endow
a rational nature to those animals. Without doubt, those powerful techniques
and the neuroscience in general are indeed a great benefit to the humanity for
it helps to detect abnormalities in the brain and can assist in the diagnosis
of neurological and mental disorders.
I believe, however,
that we cannot totally deduce a human being to his brain. This organ is undeniably
important part of man, for it is the seat of our cognitive faculties. Man,
however, is more than his brain. A human being in coma or who has dementia or
other mental disorders never ceases to be a person. Any mental illness does not
and could not debase our human dignity. Our brain does not and could not
exhaust our human nature/ essence.
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| The Human Brain |
[1] J.
Savulescu et al., “Neuroscience of Morality”, The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics
@ www.neuroethics.ox.ac.uk.
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