Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Churchland on Morality. Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This is a 3 page paper that provides an overview of the works of Patricia Churchland. The emphasis is on her relation of neuroscience to morality. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KW60_KFlit085.doc
Buy This Term Paper »
Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
this was not always the case, and Dr. Patricia Churchland adopts a methodology in her latest work, "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality", that stems from a synthesis of
the worlds. In its pages, she takes the question of ethics and morality, long the province of philosophers, and addresses it through the contextual lenses of neurochemistry and evolutionary science.
The result is that she puts forth a new theory on the connection between the moral convictions that the majority of people seem to hold, and the biology of the
brain itself. In doing so, she describes how nearly all of contemporary morality, including the most basic edicts such as not killing other people or stealing their property, stems from
principles of "attachment and bonding", neurological processes that are mediated by the interaction of chemicals such as oxytocin (Princeton University Press, 2011). She then points out how these neurological processes
first developed as an evolutionary function in mammals because mammals needed to stay with their young for longer periods in order to facilitate their survival; this evolutionary change resulted in
the development of brain structures that for the first time enabled behaviors motivated by a new type of value - caring for the needs of others, rather than the needs
of the self (Churchland, 2011, p. 14). These new behaviors are the very mechanisms which enable morality. This finding of Churchland is not just an advancement for neuroscience, however; it
also addresses many of the most basic and fundamental questions of philosophy, such as where "values" come from in the first place. TO address these questions, Churchland turns to evolutionary
psychology, and points out that the primary value of any living organism is self-preservation, as without such a value, organisms could not live long enough to reproduce. However, in certain
...