authors:
- Churchland, Patricia S
content: 'Philosopher-neuroscientist Patricia Churchland explores the basis for conscience
  and morality. She discusses both the evolutionary and mechanistic processes underlying
  our humanity. A nice read, with several important and sometimes provocative points
  delivered in a well-written text. Churchland begins with defining conscience as
  "knowledge of the community standards", and goes on to describe how such standards
  have been internalized in the human mind.


  Science cannot tell us what is morally right, but it can probe why we are moral,
  and how that faculty is grounded in the biological reality of humans as social beings.
  The fact that humans are born helpless and require assistance by parents and others
  for many years is both a cause and effect of our hypersocial nature. Our cognitive
  flexibility presupposes a long learning period. We are clearly wired for cooperation
  in an extreme degree, and this requires norms and values. Fairness in sharing the
  results of collaboration is a basic human attitude.


  Churchland criticizes the strong western tradition in moral philosophy of searching
  for strict universal rules as a basis for morality. As examples of such philosophy,
  she first dispatches of the religious attempt to build morality on the god(s); the
  Socratic dialogue Euthyphro invalidated that project. Next, she looks at the twin
  secular attempts at universal moral rules: Immanuel Kant, on the one hand, and the
  utilitarians, on the other, both attempting, in very different ways, to formulate
  a fundamental moral rule. One of her points (which reminds me of Isaiah Berlin''s
  discussion about the plurality of values) is that moral choices must be viewed as
  acts of constraint satisfaction, where different values and considerations come
  into play depending on the circumstances, and that there is little reason to believe
  that a single principle could ever handle all possible situations. Social life is
  simply too complex. "... we can make sense of moral norms - not as things apart
  from our nature, as things foisted on our nature, but as practical solutions to
  common problems.'
date: '2019-07-08'
edition:
  published: '2019'
  publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
goodreads: '41817561'
html: '<p>Philosopher-neuroscientist Patricia Churchland explores the basis for conscience
  and morality. She discusses both the evolutionary and mechanistic processes underlying
  our humanity. A nice read, with several important and sometimes provocative points
  delivered in a well-written text. Churchland begins with defining conscience as
  &quot;knowledge of the community standards&quot;, and goes on to describe how such
  standards have been internalized in the human mind.</p>

  <p>Science cannot tell us what is morally right, but it can probe why we are moral,
  and how that faculty is grounded in the biological reality of humans as social beings.
  The fact that humans are born helpless and require assistance by parents and others
  for many years is both a cause and effect of our hypersocial nature. Our cognitive
  flexibility presupposes a long learning period. We are clearly wired for cooperation
  in an extreme degree, and this requires norms and values. Fairness in sharing the
  results of collaboration is a basic human attitude.</p>

  <p>Churchland criticizes the strong western tradition in moral philosophy of searching
  for strict universal rules as a basis for morality. As examples of such philosophy,
  she first dispatches of the religious attempt to build morality on the god(s); the
  Socratic dialogue Euthyphro invalidated that project. Next, she looks at the twin
  secular attempts at universal moral rules: Immanuel Kant, on the one hand, and the
  utilitarians, on the other, both attempting, in very different ways, to formulate
  a fundamental moral rule. One of her points (which reminds me of Isaiah Berlin''s
  discussion about the plurality of values) is that moral choices must be viewed as
  acts of constraint satisfaction, where different values and considerations come
  into play depending on the circumstances, and that there is little reason to believe
  that a single principle could ever handle all possible situations. Social life is
  simply too complex. &quot;... we can make sense of moral norms - not as things apart
  from our nature, as things foisted on our nature, but as practical solutions to
  common problems.</p>

  '
isbn: '9781324000891'
language: en
lastmod: '2019-07-08'
path: /library/churchland-2019.html
published: '2019'
rating: 4
reference: Churchland 2019
reviewed: '2019-07-08'
subjects:
- human-evolution
- liberalism
- morality
- science
title: 'Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition'
type: book
year: 2019