Conscience, Patricia S. Churchland
Conscience, Patricia S. Churchland
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Conscience
The Origins of Moral Intuition

Author: Patricia S. Churchland

Narrator: Suzie Althens

Unabridged: 7 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/30/2019


Synopsis

In Conscience, Patricia S. Churchland, the distinguished founder of neurophilosophy, explores how moral systems arise from our physical selves in combination with environmental demands.

All social groups have ideals for behavior, even though ethics vary among different cultures and among individuals within each culture. In trying to understand why, Churchland brings together an understanding of the influences of nature and nurture. She looks to evolution to elucidate how, from birth, our brains are configured to form bonds, to cooperate, and to care. Conscience delves into scientific studies, particularly the fascinating work on twins, to deepen our understanding of whether people have a predisposition to embrace specific ethical stands. Research on psychopaths illuminates the knowledge about those who abide by no moral system and the explanations science gives for these disturbing individuals.

Churchland then turns to philosophy—that of Socrates, Aquinas, and contemporary thinkers like Owen Flanagan—to explore why morality is central to all societies, how it is transmitted through the generations, and why different cultures live by different morals. Her unparalleled ability to join ideas rarely put into dialogue brings light to a subject that speaks to the meaning of being human.


About Patricia S. Churchland

Patricia S. Churchland is the author of Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition and Touching a Nerve: Our Brains, Our Selves. She is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She lives in San Diego.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ryan

When thinking about morality, people generally make two mistakes: 1) that moral certainty can be achieved by consulting some external, objective source, and 2) that if this is not the case, and moral certainty cannot be attained, then we all have license to do whatever we want and there’s nothing le......more

Goodreads review by Jon

Patricia and Paul Churchland seem to have invented neurophilosophy, the discipline which addresses philosophical questions, such as the nature of mind, by using the insights of neuroscience. I found Paul Churchland’s book, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul, quite exciting because it discuss......more

Not a bad book, but also not a good one. The first half of the book seems misleading, as the premise is a neurological understanding of moral philosophy, yet the neurology present is fundamental evolutionary neurochemistry. It feels more like a neuroscience textbook, highlighting key experiments and......more

Goodreads review by Ishan

Love a lot of stuff patricia churchland has done and have a lot of respect for the "neurophilosophy" project she's pioneered, but there was nothing of much value in this book. For over 50% of it, it's not very clear how the text relates in any way to conscience or morality and comes off as more of a......more