By The Dog

"...and, by the dog, gentlemen of the jury---for I must tell you the truth..." --Apology, 21e

Monday, January 16, 2006

same brain, new vat
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1 comment:

Colonel Bourbon said...

"The mirror neurons, it would seem, dissolve the barrier between self and others."

What? I am not only me, I am also you? That's deep...

"Dissolving the "self vs. other" barrier is the basis of many ethical systems, especially eastern philosophical and mystical traditions."

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

"This research implies that mirror neurons can be used to provide rational rather than religious grounds for ethics (although we must be careful not to commit the is/ought fallacy)."

Um, no. The author would do well to heed his own advice about ought/is. And, furthermore, it isn't like it is a new and startling discovery that people can and often do emphathize with each other, which presumably would be the fact doing the ethical work here. All this mirror neuron business shows is *one* of the mechanisms underlying such empathy.

Both the truism that we do in fact empathize with others and the discovery of this one mechanism say nothing about whether we ought to continue to do so or not.

And supposing sadists and maschoists did have mirror neurons that worked in less than normal ways, would they thereby let off the ethical hook?

And what is the contrast supposed to be between rational and religious grounds for ethics? Now, granted, that it is for almost any thoughtful person irrational to believe in any organized religion in existence. The question here is what sense does it make to say that religion provides non-rational grounds for ethics? "I believe murder is wrong and I have good, non-rational grounds for that belief!" See Plato, The Euthyphro (and William Clifford, The Ethics of Belief while you're at it!)

Ok, I'm done.

8:10 PM

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