Episode 50: Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain

Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.prepostero...
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It’s fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have an inner voice that keeps offering opinions about how we should behave ourselves: our conscience. Where did that come from? Today’s guest, Patricia Churchland, is a philosopher and neuroscientist, one of the founders of the subfield of “neurophilosophy.” We dig into the neuroscience of it all, especially how neurochemicals like oxytocin affect our attitudes and behaviors. But we also explore the philosophical ramifications of having a conscience, with an eye to understanding morality and ethics in a neurophilosophical context.
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Patricia Churchland received her B.Phil. in philosophy from Oxford University. She is currently the President’s Professor of Philosophy (emerita) at the University of California, San Diego, as well as an adjunct professor of neuroscience at the Salk Institute. Among her awards are the MacArthur Prize, The Rossi Prize for Neuroscience and the Prose Prize for Science. Her latest book, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition, was just released. She has arguably the best web site of any professional philosopher.
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[@mitchkahle314]

This channel should have 10x the subscribers.

[@ukgav]

It will.

[@dimitrijmaslov1209]

@@ukgav...well.

[@jasonaus3551]

The Churchlands are great, nonexistent but great

[@bmdecker93]

Got a lot of appreciation for Patricia Churchlands work. Great show.

[@jazfyrski]

Wonderfully engrossing and thought-provoking discussion. Thank you!

[@ZippyLeroux]

In his book "Behave", Robert Sapolsky says that the function of oxytocin is actually context dependent. So yes it does make you feel bonded with the family/group/clan/same, but it is also the agent that makes you aggressive against the other/threat. So when you are watching the football, the competitive hostility you feel for the other team and their fans is actually oxytocin doing it's thing. An amazing book I recommend highly. Dr. Carroll if you're reading this, PLEASE pretty please with a cherry on top, see if you can get Dr. Sapolsky on this podcast.....

[@ZippyLeroux]

@@1DangerMouse1 Hmmm, could you please cite your sources? I'm really interested! I haven't read Behave in a while. :) Behave was published in Spring 2017. Following is a link to an article authored by Sapolsky in which he is still talking about Oxytocin in this way. The article is dated December 2018, and in this article Sapolsky cites recent (2011 & 2012) research, which I haven't personally checked out, nor do I know that it is the same research cited in the book. I'm not a hard scientist so I must I defer to Sapolsky (for better or worse) for the weight he places on (what he describes as excellent in 2018) research he's willing to cite in his literature. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306482/

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@1DangerMouse1 Several academic papers support Sapolsky's contention. For Example, see Elsevier, Volume 61, Issue 3, March 2012 by Carsten K. W. Dreu. University of Amsterdam I would tend to support Sapolsky.

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@1DangerMouse1 Thanks, with social psych research different perspectives or interpretations occur but direct contradictions much less often. I would still like to know what Sapolsky research didn't hold up. (Okay, I am a fan of his...😊 and I did not contradict Churchland. )

[@vaultsjan]

@@chrisrecord5625 www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-women-who-live-together-menstruate-together/ (not original source)

[@EannaButler]

Two great intellects in open discussion.. thanks!

[@AlTorresFineArt]

Great interview, very intersting topic!

[@DouwedeJong]

I would really like to see you both when you speak. Will be so cool. Can't wait until you get that LARGE audience so that my dream become true.

[@jake-TO]

I understand it's harder to do a video version, but if you can it's really nice to watch. I get a better understanding of guests from their facial expressions and I miss it a little when it's only audio. Maybe you can give it a shot sometime, thanks!

[@atifrana917]

Thank you for this!!

[@robertglass1698]

Hello, this is another great talk--informative and useful. However, I would like to maybe hear you talk to people who you don't necessarily agree with so much. You have been having a lot of conversations in the last few weeks where you are agreeing a lot. Adversarial discussions can also be very informative and useful.

[@pansepot1490]

Intelligent reasonable people tend to agree a lot, especially in science where ideas are based on hard facts and testable data. If you like adversarial discussion I’d suggest to turn to politics.

[@robertglass1698]

@@pansepot1490 I don't know, my favorite podcasts were the ones with Chalmers, Rosenberg or David Albert because they didn't agree completely with Sean. It forces each person to elaborate their points more clearly and not stray into opinions. Adversarial doesn't mean angry, it means you have to defend yourself, which is how science works.

[@CorwynGC]

No, they are not.

[@robertglass1698]

@@CorwynGC I suppose being told what to think is better?

[@GnomiMoody]

Patricia is a badass.

[@waynefoster7982]

Yup, you are Canadian Foresure UMSU without a doubt. Wayne from Winnipeg.

[@jedmoser]

This podcast would take off with the addition of video

[@raresmircea]

Up!

[@realkarfixer8208]

An interesting discussion, but throughout I kept thinking that her perspective is very myopic. Very recently in the human evolutionary history infanticide and human sacrifice were common. This was not pre human ancestors, but modern humans with the same genome and hormonal responses. The Axial age of human enlightenment- itself a debatable topic, runs roughly from 800-300 BCE, negligible in terms of evolutionary processes. Capital punishment for minor crimes was common until just recently. The notion that oxytocin somehow has lead to conscience and morality seems to fail badly, unless there is some evidence that the human response to this hormone has dramatically been altered in the last few thousand years.

[@CorwynGC]

When she is talking about the moral line being fuzzy, is she saying that it is blurred so that good/bad can not be determined, or that it is a fractal so good/bad can not be determined by looking at nearby points?

[@wfurney]

Fantastic, thanks so much for this podcast

[@axelengstrom3802]

You should put "Episode nr" at the end of the title. The most relevant parts should go first. KZbin often truncates long titles because screen space is limited.

[@ThexInsidexMan]

Subbed, i'd seen your talks for years on Agatan's channel, but just found out about your channel/show via Destiny!

[@pleiadesglow]

Woot, Woot, Patricia mention to U of Manitoba!

[@ciarandudley3800]

Gotta love the sheer audacity of eliminative materialism: the mind is the brain; morality is a hormone; freedom is a machine, etc. Remember that Hegel said it first in his Phenomenology of 1807: "Spirit is a bone." That is, dualism is the enemy; dual-aspect monism is the way to go. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenology_of_Spirit

[@emipopescu3257]

@7:30 no, the brain is not irrelevant, it's just not enough. And that's how Neuroplasticity is possible.

[@Confuseddave]

I was kind of puzzled when you were talking about uploading why the idea of hormones in particular tips you over into thinking that the idea of simulation becomes implausible. I have a background in Neuroscience (although my PhD was in a different field), but it's always struck me that since the fundamental unit of learning and memory is long term potentiation, any simulation of the brain capable of usefully reproducing memory or consciousness would have to model changes in individual synapses right down to the level of post-translational modifications of neurotransmitter receptors anyway. Once you're simulating that level of structure - which, frankly, I think is on a par with a Star Trek-style teleporter in terms of the kinds of unknown technology we'd need to develop to make possible - I really don't see why simulating hormonal signals coming in from a body carrying hunger or thirst would be a significant barrier.

[@ZappyOh]

Sean, what is your take on the resent development in (semi-official) UFO disclosure by the US government/military?

[@Sirach-pv5xv]

This is where Esoteric and Metaphysical concepts MUST be considered. ALL IS MIND The cloud is not located on your device. The mind is s body unto itself. The mind IS NOT MADE OF PHYSICAL MATTER. The discipline of METAphysics is required for its study

[@emipopescu3257]

I think she mistakens Ethics for Conscience. When people mention Conscience they refer to a non-physical sense of morality, one that is innate and is not based on society rules nor on (evolved) survival behaviours. And it's one that is pretty simple as it generally implies that you shouldn't bring any harm to another just as you wouldn't do it to yourself either. And you cannot find this (nor force it into) the physical brain, they're of different nature. Brain is not all there is. Not to mention that our behaviour is influenced by other physical simuli also, both internal & external. There are people with psychopatic-structured brains who are not murderers. Things are not that black & white

[@vaultsjan]

58:00 - help me out but how this isn't science can answer moral questions..

[@drwaynebuck]

I'm a bit surprised the the ethics of care, a feminist alternative to Kant, Mill and Aristotle, did not come up.

[@DionysusEleutherios]

Chomsky also speaks about the biological constraints surrounding morality etc. Please Sean Carroll, get Chomsky on this! Would be a great discussion on power, anarchism, language, etc

[@vwwvictor]

came here from your talk with destiny

[@Riley321b]

Would you link the talk with destiny?

[@PavlosPapageorgiou]

Moral is what promotes cooperation. Immoral is the opposite. End.

[@Archie.Fisher]

'If altruistic and cooperative behavior were the essence of morality, the ants and bees would be our moral heroes, and no one supposes that they are.' C. Korsgaard

[@PavlosPapageorgiou]

@@Archie.Fisher Anthills and beehives are biologically one organism.

[@CorwynGC]

@@PavlosPapageorgiou That makes no sense.

[@cloudoftime]

The utility of the perception of free will has no bearing on the truth of free will. You can still hold beings accountability for their actions, without needing to blame them via some unsubstantiated idea of free will. If someone murders someone, we still lock them away. No need to mess with free will, in fact, disregarding free will improves this situation.

[@darishennen898]

I thought Sam had said prior that he doesn't subscribe to utilitarianism.

[@michaelm3691]

He thinks we should maximize human flourishing and minimize suffering which IS the utilitarian stance. However, this stance can easily lead to simplistic conclusions by it's proponents and strawmen by it's opponents in which you excuse all sorts of things for the greater good. According to Sam, utilitarianism also ignores intent in favor of outcome so if, say, you had two murderers they would both get the same punishment regardless of whether one wanted to murder again and the other one deeply regretted his actions. He disagrees with this. In my book, however, utilitarianism is ONLY the overall aim of making life as good for as many people possible and everything else is just ideas on how to achieve that. Ignoring intent is NOT utilitarian because when the dude murders again, you increase suffering. Frankly, most arguments I hear against utilitarianism comes from an utilitarian worldview. They argue against a strawman because they don't think it'll lead to the greater good. I would like to hear *why* Churchland is so against it, but she also massively misrepresented the "we don't have free will" argument, so I don't have my hopes up.

[@emipopescu3257]

But she's still talking about Consciousness, not about Conscience! Every time she says she talks about Conscience she in fact talks about behavioural patterns, social behaviours, survival behaviours and all alike. Of course the brain is wired for survival and pretty much everything it does is directed towards that, societies also work because of it. Conscience, on the other hand, may work detrimental to the individual in various contexts (when confronted with abnormalities in society, for example). However, there are so many more pieces to consider if we are to make the whole perspective. And that's the problem with scientists sometimes they lose themselves into details and into their own theory and forget the Whole and that's why pieces won't fall together. You don't have to be a mystical person to realise that life has non-physical components to it, and thus living beings implicitly do. Her puzzle feels incomplete & faulty to me. (i use "feel" and "to me" since i'm no science authority, it's just my personal opinion). Jeffrey M. Schwartz's theory makes so much more sense, at least to me.

[@glutinousmaximus]

... oxytosin - gotta get me some ;0)

[@vaultsjan]

50:00 ...totally not utilitarian

[@chrisrecord5625]

Oxytocin, vasopressin,...neurolegal realism..." we like to tweak the rules with exceptions" Churchland

[@RedBikelane]

20:00 sam harris ...

[@SauceGPT]

She sounds like a mix between a teenage gossip girl and Glenn from Superstore. Shes difficult to follow

[@TheReferrer72]

Follow she's good.

[@SauceGPT]

@@TheReferrer72 alright. Ill try again.

[@SnoopGotTheScoop]

her accent was giving me flashbacks to Jordan Peterson

[@BladeRunner-td8be]

There is a boatload of intelligence speaking here. And I'm bored silly. Not my bag I guess.

[@bluelid0970]

ayy whos here from Destiny?

[@Dirtgut]

Eliminative materialism is the most obnoxious position in the philosophy of mind

[@Archie.Fisher]

Because it's counter-intuitive? Boo hoo.

[@Dirtgut]

@@Archie.Fisher no because its incoherent

[@Archie.Fisher]

​@@Dirtgut I'd be interested to see if you can demonstrate this incoherence without begging the question.

[@Dirtgut]

@@Archie.Fisher "I believe that beliefs arent real"

[@d.glasby5117]

@@Dirtgut Incoherent in what way? More incoherent than mysticism or supernatural beliefs?

[@ΑνέστηςΜουστάκας]

First