Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 16, 2022 10:01 am
My paradigm do not focus on your sort of 'therefore, X is morally right and Y is morally wrong'.
What we have is a physical moral fact of a moral potential within the brain which should be self developed to unfold so that the person will spontaneously and naturally progress to be more morally competent.
If you have the capacity and ability to develop your own 'inactive moral potential within' you will progress to be a more moral competent person. There is no question of you being morally right or wrong from the moral perspective I am proposing.
It is only the ignoramus who insist on the question of morally right or wrong as influenced by the current debates on morality and ethics.
The conclusion of the moral potential is verified and justified to exists within the mind, brain and body of each individual person.
Let's make one immediate change....
What we have is a physical moral fact of a moral potential within the brain which should be self developed to unfold so that the person will spontaneously and naturally progress to be more morally competent.
We remove the word moral.
For example he often talks about mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are associated with, amongst other things, empathy.
So,
What we have is a physiological structure with a behavioral/attitudinal potential within the brain....
Let's look at that beginning before we move on.
We have mirror neurons and this entails that when we watch someone do something, including those things associated with emotional expression, it is, to some degree as if we are doing them/feeling them also. This leads to, at least potentially, feeling empathy for other people. Empathy and behaviors associated with it may follow from this physiological structure in the brain and its processes.
VA continues with...
.......which should be self developed to unfold so that the person will spontaneously and naturally progress to be more morally competent.
should be self-developed?
Where does this should come from? It's not in the brain. The structure is in the brain, but there's nothing in the brain that says we should develop that structure, more than any other structure, or that we should consciously decide to develop that structure's effects rather than others or at all.
I think it is also odd that he says self-developed. What not through parenting, education, and any other interpersonal organization or relations to humans as they grow up. Which is not to say I think it shouldn't be self-developed. It just seems odd that he views it as a process in isolation.
.......which should be self developed to unfold so that the person will spontaneously and naturally progress to be more morally competent.
Can be more parsimoniously be replaced with....
.....which develops in a variety of different ways and may lead to greater empathy and compassionate behavior.
Giving us....
What we have is a physiological structure with a behavioral/attitudinal potential within the brain which develops in a variety of different ways and may lead to greater empathy and compassionate behavior.
At this point one could introduce morals...
One could say...I think it is good if people actively develop these facets of the brain, because empathetic people and those who act with compassion....etc. and as one example.
You can certainly add shoulds and moral guidelines on top of what one finds in the brain. But there is no justification for this in the brain.
We can see this if we pick another part of brain physiology....
Aggression in mice comes from the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus. There is evidence that the hypothalamus region is also the source of violent impulses in humans.
OK...
What we have is a physical moral fact of a moral potential within the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, which should be self developed to unfold so that the person will spontaneously and naturally progress to be more aggressive.
The only reason we don't do this is we generally don't like or have morals against aggression except in certain circumstances. The should that VA already has leads him to call the mirror neurons something we should develop.
Someone from a culture like, say, the Vikings, or some types of macho culture, might want to develop the hypothalamus' ability to quickly generate aggression, especially in men.
It is such a confused argument he has which stands on leaps and unsupported assumptions, cherry picking as far as what regions of the brain are chosen, and category errors. It's be lovely if we all just ignored him.