Abstract
Debates about the ethical implications of advancements in neuroscience often include estimates of how such developments will affect commonsense morality. These predictions rely on a putative clash between commonsense morality and neuroscientific discoveries. In this chapter, I argue that commonsense morality is an empirically evaluable theory, which can be circumscribed in the same way as commonsense psychology—using Lewis’s method of collecting quotidian platitudes. I maintain, however, that if one were to utilize this method of collecting platitudes about morality, such a collection will represent only current commonsense morality. Commonsense morality specific to a particular time and cultural context cannot support unqualified claims that commonsense moral concepts as such are incompatible with scientific discoveries that pertain to the moral domain. Similarly, because general arguments about the character of commonsense concepts cannot be buttressed using these limited samples, commonsense moral concepts should not be used to set immutable boundaries for the development of new theories and conceptual frameworks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Although it is possible to establish a difference between materialism and physicalism, this difference is not relevant to my argument, and I will use the two terms interchangeably. For more on the differences between these terms, see Stoljar (2009).
- 2.
Eliminativist proposals have resurfaced in neuroethics, most notably about concepts of free will and moral responsibility. For a representative view, see: Greene and Cohen 2004.
- 3.
For example, one does not need a conceptual background to experience a noxious sensation, but one does need at least a minimal conceptual framework to categorize this sensation as pain, i.e., to think (or report) “I am in pain.” Similarly, in order to categorize an individual as having free will or as being dead, one must have at least rudimentary conceptual framework that features the concepts of ‘free will’ and ‘death.’ The particular characterization of individual concepts, as well as the properties of the corollary phenomena, is determined by the role those play in the conceptual framework and can change as the framework changes.
- 4.
“Difficulties with this view begin with the observation that most reduced theories turn out to be, strictly speaking and in a variety of respects, false” (Churchland 1992, p. 48). Based on Nagel’s view, from the new theory plus “bridge laws,” one can deduce the old theory. But if one has an identity between old and new entities, one can get from the falsity of old entities to the falsity of the new entities. “If reduction is deduction, modus tollens would thus require that the premises of the new reducing theory be somehow false as well, in contradiction to their assumed truth” (Churchland 1992, p. 48). According to Churchland, in most cases the problem can be solved by adding a counterfactual boundary condition to the reducing theory. Doing this would confine the falsity in the premises of the reducing theory will be confined to these conditions.
- 5.
Examples of this were presented earlier in this section.
- 6.
- 7.
The distinction between functionalism and psychofunctionalism reflects the division of scientific inquiry into levels, such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, and so forth. For example, if the functional explanation is at the level of psychology, then the inputs and outputs are specified in terms of observable stimuli and behavior. If the explanation is at the level of neuroscience, the inputs and outputs could be specified in terms of neurotransmitters and their corollary effects. But I argue commonsense platitudes include facts from a variety of levels of explanation.
- 8.
See this chapter, Sect. 2.2, pp. 7–9.
- 9.
Incorrigibility as the mark of the mental will be covered further in Chap. 7.
- 10.
- 11.
One could argue that without restricting commonsense conceptions to at least some required properties, it would be difficult to distinguish between slightly erroneous concepts, say “Free will is conscious willing,” and completely erroneous ones, such as “Free will is the color blue.” If our concepts are not construed as capturing essential properties, but acquire their properties by serving a particular functional role, then any property could be ascribed to any concept. (I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for this comment.)
Abandoning the notion of essential properties need not entail that we relinquish means of evaluating the accuracy of our concepts; we would do that by assessing the quality of the theory in which they feature. Any theory can be evaluated by a variety of different factors including explanatory power, parsimoniousness, internal consistency, and coherence with other theories. Theories that best fit those criteria are likely to introduce the most accurate concepts, and those are not likely to be theories that radically re-describe our concepts in the manner illustrated above.
- 12.
I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.
- 13.
Analytic philosophy is sometimes described as the analysis of ordinary language. A thorough discussion of the proper way to conceive of philosophy is outside of the scope of my project, but I do concur with Williamson (2007, p. 21) that philosophy ought not to be conceived as a linguistic or conceptual inquiry. For a thorough consideration of why philosophy ought not to be conceived that way, see Williamson 2007.
- 14.
For a comprehensive and critical assessment of the use of intuitions in philosophy, see Cappelan (2012).
References
Ackrill, J. L. (1987, ed). A new Aristotle reader. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bealer, G. (1996). On the possibility of philosophical knowledge. Philosophical Perspectives, Metaphysics, 10, 1–34.
Block, N. (1978, 1991 ed). Troubles with functionalism. In D. Rosenthal (Ed.), The nature of mind (pp. 211–228). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cappelan, H. (2012). Philosophy without intuitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carruthers, P. (1996). Language, thought and consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Churchland, P. M. (1992). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Churchland, P. (2005). Chimerical colors: Some phenomenological predictions from cognitive neuroscience. Philosophical Psychology, 18(5), 527–560.
Churchland, P. S. (2006). Moral decision-making and the brain. In J. Illes (Ed.), Neuroethics: Defining the issues in theory, practice, and policy (pp. 3–16). New York: Oxford University Press.
Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the brain: Deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts. New York: Viking Penguin.
Dennett, D. (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books.
Farah, M. J., & Heberlein, A. S. (2007). Personhood and neuroscience: Naturalizing or nihilating? American Journal of Bioethics, 7(1), 37–48.
Fayerabend, P. (1962). Explanation, reduction, and empiricism. In H. Feigl, M. Scriven, & G. Maxwell (Eds.), Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science (Vol. 3). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fodor, J. (1975). The language of thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1971). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. The Journal of Philosophy, 68(1), 5–20.
Gopnik, A., & Schwitzgebel, E. (1998). Whose concepts are they, anyway? The role of philosophical inuition in empirical psychology. In M. R. DePaul & W. Ramsey (Eds.), Rethinking intuitions: The psychology of intuitions and its role in philosophical inquiry (pp. 75–91). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Greene, J., & Cohen, J. (2004). For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 359(1451), 1775–1785.
Kant, I. (1785, 1964 ed). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (H. J. Paton, Trans.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I. Q. (1980). The fundamentals of human neuropsychology. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Lewis, D. (1972). Psychophysical and theoretical identifications. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50(3), 207–215.
Lewis, D. (1983). Philosophical papers, volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness potential): The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106, 623–642.
Lycan, W., & Papas, G. (1972). What is eliminative materialism? Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50(2), 99–105.
Merikle, P., & Daneman, M. (2000). Conscious vs. unconscious perception. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences (2nd ed., pp. 1295–1304). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nagel, E. (1961). The structure of science. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.
Nisbett, R., & Wilson, T. (1997). Telling more than we know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259.
Quine, W. V. O. (1969). Epistemology naturalized. In Ontological relativity and other essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Sellars, W. (1977, 1997 ed.). Empiricism and the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stich, S. (1983). From folk psychology to cognitive science: The case against belief. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stich, S. (1996). Deconstructing the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stich, S. (1998). Reflective equilibrium, analytic epistemology and the problem of cognitive diversity. In M. R. DePaul & W. Ramsey (Eds.), Rethinking intuition: The psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry (pp. 95–113). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Stoljar, D. (2009). Physicalism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/physicalism/
van Inwagen, P. (1997). Materialism and the psychological-continuity account of personal identity. In J. Tomberlin (Ed.), Philosophical perspectives, mind, causation and world (Vol. 11, pp. 305–319). Atascadero: Ridgeview Publ. Co.
Williamson, T. (2007). The philosophy of philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gligorov, N. (2016). Rethinking Commonsense Conceptual Frameworks. In: Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense . Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0965-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0965-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-0964-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-0965-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)