Social Neuroscience and the Soul’s Last Stand

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Social Neuroscience and the Soul’s Last Stand
Joshua D. Greene (c)
Version 11/06
To appear in Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of
the Social Mind
A. Todorov, S. Fiske, and D. Prentice, Eds. Oxford University Press.

 full text here

Dualism: What’s at Stake?

 "Most people are dualists (Bloom, 2004). Intuitively, we think of ourselves not as physical devices, but as immaterial minds or souls housed in physical bodies. Most experimental psychologists and neuroscientists disagree, at least officially. The modern science of mind proceeds on the assumption that the mind is simply what the brain does. We don’t talk much about this, however. We scientists take the mind’s physical basis for granted. And among the general public, it’s a touchy subject. So why bring it up?" (Greene 2006)

 "Why does it matter if people are dualists? As long as we scientists know what we need to know in order to do our work, is it our business, or in anyone’s best interest, to provide compelling demonstrations of the fact that we have no souls? I think that it is. Dualist beliefs may be harmless enough most of the time, but they divide us in destructive ways, enable us to do some of the worst things that we do, and may ultimately lead to our demise." (Greene 2006)

"Consider, once again, the events of 9-11. Nineteen men killed nearly three thousand people, setting in motion a series of events that, in addition to killing many thousands more people, has destabilized the Middle East at a time when nuclear weapons are becoming increasingly accessible. Those nineteen men destroyed their bodies, along with thousands of others, believing that they— their souls—would go on to enjoy a pleasant post-corporeal existence. Of course, it’s possible that their beliefs about the next world played no role in their decision to leave this one, but that seems unlikely. Rather, as others have noted (Dawkins, 2006; Harris, 2004), it seems that their beliefs about the afterlife enabled them to do what they did."(Greene 2006)

  "Dualism is at the heart of many bioethical debates (Bloom, 2005). It is often said that the abortion controversy is really a debate about when life begins. But “life” is not the real issue, as everyone agrees that a fertilized human egg, like an unfertilized human egg, is alive...Both birth control and abstinence rob potential humans of their existence. Rather, the debate over abortion is ultimately a metaphysical one. The question is not whether a fertilized egg is alive, but whether it is host to a “human life,” i.e. a human soul. Without a soul in the balance, there is no abortion debate..." (Greene 2006)

"We want to punish criminals, not because of the future benefits, but simply as an end in itself. These retributivist tendencies are, I believe, implicitly dualist. If someone has a brain tumor that causes aggressive behavior, people are far more willing to forgive that person. “After all,” we say, “It’s not him, it’s his brain.” When we attribute bad behavior to a purely physical cause (such as a brain tumor), the retributivist impulse fades.' (Greene 2006)

   "From a neuroscientific perspective, of course, all behavior (good and bad) has purely physical causes, and anyone who does unusually bad things must have something, however subtle, wrong with his brain. Combine this ordinary scientific assumption (all bad behavior is caused by brains that are, in some sense, broken) with people’s ordinary assumption about punishment (there is no inherent value in punishing someone for having a broken brain), and we get a very different sort of legal system. We get one focused exclusively on the practical business of preventing future crime, rather than on the metaphysical business of making guilty minds suffer for their sins." (Greene 2006)

  "Dualism plays a parallel role in people’s thinking about mental illness. Intuitively, we all agree that people with cancer deserve our sympathy and financial support because cancer is a serious medical problem. But if someone is depressed, that person’s condition is, to many people at least, just “psychological,” and the prescription is to “snap out of it.” Dualism draws an illusory distinction between having a weakened body and having a weakened mind." (Greene 2006)

"Officially, we scientists already know that the operations of the mind are the operations of the brain, and not those of an immaterial soul. This is, at the very least, our working assumption. In making this assumption, however, we part ways with the rest of humanity, the vast majority of whom explicitly believe that we are souls housed in bodies. Such dualist tendencies are, in my opinion, a major social problem, and may become increasingly destructive. If that is correct, then dispelling dualism is serious business, at least as serious as curing cancer, and probably more so. If anything can cure us of our dualist tendencies, it is social neuroscience, the physical science of human experience." (Greene 2006)

This is a synopsis of a portion of the full article.

Social Neuroscience and the Soul’s Last Stand
Joshua D. Greene (c)
Version 11/06
To appear in Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of
the Social Mind
A. Todorov, S. Fiske, and D. Prentice, Eds. Oxford University Press.

 full text here