According to a widespread view, a complete explanatory reduction of all aspects of the human mind to the electro-chemical functioning of the brain is at hand and will certainly produce vast and positive cultural, political and social consequences. However, notwithstanding the astonishing advances generated by the neurosciences in recent years for our understanding of the mechanisms and functions of the brain, the application of these findings to the specific but crucial issue of human agency can be considered a “pre-paradigmatic science” (...) (in Thomas Kuhn’s sense). This implies that the situation is, at the same time, intellectually stimulating and methodologically confused. More specifically—because of the lack of a solid, unitary and coherent methodological framework as to how to connect neurophysiology and agency—it frequently happens that tentative approaches, bold but very preliminary claims and even clearly flawed interpretations of experimental data are taken for granted. In this article some examples of such conceptual confusions and intellectual hubris will be presented, which derive from the most recent literature at the intersection between neurosciences, on the one hand, and philosophy, politics and social sciences, on the other hand. It will also be argued that, in some of these cases, hasty and over-ambitious conclusions may produce negative social and political consequences. The general upshot will be that very much has still to be clarified as to what and how neurosciences can tell us about human agency and that, in the meantime, intellectual and methodological caution is to be recommended. (shrink)

Uma forma de compreender o humano é pela sua biologia, a qual pode ser vista como ambígua. Por um lado, há características biológicas correlacionadas a capacidades extremamente especializadas e complexas, as quais abrem possibilidades que lhe são particulares, distinguindo-o ‘positivamente’ dos outros seres vivos. Por outro, como todo ser vivo, há características que tornam a vida humana finita e relativamente vulnerável, as quais costumam ser ‘negativamente’ interpretadas. Em ambos os casos, há características biológicas que, em si, não são boas nem (...) más, apenas são, constituindo uma espécie biológica. No debate bioético, tem havido uma passagem direta de fatos para valores, de modo que o fato do humano ser biologicamente vulnerável justificaria uma opção valorativa pela superação de algumas características biológicas. Postulando uma tensão entre fatos e valores, nosso objetivo é mostrar a pertinência de submeter os meios biotecnocientíficos de melhoramento humano à regulação proveniente da proteção da liberdade de escolha baseada na autocompreensão existencial do indivíduo (que chamaremos de escolha hermenêutica), medida fundamental para evitar ou combater formas de opressão num contexto biopolítico. (shrink)

Other-perspective taking, distancing, time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion highly affect decision-making. Even though they influence each other, so far these cognitive processes have been unrelated or only partly related to each other in neuroscience. This article proposes a philosophical interpretation of these cognitive processes that is elaborated in the updated theory of Adam Smith’s prudence. The UTSP is inspired by Smith’s account of prudence and is in line with the neuroscientific and behavioral studies on OPT, distancing, (...) time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion. The UTSP represents a framework aiming to interpret and connect these cognitive processes and providing a consistent and empirically sound account of a “Smithianly” prudent style of decision-making. The two pillars of the UTSP are the shift of perspective in space and time and loss aversion. On the basis of this theory, a normative updated theory of Smithian prudence is outlined. The latter is useful for moral philosophy for two reasons: firstly, according to preliminary evidence, it is effective in guiding the agent in decisional contexts in which her well-being is at stake and she can affect other people with her actions. Secondly, since the NUTSP is based on neuroscientific findings on decision-making, it has a sound empirical basis that prevents a source of alienation for the agent. (shrink)

La agencia moral, entendida como la facultad que permite la moralidad, aparece gracias a las estructuras psicobiológicas que componen sus condiciones de posibilidad. Trataremos de comprender su origen evolutivo atendiendo a la posibilidad de que la agencia moral surgiese como un subproducto de la evolución, que no aparece con una función concreta, y que sería resultado de la concurrencia de otros elementos que surgieron y se desarrollaron adaptativamente. Tras ello haremos algunas consideraciones respecto a las competencias de las ciencias empíricas (...) y de la ética en relación a lo moral. (shrink)

Which domains of biology do philosophers of biology primarily study? The fact that philosophy of biology has been dominated by an interest for evolutionary biology is widely admitted, but it has not been strictly demonstrated. Here I analyse the topics of all the papers published in Biology & Philosophy, just as the journal celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. I then compare the distribution of biological topics in Biology & Philosophy with that of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of (...) Science of the USA, focusing on the recent period 2003–2015. This comparison reveals a significant mismatch between the distributions of these topics. I examine plausible explanations for that mismatch. Finally, I argue that many biological topics underrepresented in philosophy of biology raise important philosophical issues and should therefore play a more central role in future philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Voles are attracting attention because genetic variation at a single locus appears to have a profound impact on a complex social behavior, namely monogamy. After briefly reviewing the state of the most relevant scientific literature, I examine the way that this research gets taken up by the popular media, by scientists, and by the notable philosopher of neuroscience Patricia Churchland and interpreted as having deeply revisionary implications for how we ordinarily understand ourselves as persons. We have all these big questions (...) we would like to resolve about free will, consciousness, our understanding of persons, and the nature of morality and there is a tendency to ask more of neuroscience than it can yet answer. I do not deny that advances in neuroscience may eventually bear on important philosophical issues. However, it is not at all clear that this research has many of the sweeping implications being claimed for it and, in communicating science responsibly to the public, there is reason to be cautious about suggesting that it does. (shrink)

Neuroeconomics is a science pledged to tracing the neurobiological correlates involved in decision-making, especially in the case of economic decisions. Despite representing a recent research field that is still identifying its research objects, tools and methods, its epistemological scope and scientific relevance have already been openly questioned by several authors. Among these critics, the most influential names in the debate have been those of Faruk Gul and Wolfgang Pesendorfer, who claim that the data on neural activity cannot find place in (...) economic models, which should on the contrary be solely based on the data produced by choices. This paper aims at countering the gloomy and unsubstantiated claims of these two authors and those who believe that neuroscience cannot provide new and useful insights to the established knowledge of standard economics. The main point stressed here is that this perception is the product of a general misunderstanding of the advances made by neuroscience, which are incidentally of crucial importance. (shrink)

The first part of the paper offers an historical reconstruction of the relationship between philosophy and neuroscience. The goal of this part is to show that such relationship has been generated on the basis of a theoretical common ground; that this common story was essentially tied to the American philosophical naturalism; that naturalism entails a metaphilosophical constraint, such that between philosophy and the natural sciences subsists a strong cognitive asymmetry. In the second part of the paper, it has been taken (...) into consideration the proposal of a “naturalized epistemology”. On the one hand, it has been examined the historical and theoretical consequences of it. But on the other hand, it is possible to show that in the very same quinean text there are conceptual resources that exceed the cages of reductionisms by restoring a broader and less hierarchical idea of philosophy. The fundamental claim of the work is that only assuming an idea of philosophy not already-naturalized it is possible to match the challenge for a new semantics of concepts brought forward by neurosciences. (shrink)