Patricia Churchland on How We Evolved A Conscience

09/15/19 • 60 min

Patricia Churchland is the queen of neurophilosophy. She’s on fine form in this interview - charming, funny and occasionally savage as we range over her views on the nature of philosophy, the neuroscience and evolution of morality, and consider what’s wrong with the two major ethical traditions in western thought: utilitarianism and Kantianism.

1.43 - Is philosophy just a kind of science in its infancy - a ‘proto-science’ - or it is a special kind of conceptual analysis? Professor Churchland doesn’t pull her punches as she takes on the ‘language police’ approach to philosophy.

8.03 Why so much philosophy is useless. “They make finer and finer distinctions, which nobody in the sciences gives a tinker’s damn about!”

9.03 How epistemology is just ‘isms up the ying yang’!

10.40 What good work is being done in philosophy, and what makes it good? Walter Sinnott Armstrong, Owen Flanagan and Julian Savulescu get nods of approval.

12.00 We set to work discussing Professor Churchland’s book Conscience. Where does moral motivation come from in humans and other mammals?

16.20 Why was the evolution of warm-bloodedness important in this story?

18:00 The emergence of the cortex in mammals. Why the most sophisticated animals are the most helpless when they are born, and why it enables the most powerful learning.

20:40 Why the mammalian dependence on a caregiver is the origin of moral concern.

23.20 What precursors to moral behaviour do we see in chimpanzees, wolves and rodents?

28.40 What’s the difference between chimps and humans? It’s just more neurons! But, argues Prof Churchland, quantitative changes can beget qualitative differences in cognition and behaviour, as illustrated by advances in AI.

33.00 The Purveyors Of Pure Reason - what’s wrong with utilitarianism - and why is the contemporary Effective Altruist movement ‘a bit of an abomination’? Prof Churchland takes exception to the idea that 10 homeless folk should matter to her more than her own daughter, and defends the importance of community as a valid source of moral motivation. She explains why Russian philosophers called utilitarianism ‘Lenin’s Math.’

44.00 How can neuroscience and evolution theory tell us anything important about ethics? Prof Churchland tackles the naturalistic fallacy, and argues that the sciences can usefully constrain our theorising. She celebrates the contributions of Hume and Aristotle.

47.32 Why morality is a lot harder than most moral philosophers think: it’s not just about figuring out some simple over-arching principles. Moral issues are really practical problems, not primarily exercises in rational reflection.

54.25 There are no moral authorities - but that shouldn’t cause us existential angst. We should be like the Buddhists and Confucians.

TL:DR - Aristotle and Hume had it right: there are no moral authorities and no grand rules to live by. You gotta figure it out as you go along.

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8.03 Why so much philosophy is useless. “They make finer and finer distinctions, which nobody in the sciences gives a tinker’s damn about!”

9.03 How epistemology is just ‘isms up the ying yang’!

10.40 What good work is being done in philosophy, and what makes it good? Walter Sinnott Armstrong, Owen Flanagan and Julian Savulescu get nods of approval.

12.00 We set to work discussing Professor Churchland’s book Conscience. Where does moral motivation come from in humans and other mammals?

16.20 Why was the evolution of warm-bloodedness important in this story?

18:00 The emergence of the cortex in mammals. Why the most sophisticated animals are the most helpless when they are born, and why it enables the most powerful learning.

20:40 Why the mammalian dependence on a caregiver is the origin of moral concern.

23.20 What precursors to moral behaviour do we see in chimpanzees, wolves and rodents?

54.25 There are no moral authorities - but that shouldn’t cause us existential angst. We should be like the Buddhists and Confucians.

TL:DR - Aristotle and Hume had it right: there are no moral authorities and no grand rules to live by. You gotta figure it out as you go along.

Follow NOUS on Twitter @NSthepodcast

Previous Episode

Gina Rippon on the Myth of the Gendered Brain

Do men and women have different brains? Jordan Peterson and the Google memo guy are pretty sure they do. Different chromosomes, different hormones = different brains. Right?

Professor Gina Rippon disagrees. Biology, she argues, is not destiny and evidence of differences has been drastically overstated.

For her efforts she has been called a ‘science denier’ & her ideas dismissed as politically correct nonsense. But in her book, The Gendered Brain, I found a careful assessment of evidence, and a powerful case for the immense plasticity of the brain in response to the social environment.

Who’s right? Listen to the episode to hear Gina make her case and respond to her critics.

8.55 Men Are Map Readers Professor Rippon tackles the widely held belief that men are better at map reading and spatial navigation. How big are the differences that we find and how should we explain them?

13:50 At Last: The Truth! How the media report studies which find brain differences between men and women, and how they oftenn reinforce a belief in ‘gender essentialism’.

18:32 I try to pin Gina down - do any brain differences between men and women survive her methodological critiques? And how might brain differences translate into differences in behaviour?

21:45 Are Bigger Brains Better? I put to Prof Rippon the reported correlation between brain size and IQ. She surprises me by doubting the usefulness of IQ tests. We discuss the challenges of relating brain structure to function, and how correcting for size all but wipes out many of the reported differences.

30:05 It’s The Hormones, Right? The popular ‘Brain Organisation theory’, advocated by Simon Baron Cohen among others, holds that brain differences first emerge from the effect of hormones on the developing foetus. Prof Rippon argues that it oversimplifies the story.

39:16 Facing her Critics Prof Rippon’s ideas have been criticised by several other high profile neuroscientists including a previous guest on NOUS Kevin Mitchell, Stuart Ritchie. Her ideas were also attacked in Quillette. Prof Rippon responds - she IS NOT A SEX DIFFERENCE DENIER!

46:09 How to do Better Sex-Difference Research Prof Rippon argues for including variables like years in education, occupation and socioeconomic status in research design - because they also impact the brain and have differentially gendered effects.

48:07 Evolution of sex differences - Surely evolution has made men and women different? Prof Rippon throws shade on evolutionary psychology.

51:16 Why are some people transgender? If there is no male brain and female brain, why do some people feel that they are a man in a woman’s body or vice versa?

Prof Rippon advocates for ‘gender irrelevance’.

57:58 The Gender Equality Paradox - Scandinavian countries- were gender equality is highest - have the greatest gender gaps in typically male or female professions. Why?

Buy Gina's book here: https://amzn.to/2O5E1Gx

Thanks to the STS department at UCL, where this episode was recorded. Check out their full range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses here: www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/

Next Episode

Joseph LeDoux on the 4 Billion Year Journey to Our Conscious Selves

Joseph LeDoux is a celebrated neuroscientist whose latest book is a work of quite staggering ambition - it traces the ‘Four Billion Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains’. He reveals the profound similarities between us and bacteria, as well as offering a brilliant, overarching account of what makes us unique in the animal kingdom; how we developed the capacity for emotion and self-consciousness.

2:27 LeDoux describes his career path – from a small town in Louisiana, via business administration to the legendary studies on split-brain patients he undertook with Michael Gazzaniga.

9:11 What are ‘split brain’ patients and why are they so intriguing? LeDoux describes one of the pioneering experiments he was involved with in the 70s and what they reveal.

The split brain experiments may be tricky to understand from the audio alone! Here’s the experimental set up and results we’re describing...

RIGHT hemisphere sees: SNOW SCENE

LEFT hemisphere sees: a CHICKEN

*Then* participant then asked: pick the object associated with the image.

Right hand (controlled by LEFT hemisphere) picks a CHICKEN CLAW

Left hand (controlled by RIGHT hemisphere) picks a SNOW SHOVEL

BUT the left hemisphere offers a surprising explanation for the behaviour of the left hand...

12:48 Why do we need a ‘deep’ history that covers 4 billion years of evolution? LeDoux explains how his research kept drawing him deeper and deeper into evolutionary history as he traced the origins of the molecular mechanisms at work in our own brains.

22.16 We discuss the staggering fact that even bacteria have a basic capacity for learning and memory

24:16 What do we have in common with the mother of all organisms - LUCA - (the Last Universal Common Ancestor). LeDoux argues that a lot of behaviour is driven by impulses related to survival, rather than the mental states (the thoughts and feelings) which accompany behaviour. Consciousness

26:10 Do we feel emotion because of action, or do we act because of emotion? LeDoux takes issue with William James.

29:00 Darwin was not such a great psychologist. LeDoux cautions against the tempting assumption that animals are conscious, while admitting tends to assume his cat is conscious.

32:26 “Behaviour is not a tool of the mind, it’s a tool of survival.” This falls out of a deep history of the mind.

36:25 To what extent we are still at the mercy of ancient instincts and impulses – how much more control does cognition afford us?

What kind of consciousness might other animals have? LeDoux describes ‘autonoetic consciousness’, the ability for the self to be part of an experience, as distinctively human. He traces the evidence for different forms of consciousness in other animals and discusses brai based differences.

39:56 LeDoux sets out the Higher Order theory of consciousness which he defends. Is it really just a search for the neural correlates of consciousness, or an explanation for phenomenal consciousness?

42:36 “Once we understand consciousness, we get emotions for free”

44:30 What elements are required to have an emotion? LeDoux explains why he got a T-shirt printed with “No self, no fear”.

46:43 Are our conscious minds in the driving seat, or are they just monitoring the auto-pilot? LeDoux admits he’s ‘kinda waffley’ on free will (49:23) so I let it go...

49:41 What brain features are associated with having a developed self-schema, which other primates don’t?

54.14 LeDoux surprises me with the suggestion that maybe emotion did not arise through natural selection!

58:21 We discuss the book’s epilogue, starting with LeDoux’s evocative statement, “While autonoetic self-awareness is the enabler of our deepest problems, it is also our sole hope for a future.” The deep history tells us that species come and go. Bacteria will definitely make it through environmental catastrophe, but will we?

IN CONSCIOUSNESS WE MUST TRUST

The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains

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