Jan Verplaetse

This book gives a nuanced answer to the question of good and evil. It delegates our moral and immoral behaviour into five different moral systems, four of which are based on intuitions or emotions (the ethics of attachment, the ethics of violence, the ethics of cleanliness, the ethics of cooperation), whereas only one is rationally based (the ethics of principles). These forms of morals drive people to do things (or not do things) for very different reasons and in very different ways. But what is common to all moral systems is the fact that they limit our personal and individual freedom in favour of a higher goal, namely, that of the community. The author reveals what we know about the origin and development of morals, based on many examples that reveal morals often to be unreflected, spontaneous, emotion-driven processes. Neuroscientific insights provide convincing proof for how deeply morals are embedded in our physical nature.This book deals not only with the soul of ethics, it also shows the flesh of ethics. It shows the skills mankind has – everywhere on the planet and in all cultures – to solve conflicts between self-interest and superordinate interests. It shifts its focus from cultural diversity to biological facts.In summary, Verplaetse makes the case for ethics that are equally emotional and rational in nature.

Über den natürlichen Ursprung unserer Moral

Der moralische Instinkt

Filosofische en neurowetenschappelijke afwijzing van het bestaan van de vrije wil, gevolgd door een pleidooi voor een leven zonder verantwoording of verwijten.

Zonder vrije wil

Johan Braeckman

Jelle de Schrijver

Sven Vanneste

Scientists no longer accept the existence of a distinct moral organ as phrenologists once did. A generation of young neurologists is using advanced technological medical equipment to unravel specific brain processes enabling moral cognition. In addition, evolutionary psychologists have formulated hypotheses about the origins and nature of our moral architecture. Little by little, the concept of a ‘moral brain’ is reinstated. As the crossover between disciplines focusing on moral cognition was rather limited up to now, this book aims at filling the gap. Which evolutionary biological hypotheses provide a useful framework for starting new neurological research? How can brain imaging be used to corroborate hypotheses concerning the evolutionary background of our species? In this reader, a broad range of prominent scientists and philosophers shed their expert view on the current accomplishments and future challenges in the field of moral cognition and assess how cooperation between neurology and evolutionary psychology can boost research into the field of the moral brain.

Essays on the Evolutionary and Neuroscientific Aspects of Morality

The Moral Brain

Due to the current revolution in brain research the search for the “moral brain” became a serious endeavour. Nowadays, neural circuits that are indispensable for moral and social behaviour are discovered and the brains of psychopaths and criminals - the classical anti-heroes of morality - are scanned with curiosity, even enthusiasm. How revolutionary this current research might be, the quest for a localisable ethical centre or moral organ is far from new. The moral brain was a recurrent theme in the works of neuroscientists during the 19th and 20th century. From the phrenology era to the encephalitis pandemic in the 1920s a wide range of European and American scientists (neurologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists and criminologists) speculated about and discussed the location of a moral sense in the human cortex. Encouraged by medical discoveries and concerned by terrifying phenomena like crime or “moral insanity” (psychopathy) even renowned and outstanding neurologists, including Moritz Benedikt, Paul Flechsig, Arthur Van Gehuchten, Oskar Vogt or Constantin von Monakow, had the nerve to make their speculations public. This book presents the first overview of believers and disbelievers in a cerebral seat of human morality, their positions and arguments and offers an explanation for these historical attempts to localise our moral sense, in spite of the massive disapproving commentary launched by colleagues.

Neuroscience and the Search for the Cerebral Seat of Morality, 1800-1930

Localizing the Moral Sense

As a young man, Jan Verplaetse saw a hare suspended from a meat hook, skinned and gutted. What struck him so forcefully at the time was not the animal itself, but the blood gently dripping from its mouth. His reaction prompted the start of a quest he undertakes in this book: to investigate our fascination with blood, the most vital of fluids. Blood Rush shows how, throughout history, blood has had the capacity to intoxicate us, to the point that we lose ourselves, whether in violence, through hunting, fighting, or killing, or in the vicarious thrill of watching sporting events, horror films, or video games. Are these feelings physical, or in our imagination? Where does the magic of blood come from? In his deeply researched and provocative narrative, Verplaetse moves from antiquity to the present, from magic to experimental psychology, from philosophy to religion and scientific discoveries, to demonstrate why blood at once attracts and repels us.

Jan Verplaetse

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