Ethics

"Neurophilosophy at Work" and "The Really Hard Problem"

By Adam Kolber

Here are two book reviews recently posted to Metapsychology Online Reviews (including one by Neuroethics & Law Blogger Neil Levy):

Neurophilosophy at Work
by Paul Churchland
Review by Christina Behme on Jan 15th 2008

The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World
by Owen J. Flanagan
Review by Neil Levy, Ph.D. on Jan 29th 2008

Overall, Neil gives the book a quite favorable review.  But here's a sample from one of Neil's more critical paragraphs, on Flanagan's effort to strip spirituality of its spookier elements:

By 'spirituality', Flanagan means something like a feeling of interconnectedness and awe; such a feeling does not depend on any supernatural convictions. First, Flanagan engages in a ground-clearing exercise, asking whether we need illusions to flourish. His target here is a strand of research in social psychology which allegedly establishes the near-ubiquity of false belief about matters close to us (for instance about our own intelligence, skills, and so on), and also that such false beliefs are associated with psychological health. Flanagan is unimpressed by this evidence, and argues that we can live without illusion. To my mind, this is the weakest chapter of the book. His dismissal of the evidence is causal and shows an uncharacteristic disregard for the high epistemological standards he usually abides by. He offers reinterpretations of the evidence without suggesting whether social psychology has controlled for them (usually it has) and anecdotes and personal observations which are likely to be of little worth in the light of various well-known heuristics and biases to which we are all prone. Perhaps in recognition of the weakness of the arguments offered here, Flanagan ends the chapter with a much weaker conclusion than his arguments, if successful, would warrant: not that we are not, after all, subject to pervasive illusions, but that some of us escape them without suffering psychological harms.

Full post as published by Neuroethics and Law on February 03, 2008 (boomark / email).