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Neuroscience and the Human Person
Abstract
Neuroscience is discovering the areas of the brain correlated with many aspects of the human personality once attributed to the human soul, such as rationality, emotions, ethical decision-making, social behavior, and memory, that lead to a view of the human person as entirely physical. This view has challenged the conception of an immaterial soul often found within Christian theology, with some insisting that religion has been falsified by the failure to discover this immaterial entity. A strict dualism of soul and body in its current form, however, is more a legacy of the philosopher Descartes than a core Christian doctrine. Christianity posits a more holistic view, in which neuroscience does not falsify religion (a conclusion which goes beyond the data provided), but rather encourages an ongoing examination of various theological doctrines to determine how they may have been influenced by surrounding cultures in relation to Scripture. The main challenge of neuroscience, not just in regard to religion, but also in other fields that explore the human person, is that of explaining consciousness and how subjective experiences can arise from a physical substrate. Philosophical, neuroscientific, and religious views abound ranging from reductionist, materialist positions to monist, non-reductionist positions, and to dualistic positions. Regardless of the constitution of the human person, it is becoming apparent that an integrated view of the human person is gradually replacing the strict traditional divisions between aspects of personality, such as emotion and reason or nature and nurture.
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We critically review themushrooming literature addressing the neuralmechanisms of moral cognition (NMMC), reachingthe following broad conclusions: (1) researchmainly focuses on three inter-relatedcategories: the moral emotions, moral socialcognition, and abstract moral reasoning. (2)Research varies in terms of whether it deploysecologically valid or experimentallysimplified conceptions of moral cognition. Themore ecologically valid the experimentalregime, the broader the brain areas involved.(3) Much of the research depends on simplifyingassumptions about the domain of moral reasoningthat are motivated by the need to makeexperimental progress. This is a valuablebeginning, but as more is understood about theneural mechanisms of decision-making, morerealistic conceptions will need to replace thesimplified conceptions. (4) The neuralcorrelates of real-life moral cognition areunlikely to consist in anything remotely like a``moral module'' or a ``morality center.'' Moralrepresentations, deliberations and decisionsare probably highly distributed and notconfined to any particular brainsub-system. Discovering the basic neuralprinciples governing planning, judgment anddecision-making will require vastly more basicresearch in neuroscience, but correlatingactivity in certain brain regions withwell-defined psychological conditions helpsguide neural level research. Progress on socialphenomena will also require theoreticalinnovation in understanding the brain'sdistinctly biological form of computationthat is anchored by emotions, needs, drives,and the instinct for survival.
Cognitive science is a child of the 1950s, the product of a time when psychology, anthropology and linguistics were redefining themselves and computer science and neuroscience as disciplines were coming into existence. Psychology could not participate in the cognitive revolution until it had freed itself from behaviorism, thus restoring cognition to scientific respectability. By then, it was becoming clear in several disciplines that the solution to some of their problems depended crucially on solving problems traditionally allocated to other disciplines. Collaboration was called for: this is a personal account of how it came about.
The neuron doctrine represents nerve cells as polarized structures that contact each other at specialized (synaptic) junctions and form the developmental, functional, structural and trophic units of nervous systems. The doctrine provided a powerful analytical tool in the past, but is now seldom used in educating neuroscientists. Early observations of, and speculations about, sites of neuronal communication, which were made in the early 1860s, almost 30 years before the neuron doctrine was developed, are presented in relation to later accounts, particularly those made in support of, or opposition to, the neuron doctrine. These markedly differing accounts are considered in relation to limitations imposed by preparative and microscopical methods, and are discussed briefly as representing a post-Darwinian, reductionist view, on the one hand, opposed to a holistic view of mankind as a special part of creation, on the other. The widely misunderstood relationship of the neuron doctrine to the cell theory is discussed, as is the degree to which the neuron doctrine is still strictly applicable to an analysis of nervous systems. Current research represents a 'post-neuronist' era. The neuron doctrine provided a strong analytical approach in the past, but can no longer be seen as central to contemporary advances in neuroscience.
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