There is a forthcoming conference in March at College of the Holy Cross on Neuroscience, Evolution, and Morality. See here for more details.
Thursday-Friday, March 18-19, 2010
Conference fee: $35 (optional Thursday dinner: $20 additional)
Space is limited. Register online now! (Holy Cross faculty, staff and students, please register here.)
How does what we are learning about the brain through neuroscience
and evolutionary science influence how we ought to think about ethics?
Recent advances in functional neuroimaging have increased scientists’
understanding of how our brains process moral decisions. Some thinkers
suggest that moral decision making is fundamentally an intuitive or
emotional process, and that what we call “reason” is a post-decision
making method of justification for actions, not a “higher order”
process for making decisions. If so, the new science challenges the
principle of free will, the argument that reason is the foundation of
moral decision making, and the importance of understanding intentions
before judging responsibility for action. The potential implications
for most Western ethical traditions are enormous.
This two-day conference will bring together some of the world’s
leading neuroscientists, moral psychologists, ethicists, including:
- Kenote speaker Michael Gazzaniga, professor of
psychology and the director for the SAGE Center for the Study of the
Mind, University of California Santa Barbara;
- Patrick Haggard, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London;
- Ethicist Robert Kane '60, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas at Austin;
- Marc Hauser, Cognitive Evolution Laboratory, Harvard University;
- Joshua Greene, Moral Cognition Lab, Harvard University;
- Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, professor of
philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies, Dartmouth College, and
co-director of the The MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project
- Anne Harrington, professor and chair, History of Science, Harvard University
- James Blair, chief of the Unit on Affective
Cognitive Neuroscience in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders
Program, National Institute of Mental Health
- Jeanette Kennett, Department of Philosophy and Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Australia
- Stephen J. Pope, professor of theology, Boston College
- Rachana Kamtekar, associate professor of philosophy, University of Arizona