Implications for Ethics
Stephen Pope
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In the final segment of the two-day conference, "Biological Foundations of Morality? Neuroscience, Evolution & Morality," Stephen Pope explains moral theology and how neuroscience can help the Church to better understand and respond to human behavior. He draws an analogy of the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to the interpreter of the brain, described by Michael Gazzaniga, in its role to gather information from Catholic parishes, schools and sources around the world to weave a narrative of moral teaching. But the diversity of Catholics and cultures and the need to suppress dissonance are challenges to the universality of Catholic teaching. Neuroscience, he says, offers insights that ought to make us more humble, self-critical and compassionate in Catholic moral teaching. The Church's teaching, in return, can be foundational to moral formation.
Stephen Pope is professor of theology at Boston College, where he teaches courses on social ethics and theological ethics. He is author of The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love (Georgetown, 1994) and Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Rachana Kamtekar
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Virtue ethicist and ancient philosopher Rachana Kamtekar explores what cognitive science has learned about the modular nature of the mind and what that might tell us about virtue, as understood by Aristotle and Neo-Aristotelians. Most people share the goal to live good, virtuous lives. Aristotle prescribed virtue as a prerequisite for happiness. But Kamtekar argues that new findings in cognitive science suggest that virtue, by itself, may detract from happiness. Aristotle's definition of virtue requires a great deal of effort and a certain amount of alienation. While it's achievable, Kamtekar says, it's a psychological condition that doesn't look a whole lot like happiness.
Rachana Kamtekar is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona, specializing in ancient moral and political philosophy and moral psychology, both contemporary and ancient.