The Self Beyond Itself
An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Intertwines history, philosophy, and science . . . A powerful challenge to conventional notions of individual responsibility” (Publishers Weekly).
Few concepts are more unshakable in our culture than free will, the idea that individuals are fundamentally in control of the decisions they make, good or bad. And yet the latest research about how the brain functions seems to point in the opposite direction . . .
In a work of breathtaking intellectual sweep and erudition, Heidi M. Ravven offers a riveting and accessible review of cutting-edge neuroscientific research into the brain’s capacity for decision-making—from “mirror” neurons and “self-mapping” to surprising new understandings of group psychology. The Self Beyond Itself also introduces readers to a rich, alternative philosophical tradition of ethics, rooted in the writing of Baruch Spinoza, that finds uncanny confirmation in modern science.
Illustrating the results of today’s research with real-life examples, taking readers from elementary school classrooms to Nazi concentration camps, Ravven demonstrates that it is possible to build a theory of ethics that doesn’t rely on free will yet still holds both individuals and groups responsible for the decisions that help create a good society. The Self Beyond Itself is that rare book that injects new ideas into an old debate—and “an important contribution to the development of our thinking about morality” (Washington Independent Review of Books).
“An intellectual hand-grenade . . . A magisterial survey of how contemporary neuroscience supports a vision of human morality which puts it squarely on the same plane as other natural phenomena.” —William D. Casebeer, author of Natural Ethical Facts
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stimulating treatise on ethics and psychology, Ravven (Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy, co-editor), a religion professor at Hamilton College, subjects the belief that humans choose freely between starkly opposed moral principles to a vigorous, wide-ranging critique. Starting with an account of moral behavior in the Holocaust, she moves on to a detailed contrast between the Christian doctrine of free will and a rival ethical tradition, stretching from Aristotle to Spinoza, that grounds human morality in nature and social influences. She connects these ideas to findings in cognitive psychology and brain science that undermine the picture of a rational self making free decisions and reveal the determining role of unconscious neural processes and the environment; these results suggest to her an alternative ethics that highlights the power of social relations and institutions in shaping individual choices. Ravven's dense, scholarly, but very readable text intertwines history, philosophy, and science in insightful and provocative ways. She gives too short a shrift to the motivating force of explicit moral doctrine; despite its lack of realism, free-will dogma captures the moral imagination better than her "systems theory of moral agency" does. Still, she poses a powerful challenge to conventional notions of individual responsibility.
