Martha Nussbaum on 21st Century Enlightenment, empathy and the humanities

(1) On the edge of psychopathy (Jim Fallon admits lack of empathy and care) and (2) Mirror pain and touch synesthesia: people who feel the pain of others

BBC: All in the Mind (1/5/2012)

Professor James Fallon tells Claudia Hammond his tale of self-discovery: a story with some dark and disturbing turns involving psychopaths and brain scans, family skeletons, some very personal genetic revelations and the power of parental love.
Two people who experience mirror-pain and mirror-touch synaesthesia explain what it's like to see someone being hurt and feeling the sensation of pain or touch in the same place themselves. Michael Banissy, a neuropsychologist at University College, London talks about his research on this strange phenomenon. He looked at what's happening in the brains of these people and discovered that they are also extra-empathetic emotionally.

(Click here)

Morality without religion (F. de Waal. TED 2011) - and without philosophy?

The two pilars of morality: Empathy and reciprocity

Moral enhancement (Julian Savulescu)

Julian Savulescu on the moral obligation to improve our moral dispositions (BBC Free Thinking Festival, 2011)


Julian Savulescu on moral enhancement  (from Nigel Warburton's website)

Oxytocin, trust, empathy and morality (Paul Zak)

Trust, morality — and oxytocin: Paul Zak on TED.com

What drives our desire to behave morally? Neuroeconomist Paul Zak shows why he believes oxytocin (he calls it “the moral molecule”) is responsible for trust, empathy, and other feelings that help build a stable society. (Recorded at TED Global, July 2011, in Edinburg, Scotland. Duration: 16:35.



Video: Link

How the Mind Makes Morals (P. Churchland, 2011)

"Self-preservation is embodied in our brain’s circuitry: we seek food when hungry, warmth when cold, and sex when lusty. In the evolution of the mammalian brain, circuitry for regulating one’s own survival and well-being was modified. For sociality, the important result was that the ambit of me extends to include others — me-and-mine. In some species, including humans, seeing to the well-being of others may extend to include friends, business contacts, and even strangers, in an ever-widening circle. Oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule, is at the hub of the intricate neural adaptations sustaining mammalian sociality. Among its many roles, oxytocin decreases the stress response, making possible the friendly, trusting interactions typical of life in social mammals. Two additional interconnected evolutionary changes are crucial for mammalian sociality/morality: first, modifications to the reptilian pain system that yield the capacity to evaluate and predict what others will feel and do, and notably in humans, also what others want, see, and believe; second, an enhanced capacity to learn, underscored by social pain and social pleasure, which allowed acquisition of the clan’s social practices, however subtle and convoluted."
Link to the video

Churchland and Sinnott-Armstrong: Two neurophilosophers talk about recent research on neuroenhancement, psychopathy, etc... and why some philosophers become experimental neuroscientists

Link to the video below:

A Conversation between Patricia Smith Churchland and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Ramachandran: The mirron neurons link the sciences and the humanities

There is no real distinction between your consciousness and someone else’s consciousness: “There is no real independent self (…) You are quite literally connected by your neurons (…) This is not mambo-jumbo philosophy: it emerges from our understanding of basic neuroscience” (Ramachandran, 2009)

Tania Singer on Social Neuroscience

Social neuroscience, emotional contagion, empathy and compassiom

Primate psychologist Frans De Waal talks on empathy

Recent research on the nature of empathy: Simon Baron Cohen

Simon Baron Cohen on the research behind his recent book Zero Degrees of Empathy: A new theory of human cruelty

A realistic description of a person with affective empathy disorder

In Siri Hustvedt's novel What I loved  (2003) you can find a fascinating literary description of a person suffering from a serious empathy disorder ("Mark Wechsler").

More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_I_Loved

Patricia Churchland's new book: BRAINTRUST

The Science Network (TSN) has recorded a conversation on the brain and morality at Columbia University between Roger Bingham, neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland and philosopher Jesse Prinz. Bingham followed up with Churchland for a discussion about "Braintrust" as a part of TSN's Science Studio series. TSN has also filmed an informal presentation Churchland gave on “Braintrust” at Warwick’s bookstore in La Jolla, California. Link to these videos here

Secular ethics: a conversation with the Dalai Lama, Antonio Damasio, Jonathan Haidt...

The Dalai Lama, Antonio Damasio, Jonathan Haidt.. at University of Southern California (2011)

Buddhist ethics and the brain: Matthieu Ricard