The Altruistic Brain: How We Are Naturally Good
Donald W. Pfaff, Sandra Sherman
Language: English
Pages: 313
ISBN: 2:00270641
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Since the beginning of recorded history, law and religion have provided “rules” that define good behavior. When we obey such rules, we assign to some external authority the capacity to determine how we should act. Even anarchists recognize the existence of a choice as to whether or not to obey, since no one has seriously doubted that the source of social order resides in our vast ethical systems. Debate has focused only on whose system is best, never for an instant imagining that law, religion, or some philosophical permutation of either was not the basis of prosocial action. The only divergence from this uniform understanding of human society has come from the behavioral sciences, which cite various biological bases for human goodness. Putting aside both ancient and relatively modern ethical systems, neuroscientists, psychologists, and evolutionary biologists have started a revolution more profound than any anarchist ever dreamed of. In essence, these researchers argue that the source of good human behavior—of the benevolence that we associate with the highest religious teachings—emanates from our physical make-up. Our brains, hormones, and genes literally embody our social compasses. In The Altruistic Brain, renowned neuroscientist Donald Pfaff provides the latest, most far-reaching argument in support of this revolution, explaining in exquisite detail how our neuroanatomical structure favors kindness towards others.
Unlike any other study in its field, The Altruistic Brain synthesizes all the most important research into how and why—at a purely physical level—humans empathize with one another and respond altruistically. It demonstrates that human beings are “wired” to behave altruistically in the first instance, such that unprompted, spontaneous kindness is our default behavior; such behavior comes naturally, irrespective of religious or cultural determinants. Based on his own research and that of some of the world’s most eminent scientists, Dr. Pfaff puts together well-established brain mechanisms into a theory that is at once novel but also easily demonstrable. He further explains how, using psycho-social approaches that are now well understood, we can clear away obstacles to the brain’s natural, altruistic inclinations. This is the first book not only to explain why we are naturally good, but to suggest means of making us behave as well as we can.
The Altruistic Brain is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the behavioral revolution in science and the promise that it holds for reorienting society towards greater cooperation.
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Speculated that God somehow designed the brain to produce altruistic behavior. But that is simply not a scientific theory. Accordingly, while I wish that I could say that I am intervening in a vigorous scientific debate about how brain mechanisms produce empathy and altruism, in fact there is very little debate because the problem has not been the focus of research. Lately, the psychologist Richard Davidson, who is discussed later in this book, has shown that if we practice morality the brain.
In shock, but his son told an Israeli newspaper that people said “my father was a hero.” And there have been others. In July, 2012, a horrific drama played out where a group of young people, at the expense of their own lives, saved loved ones from a deranged gunman. At a premier of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, James McQuinn, 27, threw his body in front of his girlfriend and took two bullets meant for her. Jonathan Blunk, 26, a military veteran, also died when he saved his girlfriend. How did.
Neuron. Studies using electrical recording from neurons in the visual cortex, which were carried out specifically to look at the effects of ACh, showed massive electrophysiological effects. ACh enhances cognitive function and is an important influence on the overall arousal state of the cerebral cortex. Even small differences in the amount of ACh released in the cortex and the exact location of its release could greatly affect the spread of excitation between images of two people, actor and.
Hormones) that are relevant to the search for intimacy are remarkably similar in all mammals, so when I talk about laboratory animals the same will apply to humans. This is because the neuroanatomy and chemistry of these animals’ cells have largely been “conserved” to the human brain; as nature spent millions of years evolving hormonal chemistry, brain anatomy, and physiology that work, nature did not discard them when brains got more complicated in primates and even humans. Instead, nature adds.
Brains. This includes not just autonomic and simple mechanical behaviors, but everything. The challenge to modern neuroscience, therefore, has become to go beyond the simple and to explain how the brain controls human behavior in complex social settings. So far, the friendliest social behaviors—for example, cooperation and parental nurturing—have proven relatively easy to explain, since we have evolved to favor such mutually supportive systems. I covered some of this work in Chapter 4. In this.