TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Brandon Keim
July 12, 2007

Treat others as you'd like to be treated: that's the Golden Rule, present in some variation in just about every major culture and religion -- and, perhaps, coded into the structure of our brains.

The biological aspects of altruism are a new and exciting field of scientific research. Perhaps the insights gained in these early days will someday help us understand our own virtues and vices, and illuminate some way of nourishing a healthier, happier society -- or, from another perspective, a healthier, happier superorganism.

That, at least, is the hope -- and Jordan Grafman, chief of cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, was kind enough to talk with me about research into human altruism and what it all might mean for our future....

Traditionally, with language, object, and face recognition, we know a fair amount about those. But it’s more challenging and difficult to investigate altruism or attitudes or moral cognition.... But scientists have pressed forwards, and it’s a burgeoning literature now.

On animal studies into altruism, Grafman cautions that they involve behaviors more limited than our own: when animals help each other out -- when, for example, one bird combs another for parasites -- the reward, such as a reciprocated grooming, is almost immediate. Altruism in humans is more far-sighted, and may not involve any reward at all.

Studies have shown that altruistic behavior activates the pleasure centers that reward our most basic, immediate urges for food and sex -- something that has helped to preserve these tendencies, said Grafman, but not enough to explain the complexities of our selflessness.

It feels good, for lack of a better way to say it, so you’re more likely to do that again. But that isn’t selective *for* altruistic behavior. It gets fired off in response to lots of activities.... It's not unique to altruism. There must be other brain areas that the system partners with, leading to human behaviors in particular.

That’s likely to be an area in the prefrontal cortex. Certainly in the frontal lobes we seem to have structures activated when people feel more bonding to another person or entity. That area is also activated during altruistic behavior.... That area is very important for altruistic behavior, particularly when you have to overcome constraint -- for example, you want to give, but it’s going to cost you something. The anteriopolar prefrontal cortex is one of the most evolved areas of the brain, and it’s just a very very important part for overcoming primitive responses -- [i.e.,] I’m going to do something for that person and get something immediately back....

No animal gives to an institution, whereas we’re willing to donate to United Way, which will distribute money in the future, in a way you’re not aware, to other entities, and you won’t get anything directly back.... So that, in some sense, is an internalized agreement. You give, and you'll be rewarded because you have a belief system that says it’s good. That’s human. That is human.

There’s another approach that has forced this into the open: neuroeconomic research. It's an area that’s taken classic economic experiments and put people in a brain scanner while doing these kinds of tasks. It's pushing this whole literature about higher-level human behavior. Much of economics is concerned with human economic behaviors in societies -- that's a social behavior.... Another component to this is evolutionary psychology, biology. It’s a good thing, but challenging and frightening -- the more we make this mundane, it takes the magical aspects out of that, in terms of why people give.... It’s big for day to day life.

A lot of our mores -- from religions, for example, ethics, principles -- were first put into the bibles of different religions: the Koran, New Testament, a variety of other documents serve as foundations for religious, general cultural practices. Many ethical principles, people believe to some degree, were handed down by higher authority; if that’s the case, we’re making an argument, that the brain developing in such a way that it enacts these behaviors partly because of the way that the biology of the brain is designed. It forces people to think about the issue in a more experimental way -- a testable way, rather than a more mystical one. And a lot of people live lives based on mystical ideas.

This will cause people to debate and think, and that’s good. We’ve always done that, without biology, as new ideas come. Now biology is going to put in its two cents. That alone makes it provocative. Then there are other issues that come up. In a sense, also provocative: the more we know, the more we can record information related to these kinds of behaviors, the better we can assess or predict them in others, without people telling us what they're going to do.

Labels: altruism, biology, brain, Brandon Keim, Golden Rule, Jordan Grafman, neuroeconomic research, principles, reward

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Reason, sympathy and human relations

Posted Jul 6, 2007
By Ishtiaq Ahmed

Can one agree on a principle that can serve as the basis for the establishment of genuine peace and harmony in the world? Some people think that if the whole world became good Muslims or good Christians it would create true brotherhood and sisterhood.

Now, considering that both groups comprise more than a billion each (Islam in its various sectarian forms is given as 1.3 billion and Christianity 1.9 billion) converting one to the other may take a very long time.

Also, we would still have 650 million Confucians (mainly Chinese), 700 million Hindus (including the upper castes, the other backward castes and the scheduled castes and tribes), 400 million Buddhists, 20 million Sikhs, 13 million Jews and then smaller groups such as the Bahais, Ahmadis, Jains, animists (if any have been allowed to survive) and others who have no specific religious affiliation or who choose to denounce their religious beliefs. To make humanity as a whole adhere to one comprehensive religious faith with its doctrines and dogmas is impossible.

One need not be very clever to realise that we will have to find a principle that does not require total conversion of people to a particular belief or detailed code of conduct in order to establish mutually respectful relations among all groups and individuals within them.

We very often tend to believe that within groups strong emotional bonds and ties of solidarity exist. This is a myth and has always been a myth. Except for very small communities comprising a few households close contact between people does not take place and when it does it is not always friendly and deeply loyal. We therefore need a principle which is simple and practical and one that everyone can accept as fair on the basis of which the foundations of mutual respect and peace can be laid.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed the ‘Categorical Imperative’ as the overarching principle that can serve such a purpose. The categorical imperative says that one should act only on those rules of action that one wants to be made universal laws. It would declare as immoral a rule of conduct that implies that one person may do something but another, in similar circumstances, may not. In other words, it demands consistency. In other words, what’s alright for me is alright for you if our relevant circumstances are similar.

Therefore, one cannot legitimately demand a ban on one religion without demanding the same for other religions, but one is perfectly justified in demanding that human rights violations should not occur in the name of religion and that should apply to all religions. Similarly if I can occupy someone’s home then it is alright for the other bloke to try to do the same. But of course I would not want him to do that, so it would be wrong for me to do the same.

The categorical imperative also states that one should treat humanity or rational beings as an end and never as a means only. Human beings are uniquely capable of reasoning about their choices and therefore are inherently valuable and worthy of respect for this reason. For human beings to realise their inner worth it is important that they enjoy meaningful autonomy vis-à-vis state and society. Autonomy makes it possible for us to make rationally and morally correct choices, which according to Kant is all about protection of our basic interests.

If such a principle were to be made not only on the basis of conduct between human beings but also states then the occupation of Iraq by President Bush and his allies would not take place. On the other hand, it would be perfectly correct to wage war on those who are responsible for 9/11.

But others argue against rationality alone as the basis for claiming and enjoying rights on grounds that there are human beings who are not able to reason in accordance with a conventional understanding of rationality. These include children and those suffering from impairment of their reasoning abilities. Also, not very long ago women, working people, and some ethnic and racial groups were also considered incapable of acting like rational human beings.

The emphasis on rationality is, therefore, not the true basis of rights. It can confine the right to enjoy rights arbitrarily to some groups or class of people. Therefore, it is asserted, that the true basis of peace among human beings has to be human sympathy and solidarity, or in other words, the human conscience.

Proceeding along such lines some argue that the right to rights should not be confined to the Homo sapiens: animals and nature should also be embraced because specie-ism (that is privileging one’s own species) is irrational and immoral. Moreover, it is argued, from a practical point of view that humankind’s supremacy over other forms of nature is untenable in the long run. We have to learn to live as part of nature and in communion with it.

Some people go further and urge that we have to start working on this principle now. Global warming is the wakeup call we must heed and change our lifestyles to recognise that human beings, animals and nature in general have to live in communion and harmony with each other.

Thus, the age of rights has to be re-defined in the light of the objective reality around us.
The philosophers are extending the theoretical horizons and frontiers of discussion on rights in directions which are as yet unclear, but I would argue that concern for the rights of human beings and the organisations and institutions that represent their interests should remain of paramount concern because even if a paradigmatic shift from the rights of human beings to the all-inclusive idea of the rights of different forms of nature may be on the way, it need not be seen as a mutually exclusive arrangement.

Whatever we think about who should and who should not have rights is after all dependent on the human conscience because neither animals nor other forms of nature are burdened with the problem of being at ease with one’s conscience. It is a human predicament and not a predicament of all living things or for that matter of nature.

The writer is professor of political science at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Email: Ishtiaq.Ahmed-@statsvet.su.se

Labels: categorical imperative, Christian, harmony, human rights, humanity, Immanuel Kant, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Islamic, peace, principles, religion