One can say with a strong degree of certainty that despite almost three thousand years of effort, philosophical speculation and rhetoric has failed to produce a coherent and practical systems of ethics: one that is applicable to everyday living and respects the powers and limitations of human beings. Religious dogma has also fallen short in ethical reasoning, in spite of its confidence to the contrary. Instead, religion seems to work against the nature and identity of humanity, and instead of preparing individuals for this life, has as its goal the preparation for life beyond the grave, in a fictitious heaven where oddly enough ethical standards will not be needed. However the monopoly on morality and ethics by philosophy and religion is coming to an end, and the death of god is not just a rhetorical Nietzschean pronouncement. This time it is real, but thankfully science has stepped in to fill in the gap, a prospect once thought to be impossible by ethicists and religionists, holding that the `naturalistic fallacy' and the "inherent determinism" of science are strong counterexamples to any kind of science of ethics or moral responsibility.



But in the past three decades, mostly due to advances in technology for studying the cognitive processes in the brain, neuroscience is pointing the way to a new outlook for ethics. Referred to as neuroethics, it has been discussed in various short treatises and research papers, and a few books, this one being one of them. Although written by a philosopher, its contents are well worth perusing. It is a significant addition to the ethical debate, and also a good introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of human motivations and actions.



Those weary of empty philosophical speculation in ethical considerations may decide not to read this book, given the author's academic affiliation. Such a decision would be a mistake, since the author makes it very clear that a philosophical approach to ethics must be constrained by what is known in experimental neuroscience. In addition, he expresses the hope that professional philosophers will consider the book seriously. No doubt many will, for it seems that many philosophers of late have not felt it a compromise to consider the integration of science with their own systems of thought. Hopefully this trend will increase in magnitude.



There are many interesting discussions in this book. One that is particularly fascinating concerns the possibility of mind reading sometime in the near future. The author points to "the degree of commonality" in the neural correlates of thought and to the possibility that highly complex or abstract thoughts may be less stable across time and be highly variable across subjects. This is a very important observation, since a natural question to ask is then whether thoughts can be "entangled" with each other to the extent that the diminution of one will result the diminution of another. Along these same lines, the author speaks of `brain modules' that are uniquely dedicated to various tasks. Since a unique module is responsible for carrying out these tasks, reverse engineering the processes that it deploys will be straightforward. But, the author argues, more complex and abstract thought patterns will not be the result of a specific module but instead will be handled by more domain-general brain patterns. Whereas domain-specific mental tasks are the result of evolutionary pressures, domain-general tasks are more the result of personal idiosyncrasies. They will thus be more difficult to manipulate or to "read" by an interested party.





Another very interesting discussion in the book concerns the neuroscience of free will. Free will has been considered to be axiomatic in any discussion of ethics or personal responsibility, but many in the neuroscience community have begun to doubt its existence. The author proposes an interesting counterexample to the experiment conducted by Benjamin Libet and Daniel Wegner that purports to show that free will is an illusion. In his counter to the Libet/Wegner claim, the author that consciousness does not play a role in decision-making, with the latter being out of human control. But this does not preclude free will, for conscious deliberation sharpens the quality of the decision-making, with the latter being governed by "subpersonal" mechanisms. But these mechanisms are constructed by beliefs, goals, and other personal biases, so it is proper to say that when "they decide, we decide."