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Theological Ethics and Neuroscience
On Morality and the Embodied Mind
Arne Rasmusson and Benoni Edin
Summary
Arne Rasmusson half-time research for the period July 1 2005 to December 31 2007
supported by the Center for the Studies of Science and Values, Umeå University.
Benoni Edin 10% during the same time.
This study focuses on the possible implications of recent results from neuroscience might
have for theological ethics. More specifically, we want to investigate the very influential
theory claimed to be based on modern neuroscience and developed by the linguist George
Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson. The mind is embodied and the nature of this
embodiment shapes, Lakoff & Johnson claim, how humans reason. Our thinking is, for
example, irreducibly metaphorical. If their account is true and if one can draw conclusions
from the bodily functioning of the mind to the general and normative nature of human
rationality, the dominant modern theories in philosophical and theological ethics (as well
as in philosophy in general) are, they say, untenable. We want to investigate
ƒ how, if at all, results from neuroscience and cognitive science can be used for
understanding the nature of ethics and rationality;
ƒ the possible implications of their theory for theological ethics;
ƒ and (implied in the other two questions) the implication for our understanding of
human freedom, rationality, and dignity.
Earlier Research
The philosophical and theological implications of recent developments in neuroscience and cognitive
science are increasingly becoming a hot area. But much philosophical work in this area still rest on
insufficient knowledge in neuroscience. Some philosophers explicitly deny the relevance of such
knowledge whereas most philosophers and theologians simply ignore the issues. But there are
interesting attempts to attack this problem from the viewpoint of philosophy and philosophical ethics
(e.g., Flanagan 1991; Churchland 1995; May 1996). Moreover, there are vivid discussion among some
Christian theologians and philosophers between non-reductionist physicalists (e.g., Murphy 1997;
Brown 1998; Russell 1999, Peterson 2002) and dualists (e.g., Swinburne 1997). We are, however, still
lacking a systematic discussion of specifically theological ethics and neuroscience, and we are not aware
of any study from the viewpoint of theological ethics of the theory of Lakoff and Johnson.
This is also a new area of research for us, where we try to put together our respective expertise.
Rasmusson is a theologian and ethicist and has written extensively on theological ethics whereas Edin
is a neurophysiologist and has published widely in neuroscientific journals. The type of ethical analyses
that has been pursued by Rasmusson has certain interesting connections with the work of Lakoff and
Johnson. For example, for both Rasmusson and Lakoff and Johnson the work of Alasdair MacIntyre
has been important.
Description of the Project
The human being as the ”image of God” is a central metaphor in the Christian tradition that implies
that the human being is created as a free and therefore morally responsible being. In the Greek
tradition – another large tradition that has formed Western society – there is similar emphasis on
human rationality that connotes moral responsibility.
It has often been argued in twentieth century biblical scholarship that both Hebrew and early Christian
thinking were basically non-dualistic. A dualistic body-soul position in Christianity became dominant
only through the strong influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought, though this was always in
tension with and modified by the Christian doctrine of resurrection. Thomas Aquinas assumed instead
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Aristotle’s idea of soul as the form of the body and coupled this to a general hylomorphic metaphysics,
i.e., humans are composed of corporeal and spiritual matter. These positions were replaced by
Descartes by a radical substance dualism that then, misleadingly, often is read back into Plato. When
the Christian hope of resurrection was questioned during the Enlightenment, the idea of immortality
of the soul gained a new centrality in Christian thought.
In recent decades neuroscience has created an acute challenge to the traditional views in
Western societies (e.g. Gazzaniga 1999, 2000; Libet 2000). Although this new body of knowledge
does not necessarily lead to reductionism (e.g., Freeeman 1995, 2001), claims like the following by
Francis Crick are not uncommon: “You are nothing but a pack of neurones” and “you are … no more than the
behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules” (Crick 1993).
The main reason for defending some form of body-mind dualism is that it seems necessary for
human rationality, freedom and morality. The issues raised by recent claims in the fields of
neuroscience and cognitive science are therefore acute not only for religion and theology but also for
philosophy, in particular in the areas of epistemology and ethics. Most philosophers even from before
Plato have assumed that our thinking transcends the body, that we can understand how thinking
functions separately from understanding the function of the body. This is abundantly clear in modern
philosophy from Descartes to recent analytical philosophy. Furthermore, a dogma in modern ethics
has been the strict distinction between the empirical and the normative formulated by Hume as the
impossibility of deriving the “ought” from the “is” and reinforced by More as the “naturalist fallacy”.
Much recent cognitive science has questioned both this distinction and the disembodied nature of
reason that lies behind it.
In this study we want to investigate the possible implications of recent results in neuroscience
for theological ethics. Our starting point will be an influential theory claimed to be based on modern
neuroscience and developed by the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson.
Lakoff & Johnson are interesting for several reasons: (1) they are influential and controversial, (2) their
theory is non-reductionistic and incorporates social, cultural, and historical factors, (3) they deal
extensively with philosophy and ethics, and also to some extent with religion and Christian theology,
(4) their theories can be applied to other areas than philosophy and ethics (e.g., politics, see Lakoff
1996, and mathematics, see Lakoff & Núñes 2000), and (5) their claim that our thinking to a large
extent is metaphorical makes their theory especially interesting for theology and theological ethics.
Lakoff & Johnson begin their book Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenges to Western
Thought (1999) with following three statements:
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical
That the ‘mind is in the body’ means that our way of thinking, our conceptual structures, is
dependent on our basic sensory and motor systems. Moreover, most of our thought-operations
operate below cognitive awareness. To understand even a simple statement our brain has to perform
many and extremely complex processes. These processes are to a large extent not accessible for
conscious awareness and control. A crucial instance of this is that our thought to a large extent is
metaphorical, which has to do with the projection in our brains of “activation patterns from sensorimotor
areas to higher cortical areas.” (Lakoff & Johnson 1999:77) What they call “primary metaphors” have their
sources in sensorimotor domains such as vision, size, bodily orientation, space, motion, exertion of
force, object manipulation, touch, and so on. These metaphors are instantiated in early childhood
via neural connections and, once formed, are used for forming complex metaphors and
metaphor systems. Hence, human thought is inescapably and irreducibly metaphorical and at most a
small part is literal and propositional. “Those metaphors are realized in our brains physically and are mostly
beyond our control. They are consequences of the nature of our brains, our bodies, and the world we inhabit.” (Lakoff &
Johnson 1999:59)
Lakoff & Johnson portray a radical conflict between the knowledge acquired within the fields of
neuroscience and the stance of modern philosophy, e.g. Cartesianism, Kantianism, utilitarianism
and recent Rational Choice Theory, phenomenology, and analytical philosophy. These types of modern
philosophies all tend to assume that one can study thought separately from the body, and that this is
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necessary for defending rationality. Lakoff & Johnson do not only contradict this claim, they also
assert that these philosophies in themselves indeed are metaphorical. Likewise, Lakoff & Johnson are
critical of poststructuralism and various relativistic theories since they assume the same view of
rationality and then just deny its existence.
According to Lakoff & Johnson, modern ethical theory has not only accepted the idea of the
“naturalist fallacy”, the dominant theories have at least until recently been either Kantian (or postKantian) or utilitarian and are thus inadequate. In contrast to these theories Lakoff & Johnson try to
show that our moral concepts are metaphorically structured, that the basic metaphors that shape our
moral reasoning are rather few, and that they “are grounded in the nature of our bodies and social interactions”
(Lakoff & Johnson 1999:291). Moral concepts are thus not arbitrary, but built on “elementary aspects of
human well-being – health, wealth, strength, balance, protection, nurturance, and so on.” (Lakoff & Johnson
1999:292). The concept of justice depends, for instance, on the understanding of well-being as wealth
and moral accounting (i.e., justice as ‘balanced moral books’), and the “ethics of care” has to do with
nurturance. On a more speculative note they discuss what binds these metaphors together in a moral
system and propose that different moralities build on different family models (Lakoff 1996).
Importantly, because these moral metaphors are based in elementary moral experience they have
certain universality across culture and time. However, how they are developed can vary significantly.
This theory thus can incorporate historical contingency and cultural difference, without ending up in
relativism. From the metaphorical structure of thought follows that moral deliberation cannot be seen
primarily as a question of applying general principles to specific situations. It is more a question of
“exploring possible metaphorical and metonymic extensions from prototypical cases to nonprototypical cases.” (Johnson
1998:695.) Moral principles are in such a view the “idealized strategies” of a tradition developed over
time. Accordingly, how a tradition has organized its metaphorical structure determines how moral
issues are framed and thus how these are reasoned about.
Lakoff & Johnson also claim that the ideal of dispassionate reasoning is unrealistic. It assumes a
view of reason as a faculty separate from both emotion and will that is untenable. Our reasoning is
always also affective. Referring to the studies of how brain damage impacts people’s reasoning by
Damasio (1994), they claim that that what we describe as emotion is a necessary part of a rational
moral deliberation: “Real human reason is embodied, mostly imaginative and metaphorical, largely unconscious and
emotionally engaged.” (Lakoff & Johnson 1999:536.)
Specific Objectives of the Study
The above short exposition of the theory developed by Lakoff & Johnson does not even begin to do it
justice. We clearly recognize, however, that the issues brought forth by Lakoff & Johnson have
potential implications for a variety of fields fundamental to our understanding of the human nature
and our views on rationality, freedom and morality. As such it deserves considerations from a
multitude of starting points. We will address several of these but focus our attention to the issues listed
below. Moreover, we intend to report our results in suitable international refereed journals.
ƒ
How, if at all, can results from neuroscience and cognitive science be used for
understanding the nature of ethics?
Lakoff & Johnson extensively draw support from data gathered within fields outside their own
immediate fields of expertise, i.e., from neuroscience and cognitive science. Moreover, data used to
support their claims were in many cases compiled and analyzed in a context quite different from
the perspective of the nature of rationality, freedom, ethics, etc. Many philosophers would argue
that these empirical results have little relevance for how to understand these philosophical issues
(e.g. Swinburne 1997 and Held 1996). In short, there are good reasons to analyse both the
neuroscientific basis of their theory and the validity of claiming that empirical data amassed within
the natural sciences provide support for ethical theories and concrete ethical positions. Moreover,
even a cursory reading of Lakoff & Johnson makes it evident that their reasoning is sometimes
astonishingly simplistic when they discuss concrete ethical issues.
ƒ
What are the implications of neuroscience for our views on theological ethics?
It is clear that the results of modern neuroscience and cognitive science – as interpreted by Lakoff
& Johnson – make some ethical theories untenable. The many theological ethical programs that
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closely identify with those theories obviously have the same problems. But importantly, most
modern moral theories are viewed by Lakoff & Johnson as just secular versions of the JudeoChristian Moral Law Theory (which is most easily seen in Kantianism). As a general statement this
is misleading and depends on the reading of the Judeo-Christian traditions in the light of modern
and especially Kantian conceptions of ethics. Moreover, there are alternative views in modern
moral philosophy and theological ethics that have some affinity with how Lakoff & Johnson
describe ethics. Lakoff & Johnson themselves use, e.g., the Thomism of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981,
1999). The ethical perspectives of a number of influential Christian ethicists like Stanley Hauerwas
(2001), James Wm. McClendon (2002), Charles Pinches (2002) and others in certain respects come
remarkably close to Lakoff & Johnson. They stress, for example, the embodied and social nature
of moral (and all) thinking, its metaphorical and narrative nature, as well as the fact that our
reasoning and our affections never can be radically separated. They describe ethical reasoning in
terms of analogical reasoning from prototypical to nonprototypical cases and moral principles as
abstractions of culturally and socially specific moral practices. They also claim that more important
for ethics than (also important) principles are the way situations are viewed and described, which
in its turn is dependent on the narratives and metaphors a tradition has historically formed. One
may also ask about the possible connections between the theory Lakoff & Johnson and virtue
ethics, which the mentioned ethicists also defend. It is obvious that there are some striking
affinities between this type of theological ethics and Lakoff & Johnson. Why is this? On the other
hand, how should one understand the relationship between specifically Christian metaphors and
narratives and the more general theory of the formation of metaphors that Lakoff & Johnson
propose? Although there is no necessary conflict here, the relationship has to be worked out. In a
similar way, one may ask which types of natural law theory are possible given the results Lakoff &
Johnson describe. Many forms are directly incompatible, but not all. MacIntyre’s Thomism may,
for instance, be described as one compatible type (see further Porter 1999 and Cromartie 1997.)
One may also ask whether it is possible to formulate “Divine Command Ethics” in a way that
makes it less vulnerable to the criticism of Lakoff & Johnson (cf., for instance, the sophisticated
theory developed in Mouw 1990).
ƒ
If one accepts the idea of an ‘embodied mind’, what are the implications for our
understanding of rationality, moral truth, human dignity, and freedom?
It may seem obvious that a proper view on the workings of the brain and the thought processes
should influence our view on rationality, moral truth, human dignity, and freedom. But how? As
we have seen, many philosophers deny the relevance or think that a defence of human freedom
and rationality requires some form of body-mind dualism. However, if one accepts the relevance,
how should one then talk about human dignity, rationality, and freedom? Can one still talk about
moral truth? We think so, so does Lakoff & Johnson. These issues will be interwoven with the
other two.
The Significance of the Study
Neuroscience and cognitive science are rapidly developing disciplines. Their influence on other
disciplines is growing. Some prominent scholars have written influential books that have received a
wide popular readership. The results are therefore increasingly, if slowly, shaping the way people in
general think about knowledge. Moreover, the specific theory developed by Lakoff & Johnson has
been very influential in some parts of the humanities, while sharply contested in other parts. It is
therefore important that these issues, dealing directly with the nature of (moral) reasoning, also are
taken up by theologians and ethicists. Some important research has been done, but the field is just
beginning to develop. And we don’t know any comparable work done on the theory of Lakoff &
Johnson.
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The members of the project
Arne Rasmusson. Associate professor (docent and lektor) in theology and ethics in the Department
of Religious Studies, Umeå University.
Benoni B. Edin. Associate professor (docent and lektor) in physiology (with neurophysiology as
special field) and currently Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Odontology, Umeå University.
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