A Taste of Neurophilosophy
Wednesday, June 17, 2020 | 1:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event
Join Jason Meyers, Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, University Marshal and Maura Tumulty, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity for a discussion around neurophilosophy.
Not every fact about us reveals our character. That I have my father’s nose isn’t relevant to a moral assessment of me. That I have my father’s temper might be. We make calculations, with ourselves and others, about what someone just can’t help; what someone can’t change but could control or harness better; and what someone could change, if she just tried harder. Sometimes these calculations concern traits—like a violent temper—whose moral stakes are clear. But sometimes they don’t.
Think of being annoyed at a kid, or friend, who insists your favorite food is yucky. Learning that genetic differences play a role in how coriander, or beets, taste can make us more willing to let someone off the hook—we no longer blame them for being unadventurous, or for refusing even to taste some dish a host obviously labored to prepare. On the other hand, learning how environmental exposure, including targeted training—like that undergone by apprentice sommeliers—can affect taste and smell might make us less inclined to let people off the hook for being picky. Couldn’t they just learn to like what they detest? Why won’t they bother?
And what about visual experience, not just taste or smell? We expect children to outgrow their liking for the merely brightly colored—to come to care about additional ways a building, or a painting, could be lovely to look at. Do we expect us, as adults, to train ourselves out of patterns of seeing that might track our society’s prejudices? When and why?
The philosophy and neurochemistry behind these questions will be briefly explored, and then there will be a chance for group discussion.
Join Jason Meyers, Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, University Marshal and Maura Tumulty, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity for a discussion around neurophilosophy.
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