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E-book
Author Verplaetse, Jan, author

Title Localising the moral sense : neuroscience and search for cerebral seat of morality, 1800-1930 / Jan Verplaetse
Published Dordrecht ; London : Springer, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xx, 292 pages) : illustrations
Contents Machine generated contents note: 1. New Shapes of the Old Conscience -- 2. Conscientiousness or the Moral Organ in Phrenology -- 3. Experimental Neurology of the Moral Centre -- 4. Clinical Neurology of the Moral Centre -- 5. Microscopy and Endocrinology of the Moral Centre -- 6. Localisation of Morality in Criminal Anthropology -- 7. Moral Insanity as a Disorder of the Moral Sense -- 8. Encephalitis Lethargica: A Brain Disease of the Moral Sense? -- 9. Conclusion-Localising the Moral Sense: Believers and Disbelievers
Summary Due to the current revolution in brain research the search for the "moral brain" became a serious endeavour. Nowadays, neural circuits that are indispensable for moral and social behaviour are discovered and the brains of psychopaths and criminals - the classical anti-heroes of morality - are scanned with curiosity, even enthusiasm. How revolutionary this current research might be, the quest for a localisable ethical centre or moral organ is far from new. The moral brain was a recurrent theme in the works of neuroscientists during the 19th and 20th century. From the phrenology era to the encephalitis pandemic in the 1920s a wide range of European and American scientists (neurologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists and criminologists) speculated about and discussed the location of a moral sense in the human cortex. Encouraged by medical discoveries and concerned by terrifying phenomena like crime or "moral insanity" (psychopathy) even renowned and outstanding neurologists, including Moritz Benedikt, Paul Flechsig, Arthur Van Gehuchten, Oskar Vogt or Constantin von Monakow, had the nerves to make their speculations public. This book presents the first overview of believers and disbelievers in a cerebral seat of human morality, their positions and arguments and offers an explanation for these historical attempts to localise our moral sense, in spite of the massive disapproving commentary launched by colleagues
Analysis geschiedenis
history
geneeskunde
medicine
wetenschapsfilosofie
philosophy of science
neurowetenschap
neuroscience
wetenschap
science
Sciences (General)
Empirische wetenschappen (algemeen)
Notes Print version record
Subject Brain -- Localization of functions -- Research -- History
Ethics.
Ethics
ethics (philosophy)
Sciences sociales.
Sciences humaines.
Ethics
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781402063220
1402063229
Other Titles Moral brain : searching the seat of morality in our brain (1800-1930)