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... different scenarios and allow subjects to make choices with regard to hypothetical actions and outcomes provide a new perspective from which to consider the basis of moral judgement. The primary goal of so-called neuroethics is not to construct a new positive moral philosophy, but rather to identify neural structures of moral psychology in order better to understand how our moral attitudes work. Typical neuroethics experiments involve fMRI scanning of subjects responding to dilemmas designed to elicit a definite moral attitude. Consider the well-known trolley problem devised by Philippa Foot (29). A runaway trolley rushes towards five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will divert the trolley onto another set of tracks where it will kill only one person instead of five. Most people consider that in these circumstances it would be morally acceptable to hit the switch, thereby saving five people at the expense of one. Instead, in an alternative scenario in which pushing a person off a footbridge to stop the runaway trolley will prevent it from hitting the five people, most people prefer not to act even though...

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...xplanation of human agency. All this is a major achievement for the neurophilosophical view which, on its own, is one of the best examples of a naturalistic approach to the study of human nature, since it suggests the possibility of greater integration between higher-level explanations of human behaviour, based on psychological concepts, and lowerlevel (brain-based) explanations of our cognitive performances. Contemporary naturalism insists on the unitary aspects of reality: “the world should be a unity in the sense of being amenable to a unified study which can be called the study of nature” (16) and the significant advances made in recent years by neuroeconomics and neuroethics bear witness to the progressive character of a research programme that aims to arrive at a unitary explanation of human agency. But to maintain that the world is a unitary place is not to claim that it is a monolith – or a pyramid, or whatever else may suggest that there exists just a small set of basic principles whose implementation can explain all the different features in which reality, in all its complexity, is structured. Put anFunctional Neurology 2007; 22(4): 197-204 197 In search of the neurobiologica...

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...hat scientific theories should be judged in relation to their ability to express universal laws. Philosophers (Hacking, Cartwright, Dupré, Suppes), historians (Galison), and sociologists (36-43) of science claim that research practice in the social and natural sciences suggests that there is not – and probably cannot be – any such a thing as a universal law for all the phenomena of a determinate class. The laws most likely to be true are numerous and diverse, complicated and limited in scope. As Cartwright persuasively put it: “the laws that describe this world are a patchwork, not a pyramid” (38). Brain-based explanations and emergent properties Our epistemological conclusions demand an ontological complement; does a patchwork model of scientific explanation imply a patchwork picture of the world? A picture showing that the world we inhabit is not a unified place of universal order, but rather a basically “dappled” one? Could it be, therefore, that there exists no totally accurate descriptive account of any bit of reality?3 (38). In our view, to be an epistemological pluralist does not mean having to adopt such a radical view. The kind of pluralism we are arguing for here leaves room ...

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... theories depict it; “as appearances suggest, we live in a dappled world, a world rich in different things, with different natures, behaving in different ways”. Thus it may be our “dappled” world itself that rejects the ideal of unity of science, which would best account for what we observe in nature. 4 Not yet, at least; see later on. 5 We choose two radical alternatives such as reductionism and emergentism just to strengthen our point (that they are both compatible with our epistemological reading of neuroeconomics). Of course, there are other views – starting from non-reductive physicalism (44). 6 We are not claiming that emergentism is the best way of expressing the “dappled world” model described before (speaking of different domains of reality is not the same as speaking of different levels of reality). Again, we chose it because a) it is a naturalistic perspective, and b) the alternative between reductive physicalism and emergentism is one of the most illuminating in the current debate on the ontology of mind and cognition. cal pluralism to reconstruct intertheoretical relations prevents any direct derivation of brain fundamentalism. While this latter view may depend on further ...

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...e because of difficulty characterising the behaviours for which it is responsible. Nonetheless, the OFC has been demonstrated to play a crucial role in the ability to process and react to affective (i.e. carrying positive/negative valences) and social information (26). The amygdala is an almond-shaped group of neurons located in the medial temporal lobe, close to the anterior portion of the hippocampus. Given its interconnections with the hippocampal system, the amygdala is mostly implicated in emotional learning and memory, especially in fear conditioning and in response to threating stimuli (27). The DMPFC is implicated in the modulation of amygdala activity. In view of the fact that the OFC is bidirectionally connected with the amygdala, neuroscientists are beginning to investigate how these areas cooperate in order to bring about specific behavioural responses. Dorsal striatum (caudate nucleus) activation was correlated with detection of reward-related stimuli. The caudate nucleus is a telencephalic structure located within the basal ganglia. Connected with cortical regions, it is highly innervated by dopamine neurons and is thought to play an important role not only in higher-orde...

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... one of the most illuminating in the current debate on the ontology of mind and cognition. cal pluralism to reconstruct intertheoretical relations prevents any direct derivation of brain fundamentalism. While this latter view may depend on further philosophical assumptions, it is certainly not based on scientific practice as it is, since this practice is compatible with a different metaphysical scenario – such as emergentism. Indeed, in spite of a natural tendency to consider the brain level as more fundamental, epistemological pluralism resembles a causal pluralism very close to emergentism7 (53,54). As we said before, this brand of causal pluralism holds that nature is structured in many levels of reality, each of which exhibits different kinds of properties that may be causally efficacious. According to this view, we have reasons to believe that there are non-microphysical regularities within the physical and social world that are disclosed by the special sciences. These regularities allow us to speak of emergent properties which are causally responsible and which describe a proper level of organisation of the world. From this perspective there are many ways of understanding and explai...

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...thodological ideal described more than twenty years ago by Patricia Churchland: “Neuroscience and psychology need each other. Crudely, neuroscience needs psychology because it needs to know what the system does; that is, it needs high-level specifications of the input-output properties of the system. Psychology needs neuroscience for the same reason: it needs to know what the system does. That is it needs to know whether low-level specifications bear on the initial input-output theory, where and how to revise the input-output theory, and how to characterize processes at levels below the top.” (15) A neuroeconomics research programme shows how a brain-based investigation of human behaviour may help higher-order theories to find new sources of validation, to modify significant assumptions, and even to reconfigure previously unquestioned categories (15). It is also a valuable tool for achieving a greater level of integration between the behavioural and cognitive sciences, on the one hand, and the neurosciences on the other, thereby contributing to a naturalistic explanation of human agency. All this is a major achievement for the neurophilosophical view which, on its own, is one of the be...

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...actability and formal rigour, these models regard the mind as a “black box” and focus on the outcomes rather than on the mechanisms by which decisions are reached in determinate contexts. Psychological studies on judgement and decision making, however, have provided a wealth of evidence and cast serious doubt on the descriptive validity of the neoclassical “rational choice theory”. Thus, the tentative integration of constructs from cognitive psychology led to the development of behavioural economics which fits better with “real-world” phenomena, even though it is not as mathematically “clean” (21). As part of this flow, we find the neurosciences searching for those brain processes that may underlie empirically observed economic and social behaviours. This is a first path that economists and neuroscientists can profitably follow together. Neuroscience can inform economic models, providing evidence and measures that support the variables and psychological parameters introduced in the field of behavioural economics. According to this view, neuroeconomics is a subfield of both behavioural and experimental economics. In fact, neuroeconomics tests the empirical tenability of notions such as ...

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...nt levels (e.g. psychology and neurosciences) may inform and correct each other as they grow and mature further to discoveries and conceptual refinements. In the same way, explanatory pluralism does not overlook the role that interfield connections play in the progress of scientific practice, highlighting relations between structures and functions, causes and effects, parts and wholes, that may encompass different disciplines. It is remarkable, finally, that explanatory pluralism does not dispense with higher-level fields, rather it tends to preserve integrated and yet autonomous perspectives (20,32,33). As a matter of fact, contemporary behavioural decisionmaking fields, such as economics and psychology, are not unified since they operate with diverse explanatory models in order to deal with distinct concerns. In fact, within each field we have well-developed methodologies which serve specific purposes. Nonetheless, a certain interpretation of the neuroeconomics approach could be misleading. Reflecting on neuroeconomics without methodological concern, one may wonder why the identification of the biological basis of economic behaviour, combined with powerful analytical tools like game theory...

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...The level of ambiguity correlated negatively, instead, with the striatal system, which showed greater activation in response to risk. Ambiguity aversion was correlated with higher right OFC activity. The OFC is a portion of the prefrontal cortex located at the base of the frontal lobe. It is not easy to define its exact functional role because of difficulty characterising the behaviours for which it is responsible. Nonetheless, the OFC has been demonstrated to play a crucial role in the ability to process and react to affective (i.e. carrying positive/negative valences) and social information (26). The amygdala is an almond-shaped group of neurons located in the medial temporal lobe, close to the anterior portion of the hippocampus. Given its interconnections with the hippocampal system, the amygdala is mostly implicated in emotional learning and memory, especially in fear conditioning and in response to threating stimuli (27). The DMPFC is implicated in the modulation of amygdala activity. In view of the fact that the OFC is bidirectionally connected with the amygdala, neuroscientists are beginning to investigate how these areas cooperate in order to bring about specific behavioural r...

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...nt levels (e.g. psychology and neurosciences) may inform and correct each other as they grow and mature further to discoveries and conceptual refinements. In the same way, explanatory pluralism does not overlook the role that interfield connections play in the progress of scientific practice, highlighting relations between structures and functions, causes and effects, parts and wholes, that may encompass different disciplines. It is remarkable, finally, that explanatory pluralism does not dispense with higher-level fields, rather it tends to preserve integrated and yet autonomous perspectives (20,32,33). As a matter of fact, contemporary behavioural decisionmaking fields, such as economics and psychology, are not unified since they operate with diverse explanatory models in order to deal with distinct concerns. In fact, within each field we have well-developed methodologies which serve specific purposes. Nonetheless, a certain interpretation of the neuroeconomics approach could be misleading. Reflecting on neuroeconomics without methodological concern, one may wonder why the identification of the biological basis of economic behaviour, combined with powerful analytical tools like game theory...

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...ure should be contrasted with psychological, social and cultural narratives. The former should be considered closer to the true ontological structure of reality – and in this sense the causal transactions described at biological level are closer to the true causal ordering of the world. Since the biological causal explanation is more fundamental than psychological or economic ones, to appeal to alternative explanations is, if not illegitimate, at least less interesting or less illuminating. To quote Philip Dick’s novel, non-biological explanation is destined to be only our “penultimate truth” (52). We believe, however, that the adoption of epistemologiM. Di Francesco et al. 202 Functional Neurology 2007; 22(4): 197-204 ––––––––––––––– 3 Cartwright argues powerfully for this picture of the world. She states that the empirical success of our best scientific models results from these being idealised into theories distantly abstracted from the messiness of reality. According to Cartwright, the world is messier than our theories depict it; “as appearances suggest, we live in a dappled world, a world rich in different things, with different natures, behaving in different ways”. Thus it may b...

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... one of the most illuminating in the current debate on the ontology of mind and cognition. cal pluralism to reconstruct intertheoretical relations prevents any direct derivation of brain fundamentalism. While this latter view may depend on further philosophical assumptions, it is certainly not based on scientific practice as it is, since this practice is compatible with a different metaphysical scenario – such as emergentism. Indeed, in spite of a natural tendency to consider the brain level as more fundamental, epistemological pluralism resembles a causal pluralism very close to emergentism7 (53,54). As we said before, this brand of causal pluralism holds that nature is structured in many levels of reality, each of which exhibits different kinds of properties that may be causally efficacious. According to this view, we have reasons to believe that there are non-microphysical regularities within the physical and social world that are disclosed by the special sciences. These regularities allow us to speak of emergent properties which are causally responsible and which describe a proper level of organisation of the world. From this perspective there are many ways of understanding and explai...