Verplaetse Localizing the Moral Sense

Neuroscience and the Search for the Cerebral Seat of Morality, 1800-1930
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4020-6322-0
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 292 Seiten

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 nerve 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Verplaetse, Jan

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Acknowledgments;4
2;Introduction;8
2.1; Science Fiction;8
2.2; On the Amphitheatres Marble;10
2.3; The Moral Brain Today;11
2.4; Outline of the Book;13
3;1 The New Shapes of the Old Conscience;18
3.1; Conscientia, Syneidesis, Synderesis;18
3.2; The Philosophical Assault on Conscience;21
3.3; Conscience as Moral Sense ;23
3.4; Conscience as Moral Faculty ;26
3.5; Moral Sense and Moral Faculty in France;28
3.6; Conscience as Instinct ;30
3.7; The Influence of Darwin and Spencer;32
3.8; French Positivism and Naturalism;35
3.9; Conscience During the fin de sicle ;38
3.10; The New Instinct Theory in England and America;41
3.11; The End of Physical Metaphors?;43
4;2 Conscientiousness or the Moral Organ in Phrenology;45
4.1; Dieu et cerveau, rien que Dieu et cerveau ;46
4.2; Phrenological Societies;48
4.3; The Criminal Antihero;8
4.4; The Moral Organ;10
4.5; Flix Voisin;11
4.6; Phrenology as Occultism;13
4.7; The German Alternative;65
5;3 The Experimental Neurology of the Moral Centre;70
5.1; The New Localisation Doctrine from the 1860s Onwards;70
5.2; A Physiological Explanation of Will Power;72
5.3; The Flourishing of the Experimental Tradition in Germany;76
5.4; Eduard Hitzig;76
5.5; David Ferrier;79
5.6; Friedrich Goltz;83
5.7; Leonardo Bianchi;86
5.8; The Dissection of Morality;87
5.9; Brocas Thermometer;88
5.10; Lombrosos Letter;89
5.11; Mossos Longing to Penetrate the Inner Life of Nerve Cells;90
5.12; The Galvanic Dream of Fleischl von Marxov;93
6;4 The Clinical Neurology of the Moral Centre;97
6.1; Acquired Moral Insanity;97
6.2; Traumas;97
6.3; Tumours;100
6.4; Paul Schusters Magisterial Review;103
6.5; Welts Daring Localisation;105
6.6; Abuse of Healthy Progress;108
6.7; The Hypothesis of a Cortical Centre of the Moral Sense;110
6.8; William Brownings Localisation;112
6.9; Penetrating Traumas of the Frontal Lobes;116
6.10; Morally Insane Great War Veterans;118
6.11; German Exceptions;121
6.12; Karl Kleist and the Localisation of the Gemeinschafts-Ich ;123
6.13; Grey, My Friend, Is All Theory, but Green Is the Golden Tree of Life;128
7;5 The Microscopy and Endocrinology of the Moral Centre;130
7.1; A Time-Consuming Chore;130
7.2; Theodor Meynerts Model;132
7.3; Criminal Brains in Slices;134
7.4; Campbells Lecture in the Shadow of Lantern Slides;135
7.5; Paul Flechsigs Rectorial Address;137
7.6; To the Somaesthetic Region and Back;141
7.7; An Ethical Aristocracy;144
7.8; The Revenants of Arthur Van Gehuchten;146
7.9; Hormones, Autocoids and Homeostasis;149
7.10; Constantin Von Monakows Syneidesis;151
7.11; Cains Endocrinological Mark;154
8;6 The Localisation of Morality in Criminal Anthropology;158
8.1; Apelike Thumbs;158
8.2; The Rise of Criminal Anthropology;159
8.3; The French and German Responses to Lombrosos Born Criminal;161
8.4; The Remorseless Criminal;165
8.5; The Location of the Absent Moral Sense;167
8.6; Neanderthal Versus Cro-Magnon;170
8.7; Moritz Benedikts Three Lectures See also Verplaetse (2004). ;172
8.8; The More Man Possesses a Moral Organ, the More Apelike His Brain Becomes (Meynert);177
8.9; Seelenkunde (1895) or Benedikts Second Localisation of Morality;178
8.10; Benedikt as Freethinker;180
8.11; The Criminals Brain Tissue;184
8.12; Luigi Roncoroni;187
8.13; Lamina Granularis Interna;190
8.14; Encounters in Alexandersbad;193
8.15; Lamina Pyramidalis;195
8.16; Moral Association Chains;199
9;7 Moral Insanity as a Disorder of the Moral Sense;203
9.1; Benjamin Rush: Anomia and Micronomia ;203
9.2; Pinel and Esquirol: Mania and Monomania ;205
9.3; James Cowles Prichard: Moral Insanity;206
9.4; Inhibitory Insanity in England;208
9.5; Towards an Ethical Interpretation;210
9.6; The Ethical Interpretation of Moral Insanity in Germany;211
9.7; The psychopathische Persnlichkeit and the pervers instinctif ;214
9.8; A Psychological Misnomer (Cyril Burt);217
9.9; The Influence of the Localisation Doctrine;219
9.10; There is Only Empty Space;225
9.11; No Radical Localisations of Moral Insanity;227
10;8 Encephalitis Lethargica: A Brain Disease of the Moral Sense?;231
10.1; The 19151927 Epidemic Encephalitis Pandemic;231
10.2; Personality Disorders;235
10.3; Postencephalitic Moral Insanity;240
10.4; The Cortical Localisation of the Montpellier School;245
10.5; Karl Bonhoeffers Konkordanz ;248
10.6; Postencephalitic Moral Insanity Under the Microscope;250
10.7; Jean Camus Centres Rgulateurs ;251
11;9 ConclusionLocalising the Moral Sense: Believers and Disbelievers;255
11.1; An Exceptional Phenomenon;255
11.2; The Frustration of the Neuropsychiatrist;260
11.3; The Frustration of the Forensic Psychiatrist;265
11.4; The Voice in the Blood;270
12;References;272
13;Name Index;1
14;Subject Index;1