Empathy and contemporary moral subjectivity a sociological approach to interpretations of neuroscientific research : a sociological approach to interpretations of neuroscientific research

[A. R. Andrejić]

349 str.

Biografija autora: str. 349. Bibliografija: str. 321-347.

Sociology of morality

The main objective of the doctoral dissertation is to gain insight into how scientific research on empathy and its neural mechanisms relates to contemporary understanding of moral subjectivity. More specifically, the research aims to examine conceptions of moral and social subjectivity in published papers from new integrative disciplines, characterized by Vidal and Ortega as "neurodisciplines” – from social neuroscience, neurosociology, neuroethics, and the debate about biological moral enhancement. Using conceptual critique and considering integration of levels of analysis, the research investigates how empathy is connected to neuroscientic findings about brain activation, mirror-neurons, and the hormone oxytocin, as well as to social and moral concepts. The research findings demonstrate that neurodisciplinary integration of concepts and levels of analysis involves interpretation, which is contingent upon a cerebral conception of subjectivity and methodological individualism. In neurodisciplinary integration, neuroscientific knowledge takes precedence, functioning as evidence for social and ethical conceptions. Knowledge from the social sciences is of secondary importance, and critiques of interpretations of neuroscientific findings are largely absent. The dichotomy between the emotional and the rational plays a crucial role in neurodisciplinary knowledge production about empathy and other capacities of the “social” and “moral brain”, with other biosocial dichotomies mapped onto it. Emotional aspects of empathy and morality are considered faster, evolutionary ancient, and more embodied, serving as a link between social and moral concepts, and neuroscietific findings. The research indicates the compatibility between neuroscientific knowledge and the neoliberal social context. Drawing on Foucault’s framework of problematization, it can be concluded that empathy is seen as an answer to questions about the neural bases of morality and sociality under individualistic assumptions about the subject. The contemporary proliferation of scientific and popular discourses on empathy, its potential neural bases, and proposals for its enhancement, is driven not only by new scientific discoveries, but also by widely spread conceptions of subjectivity. Therefore, its effect is to reinforce an individualistic understanding of morality and sociality.

empatija, moralnost, koncepcija subjekta, društvena neuronauka, neurosociologija, neuroetika, biološko moralno poboljšanje, interdisciplinarna integracija, nivoi analize, metodološki individualizam

empathy, morality, conception of the subject, social neuroscience, neurosociology, neuroethics, biological moral enhancement, interdisciplinary integration, levels of analysis, methodological individualism

316:17]:618.8(043.3)

S 210

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