“Is human morality innate?”
Exploring the very essence of human morality, the last stronghold of orthodox philosophy.
_The Convergence of Neuroscience and Philosophy as Seen by Neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland

Where do our moral feelings originate? Are they, as Mencius argued in his "theory of inherent goodness," endowed by Heaven with inherent goodness? Or are they, as Xunzi argued in his "theory of inherent evil," an artificial result of acquired learning, inherently evil? In this book, "Conscience," Patricia examines their origins not from a philosophical perspective, but from a neuroscientific perspective.


This book argues that the traditional philosophical questions about humanity are actually within the realm of brain science.
Furthermore, the fundamental cause that makes humans behave morally is being sought in the brain's reward system and the moral molecule 'oxytocin'.
Going beyond simply considering the brain as a dimension of information judgment and processing ability, it provides an interesting explanation of how our brain is related to moral origins through various cases and experimental results.
That is, it attempted to connect science and philosophy by providing neurophilosophical answers to questions that were considered to be within the realm of traditional philosophy.

Patricia warns modern moral philosophers that “if you discuss morality without grounding it in solid realities like evolution or the brain, no matter how confident you are, you are ultimately just floating in a sea of ​​opinions.”
In order to objectively examine human nature and morality, substantial and appropriate data from 'neuroscience', 'evolutionary biology', and 'genetic science' are absolutely necessary.
Nevertheless, there are still many things that neuroscience and brain science have not been able to elucidate.
But now is the time for a new approach to the brain, the human mind, and, more broadly, the origins of morality.
I hope this book will bring about a new paradigm shift in the last stronghold of orthodox philosophy, 'human morality.'