The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

This review takes a historical perspective on concepts in the psychology of motivation and emotion, and surveys recent developments, debates and applications. Old debates over emotion have recently risen again. For example, are emotions necessarily subjective feelings? Do animals have emotions? I review evidence that emotions exist as core psychological processes, which have objectively detectable features, and which can occur either with subjective feelings or without them. Evidence is offered also that studies of emotion in animals can give new insights (...) into human emotions. Beyond emotion, motivation concepts have changed over decades too, and debates still continue. Motivation was once thought in terms of aversive drives, and reward was thought of in terms of drive reduction. Motivation-as-drive concepts were largely replaced by motivation-as-incentive concepts, yet aversive drive concepts still occasionally surface in reward neuroscience today. Among incentive concepts, incentive salience is a core motivation process, mediated by brain mesocorticolimbic systems (dopamine-related systems) and sometimes called ‘wanting’ (in quotation marks), to distinguish it from cognitive forms of desire (wanting without quotation marks). Incentive salience as ‘wanting’ is separable also from pleasure ‘liking’ for the same reward, which has important implications for several human clinical disorders. Ordinarily, incentive salience adds motivational urgency to cognitive desires, but ‘wanting’ and cognitive desires can dissociate in some conditions. Excessive incentive salience can cause addictions, in which excessive ‘wanting’ can diverge from cognitive desires. Conversely, lack of incentive salience may cause motivational forms of anhedonia in depression or schizophrenia, whereas a negatively-valenced form of ‘fearful salience’ may contribute to paranoia. Finally, negative ‘fear’ and ‘disgust’ have both partial overlap but also important neural differences. (shrink)

Different brain mechanisms seem to mediate wanting and liking for the same reward. This may have implications for the modular nature of mental processes, and for understanding addictions, compulsions, free will and other aspects of desire. A few wanting and liking phenomena are presented here, together with discussion of some of these implications.

Where does normal brain or psychological function end, and pathology begin? The line can be hard to discern, making disease sometimes a tricky word. In addiction, normal ‘wanting’ processes become distorted and excessive, according to the incentive-sensitization theory. Excessive ‘wanting’ results from drug-induced neural sensitization changes in underlying brain mesolimbic systems of incentive. ‘Brain disease’ was never used by the theory, but neural sensitization changes are arguably extreme enough and problematic enough to be called pathological. This implies that ‘brain disease’ (...) can be a legitimate description of addiction, though caveats are needed to acknowledge roles for choice and active agency by the addict. Finally, arguments over ‘brain disease’ should be put behind us. Our real challenge is to understand addiction and devise better ways to help. Arguments over descriptive words only distract from that challenge. (shrink)

This article joins with others in the same issue to celebrate the career of Robert B. Zajonc who was a broad, as well as a deeply talented, psychologist. Beyond his well-known focus in social psychology, the work of Zajonc also involved, at one time or another, forays into nearly every other subfield of psychology. This article focuses specifically on his studies that extended into biopsychology, which deserve special highlighting in order to be recognized alongside his many major achievements in emotion (...) and related social topics. The biopsychological focus is offered here in the hope that all his diverse contributions be savored together when celebrating the complete psychology of Robert Zajonc. (shrink)

Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The contributors examine philosophical questions raised by the distinctive character of self-knowledge, relating it to knowledge of other minds, to rationality and agency, externalist (...) theories of psychological content, and knowledge of language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Current computational models predict reward based solely on learning. Real motivation involves that but also more. Brain reward systems can dynamically generate incentive salience, by integrating prior learned values with even novel physiological states (e.g., natural appetites; drug-induced mesolimbic sensitization) to cause intense desires that were themselves never learned. We hope future computational models may capture this too.

Heyman explains useful ways to bring addictive drug use under environmental control. We doubt that relapse is explained by drug features such as immediate reinforcement, clouding of judgment, and so forth. Relapse may require explanation in terms of enduring sensitization of incentive neural substrates, but even if its causal assumptions are wrong, Heyman's model makes useful predictions for behavioral control.

Arguably, emotion is always valenced—either pleasant or unpleasant—and dependent on the pleasure system. This system serves adaptive evolutionary functions; relying on separable wanting, liking, and learning neural mechanisms mediated by mesocorticolimbic networks driving pleasure cycles with appetitive, consummatory, and satiation phases. Liking is generated in a small set of discrete hedonic hotspots and coldspots, while wanting is linked to dopamine and to larger distributed brain networks. Breakdown of the pleasure system can lead to anhedonia and other features of affective disorders. (...) Eudaimonia and well-being are difficult to study empirically, yet whole-brain computational models could offer novel insights potentially linking eudaimonia to optimal metastability in the pleasure system. (shrink)

Brickhouse and Smith cast new light on Plato's early dialogues by providing novel analyses of many of the doctrines and practices for which Socrates is best known. Included are discussions of Socrates' moral method, his profession of ignorance, his denial of akrasia, as well as his views about the relationship between virtue and happiness, the authority of the State, and the epistemic status of his daimonion.

Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account that explains (...) why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed. (shrink)

In this paper the authors present a description and reflective analysis of an underdeveloped aspect of legal ethics education: judicial ethics. Part I provides an introduction to Canada's National Judicial Institute and its early attempts to design and deliver judicial ethics education programmes. Part II then suggests that in the last few years a second generation of judicial ethics education has emerged, generating a more systemic and contextually sophisticated pedagogical agenda. Finally, in Part III, the authors argue in favour of (...) even more challenging judicial ethics programmes that will enable judges to develop an enhanced ethical identity. (shrink)

This article focuses on the substantial progress in understanding the psychology and neurobiology of sensory pleasure that has been made over the last decade. The link between pleasure and happiness has a long history in psychology. The growing evidence for the importance of affect in psychology and neuroscience shows a scientific account that involves hedonic pleasures and displeasures. A neurobiological understanding is required of how positive and negative effects are balanced in the brain. The article surveys developments in understanding brain (...) mechanisms of pleasure. It identifies a number of brain regions that are important in the brain's hedonic networks, and speculated on potential interaction with eudaimonic networks. The scientific study of pleasure and affect demonstrates the evolution of emotions and affective expressions, and suggests that these are adaptive responses to environmental situations. (shrink)

Two issues are raised. (1) What is the nature of the drug effect Heyman thinks confers value to drugs? (2) What is the evidence that drug use decreases the value of drugs and of conventional incentives over the long-term? There is considerable evidence for the opposite; a persistent increase in the sensitivity of neural systems that mediate drug value.

Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith offer a comprehensive historical and philosophical interpretation of, and commentary on, one of Plato's most widely read works, the Apology of Socrates. Virtually every modern interpretation characterizes some part of what Socrates says in the Apology as purposefully irrelevant or even antithetical to convincing the jury to acquit him at his trial. This book, by contrast, argues persuasively that Socrates offers a sincere and well-reasoned defense against the charges he faces. First, the authors establish (...) a consensus of ancient reports about Socrates ' moral and religious principles and show that these prohibit him from needlessly risking the condemnation of the jury. Second, they consider each specific claim made by Socrates in the Apology and show how each can be construed as an honest effort to inform the jurors of the truth and to convince them of his blamelessness. The arguments of this book are informed by a critical review of the scholarly literature and careful attention to the philosophy expressed in Plato's other early dialogues. (shrink)

Original essays by philosophers of language and philosophers of time exploring the semantics and metaphysics of tense.

After he has been condemned to death, Socrates spends a few minutes talking to the jurors before he is taken away. First, he rebukes those who voted against him for resorting to using the court to kill him when they could have waited and let nature do the same job very soon anyhow, for Socrates is an old man. He next contrasts the evils to which his accusers have resorted to his own unbending resolve never to resort to shameful actions, (...) even though in this case such things might have saved his life. Then he prophesies to those jurors that younger men will make their lives far more difficult than ever Socrates did, and thus strips from them any notion they may have had that they gained anything by condemning him. (shrink)

: In her recent paper, “How to Escape Indictment for Impiety: Teaching as Punishment in the Euthyphro,” G. Fay Edwards argues that if Socrates were to become Euthyphro’s student, this should count as the appropriate punishment for Socrates’ alleged crime. In this paper, we show that the interpretation Edwards has proposed conflicts with what Socrates has to say about the functional role of punishment in the Apology, and that the account Socrates gives in the Apology, properly understood, also provides the (...) correct interpretation of what Socrates says in the Euthyphro about the role of instruction for wrongdoers. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Socrates is a cognitivist about emotions, but then ask how the beliefs that constitute emotions can come into being, and why those beliefs seem more resistant to change through rational persuasion than other beliefs.