The Neuroscience of Fair Play: Why We (Usually) Follow the Golden Rule
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This book is a jewel! Published in , I am four years late in discovering it. But, it is as relevant today as when it was published. I agree with author Donald Pfaff, professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, when he proposes that morality may be a hardwired function of the human brain.
He puts an interesting twist on his theory by focusing on the role of fear.
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In his words, "My theory postulates that fear, learned and unlearned, comes into play in ways that help us to avoid acts of violence and other unethical practices. In presenting my theory further, I'd like to argue that the genes and neural circuits managing our fear supply crucial biological components leading to human behaviors that obey a universally accepted ethical principle, the Golden Rule" In a very readable fashion Pfaff persuasively establishes linkages between biology, psychology, and moral philosophy that give the reader insights into the reasons why we behave the way we do.
This book is well worth owning. In "The Neuroscience of Fair Play", Donald Pfaff takes the reader on a tour showing how neuroscience is beginning to explain the human emotions and behavior of fear, love, friendship, aggression and violence. Pfaff spends much of the books talking about the genes that lay the tendencies for each of these behaviors. Less time seems to be spent on how the environment after birth modifies or can even neutralize some of these tendencies, especially those of aggression and violence.
Some examples are the gorilla at the Chicago Brookfield Zoo that picked up a unconscious boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure and carried it over to zoo-keepers door, or the chimpanzee at another zoo who himself drowned while trying to save an infant who had fallen into the water surrounding the chimpanzee enclosure. Pfaff stresses the importance of the period during the first few years of a child's life and again during puberty, critical times in determining our behavior as adults.
Pfaff ends the book leading the reader into what is sure to be controversial. Should doctors and therapists be prescribing behavior-altering drugs to combat negative genetic tendencies such as aggression and violence? As we move toward a time when doctors may be able to create genetic profiles of their patients, should the patients be allowed to take drugs, not only to combat diseases to which we may be genetically predisposed, but also drugs to change their behavior, to make them "better" people.
Would new drugs to combat aggression and violence be any different? This is an interesting and well-written book, well worth reading. The scientific evidence is well presented and easy to follow.
The Neuroscience of Fair Play: Why We (Usually) Follow the Golden Rule
Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. In this day where most Brain science books for the general public are pure hype, this is a very welcome prudent, fact-based book. If you want to understand better the interplay of kindness and aggression, of hormones and behavior, this is a book to read.
One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. The theories seem OK for as far as they go, but seem a little simplistic to me. Having worked with TBI patients for some years, and jail populations for a similar time, the premise of addressing only theoretically undamaged subjects while seeming to be a proponent of chemical applications for all just doesn't sit very well. Still, it is certainly an interesting piece, and surely on many course reading lists.
Narrator Jack is very good at performing course material.
In "The Neuroscience of Fair Play", Donald Pfaff takes the reader on a tour showing how neuroscience is beginning to explain the human emotions and behavior of fear, love, friendship, aggression and violence. Pfaff spends much of the books talking about the genes that lay the tendencies for each of these behaviors. Less time seems to be spent on how the environment after birth modifies or can even neutralize some of these tendencies, especially those of aggression and violence. Some examples are the gorilla at the Chicago Brookfield Zoo that picked up a unconscious boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure and carried it over to zoo-keepers door, or the chimpanzee at another zoo who himself drowned while trying to save an infant who had fallen into the water surrounding the chimpanzee enclosure.
Pfaff stresses the importance of the period during the first few years of a child's life and again during puberty, critical times in determining our behavior as adults. Pfaff ends the book leading the reader into what is sure to be controversial. Should doctors and therapists be prescribing behavior-altering drugs to combat negative genetic tendencies such as aggression and violence?
As we move toward a time when doctors may be able to create genetic profiles of their patients, should the patients be allowed to take drugs, not only to combat diseases to which we may be genetically predisposed, but also drugs to change their behavior, to make them "better" people. Would new drugs to combat aggression and violence be any different? This is an interesting and well-written book, well worth reading.
The scientific evidence is well presented and easy to follow. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. In this day where most Brain science books for the general public are pure hype, this is a very welcome prudent, fact-based book. If you want to understand better the interplay of kindness and aggression, of hormones and behavior, this is a book to read. One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. The theories seem OK for as far as they go, but seem a little simplistic to me. Having worked with TBI patients for some years, and jail populations for a similar time, the premise of addressing only theoretically undamaged subjects while seeming to be a proponent of chemical applications for all just doesn't sit very well.
Still, it is certainly an interesting piece, and surely on many course reading lists. Narrator Jack is very good at performing course material. Combine that with a pleasant voice and clear diction, and you have a winner. This book was a gift.
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There's a problem loading this menu right now. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations. Pfaff, the researcher who first discovered the connections between specific brain circuits and certain behaviors, contends that the basic ethics governing our everyday lives can be traced directly to brain circuitry. Writing with popular science journalist Sandra J. Ackerman, he explains in this clear and concise account how specific brain signals induce us to consider our actions as if they were directed at ourselves - and subsequently lead us to treat others as we wish to be treated.
Brain hormones are a part of this complicated process, and The Neuroscience of Fair Play discusses how brain hormones can catalyze behaviors with moral implications in such areas as self-sacrifice, parental love, friendship, and violent aggression. Drawing on his own research and other recent studies in brain science, Pfaff offers a thought-provoking hypothesis for why certain ethical codes and ideas have remained constant across human societies and cultures throughout the world and over the centuries of history. An unprecedented and provocative investigation, The Neuroscience of Fair Play offers a new perspective on the increasingly important intersection of neuroscience and ethics.
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