Mind the gap(s): sociality, morality, and oxytocin

Mind and morality.

Sociality and the life-mind continuity thesis

The life-mind continuity thesis holds that mind is prefigured in life and that mind belongs to life. The biggest challenge faced by proponents of this thesis is to show how an explanatory framework that accounts for basic biological processes can be systematically extended to incorporate the highest reaches of human cognition. We suggest that this apparent „cognitive gap‟ between minimal and hu...

The Mind and Morality of the Doctor **

The world is occasionally shocked by the failure of physicians to act in a moral and responsible manner. During World War II, there were appalling atrocities committed in the name of nationalism by some German doctors. In 1948, the newly formed World Medical Association met in Geneva to draw up a declaration which would serve as an international code of ethics and help to impress on newly quali...

Mind the gaps!

T echnologies for genome editing with arcane names such as CRISPR appear to present unexpected possibilities for biotechnological applications. But these possibilities have generated much debate about the ethical, legal and societal implications of the new genome editing techniques. While some associate their use with risks and dangers that far exceed those of conventional methods of genetic en...

Morality Goes Beyond Mind Perception

Gray and colleagues make two central claims in their target article. The first is that people fundamentally understand morality in terms of a moral dyad consisting of an intentionally harming agent and a suffering patient; the second is that morality necessarily involves the process of perceiving minds. Both claims underlie the broader thesis that mind perception is the essence of morality, but...