Patricia Smith Churchland

Patricia Smith Churchland is a Professor emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute.

Her research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy. She explores the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, ethics, and religion.

She is author of the groundbreaking book, <Neurophilosophy> (MIT Press 1986), co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of <The Computational Brain> (MIT 1992), co-author with Paul Churchland of <On The Contrary> (MIT 1998). <Brain-Wise> was published by MIT Press in 2002. Her current work focuses on morality and the social brain, and appeared in <Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells us about Morality>, published in March 2011 by Princeton University Press.

She has been president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Prize in 1991 and the Rossi Prize in 2008. She was chair of the Philosophy Department from 2000-2007. An extended interview can be found on The Science Network www.tsn.org and on Philosophy Bites http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/

Decisions, Responsibility and the Brain

Patricia Smith Churchland

Philosophy Department

University of California, San Diego

   As we come to understand the role of genes in neuronal wiring, and neuronal wiring in the production of  behavior, we are newly confronted with questions about choice and responsibility. Although questions concerning what free choice really amounts to have long been at the center of philosophical reflection, new discoveries, especially  from neuropharmacology and neuropsychology, have lent them a special and very practical urgency.  In the courts, in the education of children, and in general in daily life,  we assume that some decisions are freely made and that agents should be held accountable for those decisions. On the other hand, we see the range of allowable excuses from responsibility broadening as we begin to understand the role of certain neuropathologies in aberrant behavior. These developments take place against the public policy debate concerning the right balance between considerations of public safety, justice, fairness, and individual freedom. From the perspective of neurophilosophy, I shall address some of the broad questions in this arena, including the theological and  metaphysical contention that free choice is uncaused choice, and the proposal that pragmatic and scientific considerations can yield the best working basis for assignment of responsibility.