Philosophy and neuroscience
Today, I think I've written two newsletters in one.
I don’t know about you, but neuroscience kind of blows my mind.
That’s why I was intrigued when I saw that a professor of philosophy revealed he’d done a “deep dive” on neuroscience and came up with a bunch of easy-to-digest conclusions about human behavior.
For a decade, Josh May of the University of Alabama at Birmingham has taught a class on neuroethics, which is basically the study of “moral issues raised or addressed by discoveries in neuroscience,” as a university publication put it, citing questions like:
Are pills and brain stimulation appropriate methods of moral improvement?
Should we trust brain science to read the minds of criminals?
Does neuroscience show that free will is an illusion?
Does having a neurological disorder exempt one from blame?
Recently, May published a book that incorporates what he’s learned from teaching the course, along with “two and a half years during the pandemic immersing himself in the latest neuroscience research.”
He has some interesting conclusions about whether anyone’s brain is actually typical (no), what being “on the spectrum” really means (we’re all on it), and the nature of free will (“Your conscious mind isn’t all there is to you.”)
But what I gravitated to quickly was his conclusions on goal-setting and habit-formation.
May says at this point he’s taken “all the classes needed to get a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience without getting the degree,” so he’s an expert even if he’s an outsider. Still, having that kind of perspective sometimes helps people make things more clear.
He came away with two very practical programs of advice for behavioral change that allows you to sail with the winds of neuroscience research, instead of against it.
Goal formation and nuance
Let’s take goal formation first. The bottom line of his advice as quoted here is to recognize the value of nuance – or perhaps the potential counter-productivity of absolutism.
Wait, that’s getting less clear, isn’t it? To be more blunt, as May was, let’s use an example. Take someone who has decided that for ethical or practical reasons, they want to stop eating meat.
“The debate is framed as ‘Should you be a vegetarian or vegan, or should you just eat whatever you want?’ But studies show that the vast majority of people who try vegetarianism quit,” May said.
What if instead, this person were to adopt a “reducetarian” goal, where they might still eat meat sometimes, “but try to reduce their consumption to get away from farming that is terrible for animals, humans, and the environment.”
At that point, it might become something of an ethical math problem that takes into account how likely we are to adopt goals from a neuroscientific perspective.
Which of these two choices would make more sense?
Make a change that would contribute greatly to society, but has only a 20 percent chance of success, or
Make a change that would contribute half as much to society – but that has a 50 percent chance of success.
“Our book makes the case that reducing is morally defensible and that psychologically it’s the best way to make lasting change,” May said.
The easy habit hack (well, easier)
Short version upfront on this one: To shape your habits, shape your environment. May had two simple examples:
Want to stop eating junk food? Don’t buy it. It’s a lot easier to overcome the temptation to sabotage an attempt to eat more healthy foods if you don’t have potato chips or whatever is your guilty pleasure in the house to begin with.
Or else, if you want to end a habit of scrolling endlessly on social media, it’s probably easier to stick with if you delete the apps from your phone.
May said this kind of habit shaping has become a part of the course he teaches, with students encouraged to use the techniques they discuss to adopt good habits or abandon bad ones during the semester – things like stopping smoking or drinking, or “set[ting] new boundaries with their friends,” as examples.
“I got an email from a student recently saying, ‘I just wanted to tell you that I have still been applying the tools from ‘Neuroethics,’” May said. “That made my day.”
7 other things worth knowing today
President Donald Trump took credit for “swift and unrelenting action” in reorienting the nation’s economy, immigration and foreign policy Tuesday in an address to Congress and the American people about his turbulent first weeks in office. (AP)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slammed Trump's 25% tariffs, saying Trump is planning "a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us." Separately, one of the candidates for leader of Trudeau's Liberal party said Canada should see greater alliances with the U.K. and France—because they "possess nuclear weapons." (BBC, Telegraph)
Shoppers could see higher produce prices within a matter of days after a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian imports took effect Tuesday, Target CEO Brian Cornell warned—as the levies sparked retaliatory measures from Canada and China and fears of a trade war. (Forbes)
How will Pope Francis affect the selection of his successor? Since being elected in 2013, Pope Francis is widely seen to have packed the College of Cardinals with men in his own image. There are 138 cardinals who are eligible to vote, and 110 were appointed by Pope Francis – about 80 percent. (Telegraph)
Meet the ‘Cali Sober’ set: no Booze, but drugs are fine. (WSJ)
The IRS is drafting plans to cut as much as half of its remaining workforce of roughly 80,000 people. Already, roughly 7,000 probationary IRS employees with roughly one year or less of service were laid off from the organization in February. (AP)
Dolly Parton's late husband served as inspiration for one of the country music star's biggest hits. Carl Dean, who died March 3, caught the eye of a bank teller in the 1970s – leading Parton to write "Jolene." The song begs another woman not to take her man and is really "an innocent" song, according to the country crooner. "She got this terrible crush on my husband," Parton said. (Fox News)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!
Gotta’ love science; it helps explain so much if you let it do its thing, even the science of the mind.
I am unsure if science can explain how you eliminate over 54% of the staff and still have an effective business enterprise, much less an organization such as the IRS. Must be more of a philosophical thing. Has revenue statistically lost that much importance?
I'm captivated by neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology—driven to understand what makes us who we are and how society shapes our beliefs. I wrestle with the complexities of human motivation, especially our tendency to see ethics in black and white while navigating a world of gray.
In business, this moral blindness has fueled exploitation, where legality is mistaken for fairness, and profit often trumps principle. But should success come at the cost of integrity? Should we manipulate simply because we can?
Pause for a moment—have you been nudged, trolled, or subtly steered into reaffirming a belief today?