Heart and mind Book

Written by a psychiatrist cum lawyer, this book explores sins such as lust, deceit, and covetousness from a physicalist perspective. It first establishes that genetic predispositions need to be activated by the environment to become an aspect of character. For instance, normal children are shown to have an innate but basic sense of justice and empathy, but complex moral development awaits activation by experience. Infantile brain damage or early child abuse are known to increase the risk of psychopathy. It then explains how morality is all about social cohesiveness and represents the interplay between the emotional and rational neural circuits. As aberrant brain biology begets aberrant actions, legal definitions of insanity ought to be updated by neuroscientific advances. The book finishes with a futurist dystopian scenario on cybernetics to highlight some yet to be solves philosophical challenges. Five stars.