Can Neuroscience Teach Us How to Live a Good Life?

Abstract

In this paper, I give a negative answer to the question Can neuroscience teach us how to live a good life? In order to do this, I make two points, one metaphysical and the other epistemological. The metaphysical point is that there is a distinction between two meanings of “life”: “biological life” and “human life”. Biological and human life are irreducible to each other. The epistemological point is that neuroscientific practices presuppose a particular normative understanding of human psychological life (taken to be normal conditions) and as such
it is far from being merely descriptive. I show this point by appealing to some historical examples and suggest that therefore, we should be reluctant to claim that knowledge of the brain can lead us to live a better life.