Metaphysical Sources of Value Uncertainty

**17**

**Chapter 2**

Action

*Simon Smith*

**Abstract**

participants.

**1. Introduction**

Doing and Being: A Metaphysic

of Persons from an Ontology of

A significant and worrying lacuna lies at the heart of neuroethics: viz., a coherent conception of personal identity. Philosophically, the consequences are serious; morally, they are disastrous. The entire discourse is constrained by a narrow empiricism, oblivious to its own metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions; worse still, it remains hostage to a latent Cartesianism, which logically and ontologically isolates neuroethicists from their subjects. Little wonder neuroethics lacks an anchor for its normative judgements. This chapter aims to supply that anchor. The key lies in action: action as essentially personal; acts owned; acts intended; and acts that embody those intentions that embody *meaning*. Such acts are the primary manifestation of 'personhood'; they are also socially oriented, therefore morally interesting. Action locates persons in a world of objects and, most importantly, others. Crucially, relocating neuroethics within this context of personal activity supplies the logical and ontological foundations for both its judgements and its

**Keywords:** action, agency, anti-metaphysical, applied metaphysics, Austin Farrer, intending, intentionality, interaction, interpersonal, Ludwig Feuerbach, neuroethics,

A significant and worrying lacuna lies at the heart of neuroethical debate. What it lacks is the anchor of a *desideratum*: namely, a full and proper understanding of persons. Given that persons and personal relations are the neuroethicist's primary subjects, both of observation and judgement, this is no minor omission. Philosophically, its consequences are serious; morally, they are disastrous. They leave neuroethics caught on the prongs of a fork quite as uncomfortable as any David Hume might proffer. On one side, the entire discourse is constrained by a kind of empiricism, narrowly reductive and oblivious to its own metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions; an empiricism constituted not by controlled experiment but by the products of an outdated and radically abstract rationalismcum-realism. On the other, and pointing uncomfortably in the opposite direction, is a latent Cartesianism that logically and ontologically isolates the neuroethicist from her subjects. Ultimately, both sides can only end by eliminating the moral subject, so drive the discourse into literal non-sense. Little wonder, then, that neuroethics

personal identity, personalism, personalist metaphysics, persons

lacks an anchor for its normative judgements.
