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119The Moralizing Effect: self-directed emotions and their impact on culpability attributionsFrontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 17 (Emotions in Neuroscience: Fundam): 1-12. 2023.Introduction: A general trend in the psychological literature suggests that guilt contributes to morality more than shame does. Unlike shame-prone individuals, guilt-prone individuals internalize the causality of negative events, attribute responsibility in the first person, and engage in responsible behavior. However, it is not known how guilt- and shame-proneness interact with the attribution of responsibility to others. Methods: In two Web-based experiments, participants reported their attrib…Read more
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7The ecological benefits of being irrationally moralBehavioral and Brain Sciences 45. 2022.Trolley-like dilemmas are other cases of what Bermúdez refers to as (conscious) quasi-cyclical preferences. In these dilemmas, identical outcomes are obtained through morally non-identical actions. I will argue that morality is the context where descriptive invariance and ecological relevance may be crucially distinguished. Logically irrational moral choices in the short term may promote greater social benefits in the longer term.
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14Is moral disgust good or bad?Lebenswelt. Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience 17. 2022.Based on the empirical findings correlating disgust with conservatism, most disgust scholars have fed arguments for its moral unreliability and concluded with moral condemnation of this emotion. In this paper, I will examine common arguments about whether relying on disgust in the moral domain is to be considered good or bad. I will problematize the suggestion that we are justified in firmly believing that disgust is an ethically «dumb» – or an ethically «smart» – emotion. It rather seems that m…Read more
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40Commentary: The moral bioenhancement of psychopathsFrontiers in Psychology 10 1-3. 2020.Baccarini and Malatesti (2017) defend the idea that we must use coercively biomedical means to enhance the morality of a specific group of individuals: psychopaths, diagnosed through the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) standards (Hare, 2003). Their argument is theoretical, thus it goes independently from the actual effectiveness of existent treatments, and it is based on a logical reasoning. Moral bioenhancement (MB) means include psychotropic drugs, brain stimulations, neurosurgeries, gen…Read more
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4Recensione di J. Savulescu, N. Bostrom, Human Enhancement (review)Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 4 (3): 396-398. 2013.
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310The Mechanistic Approach to Psychiatric ClassificationDialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences 2 (2): 45-49. 2009.A Kuhnian reformulation of the recent debate in psychiatric nosography suggested that the current psychiatric classification system (the DSM) is in crisis and that a sort of paradigm shift is awaited (Aragona, 2009). Among possible revolutionary alternatives, the proposed fi ve-axes etiopathogenetic taxonomy (Charney et al., 2002) emphasizes the primacy of the genotype over the phenomenological level as the relevant basis for psychiatric nosography. Such a position is along the lines of the mic…Read more
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29Tutta colpa del cervello: un'introduzione alla neuroeticaMondadori. 2013.This book discusses the impact of brain researches on different domains, not only on biological and medical/health ones, but more generally on social ones. A decade ago, neuroscience and neurotechnology gave official birth to a new field of inquiry called “neuroethics”. This term is usually referred to both the analysis of ethical implications of research and clinical practice in theneuroscientific area, and to the understanding of how brain processes moral judgements. After histori…Read more
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29A recap on Italian neurolaw: epistemological and ethical issuesMind and Society 16 (1): 17-35. 2017.Italy is in the forefront of forensic neuroscience practice among European nations. In recent years, the country presented two major criminal cases, the Trieste Case in 2009 and the Como Case in 2011, which were the first cases employing neurogenetic and functional neuroimaging methods in European courts. In this paper we will discuss the consequences that an understanding of the neural and genetic determinants of human (mis)behavior will have on law, especially on the Italian legal context. Som…Read more