Neurology and related sciences can help illuminate what our interests are, but cannot resolve the moral problem of what to do when those interests come into conflict. Science can tell me what kind of diet a child needs to grow into healthy adulthood, but it can’t tell me under what circumstances it would be moral to take money from the wealthy (or, heck, the middle class) in order to feed starving children.
but it can’t tell me under what circumstances it would be moral to take money from the wealthy (or, heck, the middle class) in order to feed starving children.
Sure it can. Take north western Europe, notoriously secular (when compared to the US) yes quite socialist with an extensive social safety net. Economics, sociology, etc, all help you identify what you need to do to reach what ever goals you are aiming for.
And ethics and fairness have been studied and are well known in other social species, like the great apes. They are not uniquely human.
Morality is just the formalization of a whole set of instinctive emotional desires for fairness. Most often it is enforced by using another emotional foundation, the respect for alpha leaders, as in it is God's law you do this and that.
There is no domain which will eternally be out of the reach of reason and science, not morality, not love, not spirituality, nothing. I find this wonderful!
I have an instinctive emotional desire to keep what I possess. You have an instinctive emotional desire to feel compassion for someone who is suffering. Because of your emotions, you want to raise taxes on my property to support the poor. Because of my emotions, I want my taxes to stay the same, if not lower. How can science decide between us?
Social game theory is complex but not impossible to understand. If it were impossible, countries not ruled by the pope any more would be all like Somalia.
Game theory helps you decide, given a game with certain rules and a scoring metric, how to maximize your score. Political philosophy helps you choose the rules of the game.
