Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

by António Damásio

In human societies there are social conventions and ethical rules over and above those that biology already provides. Those additional layers of control shape instinctual behavior so that it can be adapted flexibly to a complex and rapidly changing environment and ensure survival for the individual and for others (especially if they belong to the same species) in circumstances in which a preset response from the natural repertoire would be immediately or eventually counterproductive. The perils preempted by such conventions and rules may be immediate and direct (physical or mental harm), or remote and indirect (future loss, embarrassment). Although such conventions and rules need be transmitted only through education and socialization, from generation to generation, I suspect that the neural representations of the wisdom they embody, and of the means to implement that wisdom, are inextricably linked to the neural representation of innate regulatory biological processes.