What motivates behavior? What are the qualities of experience which make life worth living? Taking a new interdisciplinary approach, Morillo advances the theory that pleasure-interpreted as a distinct, separable, noncognitive quality of experience-is essential for all positive motivation and is the only intrinsic, nonmoral good in the lives of human beings and many other sentient creatures. Morillo supports her arguments with recent neuropsychological evidence concerning the role of reward centers in the brain and philosophical arguments for a naturalistic theory of value and the good life. Contingent Creatures will interest philosophers, psychologists, and neurobiologists.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
... interesting book ... Morillo draws on an impressive knowledge of the psychological literature on pleasure. She conducts a fascinating tour through such topics as motivation, learning theory, addiction, and experiments involving the electrical stimulation of the brain. Ethics very lucidly written ... of interest to anyone who is concerned with the psychology of motivation and affects. -- Richard Brandt, University of Michigan
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 158 mm
Dicke: 20 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-8226-3040-1 (9780822630401)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Carolyn R. Morillo, Professor Emeritus at University of New Orleans, has published widely on the issues of motivation, pleasure, and morality.
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Ecology and Affect in Naturalized Cognition Chapter 3 Contingent Creatures as Reward Event Systems Chapter 4 Psychological Hedonism as an Empirical Theory Chapter 5 Naturalizing Value Chapter 6 Summing Up the Good Life Chapter 7 Reasons, Norms, Cognition and Affect Chapter 8 Hedonism, Ideology and Temperment
