From Sunday's Boston Globe Ideas section -
Patricia Churchland interviewed by Joshua Rothman
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/04/24/where_morality_lives/
read the entire article, below is an extract from the end...
"
IDEAS: Why is knowing that morality’s based in the brain liberating or humanizing? Some people would say the opposite: That tying morality to the brain is limiting.
CHURCHLAND: It’s liberating because it’s an explanation of why, for so many people, there is a commonality—why there can be a meeting of minds, why they can connect and feel the kindness and generosity and welcomingness of people who are so very different in their cultural practices....And it also helps explain those very differences in cultural practices....You come to see that the brain is very, very sensitive, as it grows up, to the demands of the social world, and that conscience is built from those demands; intuitions are formed and made from social pressures....We’re living in a connected world; we need to understand these [differences], and to resist ideological fanaticism, whether it’s within our own culture or within other cultures."