Toward A Neuropolitics of Empathy.

This paper attempts to explore the potentially profound political implications of new research into the neuroarchitecture of the brain, especially the role of the mirror neuron system (MNS) which yields compelling evidence that humans are hard-wired for empathy. The same affective brain circuits are automatically mobilized upon feeling one's one pain and observing the pain of others. However, if morality is rooted in biology, in the raw material or building blocks for the evolution of its expression, how do we explain the disjunction between.x000d.its presence and a massive societal empathy deficit? Why hasn't this moral intuition produced a more ameliorating effect? I seek to examine the role of political culture, especially the cultural narrative of hyper-individualism as it interacts with this biological predisposition toward pro-social behavior. The paper draws upon recent work in biology, neuroscience, primatology, cultural studies, political science, psychology and sociology. In an attempt to avoid the dangers of neuroscientific reductionism, I'm comfortable with what William Connolly describes as "...politics through which cultural life mixes into the composition of body/brain process. And vice versa." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]