The modern age has not been kind to common sense. Starting with Copernicus, the world has been progressively revealed to be not quite what it seems to be. Not only does the sun not orbit the earth, as our senses tell us it does, but evolution has demonstrated that we are not the apple of God’s eye, and even time and space have been shown to be merely relative. In the last two decades, modern cognitive psychology has finished the demolition job on common sense, and has demonstrated that our commonplace interpretations of our own behavior are seriously flawed. Indeed, we are hardly the maximizers of moral and economic value we think we are, since in actuality we don’t even know what value is.

This is a jarring thing to consider, but it is nonetheless true. Consider the dichotomy between how we think we behave and what cognitive science reveals. Common sense tells us that motivation occurs because of a linear conjunction of subjective and objective events. These events are discrete, indivisible, and occur in separate dimensional spaces called past, present and future. This linear reasoning neatly corresponds to the grammatical structure of language, or of subject, object, and predicate. Thus we are motivated because of discrete mental and physical objects that occur in a serial order. Deprivation sparks desire that obtains its object. This linear reasoning is generally accepted because it provides easy explanations and simple and practical procedures. And above all it provides us with conceptual objects that comprise the source of value. Thus good and bad, virtue and vice correspond to the negative and positive balances in a ledger sheet posted with the ordinary objects of desire. And if upon death there is a positive balance of good works, God will settle up the accounts.

On the other hand, cognitive science reveals that motivation finds its source in non linear neural processes, and is a result of the parallel processing of innumerable information streams, most of which are nonconsciously perceived. These events are indiscrete, divisible, and occur only in the present. As mapped to neural events, these information streams are consciously or nonconsciously chosen by the unconscious imposition of simple neurochemical, somatic, and perceptual markers that are ultimately guided by general nativistic (inborn) tendencies. At first glance, this would hardly seem to be the stuff that can provide for a serious recasting of what we define as value, let alone provide the underpinnings for a new ethic that ironically substantiates the moral values that it at first glance seems to dismiss. But that is the irony that propels our arguments, and this book.

To paraphrase a well known saying: a little learning can take you away from an obvious truth, but a lot of learning can take you right back to it. The concept of value, and of its various guises such as the good, virtue, reward, and reinforcement is the key to understanding not only why we behave, but also how we should behave. I will demonstrate that the Judeo-Christian conception of virtue and right is correct, but for reasons entirely different from the arbitrary moral standards derived from cultural mores and religious tradition. Through the examination of the different methodologies and data languages afforded by the empirical disciplines of cognitive science, learning theory, cognitive neuro-psychology, I will demonstrate that empirical explanations not only describe behavior, but also prescribe behavior. By beginning with simple and accurate description explanations for the most rudimentary aspects of behavior, I will demonstrate that these explanations for behavior always circle back to prescriptions for behavior that are scarcely different from those sentimental judgements that we call virtue.

In part one, I will examine how the content of language is inextricably metaphorical, and how metaphor expands and limits our power to describe and manipulate our world, and provides the essential means whereby all arguments may be understood and judged. I will demonstrate that concepts of value or reinforcement as conceptualized by common sense as well as the prevailing theoretical principles in economics, social psychology, learning theory, and evolutionary biology are driven by a common set of simplistic metaphors. These metaphors, which posit disembodied causes for behavior, will be shown to be false. In their place, a new metaphorical structure based on embodied causes will be presented that corresponds more accurately to the facts of behavior.

In part two, the elementary or ‘molecular ‘ bases for decision making will be discussed, and will be demonstrated to derive from the activity of very rudimentary neural processes. In turn, large scale or ‘molar’ neural processes such as emotion, creativity, needs, etc. will be shown to represent the emergent product of the concerted activity of these processes.

In part three, I will demonstrate that the use of a new set of metaphors which reflect the embodiment of behavior not only describe but prescribe behavior. These prescriptions not only influence individual choice, but also the formal rules of behavior imposed by groups or societies of individuals. The ends and purposes of such social engineering will be projected to culminate in the culmination of individual interests, human culture, and the ultimate ends of life itself.