Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin | Video on TED.com

Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin | Video on TED.comCould morality really boil down to the molecule that makes you empathize with others?
I think that this research is interesting, and does describe basic chemistry in the brains of social animals. However, the researcher, Paul Zak, is fundamentally incorrect about the "thin that makes humans different (than animals)". It is not MORALITY that makes us different, it is our ability to REASON, to model the world and the self in our minds, and reflect upon our actions. This is what makes humans different.

Any social animal has the empathic ability, and it isn't restricted to women. But only man has the ability to reason, and can thus define what is just, fair, and right, from that which is unjust, unfair, and wrong. Even those who have no oxytocin or testosterone can act morally, if they reason out what is right.

The test of "Trustworthiness" (actually charity) in this example is not one of morality. Morality can be divided into rational and irrational spheres; religious morality is irrational by its nature, because it depend upon supernatural authority for its foundations, but rational morality, or ethics, depends only upon reason and context. That which is ethical in the broadest possible context is justice, and doesn't depend upon your empathy, but upon logically weighing the act with the known outcomes given a particular set of values. Thus, what makes men truly ethical (moral) is not empathy, or chemical drugs, but the accuracy of our model of the world, and the values we choose to live by.