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Functional (f)MRIs of subjects in a state of mind characterized
by grief reveal activation of the posterior cingulate cortex
(20). Recent observations suggest that a predisposition to
depression is related to abnormal (and variably asymmetrical)
feedback circuits that link the ACC and the amygdala, which is
responsible for the experience of fear (21).
Activation of the ACC is observed in experiments in conflict
resolution (22). In fMRI studies by Joshua Greene and colleagues,
subjects who elect a rational solution to a moral
dilemma also show activation of the ACC as a marker of “conflict,”
along with activation of areas of the brain associated with
cognitive processing (23, 24). My response to Greene’s summary
of data and interpretations from the “crying baby” 8 experiments
supports my theory (25). After reading the “crying baby
dilemma,” I concluded, with difficulty, that I would select the
rational solution: I would smother my own crying baby rather
than expose the hiding place of my fellow villagers to a nearby,
wartime enemy that would surely kill us all. The emotional resolution
to the dilemma (do not smother the baby regardless of
the consequences) is “easier” (Greene observed shorter reaction
times). After reading Greene’s article (25), I was unable to sleep,
distressed by thoughts of my own children and six-month-old
granddaughter and by images of William Styron’s Sophie 9 , mortally
suffering for the choice she had made. I speculated that
the rational resolution to the crying baby dilemma requires
more time and produced my own reaction, in part, because the
somatic markers for decision-making in the crying baby
dilemma include those of suffering. My painful obsessions and
insomnia resulted from fear and grief—the emotional cost of
my rational choice—even though the stimulus was fictional,
just like the one in Styron’s novel and the subsequent movie. To
quote Goethe, “To act is easy, to think is hard, to act according
to our thought is troublesome.” 10 PREMISE 5
The evolution of suffering is essential to the
communication of emotion and to mammalian
nurturing.
THE QUALITIES OF SUFFERING that result in withdrawal, isolation,
and stasis—misery, hopelessness, despair, torment,
anguish, etc.—are grievous and fearsome indeed. In the evolution
of species, such qualities and their resulting inaction would
appear to impart a serious survival and reproductive disadvantage.
It would follow, then, that a capacity for suffering should
be extinguished by natural selection. Why, then, does suffering
exist with such negative effects on the human condition? 11 I
propose that suffering evolved, paradoxically, to impart survival
and reproductive advantage.
The increasing size of the brain relative to body mass (a
development that paleontologists and physical anthropologists
call “encephalization” 12 ) imparts survival and reproductive
advantage (26). Increasing encephalization required that offspring
are born neurologically immature, which is a serious survival
disadvantage. 13 I propose that the resolution to the
apparent paradox is the evolution of nurturing: an altruistic
behavior that permits an individual to cooperate with another
and relinquish its independence for the survival of the offspring.
According to Paul MacLean, the transition from fish,
amphibians, and reptiles—many, but not all, of which abandon
their young—to mammals that protect them, play with them,
have distinctive cries of separation and grieve for their loss,
requires the paleopallium, the midbrain, the limbic system,
specifically the circuit of Papez and the ACC (27). I propose
that the full complement of primary emotions, mediated by the
paleopallium, is the currency of mammalian nurturing and its
invariable sequence: attachment, individuation, and separation.
Suffering and empathy are the means of receipt and distribution
of that currency. 14 I conclude, therefore, that suffering and
8 “It is wartime, and you and some of your fellow villagers are hiding from
enemy soldiers in a basement. Your baby starts to cry, and you cover your
baby’s mouth to block the sound. If you remove your hand, your baby will
cry loudly, the soldiers will hear, and they will find you and the others and
kill everyone they find, including your baby. If you do not remove your
hand, your baby will smother to death. Is it okay to smother your baby to
death in order to save yourself and the other villagers?” (25)
9 Meryl Streep played Sophie in the film adaptation of William Styron’s
novel Sophie’s Choice. Sophie, upon arriving at a Nazi concentration camp,
must choose between her two children. One will be taken from her and,
she assumes, killed. She is allowed to keep the other child with her. Neither
child survives. Sophie, years later, in the United States, commits suicide.
10 From Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Book VII, chapter 9.
11 Twentieth-century existentialism simply gave up on rationalizing the role of
suffering in the human condition and concluded that suffering is the human
condition. The question of how suffering survives evolution is the same as
the one that philosophers and scientists ask about altruism in its conflict
with exploitation: how can it resist extinction?
12 The rank order of the “encephalization quotient” (EQ) of mammals (humans
7.4, dolphins 5.3, nonhuman primates 2.1-2.5, elephants 1.9, whales 1.8,
canines 1.2, felines 1.0, equines 0.9, ungulates 0.8, rodents 0.4-0.5) well
approximates the prevalence of animal behaviors that imply empathy,
as we know it.
13 Another troublesome paradox of the human condition is that we are capable
of reproduction at the age of about 13 years, but the parts of the brain that
are responsible for the control of impulsive behavior do not mature until
the age of 21, if ever.
14 A corollary to the hypothesis that a capacity for suffering requires the paleopallium
or limbic system is the proposition that, birds not withstanding,
most pre-mammalian species do not suffer, since they lack the neurological
machinery to do so. The obverse proposition is that all mammals, to one
degree or another, possess the capacity for suffering. It is, therefore, ethically
safe to be very careful in the manner in which we conduct animal research.
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