Neural Basis Of Decision-Making And Assessment: Issues On Testability And Philosophical Relevance. 

Decision-Making is one the most intricate and misguided subjects in neuroscience. It is often argued that laboratorial research is not capable of dealing with the necessary complexity to study the issue. But, I intend to cope with the relationship between will, self-control, emotion, inhibition and reasoning in a very systematic and clear manner. I will analyze neuroscientific experiments in both technical and philosophical ways. I will defend the thesis that self-control mechanisms can modulate more basic stimuli and I interpret that fact as an example of how higher-level properties can be related to lower-level properties, specially when we are integrating different levels of information processing. Assuming the over-cited standpoints, I aim to show the physiological mechanisms underlying some practical and ethical issues. While philosophers in general neglect the physiological features that constitute the main aspects of thought and behavior, I intend to advocate that cutting-edge neuroscientific experiments would offer us a guideline to explain human behavior in its relationship to will, self-control, inhibition, emotion and reasoning. I intend to establish a difference between veridical and adaptive decision-making that helps us to understand how is possible to create experimental designs that can better mimic the complexity of costs and values present in our day-by-day decisions in more ecologically relevant laboratorial research. I analyze some experiments moved by the intention to develop an epistemological reflection about the necessary neural mechanisms to social assessment and decision-making.
Keywords: Decision-making; Inhibition/self-control; Rational and social assessment; Ecological relevance.
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 *Federal University Of Mato Grosso –  Professor Of Philosophy Of Science, Mind And Epistemology). 
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Email: gabriel.mograbi@gmail.com