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This chapter focuses on how advances in the study of striatal anatomy and physiology have informed our appreciation of dopamine's role in appetitive motivation, with an emphasis on studies of feeding behavior, food-reinforced operant behavior, and striatal gene expression, under different motivational conditions. It outlines the position that striatal dopamine plays a dual role in augmenting the various types of motor output associated with appetitively motivated behavior, by modulating information flow through functionally differentiable corticostriatal circuits, and in selecting/strengthening reinforced behavior by regulating intracellular plasticity within a corticostriatal network. Evidence indicates that while these functions are expressed throughout the striatum, the behavioral domains that are affected depend upon the unique information-processing roles of anatomically distinct striatal territories. Finally, the chapter discusses the additional layer of complexity conferred by the heterogeneous functions of discrete neurochemical systems within a given striatal territory.

The interactional instinct consists of an appetitive and a consummatory component. The biology underlying consummation develops first and involves the expression of endogenous opiates during child‐caregiver interaction. These opiates provide the child and the adult with feelings of attachment. This process entrains the child's attentional mechanisms on the caregivers and serves as a motivational mechanism that ensures language acquisition. The rewarding aspects of the attachment bond become part of the child's memory. The child, in encountering conspecifics more distal than immediate caregivers, responds to affiliative stimuli, such as friendly vocalizations, gestures, smiles, and touch, with positive appraisals and a desire to approach. The appraisals are communicated via the medial orbital cortex, with contextual information coming from the hippocampus and the amygdala. Dopaminergic innervation of the nucleus accumbens facilitates the integration of these various inputs and provides a “go” signal for motoric and cognitive approach and exploration of the affiliative target.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the moral relevance of the theory of the division of soul. Firstly, it is examined why it is impossible to reconcile this doctrine with instrumentalism. Secondly, how the desires of the three different parts of the soul may be harmonised is investigated. Thirdly, after an elaborate study of the different parts of the soul, the reasons for this tripartition of the soul are introduced. Finally, it is examined whether or not the partition of the soul results in different kinds of happiness.

This chapter studies the later books of the Republic in order to see how the distinctions between the different kinds of justice, presented in previous chapter, work in the last part of the dialogue. To start with, it is demonstrated that deviant souls are “c-unjust,” while democratic souls are “p-unjust.” Then, the rational part of the soul is extensively analysed in order to explain why it is the more comprehensive. Finally, it is underlined that the just man is the one in whom prevails the rational soul, which is the only one able to provide a good balance to the all human beings.

The main goal of chapter 18 is to emphasise the importance of love in the Republic but also more generally in Plato’s ethics. To begin with, it is considered how love is able to fill the gap between the rational and the irrational part of the soul. Thus, it is shown how love can be the key element to link self-regarding and other-regarding virtues. Finally, how love allows Plato to consider justice as a non-instrumental good is investigated.

Views that understand both morality and human well‐being in agent‐based terms can be called ”hyper‐agent‐based.” The present such approach treats each of the agent‐based elements of practical rationality and morality as grounding its own separate and distinctive human good (element in human well‐being). Thus, for example, the rational virtue of noninsatiability (moderation) is arguably necessary to and helps constitute appetitive goods; the rational value of strength of purpose is groundingly essential to the distinctive good of achievement/accomplishment; the courage not to deceive oneself about unpleasant facts helps constitute the human good of wisdom; and the moral virtues of (various forms of) caring underlie and help bring about what is good (for us) about love, friendship, political involvement (or civic friendship), and the like. It is argued that all human goods can be plausibly fitted into this hyper‐agent‐based view of what is good for us and that such a unified explanatory scheme is superior to a mere ”objective list,” however intuitive, of human goods.

In this brief essay, we review benefits of the caregiving system for health and well-being, and argue that these benefits are not reflected in economic models of how to maximize utility. We then describe how the caregiving system highlights the tension between appetitive motives versus maintaining deeper relationships, a sense of purpose, meaning, etc, and point out how this tension is reflected in existing debates within economics. We discuss how new discoveries about the caregiving system can be used to inform these debates, and conclude with a discussion of some potential practical implications.

Chapter 5 reviews the brain circuits that regulate maternal behavior in nonhuman mammals. The medial preoptic area (MPOA) is essential for both the onset and maintenance of maternal behavior. Hormones and oxytocin act on the MPOA to stimulate the onset of maternal behavior. The neurotransmitters contained within MPOA neurons that may regulate maternal behavior are described, as are several neural inputs to the MPOA that regulate its output. A defensive neural circuit that inhibits maternal behavior in most virgin female mammals is described. MPOA output stimulates maternal behavior by depressing the defensive circuit while also activating neural circuits that underpin maternal motivation. MPOA output to the mesolimbic dopamine system is essential for appetitive maternal responses, while its output to the periaqueductal gray regulates consummatory responses. Synaptic plasticity within the MPOA-to-mesolimbic DA circuit is involved in the development of an enduring mother–infant bond.

We explain the operationalization of the Action tendency component based on Frijda's action readiness theory. The action tendencies of approach, avoidance, being-with, attending, rejection, indifference, antagonism, interruption, dominance, submission, apathy, excitement, exuberance, passivity, inhibition, and helplessness were represented in the GRID instrument. Structural analyses on these action tendencies revealed a three-factor structure with a strong first factor representing DEFENSIVE VS APPETITIVE action tendencies, and two subsidiary factors representing DISENGAGEMENT VS INTERVENTION and SUBMIT VS ATTACK action tendencies. The first action tendency factor was strongly related to the overall VALENCE factor. The two subsidiary factors were both associated with the overall POWER factor. It was possible to correctly classify 46.1% of the emotion terms in the 34 samples on the basis of the three action tendency factors. The analyses confirm that action tendencies form a constitutive part of the meaning of emotion terms.

Two mesolimbic tegmental systems are involved in the initiation and maintenance of two basic emotional states. The ascending cholinergic system can initiate a negative state with accompanying autonomic and somatic symptoms, and the ascending dopaminergic system can initiates a positive state also with characteristic physiological changes. These organismal states, including the relevant emotional states, are signaled by vocalization to conspecifics. Emission of the state-characteristic vocalization has adaptive value for individuals living in social groups. As shown for cats and rats, negative, alarming/threatening vocalizations are initiated by release of acetylcholine in the medial cholinoceptive vocalization strip (i.e., a limited strip of brain tissue, from which vocalization can be induced by cholinomimetics). The vocalizations are characterized by a low and relatively constant sound frequency and long duration of individual calls. Positive, appetitive calls are initiated by release of dopamine in the shell of the nucleus accumbens, and at least in rats, are characterized by high and often modulated sound frequency and short duration of individual calls. High repeatability of relevant acoustic features of positive or negative vocalizations makes them useful indices of animal emotional states.

The chapter summarizes neuroscience research on what drives consumption of food and introduces the concepts of appetitive behaviours and consummatory behaviours, the former being what governs the processes of obtaining and preparing food, the latter the processes of consuming the food. The brain is viewed as seeking to maximize rewards, which involves learning what actions lead to rewards. The chapter examines conditions in which stimulus and reward are confused (dissociation). It further analyses habits as actions which are driven by a stimulus rather than being goal-directed and conditions in which goal-directed behaviour is abandoned for habitual behaviour, as in, for example, substance addiction, and the persistence of stimuli associated with it. Work on how people learn from others is reviewed and policy implications noted.

The differences and similarities between Porphyry and Iamblichus on the nature of the soul and the role played by philosophy and religion in enabling its purification and ultimate ascent to the One are the major themes examined in this chapter. Whereas Porphyry accentuated a “soteriology of ascent” in which philosophy represented the summit of the soul’s progression toward intelligible reality and the unio mystica, Iamblichus stressed the importance of theurgy and viewed the salvific process as one of descent to the world of becoming. The fine points of the three paths of Porphyry’s system are delineated with respect to the conventional tripartite soul of Platonism. Iamblichus’ letters provide invaluable insight into how Porphyry’s second path trajectory would have been lived out by the novice philosopher. This path required many years of studying mathematics and the dialogues of Plato and most likely required more than one life to complete.

This chapter discusses the neuroecology of predation. An act of predation requires integration of complex chemosensory information as a function of ecological context and proximity of prey. The chapter examines natural histories and trophic ecologies, describing behavioural aspects of predatory search, appetitive feeding, and food consumption, as well as chemical deterence and defence by prey. It considers the physiological basis for chemosensory-mediated behavioural processes associated with predation and carnivorous feeding. It also argues for stronger integration across disciplines towards clarifying basic relationships between neural processes and ecological functions.

This chapter explicates Kantian imperfect duties and their source-value in obligatory ends. Imperfect duties add material and psychological resources to make the moral habitat safe and accessible. Using the duty of beneficence, the chapter explains the kind of discretion these duties allow and the demands they make. Beneficence is, in the first instance, a relational duty. Engaging with others’ pursuit of happiness, we act for their ends, not their needs, with an eye towards the health of their agency. Relational beneficence is supplemented by two other duties of assistance: a humanitarian duty directed at strangers that obligates us collectively, and a remedial duty for those responsible to repair the effects of their unjust actions. When combined, the three duties of assistance distribute the demandingness of need in a more humane and morally responsive way, at times with the support of juridical institutions that take on some of the moral labor.