Topics Worth Investigating

  1. In Bain's goal to unite psychology and physiology, he distanced himself from John Stuart Mill and the utilitarians. He sought to explain mental association in terms of neural connections. Given this background, speculate as to how Bain might conclude that belief is merely "a preparation to act."

  2. In the last part of his The Emotions and the Will, Bain argues for a behavioral determinism. Yet, in his Moral Science: A Compendium of Ethics published the same year, he explains the psychological basis of ethics. If determinism is true, how is a science of ethics possible?