Moral Judgment and the Brain: A Functional Approach to the Question of Emotion and Cognition in Moral Judgment Integrating Psychology, Neuroscience and Evolutionary Biology

Moral judgment can be defined as the evaluation of actions with respect to social norms and values established in a society (such as not stealing or being an honest citizen).1Judging whether our own actions or of those of another person are good or bad (respectively harmful for individuals or the society as a whole) is very central to everyday social life because it guides our behavior in a community. Therefore, the question how humans think about right and wrong has recurred over the centuries in many disciplines including philosophy, arts, religion, economics, or law studies (see Goodenough & Prehn, 2004). More recently, the question how moral judgments are made and which processes are involved has triggered much research in psychology and neuroscience. One key issue comprises the question to what extent the processes involved are open to conscious deliberation and whether our moral sense is a product of education (i.e., the acquisition of knowledge on social norms and values) or rather a result of an innate mechanism activated during childhood. In particular, the issue whether moral judgments are caused by emotional or rather cognitive2processes and whether emotional responses make moral judgments better or worse has caused much controversies and debates.

[1]  A. Villringer,et al.  An fMRI study of simple ethical decision-making , 2003, Neuroreport.

[2]  M. L. Gross Ethics and Activism: The Theory and Practice of Political Morality , 1997 .

[3]  B. Argall,et al.  Integration of Auditory and Visual Information about Objects in Superior Temporal Sulcus , 2004, Neuron.

[4]  Hanna Damasio,et al.  Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[5]  William D. Casebeer Moral cognition and its neural constituents , 2003, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[6]  Paul Bloom,et al.  The intelligence of the moral intuitions: comment on Haidt (2001). , 2003, Psychological review.

[7]  J. Russell,et al.  A Role for the Human Amygdala in Recognizing Emotional Arousal From Unpleasant Stimuli , 1999 .

[8]  P. Eslinger,et al.  Adolescent Neuropsychological Development After Early Right Prefrontal Cortex Damage , 2000, Developmental neuropsychology.

[9]  William Bechtel,et al.  Integrating neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology through a teleological conception of function , 1996, Minds and Machines.

[10]  Joshua D. Greene,et al.  A Dissociation Between Moral Judgments and Justifications , 2007 .

[11]  J. Snarey Cross-cultural universality of social-moral development: a critical review of Kohlbergian research. , 1985, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  R. Henson What can Functional Neuroimaging Tell the Experimental Psychologist? , 2005, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[13]  R. Compton The interface between emotion and attention: a review of evidence from psychology and neuroscience. , 2003, Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews.

[14]  L. F. Barrett,et al.  A multiprocess perspective on the neuroscience of emotion. , 2001 .

[15]  O. Goodenough,et al.  A neuroscientific approach to normative judgment in law and justice. , 2004, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[16]  A. Damasio,et al.  Preserved access and processing of social knowledge in a patient with acquired sociopathy due to ventromedial frontal damage , 1991, Neuropsychologia.

[17]  J. Grafman,et al.  The neural basis of human moral cognition , 2005, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[18]  R. Davidson Well-being and affective style: neural substrates and biobehavioural correlates. , 2004, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[19]  S. Lerkiatbundit,et al.  Impact of the Konstanz method of dilemma discussion on moral judgment in allied health students: a randomized controlled study. , 2006, Journal of allied health.

[20]  R. Blair,et al.  A cognitive developmental approach to morality: investigating the psychopath , 1995, Cognition.

[21]  Ralph Adolphs,et al.  The Human Amygdala and Emotion , 1999 .

[22]  J. Haidt The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. , 2001, Psychological review.

[23]  Richard J. Davidson,et al.  Seven sins in the study of emotion: Correctives from affective neuroscience , 2003, Brain and Cognition.

[24]  Jorge Moll,et al.  Morals and the human brain: a working model. , 2003, Neuroreport.

[25]  M. Hauser,et al.  The Role of Conscious Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgment , 2006, Psychological science.

[26]  E. Miller,et al.  The prefontral cortex and cognitive control , 2000, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[27]  J. Piaget The Moral Judgment of the Child , 1932 .

[28]  Jordan Grafman,et al.  A thoroughly modern gage , 1999 .

[29]  R. Dolan,et al.  Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior , 2002, Science.

[30]  R. Saxe,et al.  The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and moral judgment , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[31]  G. Fink,et al.  Cerebral Representation of One’s Own Past: Neural Networks Involved in Autobiographical Memory , 1996, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[32]  Ivanei E. Bramati,et al.  The Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Basic and Moral Emotions , 2002, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[33]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Activation in Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus Parallels Parameter Inducing the Percept of Animacy , 2005, Neuron.

[34]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  The Trouble with Cognitive Subtraction , 1996, NeuroImage.

[35]  R. Maddock The retrosplenial cortex and emotion: new insights from functional neuroimaging of the human brain , 1999, Trends in Neurosciences.

[36]  J. Haidt,et al.  Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[37]  Y. Okamoto,et al.  Reduced activation of posterior cingulate cortex during imagery in subjects with high degrees of alexithymia: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study , 2005, Biological Psychiatry.

[38]  Carla L. Harenski,et al.  Neural correlates of regulating negative emotions related to moral violations , 2006, NeuroImage.

[39]  K. Scherer,et al.  Handbook of affective sciences. , 2003 .

[40]  M. Hoffman,et al.  Review of Child Development Research , 1966 .

[41]  J. Haidt The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology , 2007, Science.

[42]  J. C. Anderson,et al.  Dendritic asymmetry cannot account for directional responses of neurons in visual cortex , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[43]  R. James R. Blair,et al.  The neural basis of implicit moral attitude—An IAT study using event-related fMRI , 2006, NeuroImage.

[44]  Jordan Grafman,et al.  Functional Networks in Emotional Moral and Nonmoral Social Judgments , 2002, NeuroImage.

[45]  Richard Henson,et al.  Forward inference using functional neuroimaging: dissociations versus associations , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[46]  J. Haidt,et al.  The Moral Emotions , 2009 .

[47]  M. Bennett The Development of social cognition : the child as psychologist , 1993 .

[48]  P. Churchland,et al.  © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. The Neural Mechanisms of Moral Cognition: A Multiple-Aspect Approach to Moral Judgment and Decision-Making , 2022 .

[49]  D. Buss,et al.  Evolutionary Psychology: A New Paradigm for Psychological Science , 1995 .

[50]  Marc D Hauser,et al.  The liver and the moral organ. , 2006, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[51]  J. Haxby,et al.  fMRI Responses to Video and Point-Light Displays of Moving Humans and Manipulable Objects , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[52]  Michaela Gummerum,et al.  A stage for the rational tail of the emotional dog: Roles of moral reasoning in group decision making , 2006 .

[53]  R. Adolphs,et al.  Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements , 2007, Nature.

[54]  Derek G. V. Mitchell,et al.  Caught in the act: The impact of audience on the neural response to morally and socially inappropriate behavior , 2006, NeuroImage.

[55]  C. Frith,et al.  The Neural Basis of Mentalizing , 2006, Neuron.

[56]  Á. Pascual-Leone,et al.  Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting the Right Prefrontal Cortex , 2006, Science.

[57]  Sharon L. Thompson-Schill,et al.  INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES: Editorial , 2005 .

[58]  E. Turiel,et al.  The Development of Social Knowledge: Morality and Convention , 1983 .

[59]  Mitsuo Kawato,et al.  Activation of the Human Superior Temporal Gyrus during Observation of Goal Attribution by Intentional Objects , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[60]  Isabell Wartenburger,et al.  Influence of bodily harm on neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making , 2005, NeuroImage.

[61]  John Mikhail,et al.  Universal moral grammar: theory, evidence and the future , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[62]  Jana Schaich Borg,et al.  Consequences, Action, and Intention as Factors in Moral Judgments: An fMRI Investigation , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[63]  J. Harlow Passage of an Iron Rod Through the Head , 1999 .

[64]  Larry Nucci,et al.  Education in the Moral Domain: References , 2001 .

[65]  Andrew D. Engell,et al.  The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment , 2004, Neuron.

[66]  ChrisD . Frith,et al.  Neurobiology: Feeling right about doing right , 2007, Nature.

[67]  D. Tranel,et al.  Irrational Economic Decision-Making after Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage: Evidence from the Ultimatum Game , 2007, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[68]  L. Kohlberg Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization , 1969 .

[69]  C. Frith,et al.  Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[70]  A. Damasio,et al.  The return of Phineas Gage: clues about the brain from the skull of a famous patient. , 1994, Science.

[71]  Diana C. Robertson,et al.  The neural processing of moral sensitivity to issues of justice and care , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[72]  Julie Grèzes,et al.  Affective response to one's own moral violations , 2006, NeuroImage.

[73]  M. Walton,et al.  Interactions between decision making and performance monitoring within prefrontal cortex , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[74]  P. Eslinger,et al.  Frontopolar and anterior temporal cortex activation in a moral judgment task: preliminary functional MRI results in normal subjects. , 2001, Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria.

[75]  Daniel Y. Kimberg,et al.  Neural correlates of cognitive efficiency , 2006, NeuroImage.

[76]  R. Poldrack Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data? , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[77]  F. Donders On the speed of mental processes. , 1969, Acta psychologica.

[78]  R. Dolan,et al.  An fMRI study of intentional and unintentional (embarrassing) violations of social norms. , 2002, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[79]  Isabell Wartenburger,et al.  Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments. , 2008, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[80]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment , 2001, Science.

[81]  E. Phelps Emotion and cognition: insights from studies of the human amygdala. , 2006, Annual review of psychology.

[82]  S. Kosslyn,et al.  Individual Differences in Cerebral Blood Flow in Area 17 Predict the Time to Evaluate Visualized Letters , 1996, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[83]  R. C. Sprinthall,et al.  Educational Psychology: A Developmental Approach , 1987 .

[84]  G. Lind The Moral Judgment Test: Comments on Villegas de Posada's Critique , 2006, Psychological reports.

[85]  S. Bunge How we use rules to select actions: A review of evidence from cognitive neuroscience , 2004, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[86]  Joshua D. Greene,et al.  How (and where) does moral judgment work? , 2002, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[87]  A. Damasio The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex. , 1996, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[88]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Psychophysiological and Modulatory Interactions in Neuroimaging , 1997, NeuroImage.

[89]  R. Davidson Cognitive Neuroscience Needs Affective Neuroscience (and Vice Versa) , 2000, Brain and Cognition.

[90]  P. Vernon Speed of Information Processing and General Intelligence. , 1983 .

[91]  Isabell Wartenburger,et al.  A neural network reflecting individual differences in cognitive processing of emotions during perceptual decision making , 2006, NeuroImage.

[92]  R. Dolan,et al.  Dissociable Temporal Lobe Activations during Emotional Episodic Memory Retrieval , 2000, NeuroImage.

[93]  A. Sirigu,et al.  The Involvement of the Orbitofrontal Cortex in the Experience of Regret , 2004, Science.

[94]  C. Gilligan In a different voice: Women's conceptions of self and of morality. , 1977 .

[95]  Carol Gilligan,et al.  Two Moral Orientations: Gender Differences and Similarities. , 1988 .

[96]  J. Haxby,et al.  Parallel Visual Motion Processing Streams for Manipulable Objects and Human Movements , 2002, Neuron.

[97]  Goslin,et al.  Handbook of socialization theory and research , 1969 .