Neuroscience: Emotion and moral judgements

The critical role played by part of the brain in making normal judgements of right and wrong is highlighted by a study in Nature magzine. Patients with damage to an area of the brain involved in the normal generation of emotions have an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ reaction when presented with certain types of moral dilemma.
Antonio Damasio and colleagues studied six patients with focal lesions to the venteromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) on both sides of the brain. They presented them with a set of moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours, such as having to decide whether to sacrifice one’s child in order to save a number of other people. The authors report that the patients tended to have a utilitarian reaction to these dilemmas – that is, they responded in a manner that favoured the greater good, despite the emotional significance of the decision.
The authors note that the effects of damage to the VMPC on emotion processing depend on context, and that their results are consistent with a model in which a combination of intuitive and rational mechanisms operate to produce moral judgements.
CONTACT
Antonio Damasio (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
E-mail: damasio@college.usc.edu
Carl Marziali (Sciences Media Relations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 213 740 4751; E-mail: marziali@usc.edu
Ralph Adolphs (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA) Co-author
Tel: +1 626 395 4486; E-mail: radolphs@hss.caltech.edu