At the Heart of Morality Lies Neuro-Visceral Integration: Lower Cardiac Vagal Tone Predicts Utilitarian Moral Judgment

Abstract

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)-an index of cardiac vagal tone-such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed.

The Nietzschean precedent for anti-reflective, dialogical agency

“…These findings are consistent with findings from moral psychology that demonstrate people's general aversion to directly harming others and their weighting of information about kindness and compassion in person perception (e.g., Greene et al 2001;Goodwin 2015;Miller et al 2014). Recent neuroscientific work links moral condemnation of harm to normally functioning emotional processing (e.g., Crockett et al 2010;Greene et al 2001;Koenigs et al 2007;Park et al 2016;Perkins et al 2013). Taken together, these findings indicate that equating agency with the term negotiation doesn't fit with how people go about moral judgment in cases of direct inducement of bodily harm.…”

Resting high frequency heart rate variability selectively predicts cooperative behavior

“…HF-HRV PREDICTS COOPERATION 31 judgment is associated with lower HRV levels in morals dilemmas (Park, Kappes, Rho, & Van Bavel, 2015). Moreover, anterior regions of the prefrontal cortex correlate with HRV specifically during emotional situations (Thayer et al, 2012), which suggests that the "social cognition" network (Amodio & Frith, 2006;Declerck et al, 2013) can be particularly recruited by high HRV individuals in emotional contexts, which does not support the "pure-utilitarian hypothesis".…”

Fired Up by Morality: The Unique Physiological Response Tied to Moral Conviction in Politics

“…Studies show that deontological judgments are tied to stronger physiological responses than other categories of evaluation (e.g., Cushman, Gray, Gaffey, & Mendes, ; Moretto, Ladavas, Mattioli, & di Pellegrino, ; Park, Kappes, Rho, & Bavel, ; Teper, Inzlicht, & Page‐Gould, ). Based on the theorized connection between moral conviction and deontological styles of processing, therefore, higher moral conviction scores should correlate with heightened levels of physiological arousal if moral conviction survey items are, in fact, tapping into this distinct style of information processing.…”