The neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment

Abstract

Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems.

Identifying Virtues and Values Through Obituary Data-Mining

“…While we acknowledge the value of Greene's work, it also serves as a case study highlighting the shortcomings of experimental work unconstrained by naturalistic observation. In a follow-up fMRI study, Kahane et al [17] offer reasons to think Greene et al's results stem from a biased set of thought experiments, such that the distinction between consequentialist and deontological judgments is not the best explanation for the neurological differences in their subjects. More broadly, sociologists of science such as Abend [19] have questioned the narrow focus of much recent One node (knowledgeable) was manually adjusted towards the center to permit a larger view of the network research in moral psychology, calling for renewed efforts to understand virtues and values in addition to the differences between processes associated with consequentialist and deontological reasoning.…”

¿Incurre la teoría del proceso dual del juicio moral de Joshua Greene en falacia naturalista?

“…Mientras que las bases neuronales apelan al sustrato fisiológico del cerebro que capacita al ser humano para el juicio moral, 10 Por ejemplo, autores como KAHANE et al (2012) han cuestionado que realmente los llamados «juicios morales característicamente deontológicos» sean más intuitivos. 11 «In sum, if it seems that I have simply misunderstood what Kant and deontology are all about, it's because I am advancing an alternative hypothesis to the standard Kantian/ deontological understanding of what Kant and deontology are all about.…”

On the "Neuroscience of Ethics" - Approaching the Neuroethical Literature as a Rational Discourse on Putative Neural Processes of Moral cognition and behavior

“…Moreover, no matter which ethical code is preferred when one is an adult, there remains much situational variability in how moral judgments are formed on a moment-bymoment basis. It appears that to at least some extent, human moral cognition entails multiple modes of moral discernment and ethical justification [19][20][21] . Both utilitarians and deontologists, for example, can find human brains (and often the same brains) that are able to assess crafted moral situations according to theoretical expectations 22,23 .…”