Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements
Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser & Antonio Damasio
Nature 446 (7138):908-911 (2007)
Abstract
The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements.
Keywords
No keywords specified (fix it)
Categories
(categorize this paper)
PhilPapers/Archive ID
KOEDTT
Upload history
Archival date: 2019-03-09
View other versions
View other versions
Added to PP index
2016-05-26
Total views
1,034 ( #5,368 of 69,187 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
240 ( #2,090 of 69,187 )
2016-05-26
Total views
1,034 ( #5,368 of 69,187 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
240 ( #2,090 of 69,187 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.