Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements.

@article{citeulike:1182078, abstract = {The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies. 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 emotions, produce an abnormally '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). 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.}, address = {[1] Department of Neurology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA [2] Present address: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1440, USA. [3] These authors contributed equally to this work.}, author = {Koenigs, Michael and Young, Liane and Adolphs, Ralph and Tranel, Daniel and Cushman, Fiery and Hauser, Marc and Damasio, Antonio }, citeulike-article-id = {1182078}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature05631}, issn = {1476-4687}, journal = {Nature}, keywords = {morality, patients, prefrontal, prefrontal\_damage}, month = {March}, posted-at = {2007-04-13 16:12:42}, priority = {2}, title = {Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature05631}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1182078 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1182078 TI - Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements. JF - Nature AD - [1] Department of Neurology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA [2] Present address: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1440, USA. [3] These authors contributed equally to this work. SN - 1476-4687 N2 - The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies. 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 emotions, produce an abnormally '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). 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. KW - morality KW - patients KW - prefrontal KW - prefrontal_damage AU - Koenigs, Michael AU - Young, Liane AU - Adolphs, Ralph AU - Tranel, Daniel AU - Cushman, Fiery AU - Hauser, Marc AU - Damasio, Antonio PY - 2007/03/21/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature05631 ER -