M
Mike Vandeman
Guest
Obviously, they lack feeling for wildlife and other trail users!
Mike
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/03.22/05-brain.html
Unfeeling moral choices traced to damaged frontal lobes
By Steve Bradt
FAS Communications
Consider the following scenario: Someone you know has AIDS and plans
to infect others, some of whom will die. Your only options are to let
it happen or to kill the person. Do you pull the trigger?
Most people waver or say they could not, even if they agree that in
theory they should. But according to a new study in the journal
Nature, subjects with damage to a part of the frontal lobe make a less
personal calculation. The logical choice, they say, is to sacrifice
one life to save many.
Conducted by researchers at Harvard University, the University of
Southern California (USC), the California Institute of Technology, and
the University of Iowa, the study shows that emotion plays an
important role in scenarios that pose a moral dilemma. If certain
emotions are blocked, we make decisions that — right or wrong — seem
unnaturally cold.
The scenarios in the study are extreme, but the core dilemma is not:
Should one confront a co-worker, challenge a neighbor, or scold a
loved one in the interest of the greater good?
"Our work provides the first causal account of the role of emotions in
moral judgments," says co-senior author Marc Hauser, professor of
psychology at Harvard and Harvard College Professor. But, Hauser adds,
not all moral reasoning depends so strongly on emotion.
"What is absolutely astonishing about our results is how selective the
deficit is," he says. "Damage to the frontal lobe leaves intact a
suite of moral problem-solving abilities, but damages judgments in
which an aversive action is put into direct conflict with a strong
utilitarian outcome."
A total of 30 subjects of both genders faced a set of scenarios
pitting immediate harm to one person against future certain harm to
many. Six had damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a
small region behind the forehead, while 12 had brain damage elsewhere,
and another 12 had no damage. The subjects with VMPC damage stood out
in their stated willingness to harm an individual — a prospect that
usually generates strong aversion.
"Because of their brain damage, they have abnormal social emotions in
real life. They seem to lack empathy and compassion," says Ralph
Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Caltech.
"In those circumstances most people without this specific brain damage
will be torn. But these particular subjects seem to lack that
conflict," says co-senior author Antonio Damasio, director of the
Brain and Creativity Institute and holder of the David Dornsife Chair
in Neuroscience at USC.
It is the feeling of aversion that normally blocks humans from harming
each other. Damasio describes it as "a combination of rejection of the
act, but combined with the social emotion of compassion for that
particular person."
"The question is, are the social emotions necessary to make these
moral judgments," Adolphs says.
Their study's answer may inform a classic philosophical debate on
whether humans make moral judgments based on norms and societal rules,
or based on their emotions.
The study holds another implication for philosophy: By showing that
humans are neurologically unfit for strict utilitarian thinking, the
study suggests that neuroscience may be able to test different
philosophies for compatibility with human nature.
The Nature study expands on work on emotion and decision making
Damasio started in the early 1990s, which caught the public eye in his
first book, "Descartes' Error." Hauser, whose behavioral work in
animals has attempted to identify precursors to moral behavior, then
teamed up with Damasio's group to extend those observations.
Other authors on the study are Fiery Cushman and Liane Young of
Harvard and Michael Koenigs and Daniel Tranel of the University of
Iowa. Funding for the research came from the National Institutes of
Health, the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)
Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
Mike
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/03.22/05-brain.html
Unfeeling moral choices traced to damaged frontal lobes
By Steve Bradt
FAS Communications
Consider the following scenario: Someone you know has AIDS and plans
to infect others, some of whom will die. Your only options are to let
it happen or to kill the person. Do you pull the trigger?
Most people waver or say they could not, even if they agree that in
theory they should. But according to a new study in the journal
Nature, subjects with damage to a part of the frontal lobe make a less
personal calculation. The logical choice, they say, is to sacrifice
one life to save many.
Conducted by researchers at Harvard University, the University of
Southern California (USC), the California Institute of Technology, and
the University of Iowa, the study shows that emotion plays an
important role in scenarios that pose a moral dilemma. If certain
emotions are blocked, we make decisions that — right or wrong — seem
unnaturally cold.
The scenarios in the study are extreme, but the core dilemma is not:
Should one confront a co-worker, challenge a neighbor, or scold a
loved one in the interest of the greater good?
"Our work provides the first causal account of the role of emotions in
moral judgments," says co-senior author Marc Hauser, professor of
psychology at Harvard and Harvard College Professor. But, Hauser adds,
not all moral reasoning depends so strongly on emotion.
"What is absolutely astonishing about our results is how selective the
deficit is," he says. "Damage to the frontal lobe leaves intact a
suite of moral problem-solving abilities, but damages judgments in
which an aversive action is put into direct conflict with a strong
utilitarian outcome."
A total of 30 subjects of both genders faced a set of scenarios
pitting immediate harm to one person against future certain harm to
many. Six had damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a
small region behind the forehead, while 12 had brain damage elsewhere,
and another 12 had no damage. The subjects with VMPC damage stood out
in their stated willingness to harm an individual — a prospect that
usually generates strong aversion.
"Because of their brain damage, they have abnormal social emotions in
real life. They seem to lack empathy and compassion," says Ralph
Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Caltech.
"In those circumstances most people without this specific brain damage
will be torn. But these particular subjects seem to lack that
conflict," says co-senior author Antonio Damasio, director of the
Brain and Creativity Institute and holder of the David Dornsife Chair
in Neuroscience at USC.
It is the feeling of aversion that normally blocks humans from harming
each other. Damasio describes it as "a combination of rejection of the
act, but combined with the social emotion of compassion for that
particular person."
"The question is, are the social emotions necessary to make these
moral judgments," Adolphs says.
Their study's answer may inform a classic philosophical debate on
whether humans make moral judgments based on norms and societal rules,
or based on their emotions.
The study holds another implication for philosophy: By showing that
humans are neurologically unfit for strict utilitarian thinking, the
study suggests that neuroscience may be able to test different
philosophies for compatibility with human nature.
The Nature study expands on work on emotion and decision making
Damasio started in the early 1990s, which caught the public eye in his
first book, "Descartes' Error." Hauser, whose behavioral work in
animals has attempted to identify precursors to moral behavior, then
teamed up with Damasio's group to extend those observations.
Other authors on the study are Fiery Cushman and Liane Young of
Harvard and Michael Koenigs and Daniel Tranel of the University of
Iowa. Funding for the research came from the National Institutes of
Health, the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)
Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande