Where in the brain is morality? Everywhere and maybe nowhere.

Soc Neurosci

Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA02467, USA.

Published: April 2012

AI Article Synopsis

  • The neuroscience of morality explores how moral reasoning functions and its location in the brain, using both domain-specific and domain-general approaches to study it.
  • Researchers haven't pinpointed a specific brain area dedicated solely to moral cognition, indicating that morality involves complex processes spread throughout the brain.
  • This review will examine past beliefs in domain-specific moral processes, the role of general cognitive functions like emotion and social understanding, and whether there is such a thing as uniquely moral thinking.

Article Abstract

The neuroscience of morality has focused on how morality works and where it is in the brain. In tackling these questions, researchers have taken both domain-specific and domain-general approaches-searching for neural substrates and systems dedicated to moral cognition versus characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes. Where in the brain is morality? On one hand, morality is made up of complex cognitive processes, deployed across many domains and housed all over the brain. On the other hand, no neural substrate or system that uniquely supports moral cognition has been found. In this review, we will discuss early assumptions of domain-specificity in moral neuroscience as well as subsequent investigations of domain-general contributions, taking emotion and social cognition (i.e., theory of mind) as case studies. Finally, we will consider possible cognitive accounts of a domain-specific morality: Does uniquely moral cognition exist?

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2011.569146DOI Listing

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