I received my copy of Nature today (visit www.nature.com). Every issue holds me captivated. Amongst all the technical terms and jargon, there's something enthralling to be found. For those with limited patience or time, a lot is summarized in the 'News and Views' section.
What I particularly enjoyed today was the brief paper entitled Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements - a.k.a Feeling right about doing right.
A handful of patients with damage to their prefrontal cortex were faced with moral dilemmas and asked to make a judgement concerning what action to take. The particular part of the prefrontal cortex that was damaged in these patients, is known to be responsible for social emotions. Their responses were compared to those of two control groups. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their moral judgements were different to those people with healthy brains or damage in other areas. The scenarios presented to them were of various types. Those to which the brain-damaged participants reacted most unusually were the ones where they had to choose between doing something repellent and ensuring the welfare of the person(s) involved or not acting - at the expense of the people involved.
For example they might have been presented with the classic moral dilemma...
You are in control of a train. At the moment it is headed down the left track where five people are sitting. To the right there is one person. Do you divert the train? Do you kill one to save five?
This would be considered 'impersonal' and most people have no difficulty in choosing to divert the train.
The more 'personal' and emotionaly charged dilemmas were of this type:
You have a train headed down a track that will hit and kill five people. You can push one (rather large) person in front of the train to stop it. Do you do this? Do you sacrifice the one to save the five?
This is ultimately exactly the same as the previous scenario in its outcome - but most people have more difficulty with it.
What was fascinating about the people with brain damage is that they did not struggle the way most people would. They chose the utilitarian option - saving five at the expense of one.
Obviously, this raises some interesting questions about human morality. Firstly, of course, it suggests our emotions play a significant role in our moral decisions. Also, that morality is, to an extent, entrenched in our brains - perhaps due to our evolutionary history - or, at the very least, that it is something physical that we can hope to study. It also poses the question of why we evolved to make emotional moral decisions as opposed to logical utilitarian ones.
Consequently, which option is the right one now? Should we be utilitarian when making moral judgements? Or should we do what most 'healthy-brained' people do and 'listen to our hearts'? Are we even equipped to answer these questions; considering what we know now?
