Moral educational implications of neuroscientific research on moral decisionmaking

Abstract

In this study, the two types of moral judgment, rational reasoning and emotional intuition, were analyzed with a focus on neuroscientific interpretation of human responses in the trolley dilemma and footbridge dilemma. Based on such analysis, the cognitive approach required to make correct moral judgments was sought with a focus on establishing the relationship between reason and emotion. And the implications of this neuroscientific approach for moral education were derived. According to the results of neuroscientific research on people's moral judgments in the trolley dilemma and footbridge dilemma, there are many neuroscientific research results supporting that emotional intuition leads to deontological judgments and rational reasoning leads to consequential judgments. In this way, emotional intuition and rational reasoning appear widely in human moral judgment. There is a need to find a method of moral education that can harmoniously utilize emotional intuition, which is fast and efficient but has the potential for bias, and rational reasoning, which is slow but accurate and fair.