Human Moral Behavior Research Articles

The Neural Basis of Moral Decision-Making. Bridging Neurobiology and Theology

This study sightsees the complex relationship between neurobiology and theology in the context of moral decision-making, by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, the research integrates findings from cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging studies, and theological analysis to examine the neural pathways that lie beneath ethical judgments. Our paper also investigates the role of cognitive heritage in shaping moral reasoning and how neuroplasticity influences the development and adaptation of ethical frameworks. Theological perspectives are considered to offer deeper insights into human moral behaviour and in addition, the paper addresses the ethical implications of neurobiological research, emphasizing the importance of bridging scientific and religious perspectives. Through a synthesis of empirical data and theological discourse, this work tries to underwrite to a more comprehensive understanding of moral decision-making, offering insights that are both scientifically grounded and spiritually informed.

칸트와 윤리학

The moral law and the idea of freedom are the core concepts of Kant’s ethics. Through consideration of this concept, this study revealed what Kant has done in the field of ethics. Kant revealed that there is ‘the cause of freedom’ in humans, and that the cause of freedom is a ‘logical cause’ in that it is a regulation in the practical aspect of ‘pure reason’. What Kant did in the first critique revealed that human cognitive behavior contains ‘pure reason’ as an a priori condition of perception that is not explained only by sensory experience, revealing the metaphysics in epistemology. What Kant did in ethics was reveal that it is none other than metaphysics as a ‘practical use of pure reason’ that enables human moral behavior by revealing the idea of freedom as the basis for the establishment of moral behavior. Based on this, this study examined the characteristics of the second critique seen in relation to the first criticism. Given that the first critique is Kant’s metaphysics, which deals with the outline and fundamentals of the entire system of Kant’s philosophy, and the second critique is Kant’s moral philosophy, which deals with Kant’s ethical criticism in earnest based on the first critique it was discussed that the two critique are related to the metaphysical foundation of Kant’s ehics and that they are also related to epistemology and ethics and metaphysics. Furthermore, this discussion also revealed that its justification can only be secured from a metapraxis perspective (from the perspective of heart cultivation).

Balancing self-interest and public interest: Virtues and the pandemic context

This article explores how the external conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected individuals’ moral psychology. We will argue that challenging contexts like the pandemic are external conditions that shape human moral behavior. Supported by Adam Smith’s theory of virtues, it is argued that individuals can balance self-interest with concern for others, even in challenging circumstances, through the virtues of justice, benevolence, prudence, and, most importantly, self-control. We will conclude by stating that, even in challenging contexts, individuals need to balance private and public interests to develop appropriate moral action.

Neuro-Computational Foundations of Moral Preferences.

Moral preferences pervade many aspects of our lives, dictating how we ought to behave, whom we can marry and even what we eat. Despite their relevance, one fundamental question remains unanswered: where do individual moral preferences come from? It is often thought that all types of preferences reflect properties of domain-general neural decision mechanisms that employ a common ‘neural currency’ to value choice options in many different contexts. This view, however, appears at odds with the observation that many humans consider it intuitively wrong to employ the same scale to compare moral value (e.g. of a human life) with material value (e.g. of money). In this paper, we directly test if moral subjective values are represented by similar neural processes as financial subjective values. In a study combining functional magnetic resonance imaging with a novel behavioral paradigm, we identify neural representations of the subjective values of human lives or financial payoffs by means of structurally identical computational models. Correlating isomorphic model variables from both domains with brain activity reveals specific patterns of neural activity that selectively represent values in the moral (right temporo-parietal junction) or financial (ventral-medial prefrontal cortex) domain. Intriguingly, our findings show that human lives and money are valued in (at least partially) distinct neural currencies, supporting theoretical proposals that human moral behavior is guided by processes that are distinct from those underlying behavior driven by personal material benefit.

Which Button Do I Push? More Thoughts on Resetting Moral Philosophy in the Western Tradition

This article investigates Michael Slote’s call for rebalancing Western moral philosophy by using Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism, as a form of moral sentimentalism. I agree with the need for a correction of the over reliance on reason in Western moral philosophy, but I reject the rational/sentimental dichotomy and focus on the importance of the will. I make use of the important contribution made by Daoism and the conduct concept of wu-wei 無為. I explain the use of wu-wei in Daoist texts as a nominative to denote a type of conduct, as a verb in moral imperatives, and as an aspiration for human moral behavior. I consider how appropriating this concept into Western moral thought offers significant solutions to three seemingly intractable problems: weakness of will, universalization of moral duties, and the conception of life as plagued by moral dilemmas. I conclude that wu-wei is not the result of some experience of alternative consciousness. It is an alternative consciousness that is shown in behavior, but not able to be said in language.

In the Universe of Cassandra: The Ancient Topos of Clairvoyance in the Futuristic World of Minority Report (2002)

The figure of Cassandra is well-known from numerous representations in ancient and modern literature as an archetype of a woman who has the power to see the future, but whose visions are not believed. In ancient Greek literature, Cassandra was an important character serving as a prophet of an approaching catastrophe. In her modern adaptations, this figure became a metaphor in psychoanalytical research on human moral behaviour (Melanie Klein and the Cassandra complex) developed in feminist writing. Cassandra has also been of interest to filmmakers, with perhaps the best adaptation of the subject of Cassandra’s clairvoyance being Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. Loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s 1956 short story The Minority Report, the plot presents a version of the Cassandra myth, in which a woman together with male twins operate as a group mind to predict future crimes. Their visions are used by the state to prevent the crimes and imprison the would-be criminals. This article offers a thorough analysis of all the ancient and modern features of the metaphor of Cassandra employed in this movie within the overarching framework of the central theme of free will vs. determinism. According to this approach, the central theme is examined with reference to ancient Aristotelian and Stoic moral philosophy, the modern feminist psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein, and the political philosophy and legal issues in the post-9/11 world.

The extended Moral Foundations Dictionary (eMFD): Development and applications of a crowd-sourced approach to extracting moral intuitions from text.

Moral intuitions are a central motivator in human behavior. Recent work highlights the importance of moral intuitions for understanding a wide range of issues ranging from online radicalization to vaccine hesitancy. Extracting and analyzing moral content in messages, narratives, and other forms of public discourse is a critical step toward understanding how the psychological influence of moral judgments unfolds at a global scale. Extant approaches for extracting moral content are limited in their ability to capture the intuitive nature of moral sensibilities, constraining their usefulness for understanding and predicting human moral behavior. Here we introduce the extended Moral Foundations Dictionary (eMFD), a dictionary-based tool for extracting moral content from textual corpora. The eMFD, unlike previous methods, is constructed from text annotations generated by a large sample of human coders. We demonstrate that the eMFD outperforms existing approaches in a variety of domains. We anticipate that the eMFD will contribute to advance the study of moral intuitions and their influence on social, psychological, and communicative processes.

Mencius’s Four Sprouts and Moral Modularity Hypothesis

이 글은 맹자가 제시한 사단/사덕의 조합을 도덕 모듈성(MMM)의 하나로 간주하고 이를 사회적 직관주의자 모듈성(SIM)과 비교하는 것을 목표로 한다. 이러한 비교를 정당화하기 위해 몇 가지 주장에 대한 검토가 선행되어야 한다. (1) 도덕철학은 신경과학과 진화심리학을 기반으로 수행되는 도덕심리학적 연구성과를 적극적으로 반영하여야 한다. (2) 도덕심리학 연구의 중요한 쟁점 가운데 하나인 도덕의 모듈성에 대한 논의는 도덕철학적으로 의의가 있다. (3) 도덕의 모듈성을 논하기 위해 모듈성 자체에 대한 검토가 필요하다. 지금까지의 연구에 따르면 모듈성에 대한 일치된 합의는 없지만, 모듈성을 인정하는 측의 주장이 점차 더 많은 증거를 제시하는 추세이다. 검토 결과 가장 강력한 모듈성을 주장하는 SIM과 MMM을 비교함으로써 몇 가지 사실들이 드러났다. (1) 인/측은지심 모듈은 피해/배려 모듈에 대응된다. (2) 의/수오지심 모듈은 공정/상호성 및 순수/고귀 모듈에 대응된다. (3) 예/사양지심 모듈은 권위/존경 모듈에 대응된다. (4) SIM의 내집단/충성 모듈은 MMM 가운데 대응되는 모듈이 없다. 동중서가 맹자의 사덕 목록에 추가한 신(信)이 여기에 대응해 보인다. (5) 지/시비지심 모듈은 SIM 가운데 대응되는 모듈이 없다. SIM은 도덕적 판단과 행위 과정에서 직관이 주도적 역할을 하고 추론은 부수적 역할만 할 따름이라고 주장한다. 이에 따라 SIM은 도덕적 추론을 모듈의 목록에서 제외한다. MMM은 이와 달리 도덕적 추론을 의미하는 지/시비지심을 목록에 포함한다. 이로 인해 MMM은 세 개의 도덕 정서 모듈과 하나의 도덕이성 모듈로 구성된다. 정서와 이성을 하나의 모듈성에 포함시킴으로써 MMM의 모듈성으로서의 타당성은 의심받는다. 그러나 인간의 도덕적 행위와 판단이 정서만으로 형성되지 않고, 정서만으로 형성되어서도 안 된다는 측면에서 보면 이러한 결함은 오히려 MMM의 실질적 가치를 드러내는 것일 수 있다.This article aims to consider the combination of four sprouts/four virtues presented by Mencius as one of the moral modularity (Mencian Moral Modularity: MMM) and compare it with Social Intuitionist Modularity (SIM). In order to justify this comparison, several arguments need to be reviewed first: (1) Moral philosophy should actively reflect the results of moral psychological research based on neuroscience and evolutionary psychology; (2) the discussion of moral modularity, one of the major issues of moral psychology research, is of moral philosophical significance; and (3) to discuss the modularity of morality, it is necessary to examine the modularity itself. Research indicates that there is no consensus on modularity but claims of modularity tend to provide more and more evidence. The review arrives at the following findings by comparing MMM with the strongest modularity, SIM: (1) The benevolence/heart of compassion module corresponds to the harm/care module; (2) the righteousness/heart of the shame/disgust module corresponds to the fairness/reciprocity module and the purity/sanctity module; (3) the proprietary/heart of deference module corresponds to the authority/respect module; (4) the ingroup/loyalty module of SIM doesn t have a corresponding module in MMM; and (5) the wisdom/heart of approval and disapproval module doesn t have a corresponding module in SIM. SIM argues that intuition plays a leading role in moral judgment and action, while reason plays only a minor role. Accordingly, SIM excludes moral reason from the list of modules. MMM, on the other hand, contains the wisdom/heart of approval and disapproval module, which implies moral reasoning. As a result, MMM consists of three moral emotion modules and one moral reason module. By including emotion and reason in one modularity, the validity of MMM as a modularity is questioned. However, considering human moral behavior and judgment are not formed only by emotions and they should not be formed by emotions alone, this deficiency may reveal the real value of MMM.

To save or not to save your family member\u2019s life? Evolutionary stability of self-sacrificing life history strategy in monogamous sexual populations

BackgroundFor the understanding of human nature, the evolutionary roots of human moral behaviour are a key precondition. Our question is as follows: Can the altruistic moral rule “Risk your life to save your family members, if you want them to save your life” be evolutionary stable? There are three research approaches to investigate this problem: kin selection, group selection and population genetics modelling. The present study is strictly based on the last approach.ResultsWe consider monogamous and exogamous families, where at an autosomal locus, dominant-recessive alleles determine the phenotypes in a sexual population. Since all individuals’ survival rate is determined by their altruistic family members, we introduce a new population genetics model based on the mating table approach and adapt the verbal definition of evolutionary stability to genotypes. In general, when the resident is recessive, a homozygote is an evolutionarily stable genotype (ESG), if the number of survivors of the resident genotype of the resident homozygote family is greater than that of non-resident heterozygote survivors of the family of the resident homozygote and mutant heterozygote genotypes. Using the introduced genotype dynamics we proved that in the recessive case ESG implies local stability of the altruistic genotype. We apply our general ESG conditions for self-sacrificing life history strategy when the number of new-born offspring does not depend on interactions within the family and the interactions are additive. We find that in this case our ESG conditions give back Hamilton’s rule for evolutionary stability of the self-sacrificing life history strategy.ConclusionsIn spite of the fact that the kidney transplantations was not a selection factor during the earlier human evolution, nowadays “self-sacrificing” can be observed in the live donor kidney transplantations, when the donor is one of the family members. It seems that selection for self-sacrificing in family produced an innate moral tendency in modulating social cognition in human brain.

The Experimental Psychology of Moral Enhancement: We Should If We Could, But We Can't

AbstractIn this chapter we will review experimental evidence related to pharmacological moral enhancement. Firstly, we will present our recent study in which we found that a drug called propranolol could change moral judgements. Further research, which also investigated this, found similar results. Secondly, we will discuss the limitations of such approaches, when it comes to the idea of general “human enhancement”. Whilst promising effects on certain moral concepts might be beneficial to the development of theoretical moral psychology, enhancement of human moral behaviour in general – to our current understanding – has more side-effects than intended effects, making it potentially harmful. We give an overview of misconceptions when taking experimental findings beyond the laboratory and discuss the problems and solutions associated with the psychological assessment of moral behaviour. Indeed, how is morality “measured” in psychology, and are those measures reliable?

MAKING SENSE OF DARWIN THROUGH LENSES OF DEWEY

One of the most important debates in moral philosophy is about sources or foundations of human moral behavior. Different moral theories give us different explanations for human moral behavior. A considerable number of such theories argue that human moral behavior can be reduced to a set of founding principles. For these traditional accounts of morality, human conduct should be examined from a strictly foundationalist perspective. However, there is another and hardly a traditional line in which human moral behavior is a necessary by-product of and should be considered in reference to socialization. John Dewey, one of the important philosophers of this second line, defines the boundaries for this anti-foundationalist side of human morality. For him, morality does not have universal rules or sources and it is not something completely different from habit or custom. Keeping all this in mind, this study aims to employ Dewey’s ethical framework and his conception of morality to understand and evaluate current discussion in moral philosophy. The view evolutionary morality in general has some problems caused by the foundationalist attitude towards morality. It can be argued that a different reading of Darwinian evolutionary morality can help us to avoid taking human moral behavior as a direct consequence of biological determination and unpersuasive results of sociobiological account. In order to achieve this; this study reconsider the notion of altruistic behavior, which is one of the frequently revisited concepts of Darwinian evolutionary morality, in communication with Dewey’s ethical framework.

Caring for parents: an evolutionary rationale

BackgroundThe evolutionary roots of human moral behavior are a key precondition to understanding human nature. Investigations usually start with a social dilemma and end up with a norm that can provide some insight into the origin of morality. We take the opposite direction by investigating whether the cultural norm that promotes helping parents and which is respected in different variants across cultures and is codified in several religions can spread through Darwinian competition.ResultsWe show with a novel demographic model that the biological rule “During your reproductive period, give some of your resources to your post-fertile parents” will spread even if the cost of support given to post-fertile grandmothers considerably decreases the demographic parameters of fertile parents but radically increases the survival rate of grandchildren. The teaching of vital cultural content is likely to have been critical in making grandparental service valuable. We name this the Fifth Rule, after the Fifth Commandment that codifies such behaviors in Christianity.ConclusionsSelection for such behavior may have produced an innate moral tendency to honor parents even in situations, such as those experienced today, when the quantitative conditions would not necessarily favor the maintenance of this trait.

Moral Enhancement Should Target Self-Interest and Cognitive Capacity

Current suggestions for capacities that should be targeted for moral enhancement has centered on traits like empathy, fairness or aggression. The literature, however, lacks a proper model for understanding the interplay and complexity of moral capacities, which limits the practicability of proposed interventions. In this paper, I integrate some existing knowledge on the nature of human moral behavior and present a formal model of prosocial motivation. The model provides two important results regarding the most friction-free route to moral enhancement. First, we should consider decreasing self-interested motivation rather than increasing prosociality directly. Second, this should be complemented with cognitive enhancement. These suggestions are tested against existing and emerging evidence on cognitive capacity, mindfulness meditation and the effects of psychedelic drugs and are found to have sufficient grounding for further theoretical and empirical exploration. Furthermore, moral effects of the latter two are hypothesized to result from a diminished sense of self with subsequent reductions in self-interest.

Meat morals: relationship between meat consumption consumer attitudes towards human and animal welfare and moral behavior

The aim of this work is to explore the relation between morality and diet choice by investigating how animal and human welfare attitudes and donation behaviors can predict a meat eating versus flexitarian versus vegetarian diet. The results of a survey study (N=299) show that animal health concerns (measured by the Animal Attitude Scale) can predict diet choice. Vegetarians are most concerned, while full-time meat eaters are least concerned, and the contrast between flexitarians and vegetarians is greater than the contrast between flexitarians and full-time meat eaters.With regards to human welfare (measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire), results show that attitudes towards human suffering set flexitarians apart from vegetarians and attitudes towards authority and respect distinguish between flexitarians and meat eaters. To conclude, results show that vegetarians donate more often to animal oriented charities than flexitarians and meat eaters, while no differences between the three diet groups occur for donations to human oriented charities.

Opposing effects of oxytocin on moral judgment in males and females.

Current perspectives on the evolutionary roots of human morality suggest it arose to incentivize social cooperation by promoting feelings of disgust toward selfish behavior, although the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. To investigate whether the ancient mammalian neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) influences self-referential processing in the domains of emotion evaluation and moral decision making, we conducted a pharmaco-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a behavioral experiment involving 157 healthy women and men who were treated with either OXT (24 IU) or placebo (PLC) intranasally. Our results show that OXT facilitated cortical midline responses during self-processing of disgust and selectively promoted self-interest moral judgments in men. In contrast, in women OXT increased the reaction time difference between accepted and rejected moral dilemmas and led them to suppress their self-interest and respond more altruistically for the benefit of others. Taken together, these findings suggest an OXT-related sexual dimorphism in human moral behavior which evolved adaptively to optimize both protection and nurturing of offspring by promoting selfish behavior in men and altruistic behavior in women.

Agustín sobre el matrimonio. Una comparación del De bono coniugali y De nuptiis et concupiscentia

In recent literature, it has regularly been suggested that, in his later years, Augustine of Hippo became more and more pessimistic with regard to marriage and sexuality. At the same time, Augustine was praised for his nuanced view on this issue in about 401, when he developed a middle position between the optimistic approach of Jovinian and the rather denigrating view of Jerome with regard to marriage. While Jovinian was of the opinion that (because of baptism) a life in abstinence and marriage were equally meritorious, Jerome developed an outspoken and negative view on marriage in favor of the consecrated life. For his part, Augustine considered a life of abstinence as superior in comparison to marriage but explicitly stated that marriage was a bonum in its own right. In this contribution, it is made clear that the positions of Augustine in De bono coniugali (about 401) and De nuptiis et concupiscentia (418/19) are substantially the same. In other words, qualifications such as being wise or pessimistic do not really do justice to Augustine’s position, which remained the same through the years. In De nuptiis et concupiscentia, in the midst of the Pelagian controversy, Augustine made much more use of Scriptural texts in order to underpin his view on marriage and concupiscence in relation to the doctrine of original sin: in the controversy with Julian of Aeclanum he had to defend himself against accusations such as innovation and heresy. In the two works, the ethical criterion par excellence for the evaluation of human beings moral behavior remained the propter Deum attitude.

Natural normativity: The ‘is’ and ‘ought’ of animal behavior

The evolution of behavior is sometimes considered irrelevant to the issue of human morality, since it lacks the normative character of morality (‘ought’), and consist entirely of descriptions of how things are or came about (‘is’). Evolved behavior, including that of other animals, is not entirely devoid of normativity, however. Defining normativity as adherence to an ideal or standard, there is ample evidence that animals treat their social relationships in this manner. In other words, they pursue social values. Here I review evidence that nonhuman primates actively try to preserve harmony within their social network by, e.g., reconciling after conflict, protesting against unequal divisions, and breaking up fights amongst others. In doing so, they correct deviations from an ideal state. They further show emotional self-control and anticipatory conflict resolution in order to prevent such deviations. Recognition of the goal-orientation and normative character of animal social behavior permits us to partially bridge the is/ought divide erected in relation to human moral behavior.

Recognizing Nonhuman Morality

Claims that some sorts of genuine moral behavior exist in nonhuman beings are increasingly common. Many people, however, remain unconvinced, despite growing acceptance of the remarkable behavioral complexity of animals and despite the admission that there may be significant differences between human and nonhuman moral behav ior. This paper argues that the rejection of “moral animals” is misplaced. Yet at the same time, it attempts to show how the philosophical task of exhibiting the possibility of nonhuman moral behavior is often misguided, leaving claims about nonhuman morality unnecessarily exposed to philosophical rejection.

Activation of brain areas concerned with social cognition during moral decisions is abnormal in schizophrenia patients and unaffected siblings

Moral decision-making involves complex social cognitive processes which are known to be altered in patients with schizophrenia and first-degree relatives. Traditional philosophical views on human moral behavior have distinguished between utilitarian views (which emphasize outcomes) and deontological approaches (defining what is right to do according to certain norms). Since emotions have been suggested to play a determining role in moral behavior, we hypothesized patients with schizophrenia and unaffected siblings would make more utilitarian choices and show faulty activation of brain areas concerned with emotion regulation during such tasks. Unexpectedly, all participants (n = 13 per group) made the same proportion of utilitarian and deontological decisions. Brain activation common to all groups induced by moral decisions included two circumscribed portions of right ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, adding to previous evidence on a right prosencephalic cognitive network involved in ethical decisions. However, brain activation induced by moral decisions was different in healthy persons, schizophrenia patients, and nonpsychotic siblings in regards to areas directly concerned with emotion processing. These results seem to underscore the role of acquired norms in moral decisions, a frequently overlooked concept in the neurobiological characterization of human ethical behavior, and add to previous evidence of abnormal social cognitive processing in schizophrenia.

Mode of Effective Connectivity within a Putative Neural Network Differentiates Moral Cognitions Related to Care and Justice Ethics

BackgroundMoral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition.Methodology/Principal FindingsModel-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability.Conclusions/SignificanceThese results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses.