Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:58:51.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

25 - Moral Reasoning: A Network Neuroscience Perspective

from Part III - Intentionality-Based Forms of the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
Evan D. Anderson  and
Aron K. Barbey
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Get access

Summary

Through imagining possible actions and considering their consequences, we are able to reason about the morality of behavior – judging whether an action is morally right or wrong. Neuroscience research indicates that moral reasoning depends on a complex, broadly distributed network of brain regions that interact in a both cooperative and competitive manner. Understanding the underlying neurobiology that governs how these regions dynamically interact to produce patterns of behavior is therefore of interest to the field. Currently, prominent theories suggest that moral judgments (consequentialist or deontological) are the product of two distinct cognitive systems (i.e. a dual-process framework). Network neuroscience, an emerging field that measures and interprets brain activity through the framework of modern network science, is positioned to expand our understanding of this dual-process framework by examining how topological properties of networks influence consequentialist and deontological reasoning, and how these two processing systems interact in order to imagine hypothetical scenarios during complex deontological reasoning tasks. In this chapter, we review evidence from neuroscience that bears on our understanding of the dual-process moral reasoning framework and advance a network neuroscience perspective on the neurobiological substrates that underlie it.

Keywords

Moral reasoningnetwork neurosciencemodel-basedmodel-freedual-processnetwork control theory
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 406 - 424
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barbey, A. K. (2018). Network Neuroscience Theory of Human Intelligence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 8–20.Google Scholar
Barbey, A. K., Colom, R., Paul, E. J., and Grafman, J. (2014). Architecture of Fluid Intelligence and Working Memory Revealed by Lesion Mapping. Brain Structure & Function, 219(2), 485–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bassett, D. S., and Sporns, O. (2017). Network Neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience, 20(3), 353–364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benoit, R. G., Szpunar, K. K., and Schacter, D. L. (2014). Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Supports Affective Future Simulation by Integrating Distributed Knowledge. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(46), 16550–16555.Google Scholar
Betzel, R. F., Gu, S., Medaglia, J. D., Pasqualetti, F., and Bassett, D. S. (2016). Optimally Controlling the Human Connectome: The Role of Network Topology. Scientific Reports, 6, 30770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braun, U., Schäfer, A., Walter, H., et al. (2015). Dynamic Reconfiguration of Frontal Brain Networks during Executive Cognition in Humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(37), 11678–11683.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bressler, S. L., and Menon, V. (2010). Large-Scale Brain Networks in Cognition: Emerging Methods and Principles. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(6), 277–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bullmore, E., and Sporns, O. (2012). The Economy of Brain Network Organization. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13, 336–349.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carmichael, S. T., and Price, J. L. (1995). Limbic Connections of the Orbital and Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Macaque Monkeys. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 363(4), 615–641.Google Scholar
Chiong, W., Wilson, S. M., D’Esposito, M., et al. (2013). The Salience Network Causally Influences Default Mode Network Activity during Moral Reasoning. Brain, 136(6), 1929–1941.Google Scholar
Chuang, C.-C., and Sun, C.-W. (2014). Gender-Related Effects of Prefrontal Cortex Connectivity: A Resting-State Functional Optical Tomography Study. Biomedical Optics Express, 5(8), 2503–2516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ciaramelli, E., Muccioli, M., Làdavas, E., and di Pellegrino, G. (2007). Selective Deficit in Personal Moral Judgment Following Damage to Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2(2), 84–92.Google Scholar
Cima, M., Tonnaer, F., and Hauser, M. D. (2010). Psychopaths Know Right from Wrong but Don’t Care. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(1), 59–67.Google Scholar
Cohen, , Jonathan, D. (2005). The Vulcanization of the Human Brain: A Neural Perspective on Interactions between Cognition and Emotion. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(4), 3–24.Google Scholar
Cole, M. W., Bassett, D. S., Power, J. D., Braver, T. S., and Petersen, S. E. (2014). Intrinsic and Task-Evoked Network Architectures of the Human Brain. Neuron, 83(1), 238–251.Google Scholar
Cole, M. W., Ito, T., Bassett, D. S., and Schultz, D. H. (2016). Activity Flow over Resting-State Networks Shapes Cognitive Task Activations. Nature Neuroscience, 19(12), 1718–1726.Google Scholar
Cole, M. W., Yarkoni, T., Repovs, G., Anticevic, A., and Braver, T. S. (2012). Global Connectivity of Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Cognitive Control and Intelligence. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(26), 8988–8999.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crockett, M. J. (2013). Models of Morality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(8), 363–366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cushman, F. (2013). Action, Outcome, and Value: A Dual-System Framework for Morality. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 17(3), 273–292.Google Scholar
Daw, N. D., Gershman, S. J., Seymour, B., Dayan, P., and Dolan, R. J. (2011). Model-Based Influences on Humans’ Choices and Striatal Prediction Errors. Neuron, 69(6), 1204–1215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dayan, P. (2012). How to Set the Switches on this Thing. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 22(6), 1068–1074.Google Scholar
Dayan, P., and Berridge, K. C. (2014). Model-Based and Model-Free Pavlovian Reward Learning: Revaluation, Revision and Revelation. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 14(2), 473–492.Google Scholar
Domenech, P., Redouté, J., Koechlin, E., and Dreher, J.-C. (2018). The Neuro-Computational Architecture of Value-Based Selection in the Human Brain. Cerebral Cortex, 28(2), 585–601.Google Scholar
Dosenbach, N. U. F., Fair, D. A., Cohen, A. L., Schlaggar, B. L., and Petersen, S. E. (2008). A Dual-Networks Architecture of Top-Down Control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(3), 99–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Economides, M., Kurth-Nelson, Z., Lübbert, A., Guitart-Masip, M., and Dolan, R. J. (2015). Model-Based Reasoning in Humans Becomes Automatic with Training. PLOS Computational Biology, 11(9), e1004463.Google Scholar
Evans, J. S., (2008). Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition. The Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 255–278.Google Scholar
Everitt, B. J., Morris, K. A., O’Brien, A., and Robbins, T. W. (1991). The Basolateral Amygdala-Ventral Striatal System and Conditioned Place Preference: Further Evidence of Limbic-Striatal Interactions Underlying Reward-Related Processes. Neuroscience, 42(1), 1–18.Google Scholar
Friesdorf, R., Conway, P., and Gawronski, B. (2015). Gender Differences in Responses to Moral Dilemmas: A Process Dissociation Analysis. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(5), 696–713.Google Scholar
Gallos, L. K., Makse, H. A., and Sigman, M. (2012). A Small World of Weak Ties Provides Optimal Global Integration of Self-Similar Modules in Functional Brain Networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(8), 2825–2830.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garrigan, B., Adlam, A. L. R., and Langdon, P. E. (2016). The Neural Correlates of Moral Decision-Making: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Moral Evaluations and Response Decision Judgements. Brain and Cognition, 108, 88–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gläscher, J., Adolphs, R., Damasio, H., et al. (2012). Lesion Mapping of Cognitive Control and Value-Based Decision Making in the Prefrontal Cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(36), 14681–14686.Google Scholar
Gläscher, J., Daw, N., Dayan, P., and O’Doherty, J. P. (2010). States versus Rewards: Dissociable Neural Prediction Error Signals Underlying Model-Based and Model-Free Reinforcement Learning. Neuron, 66(4), 585–595.Google Scholar
Gray, R. T., and Robinson, P. A. (2013). Stability Constraints on Large-Scale Structural Brain Networks. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 7.Google Scholar
Greene, J. D. (2017). The Rat-a-Gorical Imperative: Moral Intuition and the Limits of Affective Learning. Cognition, 167, 66–77.Google Scholar
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., and Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105–2108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gu, S., Pasqualetti, F., Cieslak, M., et al. (2015). Controllability of Structural Brain Networks. Nature Communications, 6(1), 1–10.Google Scholar
Hare, T. A., Camerer, C. F., and Rangel, A. (2009). Self-Control in Decision-Making Involves Modulation of the vmPFC Valuation System. Science (New York, N.Y.), 324(5927), 646–648.Google Scholar
Harenski, C. L., Antonenko, O., Shane, M. S., and Kiehl, K. A. (2010). A Functional Imaging Investigation of Moral Deliberation and Moral Intuition. NeuroImage, 49(3), 2707–2716.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jeurissen, D., Sack, A. T., Roebroeck, A., Russ, B. E., and Pascual-Leone, A. (2014). TMS Affects Moral Judgment, Showing the Role of DLPFC and TPJ in Cognitive and Emotional Processing. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 8.Google Scholar
Kédia, G., Berthoz, S., Wessa, M., Hilton, D., and Martinot, J.-L. (2008). An Agent Harms a Victim: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study on Specific Moral Emotions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(10), 1788–1798.Google Scholar
Kerr, D. L., McLaren, D. G., Mathy, R. M., and Nitschke, J. B. (2012). Controllability Modulates the Anticipatory Response in the Human Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koch, K., Pauly, K., Kellermann, T., et al. (2007). Gender Differences in the Cognitive Control of Emotion: An fMRI Study. Neuropsychologia, 45(12), 2744–2754.Google Scholar
Koenigs, M. (2012). The Role of Prefrontal Cortex in Psychopathy. Reviews in the Neurosciences, 23(3), 253.Google Scholar
Koenigs, M., Kruepke, M., Zeier, J., and Newman, J. P. (2012). Utilitarian Moral Judgment in Psychopathy. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(6), 708–714.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., et al. (2007). Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgements. Nature, 446(7138), 908–911.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kogler, L., Müller, V. I., Seidel, E.-M., et al. (2016). Sex Differences in the Functional Connectivity of the Amygdalae in Association with Cortisol. NeuroImage, 134, 410–423.Google Scholar
Levy, D. J., and Glimcher, P. W. (2012). The Root of All Value: A Neural Common Currency for Choice. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 22(6), 1027–1038.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Medaglia, J. D., Satterthwaite, T. D., Kelkar, A., et al. (2018). Brain State Expression and Transitions Are Related to Complex Executive Cognition in Normative Neurodevelopment. NeuroImage, 166, 293–306.Google Scholar
Mendez, M. F., and Shapira, J. S. (2009). Altered Emotional Morality in Frontotemporal Dementia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 14(3), 165–179.Google Scholar
Meunier, D., Lambiotte, R., and Bullmore, E. T. (2010). Modular and Hierarchically Modular Organization of Brain Networks. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 4, 200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, J., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Zahn, R., and Grafman, J. (2008). The Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Emotions. In Sinnott-Armstrong, W (ed.), Moral Psychology, Vol 3. The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1–17.Google Scholar
Morgane, P. J., Galler, J. R., and Mokler, D. J. (2005). A Review of Systems and Networks of the Limbic Forebrain/Limbic Midbrain. Progress in Neurobiology, 75(2), 143–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Motzkin, J. C., Newman, J. P., Kiehl, K. A., and Koenigs, M. (2011). Reduced Prefrontal Connectivity in Psychopathy. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(48), 17348–17357.Google Scholar
Østby, Y., Walhovd, K., Tamnes, C., et al. (2012). Mental Time Travel and Default-Mode Network Functional Connectivity in the Developing Brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109, 16800–16804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pascual, L., Rodrigues, P., and Gallardo-Pujol, D. (2013). How Does Morality Work in the Brain? A Functional and Structural Perspective of Moral Behavior. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 7, 65.Google Scholar
Pessoa, L. (2008). On the Relationship between Emotion and Cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(2), 148–158.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Polanía, R., Moisa, M., Opitz, A., Grueschow, M., and Ruff, C. C. (2015). The Precision of Value-Based Choices Depends Causally on Fronto-Parietal Phase Coupling. Nature Communications, 6, 8090.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Power, J. D., Cohen, A. L., Nelson, S. M., et al. (2011). Functional Network Organization of the Human Brain. Neuron, 72(4), 665–678.Google Scholar
Raine, A., and Yang, Y. (2006). Neural Foundations to Moral Reasoning and Antisocial Behavior. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(3), 203–213.Google Scholar
Rajmohan, V., and Mohandas, E. (2007). The Limbic System. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 49(2), 132–139.Google Scholar
Rangel, A., and Hare, T. (2010). Neural Computations Associated with Goal-Directed Choice. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 20(2), 262–270.Google Scholar
Roy, M., Shohamy, D., and Wager, T. (2012). Ventromedial Prefrontal-Subcortical Systems and the Generation of Affective Meaning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(3), 147–156.Google Scholar
Schneider, K., Pauly, K. D., Gossen, A., et al. (2013). Neural Correlates of Moral Reasoning in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(6), 702–710.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sescousse, G., Caldú, X., Segura, B., and Dreher, J.-C. (2013). Processing of Primary and Secondary Rewards: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis and Review of Human Functional Neuroimaging Studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(4).Google Scholar
Shenhav, A., and Greene, J. D. (2014). Integrative Moral Judgment: Dissociating the Roles of the Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(13), 4741–4749.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shine, J. M., Bissett, P. G., Bell, P.T., et al. (2016). The Dynamics of Functional Brain Networks: Integrated Network States during Cognitive Task Performance. Neuron, 92(2), 544–554.Google Scholar
Sporns, O., Tononi, G., and Edelman, G. M. (2000). Theoretical Neuroanatomy: Relating Anatomical and Functional Connectivity in Graphs and Cortical Connection Matrices. Cerebral Cortex, 10(2), 127–141.Google Scholar
Spreng, R. N., Stevens, W. D., Chamberlain, J. P., Gilmore, A. W., and Schacter, D. L. (2010). Default Network Activity, Coupled with the Frontoparietal Control Network, Supports Goal-Directed Cognition. NeuroImage, 53(1), 303–317.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. J. (1985). The Trolley Problem. The Yale Law Journal, 94(6), 1395–1415.Google Scholar
Tomasi, D., and Volkow, N. D. (2012). Gender Differences in Brain Functional Connectivity Density. Human Brain Mapping, 33(4), 849–860.Google Scholar
van den Heuvel, M. P., Stam, C. J., Kahn, R. S., and Hulshoff Pol, H. E. (2009). Efficiency of Functional Brain Networks and Intellectual Performance. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(23), 7619–7624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vincent, J. L., Kahn, I., Snyder, A. Z., Raichle, M. E., and Buckner, R. L. (2008). Evidence for a Frontoparietal Control System Revealed by Intrinsic Functional Connectivity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 100(6), 3328–3342.Google Scholar
Welborn, B. L., Papademetris, X., Reis, D. L., et al. (2009). Variation in Orbitofrontal Cortex Volume: Relation to Sex, Emotion Regulation and Affect. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 4(4), 328–339.Google Scholar
Wunderlich, K., Dayan, P., and Dolan, R. J. (2012). Mapping Value Based Planning and Extensively Trained Choice in the Human Brain. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 786–791.Google Scholar
Yeo, B. T. T., Krienen, F. M., Eickhoff, S. B., et al. (2015). Functional Specialization and Flexibility in Human Association Cortex. Cerebral Cortex (New York, NY), 25(10), 3654–3672.Google Scholar
Yeo, B. T. T., Krienen, F. M., Sepulcre, J., et al. (2011). The Organization of the Human Cerebral Cortex Estimated by Intrinsic Functional Connectivity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 106(3), 1125–1165.Google Scholar
Young, L., and Dungan, J. (2012). Where in the Brain is Morality? Everywhere and Maybe Nowhere. Social Neuroscience, 7(1), 1–10.Google Scholar
Young, L., and Saxe, R. (2008). The Neural Basis of Belief Encoding and Integration in Moral Judgment. NeuroImage, 40(4), 1912–1920.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×