2001/09/14 by Joshua D. Greene, R. Brian Sommerville, Leigh E. Nystrom +2 · 34 citations
Medicine · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Context (archaeology) #Epistemology #Functional magnetic resonance imaging #Moral behavior #Moral development #Moral dilemma #Moral disengagement #Moral psychology #Moral reasoning #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Neuroscience #Philosophy #Psychology #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments #Social cognitive theory of morality #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1062872
openalex publication_date 2001/09/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
The long-standing rationalist tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment. A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. Although both reason and emotion are likely to play important roles in moral judgment, relatively little is known about their neural correlates, the nature of their interaction, and the factors that modulate their respective behavioral influences in the context of moral judgment. In two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using moral dilemmas as probes, we apply the methods of cognitive neuroscience to the study of moral judgment. We argue that moral dilemmas vary systematically in the extent to which they engage emotional processing and that these variations in emotional engagement influence moral judgment. These results may shed light on some puzzling patterns in moral judgment observed by contemporary philosophers.