Anthony CorreaStephanie Regan

Kasha Geels

Moral JudgmentsBroadly defined as evaluative judgments of

the appropriateness of one’s behavior within the context of socialized perceptions of right and wrong (Moll et al. 2005)

Development of Thinking about Moral JudgmentMoral judgments have been thought to rely

solely on controlled, rational, and logical thought processes (Kohlberg, 1969; Turiel, 1983).

More recent research includes an emotional component in moral judgments as well. Some argue for the belief that moral judgments are direct products of implicit processes (e.g. guilt, compassion; compete and interact to guide morality without having conscious awareness that this is taking place).

“Moral intuitions”

Moral EmotionsDerive from self consciousness and

evaluationImplicit processes Examples are guilt; compassion

Controlled Cognitive ProcessesThey play a role in moral judgment only when

situational demand necessitates them (e.g. moral dilemma)

Explicit processing

Dual Process and Interactionist Models of Moral JudgmentDual Process – implicit and explicit processes

both form moral judgments and often compete against one another

Interactionist – believes that moral judgments are formed by the integration of social contextual knowledge, social semantic knowledge, and basic motivational and emotional drives.

Table 1 Summarized5 types of moral judgments accessed:

Impersonal moral dilemmasPersonal moral dilemmasViolation of social normsSocial affective situationsIntent involved in situations that engender self-

benefitThe moral judgment is the resolution to the

dilemmas.

Brain FunctionWe know where the processing center of neural

thought takes place, it is in the Basal Ganglia where the caudate is transmitting continuously between its Two spheres.

The Fornix which retains working memory and long term episodic memory trigger like in PTSD, borders the Basal Ganglia and the Cingulate Gyrus.

The Caudate is proximal to the fornix share transmission.

The Anterior Cingulate Cortex is a Hub for signal distribution, highly active in attention, perception, social cognition and moral judgment.

The emotional component resides in the Amygdala which is directly linked to the Basal Ganglia therefore the pathway would progress anterior toward PFC.

Regions of Prefrontal Cortex

Brain Regions

Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex VMPFC

Function of PFCThe area associated with cognitive and

executive functionPFC segmented into DLPFC, VLPFC, VMPFC,

DMPFC, OFC regions. Medial and Orbital Frontal regions hubs for

integrating emotional and viscerally arousing information

Fusiform face area – neural mechanism dedicated to perception of faces

DLPFC involved in “working memory?” Is according to the article involved in receiving

emotional and visceral arousing information from the medial and orbital frontal region of the brain.

Given the top down afferent transmission in relation to the Basal Ganglia this remains speculative.

Through proximity DLPFC gathers information from the somatosensory and motor cortices.

Reasoning the Striatum of the Basal Ganglia is where the stop/go mechanism resides

Basal Ganglia transmission pathway

Pyramid Neuron

Pyramid Cells