Neuroscience and morals
There are always different ways of looking at things. The question of whether there is an aspect of human consciousness which transcends the purely physiological approach to human consciousness which, in essence, could be described in terms of "higher moral" functions, or perhaps even "divine" characteristics of human beings would seem to me a different and interesting point of view.
First, it should be noted that the human brain is incredibly complex. Obviously, there isn’t a specific ‘moral’ region of the brain that processes information relative to all situations that involve morals. Different situations seem to often produce different ways of processing information. Nowhere could that be clearer than when it comes to group related processes. Social processes frequently engage the ventromedial prefrontal cortex which has pathways to the amygdala and appear to have the capacity to moderate the strong emotional processes generated by the amygdala. Inter-group conflict however tends to show no restraint whcih would on the face of it explain the 10 or so genocides since World War I. Neuroscience has identified 360 distinct regions of the human brain. Different regions of the brain perform different functions and, generally, as a rule of thumb, one region of the brain actively works in tandem with other regions of the brain on the same problem. I should preface the description of the neuroscientists’ experiments and conclusions, by pointing out that emotions, in general, in psychology, are viewed as the more primitive processes in the human mind.
The neuroscientist, Joshua Greene, and his colleagues, performed some fascinating experiments that focused on how the brain processes moral dilemmas and situations. While subjects were asked questions relating to moral dilemmas, the subjects were undergoing MRI scanning to see which parts of the brain were active. The dilemmas presented were similar to the trolley dilemma and the footbridge dilemmas.
The Trolley Dilemma
“A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save these people is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto a side track where it will run over and kill one person instead of five. Is it okay to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one?” (p. 58 neuro and moral) The consensus of philosophers and people tested experimentally was “that it is morally acceptable to save five lives at the expense of one in this case.” (p. 58) A corollary of the trolley dilemma is the footbridge dilemma.
The Footbridge Dilemma
“As before, a runaway trolley threatens to kill five people, but this time you are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge spanning the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. The only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks below. He will die as a result, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Is it okay to save the five people by pushing the stranger to his death?
Hypothesis and Conclusions:
Before the experiments were run, Greene and his colleagues hypothesized that the footbridge dilemma would show more activity “in the brain regions associated with emotional response and social cognition,” (p 59) because it was ‘up-close and personal’ and it involved interpersonal violence. They believed the more impersonal trolley dilemma, in contrast, would involve systems related to “higher cognition.” (p 59)
That was precisely what they found. In the more impersonal trolley dilemma there was “relatively greater neural activity in two classically ‘cognitive’ brain areas.” (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior parietal lobe). (p 60) In the up-close and personl footbridge dilemma, “Contemplation of personal moral dilemmas produced relatively greater activity in three emotion related area.” (p.59) (posterior cingulate cortex, the medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala)
Some Moral Questions
Those dilemmas pose some interesting questions. I'm always curious as to how others' think and view things, I posed the dilemma to my friends and family. My son, Teddy, said he wouldn’t make a decision at all, because he didn’t have the right to make a decision in that he didn’t have enough information or facts about the people involved. My son, Stephen asked if he liked any of the five people. My sister, Perry, found the question which involved even the "hypothetical" death of people so disturbing, that she simply would not answer at all. After considering the dilemmas, a question very relevant to the situation did finally cross my mind: “What if the one person was actually my mother?” The consensus of the philosophers consulted and of the subjects tested experimentally is “that it is morally acceptable to save five lives at the expense of one in this case.” (p. 58)
A Divine Instinct?
A strict purely “logical” analysis of the two dilemmas would necessarily produce a conclusion that there is no difference between the footbridge dilemma and the trolley dilemma. In both cases, intervention causes the death of one person and saves the lives of five people. While the majority of subjects involved in the experiment concluded it was OK to switch the tracks resulting in the death of one person, the consensus in the footbridge dilemma was that it is not okay to push the stranger onto the tracks.
In explaining the difference Greene argued that an innate predisposition to avoid interpersonal violence accounts for the difference. That is, humans have an instinct to resist interpersonal violence. The footbridge dilemma involved a situation which is “up close and personal,” and people naturally tend to shy away from overt violence. An emotional judgment, as in the activation of the posterior cingulate cortex in the footbridge dilemma largely determined the responses.
While emotions and instincts are generally associated with aggression, it would seem that in some situations, emotions and instincts, including compassion, can be very creative, beneficial, and positively productive forces in human consciousness. Ramachandran, the eminent neuroscientist argues that emotions, in humans, can actually be rather sophisticated tools for problem solving and behavior.
A Detailed and Technical Analysis
In the footbridge dilemma, “Contemplation of personal moral dilemmas produced relatively greater activity in three emotion related area:” the posterior cingulate cortex, the medial prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala. (p.59) The technical analysis of that statement would be:
1. The posterior cingulate is heavily implicated in determining emotional salience and is the central node of the Default Mode Network. The Default Mode Network has been correlated to a number of tasks such as “mind reading involved in theory of mind tasks, assessing “future” possibilities, solving moral conundrums (p 200 feeling brain)
2. The amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex: plays a significant role in a great many different processes and systems. While the amygdala identifies some reward situations, the most important function of the amygdala is to assess threats. The amygdala is the town watchman that sounds the alarm when it perceives a threat. The amygdala plays a significant role in instigating the emotional reactions associated with anger and violence. The ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex’s is one of the few regions in the prefrontal cortex which has pathways ‘down’ to the amygdala, so the vmPFC plays a part in preventing anger and violence.
3. To my knowledge, in the vast majority of cases, the different regions of the brain most frequently work in tandem. In the case of the footbridge dilemma Greene and colleagues found that the medial prefrontal cortex was involved in the brain's processing of that particular situation. Now, I do know that the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex is one of the regions in the prefrontal cortex that does have distinct neural pathways down to the amygdala. It is believed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex does exercise some influence on the amygdala. So, in all truth, it is likely that the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex were working in tandem.
The human brain is unbelievably complex, and, further, the nexus of spirituality and psychology has got to be the most intricately connected labyrinth or matrix of needs, drives, thoughts, and emotions. Unfortunately with the prejudices and biases of psychologists, the issue of spirituality got pretty badly screwed up. here is a link to that issue: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/how-psychology-got-spirituality-and-religious-beliefs-pretty-s...
Content Copyrighted Charles E Peck Jr. Copyright ©
References and Footnotes
The Center for Compassion And Altruism Research And
Education:
http://ccare.stanford.edu/
John Bargh, PhD:
http://bargh.socialpsychology.org/
Viktor Frankl:
http://www.viktor-frankl.com/
Roy Baumeister:
http://www.roybaumeister.com/
Roy Baumeister: https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeisterr/baumeister.dp.php
Dr. Paul Wong: http://www.drpaulwong.com/
Clifford Geertz:
https://www.biography.com/people/clifford-geertz-9308224
Carl Jung: https://www.biography.com/people/carl-jung-9359134
Emile Durkheim:
http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/
William James:
https://www.biography.com/people/william-james-9352726
Dr. Harold Koenig Director, Center for Spirituality,
Theology and Health: https://spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/index.php/harold-g-koenig-m-d
Dr. Koenig on what spirituality can do for you: https://www.beliefnet.com/wellness/health/2006/05/what-religion-can-do-for-your-health.aspx
Anthropologist Malinowski: http://anthrotheory.wikia.com/wiki/Bronislaw_
MalinowskiSocial Anthropology - Malinowski: http://scihi.org/bronislaw-malinowski-social-anthropology/
Konrad Lorenz: https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/scientist/konrad_lorenz.html
Konrad Lorenz: http://www.famouspsychologists.org/konrad-lorenz/