An recent article in the journal Nature (see this post for a description) described research with people who have damage to a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. When researchers described scenarios with moral dilemmas where subjects would have to decide between saving one person at the expense of many, the subjects with brain damage would consistently save the many at the expense of the one.
For example, one dilemma involved a lifeboat in danger of sinking with too many people. One person is injured and likely would not survive anyway. Eighty percent of the brain-damaged individuals would throw the injured person overboard, whereas only about twenty percent of normal persons decided to sacrifice the one person. Non-damaged individuals took much longer to decide these kinds of dilemmas and did not make their decisions numerically.
As the L.A. Times put it when describing this story, “Empathy is hard-wired into the mind”. Humans are normally able to put themselves into the shoes of another person. Normal individuals do not simply use cost-benefit arithmetic to decide moral dilemmas. Empathetic persons struggle with decisions where the welfare of others are involved. That might make our lives and decisions more difficult, but it also makes us better people.
Interestingly, the NY Times pointed out that this area of the brain “evolved before the higher brain regions responsible for analysis and planning.” Perhaps humans are not the only ones capable of compassionate thinking and behavior?
Reference: Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements. Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser, Antonio Damasio. Nature 446, 908 – 911 (19 Apr 2007) Letters to Editor. Also discussed in New York Times, March 22, 2007.
