Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA02467, USA.
Soc Neurosci. 2012;7(1):1-10. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2011.569146. Epub 2011 Jun 12.
The neuroscience of morality has focused on how morality works and where it is in the brain. In tackling these questions, researchers have taken both domain-specific and domain-general approaches-searching for neural substrates and systems dedicated to moral cognition versus characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes. Where in the brain is morality? On one hand, morality is made up of complex cognitive processes, deployed across many domains and housed all over the brain. On the other hand, no neural substrate or system that uniquely supports moral cognition has been found. In this review, we will discuss early assumptions of domain-specificity in moral neuroscience as well as subsequent investigations of domain-general contributions, taking emotion and social cognition (i.e., theory of mind) as case studies. Finally, we will consider possible cognitive accounts of a domain-specific morality: Does uniquely moral cognition exist?
道德神经科学的重点是道德是如何运作的，以及它在大脑中的哪个部位。在解决这些问题时，研究人员采取了特定领域和一般领域的方法——寻找专门用于道德认知的神经基质和系统，而不是描述一般领域过程的贡献。道德在大脑的哪个部位？一方面，道德是由复杂的认知过程组成的，这些过程分布在许多领域，并遍布整个大脑。另一方面，还没有发现任何专门支持道德认知的神经基质或系统。在这篇综述中，我们将讨论道德神经科学中特定领域假设的早期假设，以及对一般领域贡献的后续研究，以情绪和社会认知（即心理理论）为例。最后，我们将考虑一种特定领域道德的可能认知解释：是否存在独特的道德认知？
