Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Nuffield Division Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK.
Cognition. 2013 Mar;126(3):364-72. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.11.002. Epub 2012 Dec 29.
Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with 'psychoticism', a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with 'need for cognition', a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others.
近期有关道德决策的研究表明，许多常见的道德判断都是基于即时直觉。然而，一些人在何时伤害他人是被允许的这个问题上得出了高度违背直觉的功利主义结论。这种功利主义判断归因于克服了我们对伤害他人的自然情感厌恶的费力推理。然而，最近的研究表明，这种功利主义判断也可能是由于对伤害他人的厌恶程度降低而产生的，这是由于共情关注和社会情感的缺陷所致。本研究使用功能神经影像学来研究在参与道德困境时对伤害产生这种漠不关心的神经基础。反直觉功利主义判断的倾向与“精神病态”有关，这是一种缺乏共情关注和反社会倾向的特质，以及与“认知需求”有关，这是一种反映对费力认知偏好的特质。重要的是，只有精神病态与在反直觉功利主义判断时扣带回前皮质（SCC）的激活呈负相关，SCC 是一个与共情关注和内疚等社会情感有关的大脑区域。我们的研究结果表明，当个人得出高度违背直觉的功利主义结论时，这不一定反映出他们更深入地参与了明确的道德思考。这可能反映出缺乏共情关注和对伤害他人的厌恶程度降低。
