Helion Chelsea, Ochsner Kevin N
Columbia University.
Neuroethics. 2018 Oct;11(3):297-308. doi: 10.1007/s12152-016-9261-z. Epub 2016 May 5.
Moral judgment has typically been characterized as a conflict between emotion and reason. In recent years, a central concern has been determining which process is the chief contributor to moral behavior. While classic moral theorists claimed that moral evaluations stem from consciously controlled cognitive processes, recent research indicates that affective processes may be driving moral behavior. Here, we propose a new way of thinking about emotion within the context of moral judgment, one in which affect is generated and transformed by both automatic and controlled processes, and moral evaluations are shifted accordingly. We begin with a review of how existing theories in psychology and neuroscience address the interaction between emotion and cognition, and how these theories may inform the study of moral judgment. We then describe how brain regions involved in both affective processing and moral judgment overlap and may make distinct contributions to the moral evaluation process. Finally, we discuss how this way of thinking about emotion can be reconciled with current theories in moral psychology before mapping out future directions in the study of moral behavior.
道德判断通常被描述为情感与理性之间的冲突。近年来，一个核心关注点一直是确定哪个过程是道德行为的主要促成因素。虽然经典道德理论家声称道德评价源于有意识控制的认知过程，但最近的研究表明，情感过程可能在驱动道德行为。在此，我们提出一种在道德判断背景下思考情感的新方式，在这种方式中，情感由自动和受控过程产生并转变，道德评价也相应地发生变化。我们首先回顾心理学和神经科学中的现有理论如何处理情感与认知之间的相互作用，以及这些理论如何为道德判断的研究提供信息。然后，我们描述涉及情感处理和道德判断的脑区如何重叠，以及它们可能如何对道德评价过程做出不同贡献。最后，在规划道德行为研究的未来方向之前，我们讨论这种思考情感的方式如何与当前道德心理学理论相协调。
