Is morality just brain chemistry?

[Nikki Stone1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/science/22brain.html?ref=us

Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices

Damage to an area of the brain behind the forehead, inches behind the eyes, transforms the way people make moral judgments in life-or-death situations, scientists reported yesterday. In a new study, people with this rare injury expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others’ lives.

The findings are the most direct evidence that humans’ native revulsion to hurting others relies on a part of neural anatomy, one that evolved before the higher brain regions responsible for analysis and planning.

The researchers emphasize that the study was small and that the moral decisions were hypothetical; the results cannot predict how people with or without brain injuries will act in real life-or-death situations. Yet the findings, appearing online yesterday, in the journal Nature, confirm the central role of the damaged region, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is thought to give rise to social emotions, like compassion.

Previous studies showed that this region was active during moral decision making, and that damage to it and neighboring areas from severe dementia affected moral judgments. The new study seals the case by demonstrating that a very specific kind of emotion-based judgment is altered when the region is offline. In extreme circumstances, people with the injury will even endorse suffocating an infant if that would save more lives....

[Trajan]

1. Doesnt nearly EVERY aspect of human behaviour ...

rely on neural anatomy of one sort or another ? ...

Who could expect such a simple answer to an extremely complex question ?? ...

Morality is learned, and anything learned is 'neural', but so is breadmaking and poker playing ....

Humans who suffer brain damage could have a hard time seeing and touching cards, let alone playing them with skill ... 'Moral behaviour' would be no different ....

ALL behaviour can be reduced to 'brain chemistry' ... But to use this reductionist level as the only view would miss wholly different but equally valid high level representations of behaviour ...

[Kelly Rupert]

20. Not just "nearly." Every single. n/t

[Hosnon]

2. It may be simply brain chemistry but it is, in my opinion, dependent

upon human existence, i.e., no Forms.

I imagine that a strong self-defense drive was common before life evolved the ability to conduct complex cost/benefit analyses. If such a complex calculation could not be done, early humans conceivably had a powerful default position that encouraged protection of oneself and relatives/friends.

[Jonathan50]

3. People are far more morally flexible than you might think...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular to the real world circumstances of prison life and the effects of imposed social roles on behaviour. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. Undergraduate volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners living in a mock prison that was constructed in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their assigned roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to genuinely dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. Despite the now highly unsanitary and out of control conditions evident, only one of 50 observers, graduate interviewer Christina Maslach, objected to the experiment. Zimbardo then ended the experiment early.

The experiment, originally planned for two weeks, had to be ended after only six days..

A truly frightening view into the human psyche..

And for an even more disturbing view of human morality see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[wtmusic]

4. A silver lining to Milgram's experiment:

"Six years later (during the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was "glad" to have been involved despite the apparent levels of stress:

While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience..."

[eridani]

5. The other silver lining--

--another experiment showed that a single dissenting "Hell no I won't increase the voltage!" swayed many of the others to back off as well.

[wtmusic]

8. It would be interesting to stage the experiment like this:

Have a small group of people responsible for deciding whether or not to shock the subject. All but one are "in" on it--they all either don't mind giving the punishment, or protest vehemently against it.

I would guess the test individual would go along with the group in nearly every circumstance, regardless of how painful it might seem.

[Jonathan50]

9. Japanese aphorism

The nail which sticks up gets hammered down.

[fasttense]

13. I once saw a hidden camera experiment much like you describe.

I think it was on the learning channel (I tend to watch that often). They had ten people sitting in a room when the subject came in room. They would release smoke to make it appear as if the room was on fire. Or they would create some other kind of hazardous appearing environment. In most cases, if the other ten people did nothing and ignored the potentially hazardous situation, so did the subject. But a few took immediate action no matter what anyone else did.

It was interesting to see people who were clearly alarmed suppress their anxiety because others around them did the same thing. The group has a very profound influence on us.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. Interesting experiment

...

[Jonathan50]

7. What is war really?

It is violence which is endorsed and ordered by the political class.

What is murder really?

It is violence which is forbidden and condemned by the political class.

[wtmusic]

10. IMO a distinction must be made between defense vs aggression

Murder is always an aggressive act, while war is not. War was unavoidable for Iraqis.

[Jonathan50]

11. Carl von Clausewitz would disagree..

Clausewitz thought that confrontation only became war when the defender actively resisted the will of the attacker. The purpose of war is to force the enemy to do your bidding and if they do your bidding without your having to engage in violence then there is no war.

If the defense does not resist then there will be no violence, or at least a lot less violence.

If Saddam had surrendered and had his forces stand down, there would have been little killing.

It was the political class, ie Saddam, who created the conditions for war by actively resisting the American invasion.

Just as it was the political class, ie Bush, who created the conditions for war by invading.

[Kelly Rupert]

21. Explain Somalia. n/t

[Jonathan50]

26. Somalia wasn't organized war

So much as it was a generalized massacre.. More like the holocaust than war.

[Kelly Rupert]

31. If Somalia is not war than your definition of war is useless.

Moreover, Somalia was not massacre, as there was not imbalance of force. There is absolutely no similarity whatsoever to the Holocaust--in fact, of all the violent acts ever committed, the Holocaust is the one that is least like Somalia.

I honestly cannot think of a worse comparison. I cannot imagine what would lead one to equate a massive, ordered, state-sponsored, minority-targeted, premeditated, high-tech, high-infrastructure, politically-ordained, ignored-by-the-world-community multinational genocide with a local, chaotic, anarchic, random, low-tech, no-infrastructure-required, warlord-driven, single-state international-crisis of a clusterfuck.

I mean, people died, but other than that, you might as well compare Somalia with a banana.

[wtmusic]

24. von Clausewitz was full of shit

if he didn't think every individual has the right to defend themselves and their property.

[Jonathan50]

25. That's not what Clausewitz was saying

Certainly you have the *right* but if you exercise that right then you must be willing to pay the cost and that cost may be your life.

[wtmusic]

28. Saying war is "violence which is endorsed and ordered by the political class"

trivializes it, and leaves no room for a personal desire to defend one's country.

Right now in Iraq there effectively is no government, no political class--yet hundreds of thousands have taken up arms against the invaders, wholly of their own initiative.

[BlooInBloo]

6. No. Duh.

[IChing]

12. Morality is hardwired on what makes us primates live in social group

Monkeys and chimps have killed themselves to save others.





When that portion of the brain is destroyed
or damaged or effected by improper nutrition
that can alone effect genetically or physically in either
a fetal/natal development
or within an adult development which in the end
can create an imbalance of brain chemistry
or an absence of that section
physically damaged can produce the same
results as far as morality goes.
in the end if not addressed
then there will be problems.

Many studies on this can prove my points. Point, morality is hardwired.

Now torture is another question
most that do it know it is wrong.

[Jonathan50]

15. Not really....

Scientific research shows otherwise.

See my post #3 on this thread.

[Nikki Stone1]

16. Actually, Milgram type studies do not negate a biological source for morality

They simply indicate that social contexts can override inner neurological sensors.

[Kelly Rupert]

22. Indeed.

Social deference may well be equally ingrained.

[Nikki Stone1]

23. Sounds like it, doesn't it

It leaves a lot to think about though.

[kiki]

14. EVERYTHING that humans do...

...is, ultimately, "just" brain chemistry.

[Marie26]

17. Why not?

Everything that happens in the brain is a result of brain chemistry.

[Kelly Rupert]

19. Everything you do, feel, and think is "brain chemistry."

Barring nothing.

[Jonathan50]

27. I'm not sure that "chemistry" is the right term..

It certainly isn't clear yet just how the brain works or is organized.

Memory may well be based on some principle similar to holography and self awareness is still totally unexplained.

The human brain is the most mysterious marvel yet known in the universe and fully understanding it is certainly decades and probably centuries away.

An interesting question is: In theory how small can a computer be made that has all the abilities and capacities of the human brain?

[Kelly Rupert]

29. However, I fail to see a possibility of any process other than chemistry.

There's little question how cells work or how neurons synapse. The question is how they're organized.

[Jonathan50]

36. The brain is also electrical in nature..

So perhaps "electrochemical" might be a better term?

[alittlelark]

30. I wonder how much (covert) research has been done into

how to replicate this injury for the good of the ????????? So long as the military associates their peers as 'family' or closer...... Gotta wonder how long this has been known? Funny how the MIL. and PSY comingle at certain institutions.

It would make the 'basic training' phase of recruits easy - the hard part is making them shoot at a 'PERSON'.


PS - These are the ramblings of a DUer who found out her cousin just died and had 2+ glasses of wine.


PPSS - I stand behind what I said.

[Kelly Rupert]

32. That really isn't necessary.

Armies do not need the help of invasive surgery to teach recruits to dehumanize their enemies. We've been doing it as long as we've been around.

[alittlelark]

33. Who said surgery? All it takes is enough $$$ and enough

research. Chemicals could easily be a substitute.

[Kelly Rupert]

34. I would like to see the chemical

that targets such a small part of the brain.

[alittlelark]

35. How much $$$$ and time do you have?

Really....how much? We will work on the issue accordingly.