FPOT - Frontal Parietal Occipital Temporal Cortexes Frontal: Executive control consciousness, decision making, impulse control o Prefrontal:

l: personality Orbital-frontal cortex (OFC) or ventral-medial (vmPFC) what happened to pedo teacher Receives projections o Anything social. Includes language processing Parietal: Motor cortex movement, bodily control and awareness Occipital: Visual Temporal: Audition (hearing) o Tempo-parietal junction (TPJ) or Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS) Receives input from thalamus and senses (all information from external environment); where everything gets processed Thalamus is emotional processor; deals with fear Everything feeds back to thalamus except smell If this part is injured, issues with making moral decisions Note that this is just a part, not the whole cortex Reward System: Basal Ganglia (location) Striatum Amygdala Thalamus Anterior Cingulate Cortex Dopamine Anterior and Posterior; Superior and Inferior Dorsal = top; Ventral = bottom; Medial = middle Lateral = side Grey matter = cell bodies White matter = Axons o Axon terminals release neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, etc.) that go to the dendrites of the next cell (branches of cell body tree) Synapse = gap between neurons Projects = send signals from that area to another mPFC OFC/vmPFC Insulate Cortex Ventral Striatum Insulae Gyrus TPJ

M 1/13 A Moral Brain? Topics: Understanding brain structure and function. Early conceptions of brain function. Lessons of Lesions. Phrenology, localization of function, and Phineas Gage. Psychiatric conceptions of the mind. Required reading: MacMillan 1996 (on Gage) Localization of function and Phrenology o No evidence before 19th century for localization of function; lacked techniques for investigating Flourens: Brain functions as whole, taking out a piece from anywhere will lead to diminished function across the board Swedenberg: more localized. Injuries to front will manifest differently from injuries to back o Specific parts of the brain code for specific traits (generosity, courage, etc.) Gall could also identify characteristics by size and shape of skull Brain structure can be inferred from surface of the skull Differences in size of underlying brain structure predict behavior; actions are prescribable to size of these organs Cerebral cortex has separate organs of function Most believed cerebrum collectively supported thought and mind There were ~30 Lesions damage to tissue from injury or disease o Allow us insights into functions of the brain that are disrupted o Caveats and limitations: Trauma can affect multiple regions Not experimental Unique no two people can have same lesion Brains are different between individuals o Advantages Causal Can be localized Not experimental Phineas Gage o mPFC damage o Gage was no longer Gage Really crass, not much of a workplace guy. Vulgar. Storyteller? MacMillan Gage proves nothing! o Gage has been used by a number of theories to prove their validity but theyre wrong o The scarcity of evidence, much of it conflicting from both before and after Some claim he lost his responsibility but he drove carriages Arithmetic and memory, others claim the opposite

o Individually different brain structures, lesion manifestations and all that o Demasios assumptions: Did a digital reconstruction but QUESTION 2! Influenced by cases they had seen and studied Trajectory predicts damage to an area that wasnt affected (ventromedial area of left hemisphere with some impact on the right) Did not rule out possibility of individual differences in position of brain in the skull or the location of its functions Concluded that bilateral frontal ventromedial lesions destroyed the ability to make moral decisions Harlows time made it less acceptable to propose biological basis for moral reasoning than for movement or language States Gage began lying ot his friends, failing to honor commitments and behaving socially like an idiot Gage entertaining his nephews with stories. Lying or moral defect? o Four main points: Changes in Gages behavior not reported until much later Important to early frontal lobe surgery; showed frontal operations not fatal, mental symptoms localized frontally So little is known about behavior before and after the accident, and even less about the location and extent of the injury to his brain, that no certain relations can be established between the two There will always be a difficulty in relating hypothesized damage to Gages behavior. Back then, they didnt have the tools we have now and their methods were inadequate W 1/16 Morality: A Question for Modern Neuroscience? Topics: Take my brain, please! A consideration of the frontal lobotomy. Experimental manipulations of brain function. Modern approaches to understanding function. Required reading: Anderson et al. 1999 Lobotomy cuts out tissue; leucotomy severs connections o Very literal responses and no net change in IQ Why cut out anyones brain? o No real options for dealing with mental illness Alternatives were sending people to asylum which never helped anyone and had social stigma o David Ferrier studied monkeys (actively interested in environment) but once you lesioned their frontal cortexes, they lost interest and became really passive Jacobson said damage in working memory Freeman interviewed patients post-op and they gave very simplistic answers o Believed to relieve severe emotional responses and psychic disturbances Rose Kennedy o Slow to walk, crawl, moody, little motivation

More likely: average/below-average intelligence in family of hyper ambitious type-A geniuses o Family worried she would damage their reputation o So they cut out her brain! Frontal lobe damage o In case of vmPFC frontal disinhibition syndrome (FDS) Disfunction in social settings Inability to maintain self-discipline Self-destructive behavior like promiscuity and aggressiveness Problems with social cognition Regular motor function, memory retention, communication skills o dlPFC frontal abulic syndrome (FAS) Difficulty initiating in planning Problems with creativity Loss of concentration Extreme events dont bother you Ignore criticism and feedback Regular motorsame as above o Different cases: This was the guy and the circles, crosses and squares drawing Going into doctor, acting like doctor; straightening portraits; preparing speech o Moral deficits Anderson and early life vs. late life lesions Two patients with early lesions to vmPFC Similar to what happens in adults: o Lowest moral reasoning was avoiding punishment o Impaired social behavior, though cognitive abilities intact o Incentive to consequences Different: o Unable to learn new social norms. Adults already know the social norms o Similar to psychopaths But different in that psychopaths aggression is goal directed, not passionate. Early lesions were more childlike in their transgressions o Gambling test: despite being punished, stuck with deck and got a higher reward in the end Summary: o PFC damage can cause wide range of functional deficits o Deficits in moral judgment depend on location and (possibly) timing of damage

W 1/22 Normative Moral Philosophy Topics: Do consequences or intentions determine what is immoral? Required reading: Mill 1863*, Kant 1785* o Conflicts between rules and consequences o Consequentialism focuses on consequences

o Deontology focuses on adherence to rules M 1/27 Is Morality based on Reason? Topics: Models from Kant and Rawls. Is judging whether an act is immoral analogous to judging whether a sentence is ungrammatical? Required reading: Mikhail 2007 o Check answers for Kant and Mill summary o Reasoning model proposed by Kant and Kohlberg

o Reason before you make the judgment and emotion comes last o Learn general rules when were young and apply them

o You can run tests to see at which stage someone is in their development (moral judgment interviews) o Pre-conventional o Stage 1: obedience and punishment Obey rules to avoid punishment o Stage 2: getting what you want

o o

I will do something (even participate in an exchange) if it benefits me Conventional more social o Stage 3: interpersonal relationships Living up to social expectations and norms being nice Thinking about how actions affect relationships o Stage 4: maintaining social order Consider society as a whole. Follows rules, respect duty and authority Post-conventional o Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights Rules of law important, but individuals should agree on those standards o Stage 6: Universal principles Universal ethical principles in abstract way, even if they conflict with laws and rules Limitations: o We dont know if people really believe moral theories o People just dont know why something is wrong Mikhail Universal Moral Grammar (UMG) o Computational theory Automatic and unconscious responses o Three big things come out of Trolley Cases Deontic rules and double thing Structural descriptions of scenario Conversion rules o Parallel to Chomskys Universal Grammar Human mind contains moral grammar (complex set of rules, principles, structures, syntax, etc.) o How we acquire moral grammar gives evidence that some of its core attributes are innate o First we have to see how our morality functions before investigating where o 5 main questions What constitutes moral knowledge? How is it acquired? How is it put ot use? How physically realized in brain? How did it evolve in the species?

M 2/3 Is Morality based on Emotion? (Guest: David Pizarro) Topics: What is Emotion? Manipulating emotion to change moral judgment. Required reading: Greene & Haidt 2002*, Schnall et al. 2008 o Emotional model

o o o

o o o

o Can manipulate judgment Social Intuitionist Model (SIM) Haidt o Like an aesthetic judgment influenced by intuition o How people and their judgments can affect other peoples intuitions and subsequent judgments Causation =/= correlation Emotional manipulation affected judgments of personal harm and impurity/disgust (sex) Different emotional manipulation has different effects o Less critical of situation when happy o Disgust stronger emotional reaction more critical o Sadness dampened emotional reactions Effect is bigger in individuals with higher private body consciousness Greene and Haidt say affect (emotion) most important but reason may play a minor role o Many brain areas make important contributions but none is devoted specifically Greene: personal vs. impersonal harm we havent evolved a sense of impersonal harm and morality o Personal moral dilemmas bring in social and emotional processing areas (visual, auditory, etc. every way that you know the victim) The more directly you interact with the YOU, the more intense the moral dilemma o More impersonal involves different areas of the brain, particularly working memory in the hippocampus o Reaction times for judging trolley case as moral is longer for personal; reverse for immoral o Deontological judgment; so Kants pure reason really comes from affect o Utilitarianism comes from impersonal reasoning Schnall was fart spray and disgust

W 2/5 Part 1: Does Neuroscience Lead to Moral Skepticism? Topics: Philosophical implications of the neuroscience of moral judgment. epistemology and moral skepticism. Required reading: Singer 2005 Dual process model two systems at work in mental processes

Meta-ethics: moral

o System 1: automatic, rapid, effortless, involuntary o System 2: controlled, slow, effortful, voluntary Neurological evidence for two processes Both operate in moral judgments; when automatic speaks louder, people follow their emotions Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) lights up with difficult moral dilemmas represents response conflict

o Stroop task: say color of word, not word itself o Modulates emotional response Dorsolateral PFC (executive control): higher activation in those that said appropriate to kill the baby o dlPFC modulates utilitarian reasoning Time pressure favors system 1 high cognitive load (difficult moral decision with time pressure and keeping track of multiple stimuli) will influence moral judgments, diminishing system 2 o Mean reaction times identical with no load, significantly slower for utilitarian judgments Does neuroscience undermine morality? o Intuitions driven by emotions are not reliable or justified No, not reliable (varies drastically across societies and people, and in different situations) or justified but they do have value Source of information We should feel strong emotions towards serious immorality Compromise: emotions are relevant sometimes Singer: o Agrees with Haidt that neuroscience supports intuitions directly affect moral judgments but argues that that does not make them morally correct Conceptions of ethics tend to be too respectful of our intuitions We have reason to distrust the intuitions that refute consequentialism Consequentialism not undermined by evolution or neuroscience o Moral intuitions result from biological and social evolution o If moral intuitions are biological residue of our evolutionary history, it is not clear why we should regard them as having any normative force o Personal vs. impersonal issue: we did not evolve with a conception of indirect harm We have more of an emotional response to personal harm, not so much for impersonal

Part 2: Positive Morality I: Giving to Others Topics: Other-regarding preferences. Public goods: Why pay for the milk? I like you I really like you! The warm glow of taxation. Undermining intrinsic motivation. Required reading: Harbaugh et al. 2007; Murayama 2010 Other-regarding preferences utility derived from others well-being Possible explanations for charitable giving o Altruism people want public good, will sacrifice some benefit to see it exist o Economic rationality more personal benefits from public good than it costs o Non-economic benefits Alternative benefits from giving to charity o Warm glow giving to charity is personally rewarding Neural mechanisms that support positive morality o Basal Ganglia collection of nuclei found on both sides of the thalamus Caudate Putamen Ventral Striatum

o Substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area third part of brain stem (midbrain, also has thalamus and pineal gland) o Dopamine

When you get a reward, dopamine fires When you condition subject, dopamine fires when they get signal and with reward When you condition and no reward, dopamine release with signal, but none with reward Dopamine associated with motivation Not with whether you like something, just if reward was present or absent Harbaugh Reward system can explain giving to charity o Examined brain responses both to optional and forced (taxes) gifts to charity Rate of accepting transfer >25% only if amount given to charity > or = amount they receive More satisfied with more going to charity relative to how much you paid Same brain areas (reward pathways in basal ganglia) activated for optional and charitable giving Dopamine suggest motivation, explains why people choose to give Giving dopamine warm glow motivation o Positive feedback loop o Large brain responses to giving results in more giving predicts behavior! Murayama intrinsic motivation can be undermined by extrinsic rewards o Ventral striatum activated in both cases, but if payment introduced then removed, no more dopamine Pro-social action much more likely if personal connection o For high-altruism individuals, more activation in watching than playing

o More social people (able to recognize desires and needs of others) more likely to be pro-social More personal situations leads to more donations (girl in well)

M 2/10 Positive Morality II: Helping others Topics: Social interactions. Cooperation. Altruistic punishment: Ill hurt you for your own good or for mine. Required reading: Fehr & Gachter 2002, De Quervain 2004 Core elements of cooperation o Recognizing others identifying and understanding goals actions and desires of other players Important for you to get your payoff Prior knowledge of other peoples moral character downplays reward system reward system less active o Building reputation (signaling) Being able to make binding commitments is critical for cooperation Binding mechanisms Most promises are cheap talk, so reputation is crucial Hard to bind people to commitments with undesired outcomes for them o Ultimatum game Cooperation reflected the dual-systems interaction between emotional regions (insula) and cognitive regions (dlPFC) Anger is incredibly powerful, promotes cooperation because more likely to act irrationally and punish injustice threat Activation in the insula o Helping others see above Cooperation is rewarding activated reward systems Unreciprocated cooperation had increased activation in anterior insula and lPFC/OFC (impulse control; hand-in-hand with increased anger) o Harming others those who would not cooperate; punishment Altruistic punishment engages reward system (DeQuervain) Activation in nucleus accumbens (N.acc) Higher desire for revenge = higher activation of reward pathways Threat of punishment led to higher initial cooperation and punishment carried out increased it further (Ferh & Gachter) No threat of punishment led to lower initial cooperation that decreased over time Summary: o Cooperation requires complex balancing of goals: yours and others; building reputation o Many aspects of cooperation modulate brains reward system Cooperation for mutual benefit Signals of likely future cooperation Acts to harm others for social good Altruistic punishment o Violations of cooperation activate control system

Insular cortex and lPFC

Is Morality Unified? Examples from Justice Topics: Variations across areas of morality (dishonesty, disloyalty, unfairness). Distributive and retributive justice. Hungry orphans and speeding trolleys. Required reading: Haidt & Graham 2007, Parkinson et al. 2011, Hsu Does any feature unify all moral judgments? NO o Content Haidts 5 foundations o Harm o Justice o Respect o Loyalty o Purity Liberals concern themselves more with 2, conservatives all 5 But there are more things he didnt consider o Subdivisions of justice Distributive; retributive; procedural; exchange o Phenomenology how it feels to make a moral judgment Different kinds of immorality elicit different emotional responses o Force dependent on authority; law and rule No, some wrongs justified by authorities, others are just wrong Non-moral wrongness exists that is also independent of authority Whipping on ship ok back then, today, not so much o Function Haidt says moral systems work together to regulate self-interest and promote cooperation But not immoral to buy a yacht Evolutionary function No specific function unifies all moral judgments o Brain mechanism No single brain mechanism activates when faced with immorality dmPFC activated by ambiguity in social and non-social contexts Activaed when thinking about other people Hsu Putamen efficiency but not equity Insula equity but not efficiency Caudate both Individuals with higher activity in Insula and Caudate more likely to reject inequitable situations

GROUP A: CASE STUDIES A1 - His symptoms resolved with the excision of a right orbitofrontal hemangiopericytoma, further establishing causality. (Burns & Swerdlow 2003, 439) Tumor displaced right orbitofrontal lobe decision making center and impulse control Problem was always there but he was able to suppress it Fact that sexual impulses (and all symptoms) disappeared when they cut into right orbitofrontal cortex and removed the tumor made people believe tumor was cause viable conclusion o Symptoms not limited to sex but at one point complete loss of bladder control o Didnt act like that before tumor growth, after it got cut out, symptoms reappeared with regrowth, stopped with second surgery Where his actions wrong? What actions though? A2 The assumptions made by Damasio et al. are best seen as another attempt to overcome the paucity of data about Gage, although neither their characterization of his behavior nor the pattern of damage in him seems to resemble that in their cases. (MacMillan 1996, 258) o Demasios assumptions: Did a digital reconstruction but QUESTION 2! Influenced by cases they had seen and studied Trajectory predicts damage to an area that wasnt affected (ventromedial area of left hemisphere with some impact on the right) Did not rule out possibility of individual differences in position of brain in the skull or the location of its functions Concluded that bilateral frontal ventromedial lesions destroyed the ability to make moral decisions Harlows time made it less acceptable to propose biological basis for moral reasoning than for movement or language States Gage began lying ot his friends, failing to honor commitments and behaving socially like an idiot Gage entertaining his nephews with stories. Lying or moral defect? Four main points: o Changes in Gages behavior not reported until much later o Important to early frontal lobe surgery; showed frontal operations not fatal, mental symptoms localized frontally o So little is known about behavior before and after the accident, and even less about the location and extent of the injury to his brain, that no certain relations can be established between the two o There will always be a difficulty in relating hypothesized damage to Gages behavior. Back then, they didnt have the tools we have now and their methods were inadequate

A3 - In conclusion, early dysfunction in certain sectors of prefrontal cortex seems to cause abnormal development of social and moral behavior, independently of social and psychological factors, which do not seem to have played a role in the condition of our subjects. (Anderson et al. 1999, 1036) o Damaged individuals exhibit abnormal social behavior; dont seem to learn from their mistakes and consequences o When they make a decision, act impulsively again, dont respond to punishment as shown by gambling o No response to corrective behavior consistently failing to learn appropriate behavior GROUP B: MORAL PHILOSOPHY B1 - actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (Mill 1863, 339) o Morally right actions are those that promote the good happiness; wrong actions are those that promote unhappiness o Only intrinsic good is happiness o Morally right is to maximize happiness o Basic principle of utilitarianism, a consequentialist moral philosophy o Consequentialist focuses on consequences to determine morality o Difference between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism (Mill) o Act Quantity of happiness; hedonistic Right to kill one patient and give his organs to 5 needy people (5 lives > 1 life) o Rule Quality also matters. Higher order happiness (poetry > sex) Wrong to kill one patient o Mills proof: everyones happiness is worth the same, aggregate happiness is sum of everyones happiness o Impartiality is crucial B2 - So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only. (Kant 1785, 352) o Kants second formula in his Categorical Imperative o Categorical Imperative: o Act on universal laws Do not commit suicide o Never treat people as means only o Deontological moral theory: morality determined by rules o What matters morally are good intentions; only one true good is good will o Right: categorical imperative

o Prevents action more than suggests it B3 - But if this is an intuition, it is different from the intuitions to which Haidt and Greene refer. (Singer 2005, 350) Consequentialism still based on intuitions but intuitions fed by reason (five deaths worse than one) and not a hangover from evolutionary history, like emotional intuitions o Not outcome of our evolutionary past GROUP C: MORAL PSYCHOLOGY C1 - Figure 1 (b) in Box 3 on page 146 of Mikhail 2007

o o o o

Step-by-step outline of how computational model works Conversion rules: convert scenario into ends, means, side-effects Structural description: how the scenario is portrayed; word-choice of story Deontic rules: people consider ingrained moral rules

C2 - Neuroimaging studies of moral judgment in normal adults, as well as studies of individuals exhibiting aberrant moral behavior, all point to the conclusion, embraced by the social intuitionist model, that emotion is a significant driving force in moral judgment. (Greene & Haidt 2002, 522 column 2) C3 - Figure 3 on page 1105 column 1 of Schnall et al. 2008

o Showed three videos: disgusting, sad and neutral o Graph shows moral judgments o Different emotional manipulation has different effects o Less critical of situation when happy o Disgust stronger emotional reaction more critical o Sadness dampened emotional reactions o More private body consciousness means disgust has higher effect GROUP D: POSITIVE MORALITY D1 - In combination, these results suggest that both pure altruism and warm glow are important motives for charitable giving. (Harbaugh, Mayr, & Burghart 2007, 1624) D2 - These activations also provide indirect support for the hypothesis that punishing defectors involves satisfaction. (deQuervain et al. 2004, 1257) D3 - Figure 2 on page 138 of Fehr & Gachter 2002

GROUP E: AREAS OF MORALITY E1 - The five foundations theory offers a surprisingly simple explanation of the culture war going on in the United States (Haidt & Graham 2007, 10) E2 - The behavioral and imaging results reported here suggest that multiple distinct cognitive systems support moral judgment (see Figure 2). (Parkinson et al. 2011, 3168)

E3 - Figure 4B on page 1095 of Hsu et al. 2008

Activation of insula correlates with equity but not efficiency Occurred during display and switch period