Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

By Michael Koenigs, Liane L. Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc D. Hauser, Antonio R. Damasio. Nature, 2007

1,523 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dcddefca81862aaa6b629eab58fb7ff42090c9f9

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Citations in the corpus

Fast and frugal heuristics: Tools of social rationality. (2009, neutral): “Laland, K. (2001). Imitation, social learning, and preparedness as mechanisms of bounded rationality.”
Morality (2008, background): “For example, we now havemany fMRI studies of what happens in the brain when people make tradeoffs between harm and rights (as in trolley dilemmas; Greene et al., 2001; Koenigs et al., 2007) and when they are treated unfairly (as in ultimatum bargaining games; Sanfey et al.”
Anticipated verbal feedback induces altruistic behavior (2008, background): “For example, Koenigs et al (2007) find that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), which is associated with the social emotions, affects the pattern of moral judgments when self-interest is pitted against social interests.”
Innocent intentions: a correlation between forgiveness for accidental harm and neural activity. (2009, methodology): “For example, individuals with lesions to the VMPFC are less sensitive to differences in the emotional salience and intentional nature of actions, choosing to harm one to save many even when the harm is both emotionally aversive and intentional (Ciaramelli et al., 2007; Koenigs et al., 2007).”
Veil-of-ignorance reasoning favors the greater good (2019, background): “relatively few favor this option, largely due to negative affective responses (9, 10).”
What is moral reasoning? (2015, neutral): “…Nystrom, & Cohen, 2008; Greene, Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen, 2004; Greene et al., 2001; Haidt, 2001; Haidt et al., 1993; Hauser et al., 2007; Koenigs et al., 2007; Moll et al., 2001; Moll et al., 2002; Schnall et al., 2008; Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006; Wheatley & Haidt, 2005; Young,…”
Approach, Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Process Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work (2015, background): “Related work then showed approval rates in the Footbridge dilemma increase in populations with medical conditions (Mendez, Anderson, & Shapira, 2005) or brain injuries (Koenigs et al., 2007) that impair emotional ability (such as frontotemporal dementia or damage to the prefrontal cortex).”
Virtual Reality for Enhanced Ecological Validity and Experimental Control in the Clinical, Affective and Social Neurosciences (2015, background): “Neuroimaging research has demonstrated that damage to the vmPFC results in moral decisions promoting harmful behavior when it will result in the promotion of a greater good (Ciaramelli et al., 2007; Koenigs et al., 2007).”
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Judgment (2010, background): “Koenigs et al. (2007) and Ciaramelli et al. (2007) observed similar results in patients with emotional deficits due to VMPFC lesions.”
Empathy, perspective taking and personal values as predictors of moral schemas (2010, background): “( 2007 ) found that damage in the brain region responsible for the normal generation of especially social emotions produces an abnormal pattern of utilitarian moral judgements on high‐conflict and emotionally charged personal moral dilemmas.”
The Dark Triad of personality and utilitarian moral judgment: The mediating role of Honesty/Humility and Harm/Care (2014, background): “Neuroscience research has revealed that patients with damage to the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC) show a greater preference for utilitarianism in moral judgments (Koenigs et al., 2007).”