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British Medical Bulletin Advance Access published online on November 20, 2007
British Medical Bulletin, doi:10.1093/bmb/ldm031
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Investigating emotion in moral cognition: a review of evidence from functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology

Liane Young{dagger},¶ and Michael Koenigs*,{ddagger},¶

{dagger} Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, 984 William James Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
{ddagger} Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, 10 Center Drive MSC 1440, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

* Correspondence to: Michael Koenigs, Building 10 Room 7-D43, 10 Center Drive MSC 1440, Bethesda, MD 20892-1440, USA E-mail: lyoung{at}fas.harvard.edu (L.Y.) or koenigsm{at}ninds.nih.gov (M.K.)

Introduction: Human moral decision-making has long been a topic of philosophical debate, and, more recently, a topic for empirical investigation. Central to this investigation is the extent to which emotional processes underlie our decisions about moral right and wrong. Neuroscience offers a unique perspective on this question by addressing whether brain regions associated with emotional processing are involved in moral cognition.

Method: We conduct a narrative review of neuroscientific studies focused on the role of emotion in morality. Specifically, we describe evidence implicating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region known to be important for emotional processing.

Results: Functional imaging studies demonstrate VMPC activation during tasks probing moral cognition. Studies of clinical populations, including patients with VMPC damage, reveal an association between impairments in emotional processing and impairments in moral judgement and behaviour.

Conclusions: Considered together, these studies indicate that not only are emotions engaged during moral cognition, but that emotions, particularly those mediated by VMPC, are in fact critical for human morality.

Keywords: Neuroscience • emotion • morality • ventromedial prefrontal cortex

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Accepted for publication October 22, 2007.


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