Emotion and Cognition in Moral Judgment

科恩、达利和格林博士对神经科学道德心理学的研究是由国家科学基金会资助的，其灵感来自于哲学家提出的一系列令人费解的道德困境。考虑以下情况：一辆失控的有轨电车朝五个人驶去，如果它继续目前的路线，这些人将被杀。拯救他们的唯一方法是转动一个开关，将电车转到另一组轨道上，在那里它将杀死一人而不是五人。你应该为了救五个人而牺牲一个人而转动手推车吗？大多数人都说可以。现在考虑一个类似的困境：和以前一样，一辆电车威胁要杀死5个人。在一座横跨铁轨的人行桥上，你站在一个巨大的陌生人旁边，在迎面而来的电车和五个人之间。这一次，拯救五人的唯一方法是将这名陌生人推下桥，推到下面的铁轨上。如果你这样做，他会死，但他的身体会阻止手推车到达其他人。你应该把这个陌生人推到死来救其他五个人吗？大多数人都说不。二十多年来，道德哲学家一直对这样的案例感到困惑，他们想知道，是什么让牺牲生命在某些情况下是可以接受的，而在另一些情况下却不是。在他们的研究中，科恩、达利和格林博士从社会心理学和认知神经科学的角度来攻击这些问题：人们的大脑中发生了什么，让他们对第一种情况说“是”，对第二种情况说“不是”？现有的道德心理学理论对这个问题提出了截然不同的答案。根据道德心理学中的理性主义传统，道德判断是由推理和反思的事件引起的。更具体地说，理性主义者会说，人们通过应用抽象的道德原则在这两个案例中得出不同的答案，这些原则解释了为什么这两个案例有重要的不同。道德心理学最近的一个趋势是更加重视情感。根据情绪主义模型，情绪反应的差异解释了人们在这两种情况下的不同答案。科恩、达利和格林博士认为，理性主义者和情绪主义者都有一部分是正确的。他们由国家科学基金会资助的研究旨在了解情绪和“认知”过程如何相互作用来产生道德判断。他们的研究既使用了传统的方法，如问卷调查和反应时间的测量，又结合了尖端的神经成像技术，使他们能够在做出道德决定的同时看到人们大脑中正在发生的事情。这项研究与私人和公众关心的问题有着天然的联系。首先，理解人类道德的心理和生物学基础具有根本的人文意义。就像关于地球生命起源或宇宙大尺度结构的研究一样，这项研究解决的是世界各地人们内在感兴趣的问题。我们的道德判断能力是我们人类的核心，但目前科学还没有很好地理解这一点。这项研究是朝着纠正这种无知迈出的重要一步。第二，道德判断具有巨大的现实意义。我们这个时代的许多伟大的公开辩论，如关于堕胎、干细胞研究、正当战争的限度、对恐怖主义的适当反应等，之所以存在，是因为不同的人对这些和其他是非问题有不同的直觉。为了在这些问题上取得进展，了解产生道德判断的心理学和基本生物学以及不同人的不同道德判断可能是有用的，如果不是必要的话。这项研究的目标之一是研究道德判断中基于文化的差异，这还有一个额外的好处，就是确保在美国科学界代表不足的群体参与进来。本研究还将探索基于性别和个体气质的道德判断的差异。然而，与此同时，这项研究的目的是理解人类道德判断中的普遍性。

Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene's research funded by NSF on neuroscientific moral psychology was inspired by a puzzling set of moral dilemmas posed by philosophers. Consider the following case: A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to flip a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one? Most people say yes. Now consider a similar dilemma: As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge spanning the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. This time, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death? Most people say no. For over twenty years, moral philosophers have been puzzling over cases such as these, wondering what makes it acceptable to sacrifice lives in some cases but not others. In their research, Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene attack these problems from the point of view of social psychology and cognitive neuroscience: What goes on in people's brains that makes them say "yes" to the first case and "no" to the second case? Existing theories of moral psychology suggest strikingly different answers to this question. According to the rationalist tradition in moral psychology, moral judgments are caused by episodes of reasoning and reflection. More specifically, a rationalist would say that people arrive at different answers in these two cases by applying abstract moral principles that explain why these cases are importantly different. A more recent trend in moral psychology places increased emphasis on emotion. According to an emotivist model, differences in emotional response are to explain people's divergent answers in these two cases. Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene believe that rationalists and emotivists are both partly correct. Their NSF-supported research is aimed at understanding how emotional and "cognitive" processes interact to produce moral judgments. Their research uses both traditional methods such as questionnaires and measurements of reaction time in conjunction with cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques that allow them to see what is going on in people's brains while they make moral decisions.This research has natural connections to matters of both private and public concern. First, understanding the psychological and biological bases of human morality is of fundamental humanistic importance. Like research concerning the origins of life on Earth or the large-scale structure of the universe, this research addresses questions that are of intrinsic interest to people around the world. Our capacity for moral judgment is central to our humanity, and yet it is not well understood by science at this time. This research is an important step toward remedying this ignorance. Second, moral judgment is of immense practical importance. Many of the great public debates of our time such as those concerning abortion, stem cell research, the limits of justifiable war, the appropriate response to terrorism, etc. exist because different people have different intuitions about these and other matters of right and wrong. To make progress on these issues it may be useful, if not essential, to understand the psychology and underlying biology that produces moral judgments, and different moral judgments in different people. One of the goals of this research is to study culturally-based differences in moral judgment, which has the additional benefit of ensuring the participation of groups who are underrepresented in American science. This research will also explore differences in moral judgment based on gender and individual temperament. At the same time, however, this research is aimed at understanding that which is universal in human moral judgment.