Emotion and Cognition in Moral Judgment

描述（由候选人提供）：拟议的研究是基于Greene等人2001年报告的工作（附录），利用功能磁共振成像和其他措施调查认知和情感在道德判断中的各自作用。本研究有两个具体目的，一是进一步研究高情绪和低情绪道德判断的神经关联，二是研究个体和群体道德判断差异的情感和认知基础。这项工作解决了道德心理学中长期存在的问题，即产生道德判断的过程的本质。道德心理学中的理性主义传统强调理性的作用，而最近的趋势则更加强调情感。目前的研究路线旨在通过道德心理学理论的发展来综合这两种传统，该理论公正地对待道德判断的理性和情感方面，同时阐明它们彼此之间的关系以及它们背后的神经结构。虽然这项研究作为基础科学是有价值的，但它也具有健康意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by candidate): The proposed research is an investigation of the respective roles of cognition and emotion in moral judgment using fMRI and other measures, building on the work reported on in Greene et al. 2001 (appended). This research has two specific aims, first, to further examine the neural correlates of high- and low-emotion moral judgment and, second, to examine the emotional and cognitive bases for individual and group differences in moral judgment. This work addresses the longstanding issue in moral psychology concerning the nature of the processes that produce moral judgments. The rationalist tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason while a more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. The present line of research aims at a synthesis of these two traditions through the development of a theory of moral psychology that does justice to the rational and emotional aspects of moral judgment while elucidating their relation to one another and to the neural structures that underlie them. While this research is valuable as basic science, it has health implications as well. Patients with frontal damage often evade clinical detection because they have normal "cognitive" function. The moral judgment tasks that are being developed as part of this research have been shown to engage both cognitive and emotional processes in predictable ways, and therefore, if properly refined, may prove to be useful diagnostic tools for the identification of frontal lobe damage and other pathological conditions such as psychopathy that involve imbalances in cognitive-emotional interaction.