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Updated: Jan 19, 2026
Using fMRI to Dissect Moral Judgment
Published on: April 30, 2023
Baselines for human morality should include species typicality, inheritances, culture, practice, and ecological
1Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. dnarvaez@nd.eduhttps://www3.nd.edu/~dnarvaez/.
Abstract:
Empirical studies involve WEIRD (Western, European, industrialized, rich, democratic) but also un-nested (raised outside humanity's evolved nest) and underdeveloped participants. Assessing human moral potential needs to integrate a transdisciplinary approach to understanding species typicality and baselines, relevant evolutionary inheritances beyond genes, assessment of cultures and practices that foster (or not) virtue, and ecological morality. Human moral reason (nous) emerges from all of these.
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