Morality and the Brain: The Right Hemisphere and Doing Right.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Moral Psychology

Background:

• Morality, crucial for social cohesion, is a brain function with uncertain localization.
• Neuroscientific studies on morality yield conflicting results regarding hemispheric dominance.
• Examining neurologic insults and functional neuroimaging reveals complexities in moral processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural basis of morality and its localization in the brain.
• To reconcile conflicting findings from lesion studies and functional neuroimaging.
• To propose a model for the hemispheric representation of morality.

Main Methods:

• Review of clinical data from patients with acquired sociopathy (immorality) following focal brain lesions.
• Analysis of functional neuroimaging studies during moral decision-making tasks.
• Synthesis of lesion and imaging data to infer neural networks involved in morality.

Main Results:

• Acquired immorality is predominantly linked to right frontotemporal lesions.
• Functional neuroimaging shows bilateral brain activation during moral decision-making.
• Despite bilateral representation, the right hemisphere appears more critical for moral behavior.

Conclusions:

• Morality involves a bilateral neural network, with a right-hemisphere dominance.
• Right frontotemporal structures and subcortical connections are key to moral behavior.
• This right-dominant, bilaterally represented model explains lesion and imaging findings and has clinical implications.