“In a new study, neuroscientists have delved deep into the human brain’s approach to moral judgment. Their findings reveal that our moral decisions activate various, distinct areas of the brain, challenging the notion that morality is processed in a single “moral hotspot.” The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, also uncovered intriguing variations in moral perception based on political ideology.
The motivation behind this study lies in one of moral science’s most heated debates: whether our moral reasoning is a monolithic process or a diverse one. At the heart of this debate is the Moral Foundations Theory, which argues for the latter. According to this theory, our moral compass is not guided by a single north star but by multiple, contextually variable moral intuitions.
These foundations include care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and more recently identified, liberty. Essentially, this theory suggests that our moral judgments stem from different mental processes, evolved to tackle specific social challenges. The researchers sought to investigate whether our moral judgments about different areas like care, fairness, or loyalty are processed in separate neural systems or whether they converge within a unified framework.”