La contribución de la neurociencia a la comprensión de la conducta: El caso de la moral

Slachevsky, Andrea; Silva, Jaime R.; Prenafeta, María Luisa; Novoa, Fernando

Keywords: ethics, morality, cognitive science

Abstract

The neuro-scientific study of moral actions and judgments is particularly relevant to medicine, especially when assessing behavior disorders secondary to brain diseases. In this paper, moral behavior is reviewed from an evolutionary and neuro-scientific perspective. We discuss the role of emotions in moral decisions, the role of brain development in moral development and the cerebral basis of moral behavior. Empirical evidence shows a relationship between brain and moral development: changes in cerebral architecture are related to changes in moral decision complexity. Moral development takes a long time, achieving its maturity during adulthood. It is suggested that moral cognition depends on cerebral regions and neural networks related to emotional and cognitive processing (i.e. prefrontal and temporal cortex) and that moral judgments are complex affective and cognitive phenomena. This paper concludes with the suggestion that a satisfactory clinical/legal evaluation of a patient requires that the neural basis of moral behavior should be taken into account.

Más información

Título según SCIELO: La contribuci�n de la neurociencia a la comprensi�n de la conducta: El caso de la moral
Título de la Revista: REVISTA MEDICA DE CHILE
Volumen: 137
Número: 3
Editorial: SOC MEDICA SANTIAGO
Fecha de publicación: 2009
Página de inicio: 419
Página final: 425
Idioma: es
URL: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-98872009000300015&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en
DOI:

10.4067/S0034-98872009000300015

Notas: SCIELO