Research Article
Are We 'Homo Moralis'? A Neuroethics Study on the Mechanism of Moral Dilemma Resolution
1 Sungkyunkwan University
Published: January 2019 · Vol. 48, No. 1 · pp. 53-79
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2019.48.1.53
Full Text
Abstract
Moral dilemma is a situation where a decision maker must choose between a moral choice and utilitarian (economical) benefit. For business decision makers, utilitarianism/economic performance is an important professional value, hence business moral dilemmas present a psychological conflict that is difficult to resolve. We attempt to unveil mechanisms underlying morality during business decision-making in order to see how morality and profit motives can collide in business world. For experiment, we created two types of business moral dilemmas: personal and social, and carried out manipulation check in a behavioral study. Using EEG (electroencephalogram), we recorded subjects’ event-related potentials during the choice tasks where individuals faced personal and social moral dilemmas. The ERP results showed that social dilemmas invoked frontal activations in the right hemisphere around 300ms, which suggests the activation of intuitive mechanism. When subjects were given a personal dilemma, their temporal regions, i.e., brain regions which previous neuroscience studies associated with empathy, showed significant activations. At the latest decision phase, subjects’ left prefrontal cortical activities showed significant activations, reflecting the onset of the brain’s self-control function. This neuroethical investigation reveals that we as human moralis use three-pronged mechanisms of intuition, empathy, and control to make a moral choice.
