Chapter 21 - MoralEmotions

Summary

Moral feelings motivate humans to act on other people's needs or on moral values, even in the absence of negative consequences for not doing so, such as being punished by law enforcement systems. This chapter briefly touches on the evidence that abnormalities in the experience of moral sentiments are important symptoms of specific neuropsychiatric disorders. It reviews evidence on the neuroanatomical basis of moral sentiments and summarizes opposing models of how to explain this evidence. The chapter then addresses the question whether the brain has developed specialized systems for moral motivations (e.g., helping others or society) as opposed to selfish motivations (e.g., seeking monetary rewards). One crude motivational ingredient of complex moral motivations is attachment. Attachment supports pair bonding and mother-offspring bonding in human as well as nonhuman animal species and may be an evolutionary precursor to the motivational states enabling humans to act morally.