Properly Empathic and Properly Moral

See Children are naturally prone to be empathic and moral for an interesting finding about a complex moral differentiation which seems to be (at least partly) inborn rather than the result of upbringing or conscious thought.

One interesting point is:

Consistent with previous functional MRI studies of pain empathy with adults, the perception of other people in pain in children was associated with increased hemodymamic activity in the neural circuits involved in the processing of first-hand experience of pain, including the insula, somatosensory cortex, anterior midcigulate cortex, periaqueductal gray and supplementary motor area,” Decety wrote.

However, when the children saw animations of someone intentionally hurt, the regions of the brain engaged in social interaction and moral reasoning (the temporo-parietal junction, the paracigulate, orital medial frontal cortices and amygdala) also were activated.

That is, children empathize with those suffering from ‘natural evil’ but have an additional response to cases of ‘moral evil’. They respond morally.

Explore posts in the same categories: Moral Formation, Moral issues, human brain, science

Tags: human brain, moral instincts of children, moral nature

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