Counter-intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury.
Several neurological patient populations, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), appear to produce an abnormally 'utilitarian' pattern of judgements to moral dilemmas; they tend to make judgements that maximize the welfare of the majority, rather than deontological judgements based on the following of moral rules (e.g., do not harm others). However, this patient research has always used extreme dilemmas with highly valued moral rules (e.g., do not kill). Data from healthy participants, however, suggest that when a wider range of dilemmas are employed, involving less valued moral rules (e.g., do not lie), moral judgements demonstrate sensitivity to the psychological intuitiveness of the judgements, rather than their deontological or utilitarian content (Kahane et al., Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 2011, 393). We sought the moral judgements of 30 TBI participants and 30 controls on moral dilemmas where content (utilitarian/deontological) and intuition (intuitive/counter-intuitive) were measured concurrently. Overall TBI participants made utilitarian judgements in equal proportions to controls; disproportionately favouring utilitarian judgements only when they were counter-intuitive, and deontological judgements only when they were counter-intuitive. These results speak against the view that TBI causes a specific utilitarian bias, suggesting instead that moral intuition is broadly disrupted following TBI.
Clinical Psychology Programme, University of Hull, UK.
Dane A
DA
Rowley
Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, The Disabilities Trust, West Sussex, UK.
Miles
M
Rogish
Clinical Psychology Programme, University of Hull, UK.
Timothy
T
Alexander
Department of Psychology, University of Hull, UK.
Kevin J
KJ
Riggs
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000070642:Brain Injuries, Traumatic / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests
decision-making; emotion; moral judgement; social cognition; traumatic brain injury