Vision Circle

As Net Energy Continues to Fall....,

you are going to hear more and more debate about "free markets" vs. "government intervention". Obviously, this is a political question: so-called free market "special interests" (one dollar, one vote) vs. "common interests" (one person, one vote).

The Hansonian admonition for today requires that you exercise enough free will to remind yourself that economics like war is politics by other means, and yes, the end-game has nothing to do with truth, rather, it's about fitness. Those free marketers, who actually bother to rationalize their arguments, base them on three false assumptions and deliberate lies:

#1. "Wants" are the identical to "needs". So-called conservatives (it's boilerplate economic theory) deliberately lie about this because they want you to believe that Donald Trump "needs" another million dollar painting on the wall of one of his mansions just as badly as a welfare mother needs health care for her children. This amounts to a license for the rich to hog limited resources (on a spherical planet, all resources are "limited").

#2. People are "rational utility maximizers". Although even economists admit this is a lie, it still boilerplate economic theory. Economists MUST lie about this because if people are being manipulated by marketing, then the so-called "free market" is inherently immoral.

#3. The market is "efficient". This is central to economic theory, but it's also a deliberate lie (an "idiosyncratic redefinition"). Economists know that people who do not have economic training are going to assume that "efficient" is used in the same way that engineers use the word: acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.

But for economists, "efficient" means "efficient distribution" of resources: i.e., the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The reason economists use idiosyncratic redefinitions instead of coining new terms (like every other discipline) is to make them better liars.

Idiosyncratic redefinition allows economists to stand in front of your
local Rotary Club and appear to HONESTLY use words that mean one thing to them, while Club members think they mean something completely different. This is how economists avoid our innate ability to spot liars.

Far from being "efficient", the so-called "free market" is the MOST
INEFFICIENT aspect of our society. A back-of-the-envelope calculation by Tom Wayburn suggests that the so-called "free market" WASTES 90% of our natural resources. In other words, we could be self-sufficient in oil (and bring our troops home) by ending "the market" and reorganizing into a new type of "common interest" government instead of the "special interest" government we have had since inception (see the founding of America).

On a spherical planet, governed by the laws of thermodynamics, "the market" WILL end -- sooner or later, one way or another.

Is there anyone who doesn't understand these points above?

Crack, Congress, and the Million Man March

It is time that crack cocaine laws change. Policymakers must have the courage to rationally reform them, and to directly confront issues of racial disparity. Perhaps the Millions More Movement can be the beginning of a grassroots catalyst that encourages those on Capitol Hill and in the White House to mend this “crack” in our justice system.

Nkechi Taifa states the painfully obvious that conservative apologists inexplicably refuse to touch at BlackCommentator

The 10th anniversary of the Million Man March also marks the 10th anniversary of a missed opportunity to dramatically reduce the number of African Americans in prison.

Bill Clinton, jokingly referred to as the “first black president,” could have made the decisive difference a decade ago by remedying one of the most notorious illustrations of disparity in the criminal justice system – the singling out of crack cocaine offenders for harsher punishment than powder cocaine offenders.

This sentencing law treats possession of just five grams of crack cocaine (the weight of five packets of sweet and low) the same as the trafficking of 500 grams of powder cocaine (about the weight of a one pound bag of sugar). In other words, one receives the same five year mandatory sentence for 5 grams of crack as for 500 grams of powder. But because powder cocaine can very easily be converted to crack, to punish crack cocaine offenses at a quantity ratio 100 times greater than its original powder form, is irrational.

Despite prevalent stereotypes, the majority of documented crack users are white. The “war on drugs,” however, has been primarily fought in inner-city black communities. This law enforcement policy has caused a disproportional number of low-level black drug abusers to be herded to prison under the crack laws, serving unreasonably harsh sentences.

On October 16, 1995, not coincidentally the day of the Million Man March, then President Clinton eloquently appealed for “fairness and equality” in a riveting address on race relations on a college campus, in which he stressed the need to “root out racism” from the criminal justice system.

Ironically, two days after that speech, the justice and equality that a million black men had marched to the steps of the Capitol to demand, was deferred. Congress voted against equalizing the quantities for the sentencing of crack and powder cocaine offenses.

This vote was suspect because lawmakers rejected the wisdom of their own bipartisan Sentencing Commission, which had meticulously researched and analyzed cocaine and federal sentencing policy over a two-year period. The Commission had come to the unanimous conclusion that the sentences for crack cocaine were too great and must be changed. Shamefully, out of over 500 recommendations submitted by the expert Commission since its inception, this was the first one Congress chose to ignore.

The ball was then in Mr. Clinton’s court. Congressional Black Caucus members pointedly appealed to the president to eradicate the disparity in cocaine sentencing. This was the first “test,” they declared, in the wake of the Million Man March, to prove he would “root out” unjust policies and practices. A coalition of civil rights groups at that time declared that eliminating this unjust law would have been “as easy as the stroke of a pen.” Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton failed to turn his eloquently delivered words on race relations into deeds, instead siding with the congressional majority and disregarding rationally based reform. And prisons continued to be built – and filled – throughout the 1990s.

Ten years have come and gone. Nearly a million black people are now in prison – largely because the harsh crack cocaine laws have remained unchanged. Politics, however, must not continue to drive sentencing policy. Now is the time for progressives and conservatives to join together to rectify the missed opportunity of the past. Congress must listen to the advice of its own Sentencing Commission, which concluded that revising this one law “would better reduce the gap [in sentencing between African Americans and other racial groups], and it would dramatically improve the fairness of the federal sentencing system.”

During the past decade the historic Million Man March has spawned several other national marches, including this past weekend’s Millions More Movement, pulling together not just men, but women, youth, and families as well. But the continuation of harsh and irrational sentencing laws is tearing these very families apart. These laws have thrust unprecedented numbers of women into the criminal justice system, subsequently terminating parental rights to their children. They have resulted in the warehousing of youth for prison terms at the beginning of their adulthood, creating in the process an epidemic of physical, mental, and public health issues. And those who manage to return to communities at the conclusion of decades-long sentences are confronted with staggering barriers to successful reintegration into society, oftentimes causing renewal of the same harmful cycles that put them in prison in the first place.

It is time that crack cocaine laws change. Policymakers must have the courage to rationally reform them, and to directly confront issues of racial disparity. Perhaps the Millions More Movement can be the beginning of a grassroots catalyst that encourages those on Capitol Hill and in the White House to mend this “crack” in our justice system.

Nkechi Taifa, Esq., is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Open Society Institute and an Adjunct Professor at Howard University School of Law.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/155/155_think_crack_congress_mmm_pf.html

Liar, Liar, Brain's on Fire

The theory that Yang and colleagues have developed is the extra connections between nerve cells give liars a greater ability to lie. Dr. Raine put it this way: "Lying takes a lot of effort." For example, "You have to be able to understand the mindset of the other person (and) to suppress your emotions or regulate them because you don't want to appear nervous."

Their theory is partly based on two observations, Yang said:

Young children do not lie well and their prefrontal cortex has less white matter proportionately than it will later in life.

Autistic people, whose prefrontal cortex has the "converse pattern of grey/white ratio to that shown by the liar group," also do not lie easily.

Previous studies have shown that moral decisions involve the prefrontal cortex. "If these liars have a 14 percent reduction in grey matter, that means that they are less likely to care about moral issues or are less likely to be able to process moral issues," Dr. Raine said.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 30-"Any fool can tell the truth," wrote British author Samuel Butler, "but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."

Not so, according to a new study. All it takes to lie well -- or at least consistently and deliberately -- is a slightly abnormal brain, one with more white matter and less grey matter in the prefrontal cortex than the rest of us.

"Their brains are different," said Yaling Yang, MS, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California here.

"They have more connections between the nerve cells, which gives them a better ability to lie," Yang said in an interview, "and (because) they have decreased grey matter, which is associated with impulsivity and inhibition, they can't inhibit their tendency to lie."

To conduct the study -- published in the current edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry -- the researchers interviewed 108 volunteers from five temporary employment agencies in Los Angeles. A series of psychological tests and interviews found 12 people -- 11 men and one woman -- who had a history of repeated lying.

Additionally, the researchers found two control groups -- 15 men and one woman who exhibited signs of antisocial personality disorder but were not pathological liars and 15 men and six women who were normal controls.

The "liars" met the criteria for pathological lying or for conning and manipulative behavior on a standard psychopathy checklist, the deceitfulness criterion for antisocial personality disorder on the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV diagnostic manual, or admitted telling lies to obtain sickness benefits.

"We looked for things like inconsistencies in their stories about occupation, education, crimes and family background," said Adrian Raine, D.Phil, a psychology professor at the university and a co-author of the study.

Then the subjects underwent structural MRI imaging, Dr. Raine said. The MRI examinations found that the liars had significantly more white matter and slightly less grey matter than the other groups.

Specifically:

On average, the liars had 25.7% more prefrontal white matter, compared to the antisocial controls, and 22.2% more than the normal controls.
The liars showed a 35.7% decrease in ratio of grey to white matter in the region, compared to antisocial controls, and a 41.7% decrease in the ratio, compared to controls.
On an absolute scale, the liars had 14% less grey matter than the normal controls.

The theory that Yang and colleagues have developed is the extra connections between nerve cells give liars a greater ability to lie. Dr. Raine put it this way: "Lying takes a lot of effort." For example, "You have to be able to understand the mindset of the other person (and) to suppress your emotions or regulate them because you don't want to appear nervous."

Their theory is partly based on two observations, Yang said:

Young children do not lie well and their prefrontal cortex has less white matter proportionately than it will later in life.
Autistic people, whose prefrontal cortex has the "converse pattern of grey/white ratio to that shown by the liar group," also do not lie easily.

Previous studies have shown that moral decisions involve the prefrontal cortex. "If these liars have a 14 percent reduction in grey matter, that means that they are less likely to care about moral issues or are less likely to be able to process moral issues," Dr. Raine said.

The British novelist Jerome K. Jerome once wrote: "It is always the best policy to speak the truth -- unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."

But, says Dr. Raine, the people in the liar group in this study aren't especially good. Often "they can't tell the truth from falsehood and contradict themselves in an interview," he said.

And, says Yang, they often lie for the fun of it. "They admit that they like lying," she said.

The researchers said the study doesn't account for all forms of lying -- such as to escape punishment or to be polite.

Yang said she and her colleagues believe that the abnormal brain structure causes the lying behavior, not the other way round, but she added the study still needs to be replicated by other investigators.

In the long run, she said, the structural differences might be useful for diagnostic purposes or to help police determine which suspects are likely to be lying. "But right now there are no practical applications," she said.

This study is the latest in a long line of inquiries aimed at ferreting out the roots of dishonesty. The philosopher Diogenes was reputed to wander the streets of Athens with a lamp, searching for an honest man.

In modern times, the polygraph has been promoted as an effective tool for identifying liars. But the lie-detector, as it is popularly known, simply measures heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response (or sweatiness).

Liars, the theory goes, will have physiological responses that will betray them and the polygraph will pick that up. But polygraphs can't differentiate between changes in heart rate brought on by the stress of taking the test from changes triggered by bald-faced lies.

A more high-tech approach uses functional magnetic resonance imaging. Scott Faro, Ph.D., of Temple University in Philadelphia, reported last year that fMRI can tell when a person is lying -- more areas of the brain become active.

Lying caused activity in the frontal lobes, as well as the hippocampus and middle temporal regions and the limbic areas, Dr. Faro said at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of America. During a truthful response, parts of the frontal lobe, temporal lobe and cingulate gyrus were active, he said.

Several limitations to the study pointed out by the authors include the small sample and relatively few women.

Primary source: British Journal of Psychiatry
Source reference:
Yang Y et al. Prefrontal white matter in pathological liars. British Journal of Psychiatry 2005. 187;320-325

The Neural Basis of Human Moral Cognition

Hopefully a little timely neuroscience will inject the rationalism required to stave off any ill-considered quackings about moral absolutism and moral relativism hereabouts.

Through the centuries, philosophical theories have adopted a deductive logico–verbal approach to morality that aims to identify universal principles that should guide human conduct. By contrast, a scientific approach to morality is emerging from the documentation of changes in moral behaviour in patients with brain dysfunction5, which provides inferences that concern the major dimensions of moral cognition. Moral cognitive neuroscience, therefore, aims to elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie moral behaviour. Here, morality is considered as the sets of customs and values that are embraced by a cultural group to guide social conduct, a view that does not assume the existence of absolute moral values.

THE NEURAL BASIS OF HUMAN MORAL COGNITION

Moral cognitive neuroscience is an emerging field of research that focuses on the neural basis of uniquely human forms of social cognition and behaviour. Recent functional imaging and clinical evidence indicates that a remarkably consistent network of brain regions is involved in moral cognition. These findings are fostering new interpretations of social behavioural impairments in patients with brain dysfunction, and require new approaches to enable us to understand the complex links between individuals and society. Here, we propose a cognitive neuroscience view of how cultural and context-dependent knowledge, semantic social knowledge and motivational states can be integrated to explain complex aspects of human moral cognition.

At a time of increasing awareness of the different value systems in multicultural societies and across nations, a deeper understanding of the cognitive and brain mechanisms that guide human behaviour is of general interest. Recent social cognitive neuroscience reviews have emphasized perceptual and emotional abilities that are shared by humans and other animals1-3. However, social neuroscience has largely avoided dealing directly with the complex aspects of human moral cognition, including MORAL EMOTIONS and MORAL VALUES. Here, we review current theoretical accounts of social cognition and put forth a framework designed to overcome the main limitations of earlier accounts. We argue that moral phenomena emerge from the integration of contextual social knowledge, represented as event knowledge in the prefrontal cortex (PFC); social semantic knowledge, stored in the anterior and posterior temporal cortex; and motivational and basic emotional states, which depend on cortical–limbic circuits. Our framework offers new interpretations for social behaviour patterns in healthy individuals and in patients with brain dysfunction, and makes testable predictions for neuropsychological dissociations in moral cognition.

Defining morality

'Moral' (derived from the Latin moralis) and 'ethical' (from the Greek êthikos) originally referred to the consensus of manners and customs within a social group, or to an inclination to behave in some ways but not in others4. Through the centuries, philosophical theories have adopted a deductive logico–verbal approach to morality that aims to identify universal principles that should guide human conduct. By contrast, a scientific approach to morality is emerging from the documentation of changes in moral behaviour in patients with brain dysfunction5, which provides inferences that concern the major dimensions of moral cognition. Moral cognitive neuroscience, therefore, aims to elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie moral behaviour. Here, morality is considered as the sets of customs and values that are embraced by a cultural group to guide social conduct, a view that does not assume the existence of absolute moral values. The implications of cognitive neuroscience for moral philosophy have been reviewed in detail elsewhere6-8 and are not addressed here.

The challenge

Morality is a product of evolutionary pressures that have shaped social cognitive and motivational mechanisms, which had already developed in human ancestors, into uniquely human forms of experience and behaviour9. Non-human primates have a vast repertoire of social behaviours that can be interpreted as genuine forerunners of human morality, such as caring for their peers and constantly striving for dominance10. As in humans, a sense of justice permeates their behaviour11. The evolution of the human PFC is intimately related to the emergence of human morality12-15. This has allowed motivational mechanisms to be integrated with an exceptional power to predict outcomes, and has characterized humans through their recent evolutionary steps in the cultural explosion of the Upper Paleolithic period16.

The challenge for moral cognitive neuroscience is that it requires extensive cross-field integration of neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary biology and anthropology, among other areas. In setting the goals of scientific exploration in this field, some central issues should be considered. How does the human moral mind emerge from the interaction of biological and cultural factors? How can the context-dependent nature of moral cognition be explained by neuroscience? How does moral cognition relate to emotion and motivation, and what are their neural substrates? Although moral cognitive neuroscience is still in its infancy, the available evidence already points to some promising solutions.

The neural basis of moral cognition

Moral behaviour impairment. Persistent antisocial behaviours have long been described17, yet their history in medicine is relatively recent. Impairment in 'moral sense' , or 'moral insanity', was first formally described as a "perversion of natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses"18, 19. Systematic evidence that specific brain regions might be crucial to moral behaviour was provided by early accounts of frontal lobe damage20, 21 and neurosurgical reports of war wounds (see, for example, Ref. 22) (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 | Brain regions implicated in moral cognition and behaviour in functional imaging and patient studies.

a | Cortical regions13, 99, 107 include the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC), the medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC and lOFC), the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC; mostly the right hemisphere) and additional ventromedial sectors of the PFC (vmPFC), the anterior temporal lobes (aTL) and the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region. b | Subcortical structures13, 36, 48 include the amygdala, ventromedial hypothalamus, septal area and nuclei, basal forebrain (especially the ventral striatum/pallidum and extended amygdala), the walls of the third ventricle and rostral brainstem tegmentum. c | Brain regions that have not been consistently associated with moral cognition and behaviour in patient studies include the parietal and occipital lobes, large areas of the frontal and temporal lobes, the brain stem, basal ganglia and additional subcortical structures. Panel b modified, with permission, from Ref. 147 © (2005) University of Iowa's Virtual Hospital. Anatomical image adapted, with permission, from Ref. 148 © (1996) Appleton & Lange.

More recently, researchers have started to explicitly frame these observations within the sphere of moral cognition, strengthening the links between neuroscience, developmental neuropsychology and moral psychology. Eslinger and Damasio23 described moral behavioural deficits in a patient with damage to the ventromedial PFC acquired in adulthood, who was remarkably unimpaired in specific MORAL REASONING tasks. It was later shown that ventromedial PFC lesions acquired at an early age led to impairments in both moral reasoning and behaviour, indicating that moral development can be arrested by early PFC damage24, 25. These impairments in moral conduct resemble those observed in developmental PSYCHOPATHY26, 27 (Box 1). Less frequently28-31, lesions of the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC; typically of the right hemisphere) also lead to changes in moral behaviour.

In addition to the PFC, other brain regions are crucial for moral cognition. Structural changes in the anterior temporal lobes — either acquired or developmental — can also impair moral behaviours28, 32. Dysfunction of neural circuits that involve the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region — a key area for social perception33 — is associated with the difficulty experienced by individuals with autism in attributing intentionality, which leads to reduced experience of pride and embarrassment1, 34. Lesions to limbic and paralimbic structures can impair basic motivational mechanisms, such as sexual drive, social attachment and aggressiveness, leading to extreme moral violations — for example, unprovoked physical assaults and paedophilia35, 36. Structural and functional imaging studies in psychopathic individuals have pointed to abnormalities in almost all these regions37-40.

Moral emotion and judgement. Recent studies have directly addressed the neural correlates of moral emotions and judgements. Patients with focal damage to the ventromedial PFC show deficient engagement of pride, embarrassment and regret41, 42. Functional imaging studies in healthy individuals have involved simple MORAL JUDGEMENTS43-45, moral dilemmas46, 47 and moral emotions48-52, using different tasks and stimulus presentation schemes. Overall, there is remarkable agreement between functional imaging and clinico-anatomical evidence about the brain areas involved in moral cognition. Activated regions include the anterior PFC (encompassing the frontopolar cortex, Brodmann's area (BA) 9/10), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; especially its medial sector, BA 10/11/25), posterior STS (BA 21/39), anterior temporal lobes (BA 20/21/38), insula, precuneus (BA 7/31), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC, BA 24/32) and limbic regions. Notably, the wide range of modalities, stimuli and task requirements appear to have little effect on brain activation patterns (Fig. 2).

Figure 2 | Functional imaging studies of moral cognition.

Functional imaging studies of moral cognition have revealed consistent involvement of the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) region, as well as the anterior temporal lobes (aTL) and limbic structures. Panels a–e depict a transverse slice showing the activation of the aPFC (frontopolar cortex, Brodmann's areas 9/10) across different studies43, 45, 46, 48, 50. Panel f shows spatially overlapping activations in the PFC, STS region and aTL, derived from a conjunction analysis of two different studies: active moral judgements of written stimuli44 and passive viewing of pictures with moral content48. Samples of the pictorial149 and written stimuli used in these studies are shown. The remarkable overlap of brain regions involved in moral cognition, regardless of a wide variation in task requirements and stimulus modalities, contrasts with the large variability observed in brain imaging studies of 'less complex' basic emotions depicted in panel g (Ref. 150). A strong possible explanation is the effect of familiarity and situational context, which have not been controlled in functional imaging studies of basic emotions or moral cognition. The higher reproducibility of the activation patterns in studies of moral cognition might, therefore, have resulted from a smaller contextual variability related to the use of more well-defined social situations for moral judgements and moral emotions. By contrast, experimental designs of studies of basic emotion have put more effort into equating the sensory properties of stimuli (such as luminance, visual complexity and frequency) at the cost of more variability in social contexts (such as fear associated with a picture of a spider or with a crime scene). Panel a reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 43 © (2001) Associacao Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria. Panel b reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 46 (2001) American Association for the Advancement of Science. Panel c reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 48 © (2002) Society for Neuroscience. Panel d reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 45 © (2003) Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. Panel e reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 50 © (2004) Elsevier Science. Panel f (right-hand images) from Ref. 149. Panel g reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 150 © (2002) Elsevier Science.

Besides the consistent patterns of brain activation found across studies, there were also some differential findings. We found activation of the anterior PFC when a moral judgement condition was compared with non-emotional factual judgements43, but not when moral judgements were compared with a social–emotional condition, during which a more ventral region was activated44. Greene and colleagues used a moral judgement task that involved classic moral dilemmas (for example, should you kill an innocent person in order to save five other people?) and found similar activation of the anterior PFC46, 47. Decision difficulty was correlated with increased activity in the ACC. Heekeren and colleagues showed that the presence of bodily harm in moral violation scenarios leads to decreased reaction times and decreased activation of the anterior temporal lobe53. Evidence is emerging that partially dissociable PFC–temporal–limbic networks represent distinct moral emotions, including guilt, anger and embarrassment13, 49-52.

Current accounts

Some current cognitive neuroscience frameworks have direct implications for our understanding of the neural basis of moral cognition. The main characteristics and limitations of these accounts are briefly reviewed and discussed below, with an emphasis on their relevance to moral cognition (see also Table 1).

Table 1 | Characteristics and limitations of frameworks relevant to moral cognitive neuroscience

Conflict processing in moral judgement. On the basis of functional imaging studies46, 47, Greene and colleagues have focused on the role of cognitive control in moral judgement. Their hypothesis was derived in part from Miller and Cohen's theoretical account of PFC function54, which assumes that the PFC is specifically involved in 'controlled processing', such as in rapidly changing, ill-structured situations — characteristics that are also held by other models14. This proposal is supported by evidence for DLPFC and ACC activation in response to increases in attentional and conflict detection demands. Greene's hierarchical processing view assumes that cognitive control processes, afforded by the lateral PFC and ACC ('cognitive areas'), override emotional responses (which are attributed to the medial PFC, posterior cingulate cortex and STS) to produce UTILITARIAN responses to moral dilemmas — for example, smothering a crying baby to save more lives. By contrast, emotional areas would favour 'personal' moral judgements — for example, thinking that it is inappropriate to smother the baby. The theory posits mutually competitive roles of cognition and emotion in moral judgement.

Greene's functional imaging findings are in line with the cognitive control view and demonstrate reliable task-related effects in different types of moral judgement. However, the concepts of 'personal' and 'impersonal' violations, and of 'utilitarian' and 'non-utilitarian' choices need to be broken down into clear cognitive components. Furthermore, this account does not address the possibility that culturally shaped moral values and beliefs might lead to disparate 'utilitarian' conclusions. Finally, it is unclear how impairment of cognitive control and conflict monitoring would affect moral cognition55.

Somatic marker hypothesis. Damasio and colleagues observed that patients with ventromedial PFC damage can detect the implications of a social situation, but cannot make appropriate decisions in real life. They suggested that such patients would be unable to mark those implications with a signal that automatically distinguishes advantageous from pernicious actions56. The somatic marker model explains why patients with ventromedial PFC damage can still reason about social problems, provided the premises are cast verbally, but fail in natural settings. The IOWA GAMBLING TASK, which was preceded by similar gambling tasks57, was put forward as an experimental surrogate for decision-making in real life. Bechara and colleagues58 showed that normal individuals develop anticipatory galvanic skin responses whenever they contemplate a risky choice, and begin to choose advantageously before they are consciously aware of the best strategy. Patients with ventromedial PFC damage do not develop anticipatory autonomic responses and behave as if they are insensitive to future consequences, positive or negative, being primarily guided by immediate prospects that ultimately lead to a net financial loss.

The somatic marker hypothesis has been influential and is considered to be a possible mechanism that could underlie behavioural dysfunction in patients with PFC lesions. This framework is compatible with contextual effects (although these are not explicitly addressed), integrates cognition and emotion, makes testable predictions, and has been supported by neurophysiological and clinical data58-60. However, it does not explicitly address the role of different PFC subregions in moral cognition. The relationships between somatic markers and other cortical and limbic regions that have previously been linked to moral cognition13 are also obscure. Recent evidence from both patients with PFC lesions and healthy individuals has challenged the role of somatic markers in guiding decision making and social behaviours61-63.

Social response reversal. The social RESPONSE-REVERSAL model, which was proposed by Blair and Cipolotti to explain social behavioural impairments in patients with OFC damage, was influenced by Rolls and coworkers' response-reversal paradigm. In their pioneering work, Rolls and colleagues showed that patients with OFC damage were impaired in EXTINCTION and response-reversal tasks64. These impairments were correlated with measures of socially inappropriate behaviours, which led to the hypothesis that the sociopathy of these patients results from a difficulty in modifying behavioural responses, especially when these are followed by negative outcomes. The response-reversal model has received extensive support from electrophysiological studies in animals65 as well as from human lesion and neuroimaging data66-68.

Blair and Cipolotti compared their findings from a patient with OFC damage (J.S.) with those from a patient with DLPFC damage and five prison inmates with psychopathy62. J.S. showed a drastic change in personality after OFC damage, becoming aggressive and callous towards other people. He was impaired in recognizing facial expressions of anger and disgust, but was unimpaired in response-reversal tasks. This led the authors to argue for a social response-reversal mechanism — an inhibitory system reliant on the proper functioning of the OFC that is normally activated by perception or expectation of others' anger69. Blair suggested that a different inhibitory mechanism — the 'violence inhibition mechanism' (VIM) — would be deficient in developmental psychopathy, leading to instrumental aggression70. The VIM underscores the role of the amygdala in aversive conditioning, and is believed to have a key role in moral socialization.

These accounts can be used to make specific predictions about the role of response reversals and aversive conditioning in patients with OFC and amygdala lesions. However, they cannot be easily extended to explain other types of impairment in moral behaviour that arise from damage to other brain regions, such as the temporal lobes and anterior PFC. In addition, these models were not designed to explain how social knowledge, on which reinforcement contingencies operate, is represented in the brain. Finally, although bilateral amygdala lesions lead to impaired perceptual judgement of facial emotions71, evidence for severe impairments in moral behaviour following isolated amygdala lesions acquired either in adulthood or early childhood is still lacking.

Sociopathy as a failure of 'theory of mind'. Disruptive antisocial behaviour is a hallmark of early frontotemporal dementia72. These profound changes in personality have been predominantly ascribed to degeneration of the right PFC73 or the temporal poles74, 75. Lough et al.76 used a battery of neuropsychological and social cognition tests to assess J.M., a 47-year-old man who presented with a decline in work performance and a gross deterioration in social behaviour. Imaging studies revealed bilateral atrophy of the OFC and anterior temporal lobes, including the amygdala. J.M. had a normal IQ and fared well on standard executive tests, but was otherwise severely impaired on THEORY OF MIND (ToM) tasks that require a degree of abstraction, with specific deficits on first- and SECOND-ORDER FALSE BELIEF TASKS, and on detection of faux pas. The authors proposed that the dissociation between the impairment in ToM mechanisms and normal executive performance underlies the personality changes observed in some cases of frontotemporal dementia. This account is therefore compatible with abnormal moral cognition — such as difficulties in the attribution and experience of pride and embarrassment — observed in autism and Asperger's syndrome, which are typically associated with ToM impairments34, 77. However, ToM abilities only account for some aspects of moral cognition, but not, for example, the role of social knowledge, contextual information and basic motivations. Noticeably, ToM is relatively intact in psychopathy, in line with its role in the deviousness of these individuals78.

Structured-event-complex framework. The structured-event-complex (SEC) framework15 supports claims that executive functions performed by the PFC are based on stored event sequence knowledge. SEC representations are long-term memories of event sequences that guide the perception and execution of goal-oriented activities, such as going to a concert or giving a dinner party79. A SEC representation includes situational knowledge abstracted across events (concert) and the temporal organization of events (making a reservation, dressing up, and so on). Activated SECs sequentially bind representations of objects, actions and spatial maps stored in posterior brain regions. The SEC framework predicts that different subdivisions of the PFC store different types of content or domains of event knowledge14, 80, 81. Clinical and neuroimaging evidence supports this prediction, showing that different PFC regions are involved in representing social and emotional SECs (ventromedial PFC)82, 83, novel or multi-tasking event sequences (anterior PFC)84, 85 or overlearned sequences (more posterior PFC regions)86, 87. The importance of the PFC for goal-oriented activities is also corroborated by recent functional imaging studies of future reward prediction88.

Although this framework has clear implications for moral cognition, these rely on the hypothesis that the PFC stores the situational and temporal context of social knowledge. The SEC framework does not predict how PFC regions interact with limbic areas and other cortical regions to give rise to a range of moral cognitive phenomena, such as moral values and moral emotions.

Moral sensitivity hypothesis. A final account is that of the moral sensitivity hypothesis13, 48. Using a task that engaged participants as observers, we showed that the viewing of pictures that depicted moral violations specifically activated the anterior PFC, medial OFC, STS region, brainstem and limbic structures. Scenes associated with BASIC EMOTIONS (disgust and fear) activated similar brainstem and limbic regions (including the amygdala), but not the medial OFC and STS. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that a network involving the anterior PFC, OFC, STS and limbic regions represents social–emotional events linked to 'moral sensitivity' — an automatic tagging of ordinary social events with moral values. This hypothesis was supported by the finding that the medial OFC, anterior PFC, STS and precuneus show increased coupling in a functional connectivity analysis48, and by the observation that a similar set of regions is involved in moral reasoning and social perception. Although we proposed that the OFC is more involved in automatic social–emotional associations and that the anterior PFC has a role in predicting future social outcomes, the role of the PFC in context-dependent social situations was not addressed. In addition, the moral sensitivity hypothesis makes no predictions about specific impairments in moral cognition following selective damage to the anterior temporal lobes, the STS region and PFC subregions.

Limitations of current frameworks

Some of the above frameworks point to clear-cut singular mechanisms. These mechanisms have the potential advantage of allowing more specific predictions to be made about the workings of particular brain regions, but they fall short of explaining key aspects of moral cognition. Some general limitations that apply to all of these frameworks are discussed below.

Ecological validity of experimental designs. Ecological validity is especially relevant for moral cognition studies, because moral cognition depends strongly on situational and cultural context6. The experimental constraints that are imposed by behavioural and functional imaging studies might have an important impact on performance on moral cognition tasks. Some people might feel uncomfortable disclosing their opinions about sensitive issues, providing socially desirable answers instead. On the other hand, different people might provide similar opinions, but rely on entirely different moral values. The fact that moral cognition operates to a large extent swiftly and implicitly in regular social life13 makes the ecological validity issue even more crucial. The making of moral judgements on extreme and unfamiliar situations, such as those posed by classic moral dilemmas89, offers interesting ways to probe philosophical points of view, but can hardly be taken as a proxy for everyday moral reasoning. In addition, personal beliefs and familiarity with the scenarios strongly affect behaviour and brain activation results90-94.

Brain processes and representations. Another important limitation of current accounts is the lack of specific predictions about the effects of PFC lesions on moral behaviour. PFC function has been described using two general views: the 'processing' approach, which holds that the cognitive function of the PFC can be described in terms of performance without specifying a representation, and the 'representational' approach, which seeks to establish what type of information is stored in the PFC14. The processing view tends to regard the PFC as a content-free repository of processing modules, such as conflict monitoring, selection and inhibitory control95, and predicts task-dependent rather than content-dependent dissociations resulting from brain lesions. Therefore, moral behaviour impairments following PFC damage would result from a release of limbic areas from PFC 'executive control'96. However, there is no convincing evidence that PFC damage leads to universal impairments in these processes, and it is hard to imagine how complex personality and emotional changes could emerge from dysfunction of these all-purpose processes97. The finding that performance on social reasoning tasks crucially depends on the content of the information being evaluated (for example, social versus non-social)90, 91, 94, 98, and evidence from functional imaging and brain lesion studies linking PFC subregions to content-specific dissociations in social reasoning99, ATTITUDES82, 83, beliefs92 and emotional signals100 indicate that a representational view can better explain the role of the PFC in moral cognition.

Culture and the brain. Finally, inferring cognitive and neural mechanisms from behaviours can be misleading101, especially when cultural and situational factors are involved. For instance, Westerners and East Asians differ in categorization strategies when making causal attributions and predictions102, and moral values and social preferences are shaped by cultural codification103-105. The PFC has a central role in the internalization of moral values and norms through the integration of cultural and contextual information during development24, 106, 107. Assessing the relationships between culturally shaped values and preferences in social interactions will therefore be a logical next step in designing experiments with which to study moral cognition (Box 2).

A new model: EFECs

The evidence discussed above strongly indicates that the neural mechanisms of moral cognition are not restricted to the PFC, limbic areas or any other brain region. We propose a new representational neural architecture, designed to circumvent the limitations of previous frameworks. In our view, moral cognitive phenomena emerge from the integration of content- and context-dependent representations in cortical–limbic networks.

The structure of the framework, its properties and its predictions rely on three main components (Fig. 3a): structured event knowledge, which corresponds to context-dependent representations of events and event sequences in the PFC; social perceptual and functional features, represented as context-independent knowledge in the anterior and posterior temporal cortex; and central motive and emotional states, which correspond to context-independent activation in limbic and paralimbic structures. These components were derived from clinical and imaging evidence, and their relevance to moral cognition and behaviour is reviewed below. Component representations interact and give rise to event–feature–emotion complexes (EFECs) through three putative BINDING mechanisms: sequential binding, which has been proposed to link SECs in the PFC108; temporal binding among anatomically highly connected regions, also involved in PERCEPTUAL GESTALTS in the posterior cortex109; and third-party binding of anatomically loosely connected regions by synchronized activity, which results in the formation of episodic memories108, 110.

Figure 3 | The event–feature–emotion complex framework.

a | The event–feature–emotion complex (EFEC) framework postulates that moral cognitive and behavioural phenomena arise from the binding of three main components: structured event knowledge (provided by context-dependent representations in prefrontal subregions), social perceptual and functional features (stored in the posterior and anterior sectors of the temporal cortex) and central motive or basic emotional states (such as aggressiveness, sadness, attachment or sexual arousal, represented in limbic and paralimbic regions). b | Emergent representations predicted by the EFEC model. Relevant types of moral cognition phenomenon that can be understood on the basis of the EFEC framework include moral emotions, moral values and long-term goals. The elements from the three main components of the EFEC framework interact to produce the moral emotion compassion. The prefrontal cortex provides contextual event representations (for example, the girl is an orphan and the odds of adoption are low), the superior temporal sulcus and anterior temporal cortex region contribute social perceptual (sad facial expression of a child) and functional (the concept of 'helplessness') features, and limbic/paralimbic regions underlie central motive states (feeling sadness, anxiety and attachment). These component representations give rise to a 'gestalt' experience by way of temporal synchronization109. c–f | Recent functional imaging studies show that these component representations are consistently activated by distinct moral emotions: compassion (Moll et al., unpublished observations) (c); embarrassment50 (d); indignation151 (e); and guilt49 (f). ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; aPFC, anterior prefrontal cortex; aTL, anterior temporal lobes; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; STS, superior temporal sulcus. Anatomical image in panels a and b adapted, with permission, from Ref. 148 © (1996) Appleton & Lange. Panel d reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 50 © (2004) Elsevier Science. Panel e reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 151 © (2005) Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. Panel f reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 49 © (2000) Elsevier Science.

Structured event knowledge. Morality is a real-world business. It is about people navigating, interacting and making choices in an ever-changing world. Humans integrate extensive contextual elements when assessing the behaviour of others and when appreciating their own actions in a given situation. The importance of the PFC in structuring context-dependent social and non-social knowledge into SECs is described in terms of the SEC framework14. Distinct PFC regions have been postulated to be involved in representing event sequence knowledge. According to the SEC model, over-learned event sequences, such as routine tasks, are stored in medial and more posterior sectors of the PFC, whereas less predictable event sequences are represented in the DLPFC. The anterior sectors of the PFC are more important for storing long-term goals and multi-stage event complexes, such as those involved in making plans and thinking about the future23, 84, 111-113, and have been implicated in integrating separate cognitive operations to achieve a superordinate behavioural goal84, 114. Finally, the ventromedial sectors of the PFC are preferentially involved in representing social and emotional event knowledge, which is essential for the formation of attitudes and social stereotypes115-117.

Social perceptual and functional features. When you skim your favourite newspaper, gather at a conference or attend a family meeting, your brain deals with a massive number of perceptual signs of social significance. Our ability to manage this burden of information relies on complex patterns of featural and semantic knowledge118. The existence of context-independent featural representations is supported by a vast amount of neuropsychological and functional imaging evidence119, 120. Making implicit or explicit moral appraisals when engaged in the social world requires the ability to efficiently extract social perceptual and functional features from the environment. Social perceptual features are extracted from facial expression, gaze, prosody, body posture and gestures. The posterior STS is a key region for storing these representations33, 121. In support of this view, morphological abnormalities of the STS region have been implicated in the impaired social decoding observed in autism122.

Social functional features code for context-independent semantic properties that are extracted from different social situations. The importance of the anterior temporal cortex for semantic feature knowledge is underscored by supramodal semantic impairments in semantic dementia123. Patients with anterior temporal lobe resection show impairments in naming human actions124, which indicates that this region is involved in representing functional knowledge relevant to people. The severe behavioural changes that are associated with isolated anterior temporal atrophy in semantic dementia74, 75, and the finding of semantic impairments and abnormal activity in this brain region in psychopathic individuals39, 125 support this view.

Central motive states. Moral cognition depends on elaborated cortical mechanisms for representing and retrieving event knowledge, semantic information and perceptual features. However, morality would be reduced to a meaningless concept if it were stripped from its motivational and emotional aspects. Limbic and paralimbic regions126 monitor bodily homeostasis and underlie elementary emotional or motivational 'states'. The concept of 'central motive states'127 is an influential account of the basic mechanisms of motivation. Together with other limbic/paralimbic and brainstem structures (the amygdala, septal nuclei, ventral striatum, medial forebrain bundle, ventral tegmental area and paralimbic cortex), hypothalamic activity has a central role in 'undirected' emotionality, including sexual arousal, social attachment, hunger, aggression and extremes of pleasantness. Accordingly, these states can be potently elicited or suppressed by selective lesions, drugs and electrical stimulation of these regions, as well as by imbalances of neurotransmitters or neuromodulators13, 36, 126-129. Central motive states must be distinguished from basic emotions, such as fear and disgust. Basic emotions emerge by temporal binding of context representations (perceiving the feared object or situation) and the central motive state itself (undirected anxiety).

Several limbic nuclei exert a powerful influence over a wide range of behaviours through reciprocal connections with the PFC and other cortical regions126, 130. Our framework underscores a key role for central motive states in moral behaviour by way of integrated cortical–limbic networks. For example, cortical representations allow you to notice that someone is hurt, whereas central motive states elicit anxiety and attachment, which encourage you to help the suffering person. This integrative perspective contrasts with the commonly held view that 'rational' cognitive mechanisms control or compete with emotional ones.

Explaining complex moral phenomena

Although the EFEC framework can predict several possible emergent properties, we discuss three of the most relevant for moral cognition: moral emotions, moral values and long-term goals.

Whereas basic emotions spring from perceptions, imagination or recollections endowed with personal relevance, moral emotions are linked to the interest or welfare of other individuals or society as a whole131. Guilt, compassion, embarrassment, shame, pride, contempt and gratitude are prototypical examples of moral emotions; depending on the context, other emotions — such as disgust, awe and indignation or anger — may also qualify as moral emotions131, 132. As a general rule, moral emotions result from interactions among values, norms and contextual elements of social situations, and are elicited in response to violations or enforcement of social preferences and expectations104, 132. Although the contextual cues that link moral emotions to social norms are variable and shaped by culture103, these emotions evolved from prototypes found in other primates11 and can be characterized across cultures133.

Moral emotions require the integration of the three components of the model. For example, compassion requires the integration of context-independent social perceptual features (for instance, 'a sad facial expression of a child'), social functional features (abstract conceptual knowledge pointing to the features of 'helplessness' of an orphan child), and central motive states (sadness, anxiety and attachment) with specific contextual event representations (such as 'her parents died in an accident, and the chances of adoption at her age are low') (Fig. 3b).

Moral values (for example, being an honest citizen or a caring parent) and norms (such as paying taxes and not stealing) comprise several standards of conduct in society; they enforce social conformity and shape attitudes and expectations in social situations105, 134. Behaviours that deviate from or enforce these values elicit different moral judgements and emotions (for instance, pride when one upholds the values, or guilt when one fails to do so). Despite the intimate link between moral values, norms and attitudes with moral cognition, their neural representations are still poorly understood. Recent functional MRI (fMRI) studies have started to shed light on these aspects. Attitudes that relate to sensitive issues, such as war, murder and abortion, activate networks involving different PFC sectors, limbic and paralimbic regions and the anterior temporal cortex80, 135. In our view, the moral values and moral emotions involved in specific situations directly influence implicit and explicit moral appraisals.

Another key aspect of moral cognition is the representation of goals and the prediction of the utility of outcomes136 in social situations. Pursuing goals or foreseeing possible consequences of one's decisions in the social world requires the ability to estimate the likelihood of outcomes and their desirability. Functional integration of information in the anterior PFC (which represents long-term outcomes)88 and limbic structures (which code for the reward value of behavioural choices) is key to our ability to weigh the motivational relevance of different behavioural choices in social situations13. This view can be parsimoniously integrated with cognitive and neurobiological models of reward expectation and utility estimation65, 137-139, and contrasts with the interpretation that the PFC performs a 'cognitive role' in abstract moral reasoning by suppressing emotional responses47. Our view posits a central role for the human ability to represent and evaluate large sets of possible event outcomes, which are linked to motivational salience through cortical–limbic integration.

Model predictions

The EFEC framework allows us to generate new predictions about the patterns of moral behavioural changes that result from dysfunction of different brain regions that cannot be made using the other frameworks described above. In addition, it offers novel ways of interpreting functional imaging findings in healthy individuals. Some of these predictions are described below.

A general prediction is that different neural subdivisions store distinct knowledge or motivational states. The binding of particular neuronal groups in each of these areas could give rise to a particular moral cognitive representation (Fig. 3b).

A lesion of the anterior PFC would lead to selective impairments in moral evaluations that rely on predicting the long-term outcomes of one's own actions, such as the anticipation of guilt. We predict that patients with damage to this area would be guided more by short-term goals because their knowledge of long-term plans and goals, or their binding with motivational relevance is impaired. In our interpretation, the activation of this region during moral judgement results from representing possible outcomes and how they branch into the future; this offers a parsimonious explanation for anterior PFC activation in reflective moral reasoning ('moral calculus')13, and in 'utilitarian' moral judgements47.

Lesions of the DLPFC would lead to behavioural impairments in unfamiliar situations, in which reliance on external guidance and stimuli becomes an issue54, but would leave intact well-established social behaviours and attitudes. By contrast, lesions of the ventral sectors of the PFC would lead to severe social behavioural changes due to disruption of social–emotional contextual knowledge14, with early lesions having more drastic effects as they impair the learning of moral values107. Lesions of the ventromedial PFC would tend to impair adherence to well-established social norms and attitudes, which is consistent with the often ensuing personality changes. Lesions of the lateral OFC are expected to impair behaviours that rely on dynamically comparing non-matching social–emotional cues with stored representations, which is in agreement with the proposed role of this region in social response reversal62.

Damage to the posterior STS is predicted to disrupt the ability to recognize socially relevant perceptual features of faces, body posture and movements. This would lead to inadequate social behaviour under circumstances that depend on the perception of these signals, but would leave intact previously established social rules, attitudes and outcome knowledge, as well as their integration with emotional and motivational states. Therefore, acquired lesions in adulthood are predicted to have a relatively minor effect on general social knowledge. However, early developmental disorders that affect this region would impair the acquisition of general social knowledge, including social rules, attitudes and outcome knowledge, which depends on the perceptual integration of social situations.

Lesions of the anterior temporal lobe are expected to disrupt knowledge of social concepts and values that are more context-independent (such as 'honour' and 'greed'), but to leave intact highly context-dependent knowledge of sequences of social events (for example, 'going to a supermarket'). We predict that loss of this knowledge, as measured by semantic memory tasks, would impair implicit and explicit evaluation of one's own and others' social behaviours.

Dysfunction of limbic or paralimbic regions is predicted to cause exaggeration or attenuation of basic motivational and emotional states, thereby affecting moral behaviour. Lesions of the hypothalamus, septal nuclei, basal forebrain and neighbouring structures are predicted to produce gross distortions of the valence of moral values, attitudes and moral emotions. This is in line with the observation of unprovoked rage, lack of empathy and abnormal sexual behaviours following isolated damage to limbic and paralimbic regions35, 36, 128, 140. In the case of acquired lesions in adulthood, gross changes in the motivational relevance of behaviours would be observed, in spite of preserved knowledge of social rules. By contrast, early developmental disorders that affect these regions would cause aberrant social learning. Abnormal behaviours in these patients do not result from impaired inhibitory mechanisms, but from a lack of emotional empathy, or increased aggression or sexual drive, for example. These motivational states can be investigated with functional imaging and physiological methods (such as galvanic skin responses).

Conclusions and future directions

Moral cognitive neuroscience researchers have developed innovative paradigms for the scientific exploration of unique forms of human social behaviour. Recent studies are fostering new interpretations with regard to the neural bases of moral cognition. However, they are also generating new conundrums that require theoretical frameworks to be compatible with distinctive characteristics of the human moral condition.

We have reviewed clinical and experimental work and discussed the strengths and limitations of current theoretical accounts that are relevant to moral cognitive neuroscience. We have proposed a new comprehensive model — the event–feature–emotion complex framework — which integrates cultural and context-dependent knowledge, semantic social knowledge and basic motivational states. This framework allows us to generate testable predictions for neuropsychological dissociations associated with selective brain dysfunction, and can be used as a guideline for designing future experiments.

Moral cognitive neuroscience can improve assessment, prediction and treatment of behavioural disorders. Understanding the neural basis of moral cognition will help to shape environmental, psychological and medical intervention aimed at promoting prosocial behaviours and social welfare. Future studies will be needed to explore the neural basis of how different individuals and social groups make use of strategies and heuristics to solve moral conflicts. The implications of this new knowledge for how societies conduct business, regulate social behaviour and plan for their futures remain to be seen.

Boxes


Box 1 | Psychopathy and the neural organization of morality



The concepts of antisocial personality disorder ('sociopathy') and psychopathy (a severe form of sociopathy) originated from the need to diagnose individuals who show a pattern of behaviours that goes against the common good and repeatedly involves harm to others. Although social norms vary among cultures and even among intracultural niches, sociopathy and psychopathy cannot be reduced to 'cultural artefacts'141 for the simple fact that their core manifestations are stable and easily recognizable, both historically and cross-culturally. The neurobiological validity of sociopathy and psychopathy is supported by increasing scientific evidence that the brains of affected individuals differ from those of socially adjusted people: imaging studies in psychopaths have revealed reduction of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex and abnormal brain activation in limbic regions, as well as in the prefrontal and temporal lobes38, 39.

Box 2 | Culture, moral values and neuroeconomics




Humans often show altruistic inclinations, relying on moral values and preferences, such as equality and fairness, as well as to self-interested motivation142. Economic games provide an interesting way to experimentally investigate social cooperation. In the Ultimatum Game, a proposer makes an offer to a responder on how to split an amount of money. If the responder accepts, the money is split as proposed. However, if the responder rejects, both players end up with nothing. Recent functional imaging studies in the new area of NEUROECONOMICS show that the brain areas activated during these interactions include limbic/paralimbic regions (the hypothalamus and ventral striatum), the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) and the superior temporal sulcus (STS)143, which overlap with the regions involved in moral cognition (panel a). Activation of the insula, a paralimbic structure, predicted rejection of unfair offers144, and activity in the aPFC and striatum reflected decisions to punish violators of the norm145. An interesting aspect of these experimental designs is that they make it possible to measure brain activation during real-time interactions among two or more individuals. Prec, precuneus.

Behavioural studies clearly underscore the role of culturally shaped preferences and values in social and economic interactions. For example, behaviour in experimental games might reflect differences in social cooperativeness, such as proneness to engage in collective efforts. In a study conducted in Tanzania, the more individualistic Pimbwe group made low offers in the Ultimatum Game, whereas the highly cooperative Sukuma group consistently made generous offers146. Such cultural differences are illustrated by the variability of proposals in the Ultimatum Game among different social groups (panel b), although the underlying cognitive and motivational mechanisms and their relationships to social norms and values are still largely unknown105. Future studies could address the distinct roles of PFC subregions, limbic areas and the temporal cortex in representing culturally shaped moral values and norms. Panel a reproduced, with permission, from Ref. 143 © (2004) Elsevier Science. Panel b modified, with permission, from Ref. 146 © (2005) Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.

Jorge Moll1, Roland Zahn1, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza2, Frank Krueger1 & Jordan Grafman1 about the authors

1 Jorge Moll, Roland Zahn, Frank Krueger and Jordan Grafman are at The Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Building 10; Room 5C205; MSC 1440, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1440, USA.
2 Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza is at the Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Unit, LABS-D'Or Hospital Network, R. Pinheiro Guimaraes 22, 3rd floor, Rio de Janeiro 22281-080, Brazil.

correspondence to: Jordan Grafman grafmanj@ninds.nih.gov

Links

FURTHER INFORMATION
Cognitive Neuroscience Section, NINDS, NIH | Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience Unit, LABS-D'Or Hospital Network

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Roberts and the Racialization of Justice

The National Black United Front is sponsoring the deliverable from a roundtable think tank at the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis Tennessee.

John Roberts confirmation hearing places the issue of the racialization of justice in America in the context of his philosophical and ideological predispositions relevant to the administration of justice pursuant to interpretation of laws. The 14th Amendment's guaranty of equal protection under the law as so eloquently opined in Brown v. Board of Education is again ripe for review as a frame of reference when addressing racial disparity in the criminal justice system. Perhaps not deliberate, the effect is the same: institutionalized racism to the extent that Blacks and Hispanics are prosecuted more and recieve more severe sentences upon conviction for the same crime as, say, a non Black or non Hispanic. This fact is codified, documented, and bona fide as a reliable statistic with far-reaching implications.

A pdf of the document is available here for download. Download file

Crossroads

To be conscious at this moment means to accept that everything you have ever been taught in church and school is a farce, and that maintaining the American way of life will prove anti-thetical to every moral value you pretend to hold dear.

Never during our media saturated recollection has America's history so openly centered on subjugation to greed, fear, and monstrousness. In direct and overt contradiction of all the many just-so-stories which exist to reinforce our allegedly Christian identity, we are faced with the increasingly open expression of anti-Christian soullessness.

but do we dare call it what it is?

History has shown us everything we need to know about its scope, approach, and methods;

"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes."

Mein Kampf 1925

Not only should we all recognize its approach, we should all of us have taken the lesson concerning precisely where it's headed. Come on people! It's not rocket science. Pay attention to what it says, and from time to time it'll even slip up and tell you point blank, and in no uncertain terms, exactly what it is....,

Will Had a Lot More to Say

And some of it relates to "acting black," but what I dug most was the whole worship thing - and there's a lot to that which we may wish to revisit at another time...

Large Smelly Object in Punchbowl NOT a Baby Ruth Bar

Looks like John Conyers may be getting a little much-needed air support for his efforts to point out that the large smelly object in the neocon punchbowl is not a nutty, chewy, baby ruth bar after all...,

A simmering controversy over whether American media have ignored a secret British memo about how President Bush built his case for war with Iraq bubbled over into the White House on Tuesday.

At a late afternoon news conference, Reuters correspondent Steve Holland asked Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair about a memo that's been widely written about and discussed in Europe but less so in the USA.

It was the most attention paid by the media in the USA so far to the "Downing Street memo," first reported on May 1 by The Sunday Times of London. The memo is said by some of the president's sharpest critics, such as Democratic Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, to be strong evidence that Bush decided to go to war and then looked for evidence to support his decision.

The Sunday Times said the memo is the minutes of a meeting that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had with some of his top intelligence and foreign policy aides on July 23, 2002, at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence. The story said the memo indicates that Blair was told by the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service that in 2002, the Bush administration was selectively choosing evidence that supported its case for going to war and ignoring anything to the contrary. The war began in March 2003.

"Intelligence and facts were being fixed" by the Bush administration "around" a policy that saw military action "as inevitable," the newspaper quoted from the memo.

"There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush told reporters as Blair stood at his side. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," Bush said in response to a question about the memo. "It was our last option."

Blair added, "The facts were not being 'fixed' in any shape or form at all."

Bush said that at the time the memo was written, no decision had been made about going to war. He pointed out that it was written two months before he went to the United Nations and asked for a Security Council resolution calling on Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction or face "serious consequences."

The Sunday Times' May 1 memo story, which broke just four days before Britain's national elections, caused a sensation in Europe. American media reacted more cautiously. The New York Times wrote about the memo May 2, but didn't mention until its 15th paragraph that the memo stated U.S. officials had "fixed" intelligence and facts.

Knight Ridder Newspapers distributed a story May 6 that said the memo "claims President Bush ... was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy." The Los Angeles Times wrote about the memo May 12, The Washington Post followed on May 15 and The New York Times revisited the news on May 20.

None of the stories appeared on the newspapers' front pages. Several other major media outlets, including the evening news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC, had not said a word about the document before Tuesday. Today marks USA TODAY's first mention.

Some activists who opposed Bush's decision to attack Iraq have been peppering editors with letters and e-mails to push the media into more aggressive coverage. Last week, a group known as Democrats.com offered $1,000 to anyone who can get Bush to answer "yes or no" to this question: Did he or his administration "fix the intelligence" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to terrorism?

"We want what the Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton and Star Wars stories have gotten: endless repetition until people have heard about it," says David Swanson, one of Democrats.com's organizers.

Robin Niblett of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, says it would be easy for Americans to misunderstand the reference to intelligence being "fixed around" Iraq policy. " 'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy," he says.

Ombudsmen at both The New York Times and The Washington Post have been critical of their newspapers for not covering the story more aggressively.

USA TODAY chose not to publish anything about the memo before today for several reasons, says Jim Cox, the newspaper's senior assignment editor for foreign news. "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source," Cox says. "There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."

'Downing Street memo' gets fresh attention By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
Wed Jun 8, 6:58 AM ET

Conyers Quiet Fortitude

The office of Representative John Conyers (D-MI) believes it has surpassed its stated goal of 100,000 signatures requesting an investigation into the Downing Street Memo, minutes of a British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002.

Neocons, say it out loud with me now, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

"Stop Snitching" and Economic Boycotts

I've made reference to a DVD titled "Stop Snitching".

"Dawson Family and Snitching"

"Stop Snitching"

Some things are just so out of bounds, that very little has to be said.

When people/companies decide to take advantage of something like the "Stop Snitching" DVD, an appropriate response must be made.

In shopping malls around the city, young people are buying T-shirts with statements that would make any parent, police officer or community leader cringe: "Criminal minded." "Let's get blown." "Ready to Die."

But one in particular has some city officials particularly stunned: A T-shirt that warns boldly across the front, "Stop Snitchin."

Coming on the heels of the Stop Snitching DVD that began circulating in Baltimore last year, the T-shirts are disheartening to those who say they aggravate an already chronic problem of witness intimidation. While shops that sell the shirts say the tees are not connected to the DVD, city officials say the message remains the same - and it's a damaging one.

...

But those who buy such T-shirts - and those who make or sell them - say the shirts are just fashion.

"I don't take it to heart," said Larry Smith, of Essex, who recently bought a "Stop Snitchin" T-shirt from Changes, a jeans and urban wear store in Eastpoint Mall. "I just like the shirt. It's just a figure of speech."

The shirts, some of which simply say "Stop Snitchin," and others that are more graphically embellished with shotgun targets or other images, sell for about $19 to $28.

This is obscene and that's being nice about it.

I shop at that store when giving gifts to younger family members. I have purchased a few items for myself as well.

No longer.

Not only that, but I've made it clear to my offspring that Changes is off limits. If something comes from that store, and I find out about it, My Wrath Will Be Felt.

[ Update ] The contact info.

Changes Enterprises, LTD

Andrew Goetz, President & CEO

409 Ensor St

Baltimore, MD 21202

info@changesenterprises.com

Equal in Christ But Not in the World

I had an interesting converstion with relatives when I went to Virginia. I knew they were conservative, but didn't know how conservative they were, believing that slavery throughout history was the same (and supported by the Bible), that the poor are poor as a result of a combination of lack of personal effort and historical karma, and that whites loom over blacks because of the same historical karma. This last part I gathered from a conversation we were having while staying at a time-share that was built on a historical virginia plantation. My relatives believed that the people that owned the plantation historically must have done something right to get that plantation. Blacks who were enslaved must have done something wrong. Our contemporary problems stem from a lack of personal morality, and a lack of racial morality.

Hm.

So I am writing a paper examining black attitudes about homosexuality, and I run across this citation:

"Equal in Christ, but not in the world: white conservative Protestants and explanations of black-white inequality"

Author: Emerson, Michael O.; Smith, Christian; Sikkink, David

Journal: Social Forces

Abstract:
In an effort to advance understanding of Americans' explanations for racial inequality, and the implications that these explanations have for reducing black-white socioeconomic inequality, the writers examine the role of religion. They suggest that the rationale for racial inequality is shaped by the cultural tools of a religious subculture. They investigate white conservative Protestants, and they identify religious tools that they term "accountable freewill individualism," "anti-structuralism," and "relationalism." Based on these, they hypothesize that white conservative Protestants explain inequality in more individualistic and less structural terms than do other white Americans; and that they will emphasize perceived dysfunctional social relations among African-Americans in their explanations. Data from the 1996 General Social Survey and qualitative data from 117 in-depth interviews clearly support the hypotheses. The writers state that religion seems to have an independent effect on explanations of racial inequality.
.....

My relatives are beautiful, and powerful in their own way. They are proud and loving parents, and proud and loving grandparents. But their religious attitudes place them on the wrong side of the road. Unfortunate.

Alan Keyes, Politics, Values, and Kinship

OK, this is something that I don't really understand:

Maya Keyes loves her father and mother. She put off college and moved from the family home in Darnestown to Chicago to be with her dad on a grand adventure. Even though she disagrees with him on "almost everything" political, she worked hard for his quixotic and losing campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Now Maya Keyes -- liberal, lesbian and a little lost -- finds herself out on her own. She says her parents -- conservative commentator and perennial candidate Alan Keyes and his wife, Jocelyn -- threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her.

Maya, 19, says her parents cut her off because of who she is -- "a liberal queer." Tomorrow, she will take her private dispute with her dad into the open. She is scheduled to make her debut as a political animal, speaking at a rally in Annapolis sponsored by Equality Maryland, the state's gay rights lobby.

I can't see kicking your kid out of the house because of political differences.

I can't see kicking your kid out of the house because your child has said they are gay.

I can see kicking your kid out of the house if your kid is not living up to your moral standards and is doing so in the home. For example, being caught having sex in your home.

But even then, not speaking to my child would not be an issue. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is something I often heard while I was being raised. Also, it seems that when you close the door of communication, you close the chance of affecting a positive change.

IF this is being reported accurately, it's a sad state of affairs.

A parent isn't obligated to pay for their kid's college tuition nor are they obligated to house their kid past the age of 18. But it's RIGHT to do so if your child is being productive.

Not speaking to your child because he is a sinner in your eyes, is wrong.

If this is being reported accurately, someone of moral authority needs to publically say this to Alan Keyes.

This is foul.

Whither Blacks?

I found this little graphic about black income. Yes that's right black annual household income for the year 2004 in thousands. In this demographic profile good or bad? I'm not going to identify the source of this graphic other than to say what I already said. What are we to make of this fact? What might these people be doing right or wrong? What political orientation might we assume or prescribe? What does this say about America? About black America? What are your reactions to this? Does it matter? Why? Why not?

More on Iris Chang

Around the time ODB passed, I noted the passing of Iris Chang. Her work The Rape of Nanking opened the eyes of the North (she'd say the West) to the atrocities committed in Asia during WW II. Today in Salon a former friend writes a eulogy in How Iris Chang Became a Verb.

Sticking Up For Alan Keyes

I hate to do this, because in general, I consider the man to be off the deep end and an opportunist of the bad kind. But I have to do this.

Sigh

Alan Keyes has staked his claim as a man of faith. His faith states that homosexuality is a sin. So, why should he be blasted for stating in straight forward terms, that those who practice homosexuality are immoral?

And since he believes his faith tells him that abortion is murder, and his faith states that murder is a sin, why is it wrong for him to say that the "leader" of his faith would not vote for a man who goes against the teachings of the faith?

Okay, now I have to go take a long shower.

The Dark Side of Positive Images

J at Silver Rights scribes on a bit about author Thulani Davis who recalls her grandparents and their lives as slaves in Virginia. She finds it curious that blacks and whites have vastly different memories of that peculiar time.

Southern history is still too often viewed through a lens of white privilege. I do not know when Thulani Davis' book will be completed. But, in the interim, I encourage anyone interested in the complex reality of real Southern families to read the articles she is currently publishing based on research into her families -- both black and white.

I immediately thought of talent shows and image awards and 'American Idol' and 'The Apprentice' in this very context. While surely African Americans' great triumph has been to cull beauty and strength from the devastations of oppression, that very beauty and strength can be used to paint a rosy picture which is not wholly true. In reviewing black reticence to 'air dirty laundry', perhaps it should not be so taboo.

Nothing is going to reveal the nature of black culture like a clash between its elements. When jazz purists go after hiphop, when Baptist diss Methodists, when Brooklyn meets Decatur the results are often very illuminating, not only for the parties involved, but neutral observers. Of course this kind of conflict flies in the face of unity and is often suppressed out of fear of 'divide and conquer' strategies of the Man. But reality shows that racism doesn't hurt all blackfolks equally, nor is it our biggest problem.

We're all better off when we openly discuss our triumphs and failures. Each one teach one is not all stories about princesses and castles, but stories about dragons and dungeons as well. Suppressing the foul stories gives license to the rose colored stories. So watch out for that. Your success is going to be used against you.

The Passion of Christ

A number of interwoven conversations has got me thinking about Christianity. Of course there's the furor over gay marriage. And one of my boys (heavy Christian) planned to do a photoshoot of foster children only to have second thoughts after he realized that one of the kids had been adopted by a gay couple. And then there's the recent hubbub about Gibson's The Passion.

My wife is Christian. Many of my best friends are Christian.

As soon as Gibson picked Jim Caviezel to be Jesus I knew I wouldn't even invest in The Passion on the hollywood stock exchange. Gibson's passion for the truth didn't quite extend that far did it? I wonder who Mad Max would've chosen?

On gay marriage, the solution is a complicated one. I believe that Christianity as a faith is in the process of dying a slow death, because it is a faith. As such, it's almost like those in gay and lesbian communities the country over, want to integrate into a burning house. But on the other hand, in as much as I think Christianity can be resurrected by reason combined with love, I can only imagine a few other groups as able to save Christianity from itself.

For my boy the cameraman there is no debate. And from my standpoint he's right--there IS no debate. Jesus is love. End of Story. I can't imagine a situation in which a loving spirit would want to separate a child from loving, caring, respectful parents. But what do I know? I know the reason Easter changes every year. Which means I know a bit more than most Christians.