Radiolab Morality
Aug 13, 2007
Josh Greene, Princeton neuroscientist and philosopher who studies moral decision-making, joins to explore trolley-style dilemmas. He discusses brain scans that separate rational calculation from emotional responses. Conversations cover primate roots of cooperation, empathy as a moral core, how children learn rules, and why frontal-lobe deliberation can override gut reactions.
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Different Brain Systems Drive Trolley Judgments
- People judge two near-identical trolley dilemmas differently because different brain systems activate for impersonal versus personal harm.
- Josh Greene's fMRI shows leverage decisions light utilitarian regions while pushing a person lights emotional regions, producing opposite verdicts.
Morality As A Duel Between Brain Tribes
- Moral decisions arise from competing neural ‘tribes’: a calculating, cost–benefit system and a visceral, deontological system.
- Greene interprets the glowing fMRI spots as these warring modules producing gut acceptance or revulsion.
Chimpanzee Sharing Observed At Emory
- Frans de Waal observed chimp sharing routines where adults divide and share a large food branch with juveniles.
- At Emory, chimps stop fights when alphas intervene and then adults lead group sharing in a hut so everyone gets some.