Emotions key to judging others

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A new study from MIT neuroscientists suggests that our ability to respond appropriately to intended harms ? that is, with outrage toward the perpetrator ? is seated in a brain region associated with regulating emotions. Patients with damage to this brain area, known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are unable to conjure a normal emotional response to hypothetical situations in which a person tries, but fails, to kill another person. Therefore, they judge the situation based only on the outcome, and do not hold the attempted murderer morally responsible. The finding offers a new piece to the puzzle of how the human brain constructs morality, says Liane Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the March 25 issue of the journal . ?We?re slowly chipping away at the structure of morality,? says Young. ?We?re not the first to show that emotions matter for morality, but this is a more precise look at how emotions matter.