Cited by 930Psychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesEthics in Business and Education

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The neural basis of human moral cognition

Moll, Jorge, Zahn, Roland, de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo, Krueger, Frank, Grafman, Jordan·2005·Nature Reviews Neuroscience

DOI 10.1038/nrn1768

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Abstract

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.

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Situated affective and social neuroscience
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“More generally, this Research Topic indicates that a brain network approach to social and emotional processes (Moll et al., 2005, 2008; Kennedy and Adolphs, 2012; Baez et al., 2014a) seems more adequate than simple approximations ascribing such complex domains to a single region.”
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“These areas are widely implicated in social cognitive and decision-making processes (Moll et al., 2005, 2007; Rilling and Sanfey, 2011; Bastin et al., 2016).”
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“…as a whole embedded in the brain, but its diverse aspects are meticulously replaced with certain areas: moral cognition is situated in prefrontal regions, moral emotions can be found in the limbic system, and the social dimension of morality resides in the temporal lobe (Moll et al., 2005).”
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“Only men showed functional connectivity between the AI and the temporal pole, with functions proposed for the understanding of social semantics (Moll et al., 2005) and for the integration of higher order information that involves emotional-visceral responses (Olson et al.”
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“2017) using a lesion model to investigate envy substantiated the role of the ACC while also demonstrating a negative correlation between the reported experience of envy and gray matter in posterior regions of the cortex, including the angular gyrus, implicated previously in moral judgements (Moll et al., 2005; Raine &…”
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“Others have reviewed what has been learned about the neural basis of moral cognition (Greene, 2003; Moll et al, 2005), so I do not attempt that here.”
Background
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Authors: Moll, J., Zahn, R., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J.
Affiliations: National Institutes of Health (US)
Corresponding author: Grafman, Jordan
ORCID: Moll, Jorge
Zahn, Roland
Grafman, Jordan
Venue: Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published: 2005-10
Volume: 6
Issue: 10
Pages: 799-809
ISSN: 1471-003X (ISSN-L)
1471-0048
DOI: 10.1038/nrn1768
OpenAlex: W1568809335
Cited by: 930
References: 160
Citations by year: 2026: 18 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 60 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 52 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 76 · 2013: 73 · 2012: 51
FWCI: 2.63
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed
Licence: www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations: Nature reviews. Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion)
FreiDok plus (Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg) (submittedVersion)
Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders: National Institutes of Health
Topics: Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Ethics in Business and Education
Keywords: moral cognition, neural basis of morality, moral judgment, social cognition, brain dysfunction, cultural knowledge, motivational states, ethical decision-making
MeSH terms: Brain, Cognition, Humans, Morals, Neural Pathways, Neurosciences

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