The neuropsychology of moral judgment. About the causes of counter-intuitive responses to moral dilemmas

A growing literature in neuropsychology studies moral judgment with moral dilemmas, testing subjects with neural damage or with anti-social personality traits. It seems to confirm a tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian moral judgment, i.e., these subjects abnormally approve sacrificing an innocent person to save several lives. We argue that empirical evidence does not support the hypothesis of two moral subsystems in the brain, but rather a dysfunction in empathic capacity and emotional processing, that provides support to a Humean moral psychology. Additionally, we advocate extending the explanandum of this research program from counterintuitive utilitarian judgment to counterintuitive moral judgment. This would allow to experimentally investigate a broader range of variables affected by dysfunction in empathic capacities.