Neuroéticala dotación ética del cerebro humano

  1. Natalia López Moratalla
Journal:
Cuadernos de bioética

ISSN: 1132-1989 2386-3773

Year of publication: 2015

Volume: 26

Issue: 88

Pages: 415-425

Type: Article

More publications in: Cuadernos de bioética

Abstract

The neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of Neuroethics. Neurosciences demonstrate which cerebral areas are active and inactive whilst people decide how to act when facing a moral dilemma; in this way we know the correlation between determined cerebral areas and our human acts. We can explain how the “ethical endowments” of each person, common to all human beings, is “embedded” in the dynamic of cerebral flows. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. The outcome of man’s natural inclinations is on one hand linked to instinctive systems of animal survival and to basic emotions, and on the other, to the life of each individual human uninhibited by automatism of the biological laws, because he is governed by the laws of freedom. The capacity to formulate an ethical judgement is an innate asset of the human mind.

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