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I was just looking through the news aggregator and I came across a rather interesting title of an article so I thought I would read further, and I was very intrigued by this subject. The article is titled "Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices" located in the science section of the New York Times.

The area of the brain associated with this described damage is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and is located behind the forehead, more specifically a few inches behind the eyes. The prefrontal cortex is general involved with short-term memory and damage to this prefrontal cortex can cause short-term memory deficits. Furthermore, it has been said to be associated with higher cognitive functions such as language, abstract reasoning, problem solving, social interactions, and planning. Therefore, when I read: "Damage to an area of the brain transforms the way people make moral judgments in life-or-death situations. In a new study, people with this rare injury expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others’ lives" I tied it back to the cognitive functions listed above and it seemed to make complete sense. If there is damage to the prefrontal cortex, then the individual might experience difficulties and deficits when it comes to abstract reasoning, problem solving, social interactions, etc, all of which can be involved with making moral decisions. However, it does seem a bit extremem to just let an infant suffocate and endorse death/killings in high conflict situations. It's interesting how individuals with this damage to their brain resort to violent efforts in crisis situations. I started to wonder about the environmental role in these situations. Does the individual's instruction throughout his or her childhood and further development based on the environment in which he or she was raised have any affect on the moral choice these brain damaged individual's seem to make? Do those prior teachings just become erased from the brain? Are they considered short term memories since the prefrontal cortex is associated with short term memory?

Additionally, I began to think about the military a bit, especially when I read one quote from a patient of the doctor that stated: "Jeez, I’ve turned into a killer." I began to wonder if there is any connection between the individuals in the military who are instructed to kill and preform often ruthless tactics to kill people at times and the brain damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It might be interesting to extend this study into the military forces to investigate if maybe there is a certain type of person, a certain type of brain that is geared for the military.

Also, it seems as if these brain damaged individuals sacrifice lived without question at time, but what happens when their own lives are at stake? Does the damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex change any moral judgement in relation to that individual or is it applied to more external forces, people other than that individual. It would be interesting to really examine the emotions involved here since the prefrontal cortex is said to be involved with giving rise to social emotions. However, what are truly social emotions and how are they all subdivided? Are some emotions hindered while others are enhanced? What is the connection between all of these? It's just really interesting that judgement can be controlled and altered by brain damage regardless of how the individual was brought up.

If anyone wants to read this article, the link is right below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/science/22brain.html?ex=1332216000&en=f5bb061d194af5fa&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss