Legal Theory Blog

Leonard on Bias

Adam Leonard has a nice post entitled Explaining Bias on Brains.  Here is an excerpt:

The ability of fMRI scans to detect which modules of the brain are active during cognitive processes provides a crude, but nonetheless revealing window into how we “think”: it allows testing whether some of our gross assumptions are true or not.

For example, a widely referenced July 2006 Scientific American “Skeptic” column http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-political-brain by Michael Shermer proclaimed, : “A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias.”

The column related that shortly before the 2004 presidential election fifteen subjects who described themselves as “strong Republicans” and fifteen who described themselves as “strong Democrats” underwent fMRI brain scans while being asked to assess statements by George W. Bush and John F. Kerry in which the candidates appeared to contradict themselves. In all cases the subjects were critical of the candidate they opposed, and spun explanations excusing the candidate they supported. … What was surprising, however, was what the fMRI scans revealed: parts of the brain associated with processing emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments were activated, but the part of the brain associated with reasoning was not. When the subjects finally arrived at a conclusion that satisfied them, the part of the brain associated with reward and pleasure was activated.

And a bit more:

An awareness that unconscious bias exists in all of us, scientists as well, helps to explain the not infrequent battles that arise whenever new data begins to conflict with accepted theory. It is normal, and unfortunately natural, for proponents of an existing theory or viewpoint to fiercely reject without real examination any data that might challenge the status quo. Hopefully, the growing awareness that we are all “wired” to do this will cause us to consciously resist our impulse.

Check it out!

Utilitarianism & Brain Abormality

Guy Kahane & Nicholas Shackel have a Communication on the website of Nature entitled Do abnormal responses show utilitarian bias?  Here is the summary:

Arising from: M. Koenigs et al. Nature 446, 908–911 (2007); Koenigs et al. reply

Neuroscience has recently turned to the study of utilitarian and non-utilitarian moral judgement. Koenigs et al.¹ examine the responses of normal subjects and those with ventromedial–prefrontal–cortex (VMPC) damage to moral scenarios drawn from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies by Greene et al.^{2, 3, 4}, and claim that patients with VMPC damage have an abnormally "utilitarian" pattern of moral judgement. It is crucial to the claims of Koenigs et al. that the scenarios of Greene et al. pose a conflict between utilitarian consequence and duty: however, many of them do not meet this condition. Because of this methodological problem, it is too early to claim that VMPC patients have a utilitarian bias.

And the summary of the original piece Koenigs et al.:

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies. 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. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions, produce an abnormally 'utilitarian' pattern of judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person's life to save a number of other lives). In contrast, the VMPC patients' judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements.

Cushman, Knobe & Sennett-Armstrong on Doing & Allowing

Fiery Cushman, Joshua Knobe & Walter Sennett-Armstrong have a paper entitled Moral Appraisals Affect Doing/Allowing Judgments on the web. Here is a description from a blog post by Knobe on Experimental Philosophy:

Probably the best way to give you a sense for the idea here is just to describe one of the studies we conducted.  In our first study, all subjects were given a story about a person who ends up in the hospital.  The person is being kept alive by life-support systems, but then the doctor turns off these systems specifically for the purpose of making sure the person dies.  With the life-support systems now absent, the person's life soon ends.  Subjects are then asked whether it would be more accurate to say that the doctor 'ended' the person's life or that he 'allowed it to end.' 

Now comes the tricky part.  Subjects were randomly assigned either to the 'morally bad' condition or to the 'morally ambiguous' condition. Subjects in the morally bad condition were told that the doctor removed the life-support system because he despised the patient and did not want to use valuable resources on him; subjects on the morally ambiguous condition were told that the doctor turned off the life-support systems because he honestly believed that the patient would be better off not having to go on suffering.  (This latter condition is morally ambiguous in that those subjects who are in favor of euthanasia should regard it as morally good while those opposed to euthanasia should regard it as morally bad.) 

As expected, subjects in the morally bad condition tended to say that the doctor 'ended' the patient's life, while those in the morally ambiguous showed a more complex pattern.  Specifically, subjects who said that in general they regard euthanasia as morally bad tended to say that the doctor 'ended' the patient's life, while those who said that in general they regard euthanasia as morally good tended to say that he 'allowed' the patient's life to end.  These results suggest that people's use of the doing/allowing distinction depends in some way on their moral judgments.\

Highly recommended.  If you are unfamiliar with the growing body of work in experimental philosophy, this is a nice paper with which to start.