Understanding how we distinguish right from wrong in our actions (moral agency) has suggestive parallels with deciding if what we see is real or unreal. In common with Doris's distinction between conscious moral awareness and the actual reasons that may underlie behaviour, there is a distinction within visual processing between what is subjectively seen in the mind's eye and the non-accessible visual processing that leads to that experienced image (e.g., Kanwisher Reference Kanwisher2010).
In this commentary we will use that commonality to explore three aspects of Doris's proposal: (1) Can conscious reflection alter unconscious processes? (2) What is the nature of moral representations in the brain and how are representations developed? (3) Can unconscious processes be the basis for free moral choices? Finally, we will consider some implications of brain-based morality.
It is currently believed that conscious visual perception derives from a sparse, internally generated, goal-directed model that predicts and is then constrained by input from the eyes (Collerton et al. Reference Collerton, Perry and McKeith2005). The implication is that all perceptions, real or unreal, are fundamentally the same. In most cases images are constrained to be consistent with external reality – veridical – but on occasion the model goes wrong and things are seen that are not out there – hallucinations (Collerton et al. Reference Collerton, Perry and McKeith2005). Individual reactions to hallucinatory experiences vary greatly, from a convinced belief that the experience is veridical, to an insightful awareness that the thing is not there, with many shades of understanding in between (Mocellin et al. Reference Mocellin, Walterfang and Velakoulis2006).
Deciding whether a specific perception is veridical or not will depend on a self-aware reflection which is usually developed in conjunction with other people – collaborative rationalisation, as Doris puts it. Doris (Reference Doris2015b) uses the example of confabulation in Ch. 4 to explore failures of reflective agency. The inverse occurs when people reflect upon hallucinations in a social context. For example, “rationalist” psychological treatments for distressing visual hallucinations emphasise a joint therapist-client investigation of the reality of experiences and the attributions attached to them, as the main avenue for improvement (Wilson et al. Reference Wilson, Collerton, Freeston, Christodoulides and Dudley2015). Significantly, in some cases insight alone may lead to hallucinations ceasing (Thomson et al. Reference Thomson, Wilson, Collerton, Freeston and Dudley2017), suggesting a sustained change in inaccessible internal representations as a result of reflection. Though this formal evidence comes from clinical disorders in which hallucinations are sufficiently common that they can be systematically investigated, anecdotal reports suggest that equivalent processes occur when people consider the non-pathological hallucinatory experiences that occur in some dreams, on the borders of sleep and wakefulness, or following sensory or sleep deprivation. As a contrast, “spiritual” (e.g., shamanic) accounts see these visions as reflecting a true, if alternative, reality (Luhrmann Reference Luhrmann2011), and may lead people to seek to actively encourage them. The individual attributions made of these perceptions, even when they have the same content, lead to great variation in how well people function in their lives (Waters et al. Reference Waters, Collerton, Jardri, Pins, Dudley, Blom, Mosimann, Eperjesi, Ford and Larøi2014).
Thus, in answer to the first question we posed, it does seem that conscious reflection in vision can have significant lasting effects on unconscious processes. By extension, Doris's fundamental architecture of non-conscious processes that bear a structured relationship to the environment and have outputs that are amenable to change following reflection both within individuals and with others, is plausible. Hence, moral behaviour may stem from a combination of non-accessible processes – the tendency to care, or protect, for example – and more reflective processes – how best to care or protect in a specific situation.
Neuroscience models of moral behaviour highlight the same distinction between unconscious decisions dependent upon orbital and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, and conscious, reflective, moderation of these decisions, which is more reliant on dorsolateral cortex (Fumagalli & Priori Reference Fumagalli and Priori2012; Funk & Gazzaniga Reference Funk and Gazzaniga2009; Mendez Reference Mendez2009). Furthermore, manipulations of neurotransmitters can have specific effects on moral behaviours. Dopaminergic agonists may make people appear to have more selfish behaviours, while serotonin boosting drugs may make people more caring (Crockett et al. Reference Crockett, Siegel, Kurth-Nelson, Ousdal, Story, Frieband, Grosse-Rueskamp, Dayan and Dolan2015). However, while there is some consensus on the circuitry underlying moral judgements and behaviour, the nature of the representations and processes of morality within the brain is less established.
Does the analogy with vision therefore help us with our second area, the nature of the internal representations and processes which lead to moral agency? Visual processing is surprisingly sparse and partial given our subjective experience of a detailed consistent visual world. However, it is functionally good enough, despite being limited and inconsistent in some circumstances. For example, the phenomenon of change blindness, wherein most people miss major changes in the visual environment because they are not looking for them (Simons & Rensink Reference Simons and Rensink2005), illustrates that internal models do not have to be comprehensive or detailed in order to work well enough in everyday life. Visual illusions show that vision can get things wrong in some circumstances but again, still work well enough most of the time (Rees Reference Rees, Collerton, Perry and Mosimann2014).
Doris reviews the many biases in peoples' moral reasoning and behaviour. The analogy with vision suggests that the moral representations that people hold do not need to be consistent or detailed to still function well enough for them and society to get by. Thus, intellectual attempts to create a consistent moral framework may be at odds with how morality is represented within the brain. People may not follow a consistent moral framework, just as they do not see exactly correctly all of what is there, but they can still do well enough. Pragmatism may be the core approach of the brain to moral questions.
Doris makes the point that one can act in habitually moral or immoral ways. This would have the implication that the core of morality is not whether a specific action is moral or not, but whether the internal model that guides action is fundamentally moral or immoral. As with vision, there will be exceptions to the model (immoral hallucinations, if we could use the term), but the very fact that these can be reflected upon by the person, perhaps with others, and then recognised as deviant, supports the duality of processes that Doris proposes.
This line of thought leads us to consider how an internal moral model may come about. How do we learn to tell right from wrong? Evidence from developmental studies of vision suggests that though there are innate biases, much of perception is learnt by a combination of conscious and non-conscious processes in combination with other actors who act as instructors (Cohen & Salapatek Reference Cohen and Salapatek2013). This then places an emphasis on the potential benefit of moral instruction, and has echoes with traditional religious teaching on the development of an internal moral guide: conscience.
However, even granted that non-conscious aspects of morality can be taught and learnt, that does not necessarily mean that once a moral representation is formed, a person can still retain moral agency. In answer, it is striking that traditions that stress moral agency as diverse as Roman Catholicism and Buddhism both stress that moral behaviour comes from a combination of intuitive and reflective practices. The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church (2000) states that “Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil” and that “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.” Likewise, Buddhism “insists very strongly that there is right action, but that we cannot decide what right action is only by thinking about it . . . So that decision is not a decision in our mind alone, but an intuitive decision in our whole body and mind” (Luetchford Reference Luetchford2001).
As Doris points out, the development of morality is a social process. Again from the Catholic Catechism, “The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience.” In Buddhism, [learning right from wrong] “is a very difficult task, and so it takes most of us, most of our lives to learn” (Luetchford Reference Luetchford2001).
Analogies with vision therefore lead us to support Doris's general hypothesis. Moral frameworks may be incomplete and contradictory, but still functional. They are learnt to some degree, and though inaccessible to direct introspection, their outputs can be recognised and reflected upon, leading to change.
In our area of enquiry, psychological and biological studies arising from new models of hallucinations have taken an experience, once thought to be primarily a sign of madness, into the realm of normal visual perception. Conversations between informed philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists can work towards viable models of morality that incorporate bottom-up genetics, development, and biology; top-down social and educational influences; and the interplay of conscious and non-conscious processes. Might there be more ‘common sense’ if more such understandings can be relayed by responsible press and media?
The cognitive neuroscience of moral decision making is incorporating novel brain-based concepts, just as the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception did and does. Will the numerous individual variations in, for example, brain connectivity, the ability to suppress background information, and blood hormonal markers, mean that we can better understand the extraordinary variations in morality we encounter?
This raises the prospect of changing morality by modulating the brain directly, bypassing reflection. Thus, “Neuroscientists are now discovering how hormones and brain chemicals shape social behavior, opening potential avenues for pharmacological manipulation of ethical values” (Siegel & Crockett Reference Siegel and Crockett2013) or “we aim to gather knowledge of the potential of tDCS [transcranial direct current stimulation] to modulate social functioning and social decision making in healthy humans, and to inspire future research investigations” (Sellaro et al. Reference Sellaro, Nitsche and Colzato2016).
But if morality can be directly changed without reflection and discussion, this raises a final question: Who will moralise the moralisers?
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Understanding how we distinguish right from wrong in our actions (moral agency) has suggestive parallels with deciding if what we see is real or unreal. In common with Doris's distinction between conscious moral awareness and the actual reasons that may underlie behaviour, there is a distinction within visual processing between what is subjectively seen in the mind's eye and the non-accessible visual processing that leads to that experienced image (e.g., Kanwisher Reference Kanwisher2010).
In this commentary we will use that commonality to explore three aspects of Doris's proposal: (1) Can conscious reflection alter unconscious processes? (2) What is the nature of moral representations in the brain and how are representations developed? (3) Can unconscious processes be the basis for free moral choices? Finally, we will consider some implications of brain-based morality.
It is currently believed that conscious visual perception derives from a sparse, internally generated, goal-directed model that predicts and is then constrained by input from the eyes (Collerton et al. Reference Collerton, Perry and McKeith2005). The implication is that all perceptions, real or unreal, are fundamentally the same. In most cases images are constrained to be consistent with external reality – veridical – but on occasion the model goes wrong and things are seen that are not out there – hallucinations (Collerton et al. Reference Collerton, Perry and McKeith2005). Individual reactions to hallucinatory experiences vary greatly, from a convinced belief that the experience is veridical, to an insightful awareness that the thing is not there, with many shades of understanding in between (Mocellin et al. Reference Mocellin, Walterfang and Velakoulis2006).
Deciding whether a specific perception is veridical or not will depend on a self-aware reflection which is usually developed in conjunction with other people – collaborative rationalisation, as Doris puts it. Doris (Reference Doris2015b) uses the example of confabulation in Ch. 4 to explore failures of reflective agency. The inverse occurs when people reflect upon hallucinations in a social context. For example, “rationalist” psychological treatments for distressing visual hallucinations emphasise a joint therapist-client investigation of the reality of experiences and the attributions attached to them, as the main avenue for improvement (Wilson et al. Reference Wilson, Collerton, Freeston, Christodoulides and Dudley2015). Significantly, in some cases insight alone may lead to hallucinations ceasing (Thomson et al. Reference Thomson, Wilson, Collerton, Freeston and Dudley2017), suggesting a sustained change in inaccessible internal representations as a result of reflection. Though this formal evidence comes from clinical disorders in which hallucinations are sufficiently common that they can be systematically investigated, anecdotal reports suggest that equivalent processes occur when people consider the non-pathological hallucinatory experiences that occur in some dreams, on the borders of sleep and wakefulness, or following sensory or sleep deprivation. As a contrast, “spiritual” (e.g., shamanic) accounts see these visions as reflecting a true, if alternative, reality (Luhrmann Reference Luhrmann2011), and may lead people to seek to actively encourage them. The individual attributions made of these perceptions, even when they have the same content, lead to great variation in how well people function in their lives (Waters et al. Reference Waters, Collerton, Jardri, Pins, Dudley, Blom, Mosimann, Eperjesi, Ford and Larøi2014).
Thus, in answer to the first question we posed, it does seem that conscious reflection in vision can have significant lasting effects on unconscious processes. By extension, Doris's fundamental architecture of non-conscious processes that bear a structured relationship to the environment and have outputs that are amenable to change following reflection both within individuals and with others, is plausible. Hence, moral behaviour may stem from a combination of non-accessible processes – the tendency to care, or protect, for example – and more reflective processes – how best to care or protect in a specific situation.
Neuroscience models of moral behaviour highlight the same distinction between unconscious decisions dependent upon orbital and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, and conscious, reflective, moderation of these decisions, which is more reliant on dorsolateral cortex (Fumagalli & Priori Reference Fumagalli and Priori2012; Funk & Gazzaniga Reference Funk and Gazzaniga2009; Mendez Reference Mendez2009). Furthermore, manipulations of neurotransmitters can have specific effects on moral behaviours. Dopaminergic agonists may make people appear to have more selfish behaviours, while serotonin boosting drugs may make people more caring (Crockett et al. Reference Crockett, Siegel, Kurth-Nelson, Ousdal, Story, Frieband, Grosse-Rueskamp, Dayan and Dolan2015). However, while there is some consensus on the circuitry underlying moral judgements and behaviour, the nature of the representations and processes of morality within the brain is less established.
Does the analogy with vision therefore help us with our second area, the nature of the internal representations and processes which lead to moral agency? Visual processing is surprisingly sparse and partial given our subjective experience of a detailed consistent visual world. However, it is functionally good enough, despite being limited and inconsistent in some circumstances. For example, the phenomenon of change blindness, wherein most people miss major changes in the visual environment because they are not looking for them (Simons & Rensink Reference Simons and Rensink2005), illustrates that internal models do not have to be comprehensive or detailed in order to work well enough in everyday life. Visual illusions show that vision can get things wrong in some circumstances but again, still work well enough most of the time (Rees Reference Rees, Collerton, Perry and Mosimann2014).
Doris reviews the many biases in peoples' moral reasoning and behaviour. The analogy with vision suggests that the moral representations that people hold do not need to be consistent or detailed to still function well enough for them and society to get by. Thus, intellectual attempts to create a consistent moral framework may be at odds with how morality is represented within the brain. People may not follow a consistent moral framework, just as they do not see exactly correctly all of what is there, but they can still do well enough. Pragmatism may be the core approach of the brain to moral questions.
Doris makes the point that one can act in habitually moral or immoral ways. This would have the implication that the core of morality is not whether a specific action is moral or not, but whether the internal model that guides action is fundamentally moral or immoral. As with vision, there will be exceptions to the model (immoral hallucinations, if we could use the term), but the very fact that these can be reflected upon by the person, perhaps with others, and then recognised as deviant, supports the duality of processes that Doris proposes.
This line of thought leads us to consider how an internal moral model may come about. How do we learn to tell right from wrong? Evidence from developmental studies of vision suggests that though there are innate biases, much of perception is learnt by a combination of conscious and non-conscious processes in combination with other actors who act as instructors (Cohen & Salapatek Reference Cohen and Salapatek2013). This then places an emphasis on the potential benefit of moral instruction, and has echoes with traditional religious teaching on the development of an internal moral guide: conscience.
However, even granted that non-conscious aspects of morality can be taught and learnt, that does not necessarily mean that once a moral representation is formed, a person can still retain moral agency. In answer, it is striking that traditions that stress moral agency as diverse as Roman Catholicism and Buddhism both stress that moral behaviour comes from a combination of intuitive and reflective practices. The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church (2000) states that “Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil” and that “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.” Likewise, Buddhism “insists very strongly that there is right action, but that we cannot decide what right action is only by thinking about it . . . So that decision is not a decision in our mind alone, but an intuitive decision in our whole body and mind” (Luetchford Reference Luetchford2001).
As Doris points out, the development of morality is a social process. Again from the Catholic Catechism, “The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience.” In Buddhism, [learning right from wrong] “is a very difficult task, and so it takes most of us, most of our lives to learn” (Luetchford Reference Luetchford2001).
Analogies with vision therefore lead us to support Doris's general hypothesis. Moral frameworks may be incomplete and contradictory, but still functional. They are learnt to some degree, and though inaccessible to direct introspection, their outputs can be recognised and reflected upon, leading to change.
In our area of enquiry, psychological and biological studies arising from new models of hallucinations have taken an experience, once thought to be primarily a sign of madness, into the realm of normal visual perception. Conversations between informed philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists can work towards viable models of morality that incorporate bottom-up genetics, development, and biology; top-down social and educational influences; and the interplay of conscious and non-conscious processes. Might there be more ‘common sense’ if more such understandings can be relayed by responsible press and media?
The cognitive neuroscience of moral decision making is incorporating novel brain-based concepts, just as the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception did and does. Will the numerous individual variations in, for example, brain connectivity, the ability to suppress background information, and blood hormonal markers, mean that we can better understand the extraordinary variations in morality we encounter?
This raises the prospect of changing morality by modulating the brain directly, bypassing reflection. Thus, “Neuroscientists are now discovering how hormones and brain chemicals shape social behavior, opening potential avenues for pharmacological manipulation of ethical values” (Siegel & Crockett Reference Siegel and Crockett2013) or “we aim to gather knowledge of the potential of tDCS [transcranial direct current stimulation] to modulate social functioning and social decision making in healthy humans, and to inspire future research investigations” (Sellaro et al. Reference Sellaro, Nitsche and Colzato2016).
But if morality can be directly changed without reflection and discussion, this raises a final question: Who will moralise the moralisers?