In the New York Times, Benedict Carey writes,
Those with ventromedial injuries were about twice as likely as the other participants to say they would…poison someone with AIDS who was bent on infecting others, or suffocate a baby whose crying would reveal to enemy soldiers where the subject and family and friends were hiding.
…This tension between cost-benefit calculations and instinctive emotion in part reflects the brain’s continuing adjustment to the vast social changes that have occurred since the ventromedial area first took shape. The ventromedial area most likely adapted to assist the brain in making snap moral decisions in small kin groups
This leads commenter at Tyler Cowen’s blog to write,
Do people with these injuries compulsively injure that area in other peoples brains?
That would probably be Kaldor-Hicks efficient; to have more FrankenBenthams running around. 🙂
READER COMMENTS
MDM
Mar 22 2007 at 10:20am
I knew Peter Singer was brain damaged!
Comments are closed.