moral wiring

unlike dissecting bodies to look for the soul, modern science now has a nifty device for examining the mind without a scalpel: a machine for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) measures brain activity.

like their philosophical predecessors, these guys from princeton wondered how people solved moral quandaries. one of the more famous queries has always been the "trolley dilemma". an oncoming train is certain to strike down 5 unaware people on the tracks. (forget for a moment the idiocy of why these folks are loitering and oblivious.) you have the proximity and power to flip the switch and send the train down another leg. however, on that leg, is a lone man who then will be killed. so, do you kill 5 or 1? (yeah,the arithmetic struck awfully close to home ) by measuring activity in the ventromedial frontal lobe, the researchers witnessed that what might seem a rational decision guided by common moral principle, was actually ruled by the emotional center of the brain. most test subjects decided fairly quickly that the death of 1 justified saving the 5.

ok, but when are you ever going to be that close to a train switch? would you even know how to work it? (never mind what social darwinism might warrant for all those simpletons just malingering on the rails...)

in my current minefield of damage wrought by sliding scales of personal morality, i can't help but wonder how brains might light up if real-life questions are posed. "would you cheat on your wife?" "would you lie to your friends?" "would you have sex with a married man?" would the spectrum run more red than yellow in the minds of those who'd already crossed the lines?

oh, and no need to point out the irony that the universal symbol equivalent for "stop!" apparently meant "go!" in my own head...