When our moral compass goes south

A lecture given in 2010 on the nature of our moral sense. I discuss the idea that perception of an event triggers unconscious neural systems to evaluate cause and intent and make a moral judgment - prior to conscious reasoning or any emotional response. Focusing on cases of inevitable harm, or Pareto cases, I suggest that moral judgments are based on abstract principles that link causal-intentional processes to consequences. I discuss studies that rule out the role of demographic and cultural variables and knowledge of the law and specific legal cases in our moral judgments. Based on studies with psychopaths, who show lower levels of activation in the amygdala, the emotional processing center of the brain, I suggest that our emotions are not the source of moral judgment.