Josh Greene has been at the leading edge of illuminating how the moral mind works. Together with his colleagues, he's demonstrated that many of the mind's moral judgments are driven by an ancient, intuitive calculus often based on the simple rule: do no harm. Although automatic rules such as these often work well, they can sometimes lead to questionable decisions. In those cases, Josh and others suggest, we might "put the brakes" on our intuitive assumptions and consciously direct our judgments using principles like utilitarianism. That may sound reasonable at first, but new research by Daniel Bartels and David Pizarro shows that this is exactly the strategy used by psychopaths. Read More...

Tags: utilitarianism, Psychopaths