From actions to empathy and morality - A neural perspective

Istvan Molnar-Szakacs

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2011, vol. 77, issue 1, 76-85

Abstract: Our culturally varied, complex social world, governed by unwritten moral codes that encourage affiliative helping behavior, may be subserved by the unique properties of a neural system for understanding the intentions and actions of others. The firing pattern of neurons within this system appears to 'mirror' an action performed and seen, coding a functional correspondence between a motor action and sensory perception of that action. Indirect evidence acquired through various neuroimaging techniques supports the presence of such a neural system, termed the mirror neuron system (MNS) in the human brain. In this paper I discuss evidence suggesting that the human MNS - by linking intention and outcome, perception and action, observer and actor - forms part of the neural system for empathic concern, the capacity to understand and feel another's emotional state. By helping to establish a 'likeness' between interacting agents, the human MNS may support the active desire to understand others, to feel what they are feeling and to help alleviate another's suffering. By providing a biological substrate for such fundamental affiliative behaviors, the MNS may provide a neural scaffold for the evolution of our sophisticated sociality and the morality that governs it.

Keywords: Mirror; neuron; system; Limbic; system; Emotion; Empathy; Morality; Neuroimaging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:77:y:2011:i:1:p:76-85

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