Neuroethics: the brain as ethics and moral organ

Abstract

This article discourses about the anatomic and neurophysiologic substratum of the awaken brain,
that establishes the normalcy or pathological side of our acts, choices, decisions, resolution of ethics problems, character, emotions and moral conscience, which depend on specifics systems and areas. In order to do that, it utilizes researches from modern neuroimaging and neuropsychological´ tests that map brain areas. Among these, the frontal lobes, the limbic system, the cingulated cortex, the temporal amygdala and the hippocampus, and based on neurophysiological analysis, demonstrates that they rule the control of the psychic normality, the self-control and also the control of aggressiveness, violence, self determination, responsibility
and mental disease. It deduces that, if lesioned, these areas will reproduce unusual or pathological responses in cognation, moral judgment, and ethical thought fields.