Toward a Neurosemantics of Moral Terms

In all the aspects of semantics explored in the previous chapters, neural computation is today a fairly well established approach, with the models discussed not being the only ones. On the other hand, a neurocomputational approach has not been yet established for terms related to morality. The main reason is that empirical brain information on moral processing is still in its early infancy. As has been found with other aspects of word meaning, neuroscientific investigations such as those undertaken by Greene et al. (2001), have shown that there is a relatively consistent set of brain areas that are engaged during moral reasoning, as well as during emotional reactions and decision making in general (Casebeer and Churchland 2003; Moll et al. 2005). The models presented in this chapter can, therefore, be considered as pioneering works, or first steps in the enterprise of the neurosemantics of morality. The first model lacks linguistic capabilities and is a collection of a series of brain areas that learn the emotional component that contributes to the evaluation of potential actions, and then makes decisions. The second model combines the morally relevant areas of the first, with the auditory pathway that processes linguistic utterances, and simulates the emergence of the meaning of moral terms.