想象一下駕駛一輛載有100公斤食物的卡車前往一個遭遇饑荒的地區(qū),。如果將食物遞送給那里的每個人所花的時間會造成20公斤食物的損壞,，而如果將食物只遞送給那里一半的人僅會造成5公斤食物的損失,。那么，是將食物遞送給一半的人以使所提供食物的總量達(dá)到最大化,，還是愿意犧牲15公斤的食物以使食物分配變得更加公平呢,？
據(jù)5月8日在線發(fā)表于《科學(xué)》雜志的一篇論文報道,，在一種高效率的選項和一種公平的選項之間進(jìn)行權(quán)衡時,，人類大腦的不同部位參與了這一過程,。Ming Hsu及其同僚應(yīng)用功能性核磁共振(fMRI)成像的方法來對自愿者的大腦活動進(jìn)行監(jiān)控，即在實(shí)際上是一種假設(shè)的條件下,，當(dāng)這些自愿者在做出如何將餐食在某個孤兒院的孩子中進(jìn)行分配的決定的時候,，他們的大腦活動被fMRI記錄了下來。
他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)表明,，一個被稱作殼核的區(qū)域參與了傾向做出高效率決定的過程,，而殼核已知參與處理獎勵信號的過程。同樣地,，一個被稱作腦島的區(qū)域則參與做出傾向于公平的決定,，而腦島則連接著情緒處理系統(tǒng)。尾狀核/中隔區(qū)則參與這兩種類型的決定過程,。每個自愿者側(cè)重在公平方面所呈現(xiàn)的差異似乎比他們側(cè)重在效率方面的差異要更多,。
因此，文章的作者提示,，我們對公平的判斷更多地是植根于情緒而不是理性，而這一問題也是柏拉圖,、康德,、休謨及其他哲學(xué)家們在各個時代都在冥思苦想的問題。（來源：Eurekalert！中文版）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Science,，DOI: 10.1126/science.1153651,，Ming Hsu, Cédric Anen, Steven R. Quartz
The Right and the Good: Distributive Justice and Neural Encoding of Equity and Efficiency
Ming Hsu 1, Cédric Anen 2, Steven R. Quartz 2*
1 Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2 Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences 228-77, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Steven R. Quartz , E-mail: [email protected]
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Distributive justice concerns how individuals and societies distribute benefits and burdens in a just or moral manner. Combining distribution choices with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigate the central problem of distributive justice: the tradeoff between equity and efficiency. We find that the putamen responds to efficiency, whereas the insula encodes inequity, and the caudate/septal subgenual region encodes a unified measure of efficiency and inequity (utility). Strikingly, individual differences in inequity aversion correlate with activity in inequity and utility regions. Against utilitarianism, our results support the deontological intuition that a sense of fairness is fundamental to distributive justice, but, as suggested by moral sentimentalists, is rooted in emotional processing. More generally, emotional responses related to norm violations may underlie individual differences in equity considerations and adherence to ethical rules.
