Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

Svenja Caspers; Stefan Heim; Marc G. Lucas; Egon Stephan; Lorenz Fischer; Katrin Amunts; Karl Zilles

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018451

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Research Article

Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

Svenja Caspers ,

* E-mail: s.caspers@fz-juelich.de

Affiliation Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1, INM-2), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
⨯
Stefan Heim,

Affiliations Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1, INM-2), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany, JARA-BRAIN, Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance, Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, Section Neurological Cognition Research, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
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Marc G. Lucas,

Affiliations INEKO, Department Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, Department of Business Studies – Leadership and Organization, FernUniversität Hagen, Hagen, Germany
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Egon Stephan,

Affiliation INEKO, Department Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
⨯
Lorenz Fischer,

Affiliation Institute of Economic and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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Katrin Amunts,

Affiliations Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1, INM-2), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany, JARA-BRAIN, Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance, Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
⨯
Karl Zilles

Affiliations Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1, INM-2), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany, JARA-BRAIN, Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance, Jülich, Germany, C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
⨯

Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

Svenja Caspers,
Stefan Heim,
Marc G. Lucas,
Egon Stephan,
Lorenz Fischer,
Katrin Amunts,
Karl Zilles

Published: April 1, 2011
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018451

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Hesitant

Posted by RGEurope on 07 Apr 2011 at 01:27 GMT

Neuroscientific research related to what the authors call 'value systems' from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, etc. is indeed of interest. The relevance of a biological component confirming the theoretical constructs in most hierarchical value systems theories will strenghten the idea of value-systems. As such the insights from this paper is relevant and might inspire others for further research.

The article fails to convince that 'value-systems' are indirectly assessed and the (sometimes questionable and in many publications discussed) reliability of fMRI remains unaddressed. The relation with 'the hierarchy of complexity' (e.g. Commons) is unfounded and seems flawed.
How the words-list was chosen and validated is either superficial and dangerously flawed or there is more to say than what has been written in the paper.

The style is adequate but it is annoying that too many concepts are just thrown in, without clear source or definition references. Some of the references may promise more than suggested in the text. (The references to words-list of Clare W. Graves)

Competing interests declared: I do make extensive use of ECLET, the theory referred to in reference 11;
and ECLET is currently my pet-research subject.

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Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

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Hesitant

Posted by RGEurope on 07 Apr 2011 at 01:27 GMT