Abstract

FERREIRA ALMADA, Leonardo. Neurobiological pathways in the decision-making process: the role of emotions in human behavior. Psicol. rev. (Belo Horizonte) [online]. 2010, vol.16, n.1, pp. 199-214. ISSN 1677-1168.

This article aims to advocate the significance of some neurobiological hypotheses - concerning the relations between moral reasoning and emotions - which propose to devise a special way to an objective and causal understanding of human behavior, as well as of the neural pathway that involves the decision-making process. At the same time, it argues that if emotional and cognitive processes have their own neural pathways, is also true that, in the context of moral reasoning and behavior regulation, there is significant functional cooperation and integration, which undermine the traditional dichotomy or subordination between cognitive and emotional processes in the constitution of ethical behavior. Based on the literature review and the Medline system search, the paper intends to demonstrate some equivalence between Behavioral Neuroscience and some of Aristotle’s postulates, which argue that not all human actions are effectively free

Keywords : affective neuroscience; emotions and moral reasoning; emotional and cognitive processes; neuroethics; epistemology of neurosciences.

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