The Neurobiological Roots of Our Multiple Moral Personalities

There appear to be three types of affectively-based moral stances that persons can take: one oriented to security (the Ethic of Security) and focused on self-preservation through safety, and personal and ingroup dominance; another oriented to emotional engagement with others (the Ethic of Engagement), particularly through caring relationships and social bonds; and the third that I call the Ethic of Imagination, which is focused on creative ways to think and act socially. Perhaps the labels are not all inclusive but they seem to capture three different ways of coexisting with others in the social landscape. Each ethic has neurobiological roots that are apparent in the biological structures and circuitry of the human brain. Triune Ethics theory derives its structure from MacLean’s (1990) Triune Brain theory which proposes three basic formations in the human brain that reflect ancestral relations to lower-order species. Anatomically and biochemically, the three formations reflect the evolution of reptiles, early mammals, and late mammals. Although the theory is on its face simplistic in separating brain structures from one another, in fundamental ways animal and human research support MacLean’s basic theory (Panksepp, 1998). Accumulating research in affective neuroscience not only confirms the general thrust of MacLean’s triune brain theory, but points out the critical importance of early experience in gene expression in emotional circuitry (e.g., Champagne & Meaney, 2006), personality formation (Schore, 1992; 1994), and cognition (Greenspan & Shanker, 2004). Animals have not only evolved brain functions that facilitate learning but have “psychobehavioral potentials that are genetically ingrained in brain development” as “evolutionary operants” (Panksepp, 1998, p. 55). These operants are inherited emotional command systems that help animals (and their ancestors) behave adaptively in the face of life challenges. I propose that three distinctive moral systems have evolved from our ancestors, propel human moral action on an individual and group level, and have aetiologies that are influenced by early and critical period experiences. According to MacLean (1990), the first formation is the reptilian or R-complex (shared with an extinct reptile, the therapsid), which resides at the base of the forebrain, seated on top of the motor cortex, and relates to several forms of behavior in mammals, including territoriality, imitation, deception, struggles for power, the maintenance of routine, and following precedent. The Ethic of Security is based primarily in these instincts which revolve around survival and physical flourishing. Subcortically-driven instincts for seeking (autonomous exploration) and emotional circuitry for fear and rage when autonomy or safety is thwarted are systems shared with all animals (Panksepp, 1998). The security ethic is oriented to physical factors in two senses. First, it maintains physical survival through selfprotection and exploration. Second, the security ethic is attendant to physical flourishing through status enhancement (hierarchy or pecking order) and ingroup loyalty (purity). Selfprotective behaviors and values protect the life of the individual and the ingroup. One learns to secure oneself and one’s group against the competition or an "enemy". When the security ethic is explicitly triggered by personal or group threat, tribalism predominates, rivalry and the pecking order are stressed, and mob behavior can be set in motion (MacLean, 1990) as we become part of a super social organism: