Localizing the Moral Sense: Neuroscience and the Search for the Cerebral Seat of Morality, 1800-1930

Due to the current revolution in brain research the search for the “moral brain” became a serious endeavour. Nowadays, neural circuits that are indispensable for moral and social behaviour are discovered and the brains of psychopaths and criminals - the classical anti-heroes of morality - are scanned with curiosity, even enthusiasm.

How revolutionary this current research might be, the quest for a localisable ethical centre or moral organ is far from new. The moral brain was a recurrent th...