Joshua greene's neuroscientific explanation

The Physical and Emotional Distance of the Action: Pulling a Lever vs. Pushing a Person

Neuroscientist Joshua Greene offers an explanation based on how our brains work.

He argues that the key difference between the two scenarios is physical and emotional distance. Pulling a lever is an impersonal and remote action.

Pushing a person with our bare hands is a personal, physical, and direct action.

The Gut Emotional Response: The Repulsion of Physically Causing Death

Our brains have a very strong, gut-level emotional response against the idea of directly harming another person. Greene calls this the yuk factor.

Pushing someone to certain death activates this emotional repulsion in a way that pulling a lever does not.

The yuk factor and its influence on the decision

This automatic emotional response overrides rational calculation.

Even though logically we know we would save more lives, the aversion to committing murder with our own hands is too strong.

If scenario B is modified and instead of pushing the man, we pull a lever that opens a trapdoor beneath his feet, more people are willing to do it.

This shows that it is the personal and physical nature of the act that holds us back.

fMRI evidence supports Greene's theory

Greene's studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) support this theory.

They show that when people consider the bridge scenario (pushing the man), the brain areas associated with emotions are activated much more intensely.

In the lever scenario, brain areas related to reasoning and calculation predominate.

Summary

Joshua Greene argues that physical and emotional di