Can One Chemical Be the Basis of All Morality? – IEEE Spectrum

Paul Zak: Right. So I think of oxytocin as kind of a thermostat. So humans are social creatures; we need to engage in appropriate social behaviors. And most of those appropriate behaviors are called “virtues” or “moral behaviors,” so if I’m cooperative with you, if I share with you, I’m a good social creature. If I take from you, if I’m selfish, I’m not a good social creature, and then you start to avoid me, and that’s not adaptive for social creatures. So we’ve shown in experiments that when we stimulate the brain to release oxytocin or when we raise it pharmacologically, that we can induce people to be more prosocial, more moral, more virtuous. At the same time, as you say, oxytocin interacts with a variety of other neurochemicals, including things like stress hormones and testosterone, which…both those down-regulate oxytocin’s effects. And so we’re kind of living in this soup of chemicals in our brains, and the relative levels of oxytocin and other chemicals that interact with it—testosterone, cortisol, dopamine—modulate the kind of appropriate social behavior.

via spectrum.ieee.org