Does being fair has to do with our brains, not our psychological make-up or upbringing?

Since biologist Richard Dawkin’s controversial best selling book, the God Delusion, hit the stands, there’s been much discussion about where people get their sense of morality, ethics and fairness. Well, set aside for a moment what Dawkins says and what religion says and look at what science has discovered…

Science Daily reports:

…researchers at the California Institute of Technology have discovered that reason struggles with emotion to find equitable solutions, and have pinpointed the region of the brain where this takes place. The concept of fairness, they found, is processed in the insular cortex, or insula, which is also the seat of emotional reactions.

“The emotional response to unfairness pushes people from extreme inequity and drives them to be fair,” Quartz says. This observation, he adds, suggests that “our basic impulse to be fair isn’t a complicated thing that we learn.”

In concert, psychologists such as Robert Hare, PhD and Harvard’s Martha Stout, PhD (The Sociopath Next Door), have shown that sociopaths are lacking a certain brain activity that enables them to have any morality, ethics, fairness or sense of conscience. Thus, psychological counseling can never produce a change in the sociopath’s (psychopath’s) ability to understand and appreciate mental anguish that they inflict on others. Dr Stout’s book is highly recommended, especially if you have ever been bothered, disturbed or wronged by a person who seems to have no sense of right and wrong.

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