How We Read People’s Moral Minds

Liane Young received her BA in philosophy (2004) and her PhD in psychology (2008) from Harvard University, after which she did postdoctoral work in MIT’s Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston College, where she studies the cognitive and neural basis of human moral judgment. Her current research focuses on the role of reasoning and emotions in moral judgment and behavior—employing the tools and methods of social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, including fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), and the study of populations of patients with cognitive and neural deficits.