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When it came to moral reasoning, we like to think our views on right and wrong are rational. But ultimately they are grounded in emotion. Philosophers have argued over this claim for a quarter of a millennium without _________. Time’s up! Now scientists armed with brain scanners are stepping in to settle the matter. Though reason can shape moral judgment, emotion is often _________.

Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene does brainscans of people as they study the so-called trolley problem. Suppose a trolley is rolling down the track toward five people who will die unless you pull a lever (杠杆) that pushes it onto another track where, _________, lies one person who will die instead. An easy call, most people say: _________ the loss of life — a “utilitarian” (实用主义的) goal, as philosophers put it — is the thing to do.

But suppose the only way to save the five people is to push someone else onto the track — a bystander whose body will bring the trolley to a stop before it hits the others. It’s still a one-for-five _________, and you still initiate the action that dooms the one. _________, now you are more directly involved; most people say it would be wrong to do this trade-off. Why? According to Greene’s brain scans, the second situation more thoroughly excites parts of the brain linked to _________ than does the lever-pulling situation. Apparently, the intuitive hesitation of giving someone a deadly push is more _________ than the hesitation of a deadly lever pull. Further studies suggest that in both cases the emotional concerns _________control with more rational parts of the brain. In the second situation, the emotions are usually strong enough to win. And when they lose, it is only after a tough __________ process. The few people who approve of pushing an innocent man onto the tracks take longer to reach their decision. So too with people who approve of smothering (闷死) a crying baby rather than catching the attention of enemy troops who would then kill the baby along with other __________. Greene explains that our intuitive dislike to the killing of an innocent gradually evolved to become especially sensitive to visions of direct physical attack.

Princeton philosopher Peter Singer argues that we should __________ our moral intuitions (本能) and ask whether they deserve respect in the first place. Why obey moral impulses that evolved to serve the “__________ gene” — such as sympathy that moves toward relatives and friends? Why not worry more about people an ocean away whose suffering we could __________ relieve? Isn’t it better to save 10 starving African babies than to keep your 90-year-old father on life support? In the absence of a tough decision-making process, reason may indeed be a(n) “__________ of the passions”.