Can pills change our morals? Does your sense of fairness depend on what you ate for breakfast? Can Prozac influence your judgment of what is right or wrong? How can we encourage people to care about the welfare of others? Molly Crockett’s research addresses these questions. She believes that understanding the brain can enable us to design environments that promote cooperation instead of selfishness. Why listen to her?Molly Crocket tells us that our values change dependent on what we eat. Using blue cheese as a starting point, she continued the food motif but went on to explain how small changes in our chemical balance can have a real effect our values. While facts are still facts, a morality pill could make us more open to questioning our own values and could make negotiations on moral issues easier and more fruitful. Molly’s research has taken her far from her native Southern California, where she studied psychology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Molly’s curiosity about brain chemistry led her to the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in neuroscience as a Gates Scholar. Now she collaborates with economists at the University of Zürich and neuroscientists at University College London.
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Can pills change our morals?

Does your sense of fairness depend on what you ate for breakfast? Can Prozac influence your judgment of what is right or wrong? How can we encourage people to care about the welfare of others? Molly Crockett’s research addresses these questions. She believes that understanding the brain can enable us to design environments that promote cooperation instead of selfishness.

Why listen to her?
Molly Crocket tells us that our values change dependent on what we eat. Using blue cheese as a starting point, she continued the food motif but went on to explain how small changes in our chemical balance can have a real effect our values. While facts are still facts, a morality pill could make us more open to questioning our own values and could make negotiations on moral issues easier and more fruitful.

Molly’s research has taken her far from her native Southern California, where she studied psychology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Molly’s curiosity about brain chemistry led her to the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in neuroscience as a Gates Scholar. Now she collaborates with economists at the University of Zürich and neuroscientists at University College London.