Socioemotional dysfunction and the greater good: a case study.

ABSTRACT

Moral cognition has largely been studied via dilemmas in which making a utilitarian choice causes instrumental harm (negative dimension). Studies of utilitarianism link this behavior with socioemotional unresponsiveness. However, there is a positive dimension of utilitarianism in which one sacrifices the good of oneself or close others for the overall welfare. We measured utilitarian choices multidimensionally in a patient with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), incorporating dilemmas accounting for negative and positive dimensions. Despite socioemotional deficits our patient was highly utilitarian in the positive, dimension of utilitarianism. This case study challenges the tendency to automatically associate bvFTD with antisocial tendencies.