ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I review the literature with respect to moral development—particularly the development of the value that is associated with social norms and their violation. I suggest that there are different forms of social norms that can be grouped within an individual’s concept of morality: care-based and fairness norms but also disgust-based and conventional norms. I argue that while, by adulthood, evaluations of these norms recruit a relatively common neural architecture implicated in responding to subjective value, the development of the value of the different forms of norm can be norm-dependent. Data from individuals with psychopathic/callous-unemotional traits are presented to show how the development of value for specific norms can be compromised (care-based and fairness norms) while that for other norms can remain relative intact (disgust-based and conventional norms). It is argued that the development of care-based and fairness norm value is compromised in individuals with psychopathic/callous-unemotional traits because of a relative failure to find the distress of other individuals aversive.
