  Various sources of empirical evidence support this kind of view. Consider, for example, pathological cases, such as psychopaths or individuals with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Such individuals are impaired in making moral judgments. Psychopaths feel little compunction about behaving immorally and sometimes have a hard time differentiating moral from conventional norms (Hare 1999). Individuals with damage to the vmPFC retain knowledge of abstract moral principles but struggle in making specific, everyday moral decisions (Damasio 1994). In both cases, individuals lack the physiological responses that accompany neurotypical moral decision-making. Lacking these “somatic markers” that guide moral judgments, these individuals behave in impulsive, selfish, and immoral ways (Damasio 1994). Embodied cognition would predict this connection between physiological responses (like increased heartrate and palm sweating) and moral decision-making.