believe it or not, I bet if you tweak a part of the brain, you can make someone love their couch more than their family. Love doesn't actually measure value at all, since love is a particular summation of efforts within the brain. If you could feasibly manipulate these efforts you could make someone love a couch, or a doorknob provided you knew how.
Your family and children get the benefit of particular chemicals flowing through the brain to stimulate the response of love (oxytocin)
There's no actual in-between here Malerin, though it seems you're willing to construct one (for the life of me I cannot imagine why)
You love people because your brain, through the process of evolution and through biochemistry, is able to make you feel love. Again, all in the brain, no need to consider something else.
EDIT:
Not so much brain damage, just a stimulus honed by association to give you a feeling of resentment. All in the brain though. I really hope you're not actually avoiding the many finding of neuroscience...
Oh, but it has to be brain damage. If you = brain then what damages your brain damages you, and vice-versa. Libel and slander clearly damage a person, so libel and slander must also damage a person's brain.
So what's the physical explanation behind how libel and slander result in brain damage?
You're false trichotomy (if you will) is only a product of your lack of understanding, willingly or otherwise.
So then you know how consciousness arises from neurons? How, exactly, does it happen? How many neurons does it take? What else can it arise from? What makes neurons special?