Richard Joyce’s book The Myth of Morality has got me thinking about what the evolutionary origins of moral instincts means. First, it seems pretty well established that many general moral principles are instinctive, and Joyce clarified that while that doesn’t mean that everyone will develop them, it means people are innately diposed to develop them given the right environmental cures. Taking that as fact, what does that do for morality? Joyce thinks not very much, but I don’t find his argument convincing (not least because, after arguing for most of the book that moral instrumentalism is false, he ultimately concludes that we should accept moral discourse as a fiction because it’s expedient).
If morality is an instinct, i.e. if our ancestors tended to survive/reproduce because they were disposed to follow certain innate principles, then those principle have passed a very serious test for practical usefulness. This isn’t going to satisfy people that want morality to be absolutely unquestionable, because it’s not going to vindicate that kind of belief. Rather, it vindicates the belief that, in general, and barring certain extraordinary circumstances, moral instincts will improve reproductive success, and an entirely selfish individual should follow them. That seems to be a pretty strong case against nihilistic egoism, or at least one showing that rational nihilistic egonism should line up nearly exactly with moral realism, moral rationalism, or some other supposedly stronger moral position.
I don’t know about innate, at least not in the sense of a fully-fledged ‘universal morality module’. But I can see a sequence.
Kin selection - would provide a genetic basis, once perception evolved to the point where any individual member of a species became able to differentiate between kin/not kin for genes which proscribed behaviour such that the fitness of a family - closely linked through genome simularities - was reduced.
Social group selection - ‘unconscious’ morality. Again limited sublimation of individual selfishness into group will, if and only if there was no reflexive infanticide and non-related members co-operated to some extent over child care and protection, would boost the competitive fitness of one group over another.
Oversize group externalized ‘conscious’ morality. Once group size goes over 150 - 200 (the rough limit of people our brains can keep intimate track of) some kind of formalized system/heirarchy becomes necessary to support group coherrence and co-operative behaviour.
Morality in a social-species I think is almost like the anthropomorphic universe truism - in that morality never becomes an issue in any other context.
We should be careful however - any consistant system moral or immoral - promotes cohesion, as long as it provides a predictable set of interactive rules. A nazi regime, in isolation, works just as well as any other.
Consistancy first, actual moral content second. Selective forces being group number, the importance of this pressure dependent on technological level (one guy with a nuke = 20,000 guys with swords) and ‘happiness’ of group members, pressure modified again by isolation and ease of travel - ie a stoic living next to an epicurean might just hop over the wall, if the wall is low.
The implications of this research have been discussed a couple of times in the religion forum (no great surprise, morality normally falls under the auspices of religion). Here are a few interesting threads:
Neural Buddhism a discussion of a David Brooks article (I know, I know) dealing with this topic.
Hmmm, unfortunately, there was a bangin’ discussion on the NY Times article “An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong” but it seems to be pre-upgrade 
October 31, 2006
Books on Science
An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong
By NICHOLAS WADE
Who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin.
Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys. The animals’ feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality.
Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, “Moral Minds” (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind.
People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously.
Dr. Hauser presents his argument as a hypothesis to be proved, not as an established fact. But it is an idea that he roots in solid ground, including his own and others’ work with primates and in empirical results derived by moral philosophers.
The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior.
Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the same moral judgments, Dr. Hauser writes, implying “that the system that unconsciously generates moral judgments is immune to religious doctrine.” Dr. Hauser argues that the moral grammar operates in much the same way as the universal grammar proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky as the innate neural machinery for language. The universal grammar is a system of rules for generating syntax and vocabulary but does not specify any particular language. That is supplied by the culture in which a child grows up.
The moral grammar too, in Dr. Hauser’s view, is a system for generating moral behavior and not a list of specific rules. It constrains human behavior so tightly that many rules are in fact the same or very similar in every society — do as you would be done by; care for children and the weak; don’t kill; avoid adultery and incest; don’t cheat, steal or lie.
But it also allows for variations, since cultures can assign different weights to the elements of the grammar’s calculations. Thus one society may ban abortion, another may see infanticide as a moral duty in certain circumstances. Or as Kipling observed, “The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Katmandu, and the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.”
Matters of right and wrong have long been the province of moral philosophers and ethicists. Dr. Hauser’s proposal is an attempt to claim the subject for science, in particular for evolutionary biology. The moral grammar evolved, he believes, because restraints on behavior are required for social living and have been favored by natural selection because of their survival value.
Much of the present evidence for the moral grammar is indirect. Some of it comes from psychological tests of children, showing that they have an innate sense of fairness that starts to unfold at age 4. Some comes from ingenious dilemmas devised to show a subconscious moral judgment generator at work. These are known by the moral philosophers who developed them as “trolley problems.”
Suppose you are standing by a railroad track. Ahead, in a deep cutting from which no escape is possible, five people are walking on the track. You hear a train approaching. Beside you is a lever with which you can switch the train to a sidetrack. One person is walking on the sidetrack. Is it O.K. to pull the lever and save the five people, though one will die?
Most people say it is.
Assume now you are on a bridge overlooking the track. Ahead, five people on the track are at risk. You can save them by throwing down a heavy object into the path of the approaching train. One is available beside you, in the form of a fat man. Is it O.K. to push him to save the five?
Most people say no, although lives saved and lost are the same as in the first problem.
Why does the moral grammar generate such different judgments in apparently similar situations? It makes a distinction, Dr. Hauser writes, between a foreseen harm (the train killing the person on the track) and an intended harm (throwing the person in front of the train), despite the fact that the consequences are the same in either case. It also rates killing an animal as more acceptable than killing a person.
Many people cannot articulate the foreseen/intended distinction, Dr. Hauser says, a sign that it is being made at inaccessible levels of the mind. This inability challenges the general belief that moral behavior is learned. For if people cannot articulate the foreseen/intended distinction, how can they teach it?
Dr. Hauser began his research career in animal communication, working with vervet monkeys in Kenya and with birds. He is the author of a standard textbook on the subject, “The Evolution of Communication.” He began to take an interest in the human animal in 1992 after psychologists devised experiments that allowed one to infer what babies are thinking. He found he could repeat many of these experiments in cotton-top tamarins, allowing the cognitive capacities of infants to be set in an evolutionary framework.
His proposal of a moral grammar emerges from a collaboration with Dr. Chomsky, who had taken an interest in Dr. Hauser’s ideas about animal communication. In 2002 they wrote, with Dr. Tecumseh Fitch, an unusual article arguing that the faculty of language must have developed as an adaptation of some neural system possessed by animals, perhaps one used in navigation. From this interaction Dr. Hauser developed the idea that moral behavior, like language behavior, is acquired with the help of an innate set of rules that unfolds early in a child’s development.
Social animals, he believes, possess the rudiments of a moral system in that they can recognize cheating or deviations from expected behavior. But they generally lack the psychological mechanisms on which the pervasive reciprocity of human society is based, like the ability to remember bad behavior, quantify its costs, recall prior interactions with an individual and punish offenders. “Lions cooperate on the hunt, but there is no punishment for laggards,” Dr. Hauser said.
The moral grammar now universal among people presumably evolved to its final shape during the hunter-gatherer phase of the human past, before the dispersal from the ancestral homeland in northeast Africa some 50,000 years ago. This may be why events before our eyes carry far greater moral weight than happenings far away, Dr. Hauser believes, since in those days one never had to care about people remote from one’s environment.
Dr. Hauser believes that the moral grammar may have evolved through the evolutionary mechanism known as group selection. A group bound by altruism toward its members and rigorous discouragement of cheaters would be more likely to prevail over a less cohesive society, so genes for moral grammar would become more common.
Many evolutionary biologists frown on the idea of group selection, noting that genes cannot become more frequent unless they benefit the individual who carries them, and a person who contributes altruistically to people not related to him will reduce his own fitness and leave fewer offspring.
But though group selection has not been proved to occur in animals, Dr. Hauser believes that it may have operated in people because of their greater social conformity and willingness to punish or ostracize those who disobey moral codes.
“That permits strong group cohesion you don’t see in other animals, which may make for group selection,” he said.
His proposal for an innate moral grammar, if people pay attention to it, could ruffle many feathers. His fellow biologists may raise eyebrows at proposing such a big idea when much of the supporting evidence has yet to be acquired. Moral philosophers may not welcome a biologist’s bid to annex their turf, despite Dr. Hauser’s expressed desire to collaborate with them.
Nevertheless, researchers’ idea of a good hypothesis is one that generates interesting and testable predictions. By this criterion, the proposal of an innate moral grammar seems unlikely to disappoint.
We do seem to be ‘innately’ pre-disposed to formulating social-contract type equations along the lines of “if you pay cost A you are entitled to reward B” and more importantly, detect behaviours which break or circumvent the rules so formed. We also have a tendency to instinctively punish ‘cheaters’ even if in doing so we reduce our own rewards however temporarily. Whether this is subsumed into a 'mental module a’la Tooby and co., or simply an inherited cognitve trait from culture/nurture I don’t know.
We are selected to recognise, seek and create patterns. And to create narratives about them. That’s the alpha and omega of the evolutionary origins of morality.
Sure, but thats an important thing to note/mention. For example, we’re selected to recognize certain patterns and respond to them accordingly, some-times our response, is some-thing that falls into the category of ‘morality’ or our sense of right/wrong.
say, siblings living in co-habitation pick up/recognize a pattern that two siblings raised apart wouldn’t, what they recognize consciously or unconsciously, is that young people being raised in the same place, are often-times related and so they develope a resistance to developing an attraction for this person, it can misfire badly, because even when the people aren’t brother/sister, they’re disgusted by the thought of sleeping together. (because co-habitation was a reliable predictor of relationship, and likely it still is to a high degree).
Its true, thats all it is about morality, but thats a huge bite for a lot of people to swallow. recognizing certain patterns and responding to them, often-times means having specialized hardware for those things.
I don’t think a moral grammar is at odds with your statement.
I don’t know if that’s ‘his proposal’ it might be, but many researchers have supported this idea about morality sense the first idea about it came out in linguistics, and especially since that idea was refined into an evolutionary oriented grammar for learning languages by people like Bloom and Pinker.
Either way, its a compelling idea that has a decent amount of evidence behind it. Certainly the moral grammar idea is true to a large extent and has been explored upon a lot.
A lot of supporting evidence for this idea has come up actually; A LOT. its never enough for the nay-sayers, though.
An 18 minute video of a lecture Jonathan Haidt on his psychological theory of morality ted.com/index.php/talks/jona … _mind.html
E.O. Wilson had predicted that old approaches to morality would be superceded by an approach that focuses on the emotional centers of the brain as biological adaptations. Gazzaniga found that people cannot stop themselves from making up post hoc explanations for whatever they have just done for unconscious reasons. Damasio showed that morality can be studied using fMRI. Morality is dependent on proper functioning of emotional circuits in the prefrontal cortex. Frans de Waal showed that the building blocks of human morality are found in other primates. Morality is a product of natural selection in primates which are highly social beings. John Bargh showed that unconscious processes cause the majority of our behaviors that we thought we were controlling consciously.
Haidt observes that the research points to the conclusion that building blocks of morality were shaped by natural selection long before language arose. Evolved structures give us feelings that shape or behavior prior to the verbal reasons we give to explain our judgments. He found that emotions play a larger role in the development of emotions that cognitive psychologists had recognized. Greene used fMRI to show that emotional responses in the brain not abstract ethical principles explain moral choices.
That’s a great video, Felix. It seems really appropriate in the historical context, as well.
His conclusion was an interesting one, but it really avoids making any specific claims about what morality should mean; it’s ultimately meta-ethical. His conclusion, as understood it, was basically to go with your gut, but to realize that everyone else is going with their guts, and every once in a while to step back and consider morality in a sort of a detached way. But what does that say about our guts, our ethical (as opposed to meta-ethical) positions? I mean, it seems that my moral reactions are in part rational: I dislike racism because it is bad for society, and because it’s fallacious. It seems like this must be a learned position.
I guess his point was that people are coming from different ethical positions, and they have different ethical foundations, so it doesn’t make sense to try to rectify their ethical view with our own, only to try to rectify our meta-ethical views with those of others. It seems like that’s going to be something liberals do better than conservatives (per his characterization).
Hi Carleas–As I understand it, according to Haidt, what liberals mainly understand is liberals. I think his psychology enlarges and give structure to a broader view. His psychology helps understand traditional values better. Morality in general seems to mostly about gut reactions. Our justifications are secondary. But we can sometimes override a gut reaction rationally. As a moderator, how often have you observed that happening on ILP?
Cyrene wrote:
Therein lies agreement between you and me, Cyrene. But our disagreement has always been about this very issue, as well. The ability to formulate a moral grammar does not determine which moral rules a given group adopts. Environment and social arrangements (which are surely influenced by environment) does influence moral thinking. But in a rich environment, we are as free to prefer one moral rule over another as we are to prefer boar meat to deer meat.
What you say is true to an extent. However no matter how rich/diverse the environment is some things stay the same. For instance incest avoidance is normal IN all societies no matter how diverse AND it WILL be the norm until a society pops up where close families living together isn’t common. Likewise humans nowhere are as monogamous as some species (as norms) one example is Gorillas (i think) either way theres certain aspects of behavior and in cases moral behavior that shows up in all human groups, other non universal behaviors may be adaptations but we’re still free to not act them out in ways we aren’t free from others. Sexual jealousy may not exist in ALL societies even if ALL males come with adaptations to express it in some circumstances BUT incest avoidance isn’t as flexible, the cues that set it off have maintained themselves very well in all societies.
The difference between you and me, Cyrene, is in our assumptions. Incest avoidance is the norm - yes. But it is a decision that makes this a moral matter. It is the imposition of negative consequences - whether by God or by man. Incest is a sin - you might not have eternal life if you sin - or it is wrong on some other account - if you perform an act of incest you will be punished by the group - that is what makes it a moral consideration.
There is much behavior that is not statistically abnormal that doesn’t carry this kind of sanction. Living entirely alone - as a hermit - can be a sign of saintliness. But that’s just another collective decision. Or God’s decision - take your pick. And marital fidelity has often been viewed as morally correct, even if it’s not statistically normal.
My point is that there are at least some behavior patterns that are overwhelmingly statistically “normal” - but whether they are morally right or wrong may vary, depending upon decisions that a given group (or authority for the group) may make. It’s a bias to say that incest is an example of near-universal “moral” behavior. What it is is a near-universal behavior. The moral rightness or wrongness may be near-universal, too, but only shows a statistical correlation, not a causal relationship.
Don’t forget Koinophilia!
No, its not biased to say its an example of near universal moral behavior. I already explained that people everywhere avoid incest, but once more they’re disgusted by it and think its morally wrong, they have ideas about the right/wrong of the action, on top of avoiding it, in all cultures.
They have very powerful ideas about the right/wrong of it. The statistical normal for all societies is to have Certain moral feelings about it on TOP of avoiding it.
Whether some-thing is morally right or wrong is up for humans to decide, and all i’m saying is that its the norm in all human societies for people to have certain ideas about the right/wrong of incest.
So the idea that this avoidance happens cross culturally, on top of the feelings the people have about the act being right/wrong, is cross-cultural. I’m not sure why you think it’d be a casual relationship, its this disgust/thoughts about right/wrong which prevent people from engaging in incest.
Thats the incest-avoidance mechanism, it produces a feeling of moral wrongness/disgust in a person. Thats actively what IT is. WE don’t just avoid incest by adaptation and then develope beliefs around why its disgusting. Thats literally what the adaptation is; a tendency to set up avoidance through disgust/moral objection.
I’ll try to break this down for you - this is a partial point only. There is a difference between a feeling of disgust and a moral judgement. In find canned creamed corn disgusting, but not evil.
The rest is this - it is not enough that I find incest disgusting - to make it a moral rule, I seek to prohibit someone else from doing it, even if they do not find it disgusting.
Okay, you can be disgusted about some-thing without it being a moral sentiment, but its an issue of MORAL disgust, thinking that its disgusting and very very WRONG.
I understand the difference between being disgusted by creamed corn and someone having a moral disgust at an action Faust.
How do you define morals or morality anyway? When I am talking about EITHER I am talking about a set of beliefs that people apply a sense of right or wrong too. As in almost every-where, people think its WRONG to kill your neighbor for almost no reason, people everywhere think its WRONG to cheat and steal from your in-group. They have feelings, that these things aren’t right.
The thing about incest is also true, people everywhere as a statistical trend tend to be disgusted by it, but not in a way that people are disgusted by creamed corn, they think its morally wrong they think its wrong and oppose it in themselves, and in other people.
Cross-culturally. I wouldn’t have said it was moral behavior otherwise.
theres plenty of experimentation from cross-cultural samples asking people if they think incest is right or wrong in X, Z and Y situation, without being able to explain why, people almost always say its wrong
When asked to explain why, people flail around about how it harms the community, could produce a mutated offspring (after their told it was done in secret with birth control)
they get the idea that its wrong, and then they flail around trying to grasp at anything to explain why they feel like that, rarely ever do they ever even know why they feel like that, they just do.
What is your opposition to this idea? theres massive cross-cultural evidence to support it (some of the larger cross cultural studies done have been done by evo psychologists), research to support it in terms of smaller scale studies questioning people very closely, and a bunch more research/evidence that found out things we had been ignorant of (what situations do these things set up under, what circumstances should we not see them so clearly).
its pretty convincing, the amount of evidence, i’m not sure what your opposition is.
They avoid participating in incest themselves and attempt to prevent it from happening in others, they think its wrong for two people in THEIR communities, to have sex with each other, if the relation is close enough. This is cross-cultural.
Thats moral behavior.