Morality is Hardwired by Evolution?

[afterhourz]

The April issue of Doscover Magazine had a very interesting article about evolution and moral neuroscience. I just wrote an article on it here which you can read the whole thing and not just what I am snipping here if you want:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/morality.html

Several dilemmeas were presented:

Suppose you are walking by a pond and there's a drowning baby. If you said, "I've just paid $200 for these shoes and the water would ruin them, so I won't save the baby" what would that make you? Virtually everyone would be in agreement that it would make you an extremely awful, horrible person.

Yet, as Green says, "there are millions of children around the world in the same situation, where just a little money for medicine or food could save their lives. And yet we don't consider ourselves monsters for having that dinner rather than giving the money to Oxfam. Why is that?"

Another example is the Trolley Experiment:

"Imagine you're at the wheel of a trolley and the breaks have failed. You're approaching a fork in the track at top speed. On the left side five railroad workers are fixing the track. On your right side, there is a single worker. If you do nothing the trolley will bear left and kill the five workers. The only way to save five lives is to take the responsibility for changing the trolley's path by hitting by hitting a switch. Then you will kill one worker. What would you do?"

This seems relatively straight forward. The greater good is to pull the switch and save the five but lets look at the situation from a slightly different angle

This time imagine that you are watching the runaway trolley from a footbridge. "This time there is no fork in the track. Instead, five workers are on it, facing certain death, But you happen to be standing next to a big man. If you sneak up on him and push him off the footbridge, he will fall to his death. Because he is so big, he will stop the trolley. Do you willfully kill one man, or do you allow five people to die?"

Logically, both of these thought experiments should have similar answers. The greater good requires sacrificing one life for the five but if you poll your friends you will probably find that many more are willing to pull a switch than sneak up behind and push a man off a bridge. It is very difficult to explain why what seems right in one scenario can feel so wrong in another with similar parameters. Evolution may hold the key to unraveling this mystery.



What then is the difference here?

As the article suggests:

"The evolutionary origins of morality are easy to imagine in a social species. A sense of fairness would have helped early primates cooperate. A sense of disgust and anger at cheaters would have helped them avoid falling into squabbling. As our ancestors became more self-aware and acquired language, they would transform those feelings into moral codes that they then taught their children.

This idea made a lot of sense to Green. For one thing, it showed how moral judgments can feel so real. "We make moral judgments so automatically tat we really don't understand how they're formed," he says. It also offered a potential solution to the trolley problem: Although the two scenarios have similar outcomes, they trigger different circuits in the brain. Killing someone with your bare hands would most likely have been recognized as immoral millions of years ago. It summons ancient and overwhelmingly negative emotions--despite any good that may come of the killing. It simply feels wrong.

Throwing a switch for a trolley, on the other hand, is not the sort of thing our ancestors confronted. Cause and effect, in this case, are separated by a chain of machines and electrons, so they do not trigger a snap moral judgment. Instead, we rely more on abstract reasoning--weighing costs and benefits, for example--to choose between right and wrong. Or so Green hypothesized."

As I wrote in response: I find this hypothesis or theory very interesting. It may also offer an explanation for the pond example above. In a social species protecting one another from imminent danger through direct physical contact was probably a normal or routine life experience and it may have been hardwired into us by millions of years of evolutionary development. Worrying about children overseas or sending money to Oxfam wasn't.

Also I wonder if file-sharing can be explained under this paradigm. Would you steal something from a friend? Most of us shun theft and would never go up to a person we don't know and physically take money out of their wallets. Direct theft such as this was probably shunned by our ancestors who has a sense of fairness as well. Yet we have no problem using Bittorrent or Kazaa to download (steal) music from these same people. One feels very personal and one doesn't. One feels very wrong and one doesn't.

This hypothesis or theory then seems to have some merit to it and neuroimaging is stacking up evidence. The article has a bunch of moral conundrums, info on Green's method, evidence of fairness in primates, the ultimatum game and a few other things if you are looking for more information.

Also, I reccomend getting and reding the Doscover article itself (pp. 60-65).

What do you think of this scenario? I find neuroethics fascinating.

Vinnie

[John Mace]

Are you sure it was this April's Discover Magazine? I haven't read it yet, but I read an identical article to the one you describe at least a year ago. Maybe I read it somewhere else.

If morality doesn't come from evolution, where does it come from? It seems to make infinite sense to me that it would. But more likely it's a genetic predisposition to a certain morality for humans, sort of stacking the deck. Not a complete hardwire situation such as would be seen in the social insects.

[afterhourz]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Are you sure it was this April's Discover Magazine? I haven't read it yet, but I read an identical article to the one you describe at least a year ago. Maybe I read it somewhere else.

I double checked since maybe the store accidentally put a year old magazine on display but it is in fact the April 2004 edition of Discover Magazine. A big picture of Mercury is on the cover.

If morality doesn't come from evolution, where does it come from? It seems to make infinite sense to me that it would.

Yes but naturally some theists might dispute this. They might claim morality is primary bestowed by God at birth through soul reproduction (traducianism), through the indwelling of our souls or whatever. But i agree with you though. Morality must be seen as part of our evolutionary development. Even theists have to recognize this as primate behavioral studies verifies this. As a panentheist (as opposed to a traditional theist) I have no issues with a strict natural development of morality.

But more likely it's a genetic predisposition to a certain morality for humans, sort of stacking the deck. Not a complete hardwire situation such as would be seen in the social insects.

I agree with this as well. THis was my final section which touched briefly on this very issue:

Does this theory rule out God? Does it rule out objective morality? As Green says, "People sometimes say to me, 'If everyone believed what you say, the whole world would fall apart.'" If right and wrong are nothing more than the instinctive firing or neurons why bother being good? But Green insists the evidence coming from neuroimaging can't be ignored. "Once you understand someone's behavior on a sufficiently mechanically level, its very hard to look at them as evil. You can look at them as dangerous; you can pity them. But evil doesn't exist on a neuronal level."

Though all or most human societies share certain moral universals (such as fairness or sympathy) Green has found that different cultures produce different kinds of moral intuition and different kinds of brains. As Zimmer writes, "Indian morality, for instance, focuses more on matters of of purity, whereas American focuses on individual autonomy." Some researchers (e.g. Jonathan Haidt--University of Virginia) believe that such differences shape a child's brain at a relatively early age. By the time we become adults we are wired with emotional responses that govern and guide our judgments for the rest of our lives.

This may explain why some of the worlds great conflicts seem to irreconcilable and how some moral issues that seem "so very obvious" to one person are not "so very obvious" to another. It may be that all brains simply do not work the same: "Genes, culture and personal experience have wired their moral circuitry in different patterns." This means we should be more open-minded and willing to listen to people who disagree with us and not be so quick to vilify or attack them.

However, here at After-Hourz we do not subscribe to a totally mechanical view of human behavior. We accept "top-down holistic causality", the ability of humans to gather information, use reason and logic to make free moral decisions. However, we readily admit that enviromental, physical, social, personality and childhood developmental, and hereditary factors play an important role in our decision making. Our everyday choices are influenced by millions of years of evolutionary baggage--for better or for worse. Nothing is entirely free in this life, not even free will.

Thanks for the response. I find this issue fascinating.

Vinnie

[jsgoddess]

Originally Posted by afterhourz

Logically, both of these thought experiments should have similar answers.

No, because of the uncertaintly of outcomes.

If you switch the levers, the one person might still get out of the way.

If you push the big man, the trolley might still be able to kill the five people.

By switching the levers, you aren't intentionally killing the one person. You would still be hoping that the person escapes.

Because a rational brain understands that outcomes aren't guaranteed, these actions aren't created equal.

Julie

[afterhourz]

Originally Posted by jsgoddess

No, because of the uncertaintly of outcomes.

If you switch the levers, the one person might still get out of the way.

If you push the big man, the trolley might still be able to kill the five people.

By switching the levers, you aren't intentionally killing the one person. You would still be hoping that the person escapes.

Because a rational brain understands that outcomes aren't guaranteed, these actions aren't created equal.

Julie

That is correct but the brain understand highly probably outcomes and the thought experiments made it clear the outcomes were certain or if you want, I suppose you can say "highly probable".

Suppose the 6 railroad workers are using high noise equipment and have their backs to you with ear plugs. The probability is extrmely hight that one of five will die. So which one do you choose?

The other problem with the big guy stopping the trolley is a bit more fictional but can easily be changed and the way the problem was worded makes it irrelevant because its set up so you "know" the outcome. Its a thought experiment.

Vinnie

[DSeid]

You may be interested in"The Evolution of the Golden Rule" in the 2/20/04 edition of Science. Subscription required for full text.

Highlights (extensively snipped):

In an extension of Trivers's theory of reciprocal altruism, mathematicians Martin Nowak, now at Harvard University, and Karl Sigmund of the University of Vienna developed a theory called indirect reciprocity: People are willing to help someone who won't pay them back as long as other people see the charitable act. The generous person, in this case, builds a reputation for cooperation, and others who observe this behavior are more likely to cooperate with him or her. Indeed, evolutionary biologist Manfred Milinski of the Max Planck Institute for Limnology in Plön, Germany, and his colleagues have shown that reputation is a key motivator in cooperation.
...
strong reciprocity: the willingness of people to punish cheaters and reward those who cooperate, even at substantial cost and with no foreseeable reward to themselves. The pattern shows up consistently in laboratory games: Even when players know their identity will be kept secret and are clearly told they will never encounter their partner again, up to 50% still cooperate. And when players are given a chance to spend some of their earnings to reward those who cooperate or punish those who cheat, they do so readily, although they have no chance to benefit from any behavioral changes that may result.
...
both genetic and cultural evolution have reinforced the human tendency to cooperate. "Our picture is that you have a system of conformism and moral punishment: If you deviate from the local norms, there are sanctions imposed," Boyd says. In each society, he adds, different systems of rules developed. Those that were particularly successful spread to neighboring communities, "which led to the spread of larger-scale moral systems and to larger-scale cooperation. This created a world in which ordinary natural selection favored people that were pro-social, because those that didn't got in trouble" and had less success in passing on their genes.

Indeed, in mathematical simulations, Fehr and his colleagues showed that in groups in which some members are willing to punish miscreants, willingness to play by the rules is an advantage. Deviants--those who try to break the rules by jumping the queue or sneaking on an honor-system subway without a ticket--can face reprimand or retaliation from others who have patiently waited in line. In the simulations, a few willing punishers can maintain stable levels of cooperation. Without punishments, the defectors quickly take over.
...
Dominic Johnson of Stanford University and his colleagues have argued that the recent results should be understood in the light of environmental and cultural conditions predominant during human evolution--conditions very different from today's. Even when people are told that their identity will remain secret and they will never encounter their partner again, they may be guided by tendencies that evolved when people lived in small groups and rarely encountered strangers.
...
A sensitivity to "fairness" may have emerged early in the primate lineage. In a paper published in August 2003 in Nature, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and their colleagues showed that capuchin monkeys have a keen sense of fairness. Brosnan gave a monkey a pebble, which it was supposed to return to her in exchange for a slice of cucumber. Most monkeys were perfectly content to trade the pebble for a cucumber, but when they could see a neighboring monkey perform the same task and receive a grape--a much more valued treat--in return, monkeys refused the cucumber even though the alternative was no reward at all. In recent work, chimpanzees have shown similar reactions, Brosnan said at the Göttingen meeting. "A test for fairness is probably hardwired," Gächter says.

[Ludovic]

Suppose you are walking by a pond and there's a drowning baby. If you said, "I've just paid $200 for these shoes and the water would ruin them, so I won't save the baby" what would that make you? Virtually everyone would be in agreement that it would make you an extremely awful, horrible person.

Yet, as Green says, "there are millions of children around the world in the same situation, where just a little money for medicine or food could save their lives. And yet we don't consider ourselves monsters for having that dinner rather than giving the money to Oxfam. Why is that?"

Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works. For one, there are distribution problems, mainly on the part of autocratic foreign regimes who are using starvation as a political tool. Secondly, the law of supply and demand states that as we try to help the starving, the means to do so would get more expensive until we could no longer afford it.

However, if caveat #1 were not true, and the point of diminishing returns had not been reached yet, we would be monsters, in the same sense as the first example. It is true that we would not have such a visceral reaction, and the cause of that is evolution, but that does not lessen the way I would in theory weigh the situation. And many others agree with me.

[Planet of the Shapes]

Its an interesting idea, and one i've heard before. I can think of one objection though - how would these traits evolve? Obviously a population which is altruistic will be more successful than a population which isn't. But evolution acts on the genetic level. You would imagine selfish behaviour would be the "natural" state. Given that, if a gene appears which made its bearer more altruistic it would be selected against, because it actually provides a disadvantage to its bearer.

Having said that i do think it is very likely that altruism/morality/fairness are traits that have evolved, but i can't see the evolutionary "pathway" that might have happened.

[Gomez]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

Secondly, the law of supply and demand states that as we try to help the starving, the means to do so would get more expensive until we could no longer afford it.

I'm sorry, you lost me here. Can you elaborate a bit? Thanks.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Planet of the Shapes

Given that, if a gene appears which made its bearer more altruistic it would be selected against, because it actually provides a disadvantage to its bearer.

Altruism is selected for to the extent that the individual being altruistic shares genes with the beneficiary. Thus you, in an evolutionary sense, "should" be quite altruistic to your children, a little altruistic towards your nephew, and just a smigen altruistic towards your first cousin. However, at some point after most of this altruism evolved, language came in, and, with it a heightened ability to see analogies. One such analogy: the needs of your children are analogous to those of your neighbors, and, even those of your military adversaries.

If I am right, a million years from now evolution will catch up with languge and bring us back the Hobbian world of pre-linguistic man. This explains why SETI can't find anyone. The escape from a Hobbian world is temporary, leading to all civilizations, at least in this corner of the galaxy, eventually destroying themselves.

As you can see, I am not an optimist.

[afterhourz]

Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works.

YOu seem to have fallen victim to generalization in the following:

For one, there are distribution problems, mainly on the part of autocratic foreign regimes who are using starvation as a political tool.

These problems exist and can cause us not to be able to totally eliminate the problem without war but there are tons of children who can be fed now just by sending in a few dollars. So this does not get us off the hook. Not to mention that these regimes should be eliminated.

Secondly, the law of supply and demand states that as we try to help the starving, the means to do so would get more expensive until we could no longer afford it.

Second, what you are saying is that there is nowhere to draw the line in how much we spend on helping the starving. But some aide is better than no aide and we all--most of us anyways--live beyoind what we need to. That is the point. We could divert some of our funds and if everyone did a little a huge portion of the problem would dissipate.

I am told there is enough food on the planet to feed everyone. This elimates the problem except for the "autocratic foreign regimes". I mean, kill the space program for a few years and you might save a couple billion dollars that could be spent here.

Vinnie

[Blake]

Even if we were perfectly rational example would make no sense.
If we place a value, x, on human life then it is obviously worth spending >x to save that life. But rationally we also have to place a value on our own lives, our own prestige and our own success. And I am talking rationally here, not emotionally. The reason a man can afford $200 shoes is because he is successful. Such success comes in part from how one presents oneself to others, as well as from self-esteem. $200 dollar shoes help with both of those.

There is absolutely no value in a man giving up his $200 shoes to save one person and losing his salary and so be unable to provide $10, 000 over the next few years. An individual needs to take care of themselves to have any value to others. There is no point in feeding 1 starving child when that decision will cause 10 children to starve.

Now we can of course debate whether $200 dollar shoes generate $200 worth of income. I couldn’t tell you, I don’t own $200 shoes. But the fact is that the situation is complex. By pampering me I make me successful. I make m city successful. I make my nation successful etc. The US is the biggest provider of foreign aid in the world. t can be this way because it has a consumer driven capitalist society. There is little point in sacrificing all that aid by shutting down the consumerism.

Can someone find me a country where the wealthy can not afford $200 shoes that provides per capita or per GDP more foreign aid than the US? Maybe that should tell us something.

People may or may not realise intellectually that the issue is complex. Personally I doubt many people give it thought. But I do think that people realise that if they decide to invest in foreign aid rather than shoes they will logically never be able to invest in shoes ever again. There are an infinite number of starving children. It makes little sense to say that the person should forgo shoes just once in their life, since most people donate far more than $200 to charity over a lifetime.

Compare that to the act of diving into the water to save a child. Yes it sacrifices the shoes, but it does so in only one instance for definitive effect. People know that this one definite act need only be carried out once for benefit. While they may not be able to sacrifice their shoes forever without the overall effect being harmful, they can do so this once without the effect being noticeable. Perhaps if their was a UN Superman fund that would perform such rescues on our behalf that we could donate too their might be some rationale behind the analogy. But their isn’t. The only way to prevent this type of tragedy is to sacrifice the shoes. There are other less harmful ways to prevent a child starving to death than burning one's shoes.

[DSeid]

Altruism is selected for to the extent that the individual being altruistic shares genes with the beneficiary.

You really should get your hands on that Science article.

What you reference here is "kin selection" and that is certainly part of it. We are most likely to help our children, next family, next that which we percieve as tribe which is likely to share common genes.

But there is more to the story because we live in social groups and the behaviors that we develop then rapidly change the environment that is the social group providing a positive feedback for the tendency for cooperative behavior. A group that has a tendency to cooperate with reciprocity and punishment of cheaters will survive better and its members will reproduce more. It will become the dominant tribe and garner resources from other tribes. Its beliefs, that led it to thrive, will become codified as a religion with axioms to support it. The idea will be selected for as well as the genetic tendency. The idea can spread to other groups and cause selection of those that can thrive within that environment; those who cannot cooperate get killed off or fail to mate.

Break it down to steps in a lmore linear fashion:

Next from kin selection is "reciprocal altruism" - helping someone non-related because they will help you, or have helped you in the past. This requires the ability to detect cheaters and to minimally refuse to help them in the future. (Some believe that such a process of cheater detection and attempts to game the system was a major force in the evolution of the human brain.)

Then is "indirect reciprocity" - helping an unrelated someone who will be unlikely to return the favor because it gets you a reputation as someone to be trusted. Thus witnesses will be more likely to help you knowing that you will be there for them. The behavior is selected for in the individual and the group benefits causing the idea to be selected for as a meme.

And "strong reciprocity" - the desire to punish out of a sense of fairness even if it costs you to do so. Clearly a rep item for the individual. I don't want to cheat that fellow, I've seen what he does to cheaters. And causes a positive selection for the group and for the idea. And then for those who have the ethical and cognitive capacity to thrive within an environment that has strong enforcers.

BTW "thought experiments" are often limited by their very artificiality. It is like creating a perceptual illusion. Interpret with caution. Our ethical processes evolved for function within fairly small social groups. Function in huge global societies is a very recent development on an evolutionary scale.

[Blake]

Example two is even more dodgy IMO. The big problem I see is that it hinges entirely on a human life being the only thing of moral value. Once we accept that human life is not the only thing of moral value then it becomes nonsense.

Let’s look at just one other thing that people believe has value- freedom of choice. Many people believe that under many circumstances freedom of choice has a greater value than life.

So we have a train about to run over some people. No one has any choice in this matter. As driver I have no choice except in who the train runs over. The train <I>will</I> run over someone. The workers have no choice at all. They will or will not die based on events beyond their control. So really in this scenario no-one has any capacity to apportion freedoms. All the players only have the freedom that circumstances have dictated.

Now look at the second scenario. The fact man has a choice. He can jump in front of the train or not. He can die or not. He has that freedom. But If I push him I remove that freedom form him.

Few Americans will dispute that liberty has a moral value, and that the value may be higher than life at times. Once we accept that, then this example becomes incredibly poor. We can not in any way conclude that ‘Logically, both of these thought experiments should have similar answers. The greater good requires sacrificing one life for the five’. That conclusion is completely illogical until the author can show us how he logically determined that the liberty <I>and</I> life of one fat man is of greter worth and better than the lives of five railway workers.

Wars have been fought based on the premise that such liberty is worth more than the lives of any number of men. It would take large cojones to suggest that it is illogical to oppose tyranny if that opposition will cost lives, yetr in essence that is what that example proposes. The liberty of individuals is worthless compard to the lives of five. That is a proposition that reject logically, emotionally, ethically and intuitively. It makes sense on any level, no matter how I consider it.

[Planet of the Shapes]

SteveEisenberg and DSeid

You are both correct. I remembered one part of how evolution operates by gene selection, but forgot another part! Thanks for addressing my objection.

I'm afraid i don't really follow your "evolution catching up with language" theory though, SE, but that may be a subject for another thread.

[matt]

The idea that morality has evolved is the thesis of a book, The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, which is well worth a look. It includes a fair bit of game theory, among other things. "Tit for tat" is only the start.

DSeid said

"A group that has a tendency to cooperate with reciprocity and punishment of cheaters will survive better and its members will reproduce more."

Punishment of cheaters is interesting. The problem of people taking advantage of cooperation by screwing the cooperators over has been given many names. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the two person version of it, the Problem of Free Riders is the multi-person version, and The Tragegy of the Commons is an example of the multi-person version.

I remember reading an article (probably New Scientist, but I can't recall exactly) about an experiment where a cooperating group were allowed to punish cheats, but punishing the cheats cost each individual more than just letting them get away with it. People tended to punish the cheats anyway, even to their own detriment. The experimenters argued that a tendency to punish cheats even if it expensive to do so has evolved because it promotes a greater degree of cooperation.

[erislover]

This [foregoing discussion] does not, however, suggest to me that morality is hard-wired i.e. completely biological deterministic. Even if we reject tabula rasa theories we do not impose biological determinism. Even if we suggest a materialist metaphysic we do not impose biological determinism (environment still plays a part). Only if we propose biological determinism are we compelled to accept biological determinism, which I should trust is obvious.

This is because we consider two forms of selection: one is biological selection, that is, traditional evolution; the other is social selection. I do not see any way to suggest the two are equivalent or that each entails the other. In fact I don't see that either one entails the other (that there is necessarily any strict implication that will hold). I will spend some time here discussing each of the two entailments.

Something I would like to note. Evolutionary psychology wrt morality (herein: evolutionary morality) will [potentially] explain why we have the morals we do. But it cannot be a complete account of morality because the limitations of finite existence demand that not all permutations are tried. Moral realism, as a philosophical view, attempts to derive optimal conditions under the assumption that such conditions exist (though it cannot, of course, guarantee it will find them). Without this study or attempt, there is no guarantee that we will obtain an optimal morality--or even that we will obtain a functioning morality (complete annihilation is currently possible and will likely never become impossible).

As such, a naturalistic account of morality is not sufficient unless it can account for moral realism. This is not a particularly specious result--those who think about such things as moral questions might, as moral realists assert, have a moral advantage (but this is to say it isn't completely unreasonable; its assertion is still the fallacy of affirming the consequent, something that will often crop up when we try and consider morality entailing survival). The problem here is that we might begin to require that moral advantage entails biological advantage (i.e.-survival). The only way I can see that this is sound is if we define moral advantage as biological advantage--something that I have found to be a perilous proposition that, in fact, runs contrary to the very morals we hold (and hence would require inconsistency in the theory--not the hallmark of profundity), and in any case begs the question to be answered which is whether this is in fact the case.

The reason this is difficult to swallow is because it is not clear how we are to consider each side of the
morality -> biological advantage
implication. Morality often involves individual action, while biological advantage in a Darwinian sense never involves individual advantage (it necessarily applies to a population within a species). Accepting the implication, then, entails rule utilitarianism under the condition that what we seek to maximize is survival. Note, however, that we are no longer guaranteed that this form of rule utilitarianism will maximize happiness (which is what utilitarian variants normally shoot for). That is, we cannot rule out that moral perfection entails a sort of rotating slave society where everyone is, on average, unhappy. Happiness and survival might, at the level of populations, be contradictory--meaning we must authorize the extermination of some (decrease populations) or authorize an increase in unhappiness. This is not a result I think most would find acceptable, leaving the burden of proof to those who think it is the case as to how something like this would naturally occur, or to show how the two conditions are not possibly contradictory.

It is interesting to note that philosophers have, from time to time, suggested moral systems which do not guarantee to maximize happiness (that happiness is not a function of morality). However, they were not (to my knowledge) either concerned with maximizing survival, so their mention only deserves a passing commentary.

Any practical morality will have to accomplish two things: one, that it will serve the purpose it is declared for (maximizing happiness, survival, or whatever); and two, that enough people will follow it without undermining it. The second condition is especially important, because moral obligation does not necessarily entail that any particular person will actually act morally. So devising a workable ethic is not a trivial task. Game theory is promising, but it is far from the level of complexity that is required for populations we encounter. Also note that the first condition of a practical moral system can impact the second condition: knowing the "winning" conditions (to stick with a game theoretic semantics) can impact whether or not we will follow it. For example, if a father deduces that killing his son is the moral option, it is not guaranteed that this man is Abraham. If all fathers will be able to deduce this it is intuitively likely that no father will accept the moral system--even if they are never in the situation where it would be the moral option. Merely knowing that the system requires something in one circumstance might affect whether someone accepts the entire system.

Above I dealt with morality entailing survival, but this is not the only option I mentioned. The other is that survival entails morality. That is, if we are surviving, we are acting morally. This has a very serious flaw in that intuitively immoral behavior does not entail non-survival (modus tollens). For example, we would intuitively suggest that it is immoral to steal... but an individual theft, or even widespread theft, does not strictly mean no one survives (or even that anyone at all dies!). Does this mean we should accept that one possible morality involves mass theft? But, as a matter of course, we haven't accepted that, and so how does evolutionary morality explain this anomoly? Also note that this implication is vacuously true when we die--that is, if we fail to survive we cannot necessarily conclude that we acted immorally. And it is precisely this implication that most people want to assert when they discuss the relationship between morality and survival. This leaves us with suggesting that either survival is the case or (exclusive) we are not moral--but not both. That is, it suggests that it is impossible for a moral group to fail to survive. But this is not a practical result, since if the sun explodes and annihilates the earth (and so kills everyone), we would be forced to conclude that there is no possible moral behavior at all which is a really strange result. So obviously the implication cannot be strict.

[DSeid]

Eris, this time I find your comments near to incomprehensible. Care to try again?

From what I can make out, you have some very basic misconceptions of how evolution works, and of what has been said in this thread so far, but it is hard for me to tell from what you have down.

For example

But it [Evolutionary psychology] cannot be a complete account of morality because the limitations of finite existence demand that not all permutations are tried.

is a nonsensical statement. It is akin to saying that a scale can't have been created to measure weights because it hasn't measured all weights. "Morality" in the sense of this thread is not a fixed universal. It is merely the means by which we decide which we consider right and wrong. It is a tool that is used to address an infinite variety of permutations and a tool that has co-evolved at genetic and cultural levels. Now then, if you want to use such a tool to evaluate the moral value of morals, (as you proceed to do) then do not be surprised at the logical mishmosh that you create.

Your comments on biological advantage are likewise a bit confused. Survival of the individual is not the point from the POV of evolution. Nor is happiness. Getting more copies of the gene that predisposes for a trait to get to a point that they can be reproduced again is. The strategy that accomplishes that goal may or may not include achieving the first two goals. It does not require that we are aware of that goal.

Yes, at some point one also must consider the organism under selective pressure to be the culture rather than the individual. Cutures can develop strategies that take advantage of the individual's predispositions to spread itself. And the strategies of cultures can and do change very rapidly compared to the genetic evolutionary scale. Cultures grow both by the propagation of its member cells and by absorption of other groups and by spread of their ideas into other groups albeit often geometrically transformed to new applications.

Cutures can even propagate themselves by creating strategies that take advantage of genetic predispositions to such a degree that individuals who are most willing to comply with those conventions are selected out, and yet the cuture can develop new strategies to take advantage of what biologic predispositions are left with a speed unimaginable on a human genetic timeframe. Examples available upon request.

Is there a universal of morals? I believe so. Such is an illogical statement of faith on my part but I believe it nevertheless. I may merely be a prisoner of my own genetic programming, but I am that which I am. And such is the basis of my soft theism. I believe that the intertwined processes of genetic selection and cultural evolution may be how human morality developed the way it did without being why it developed the way it did.

[erislover]

Note the word "complete account" in the passage you quote, DSeid. I am only suggesting that even if we utilize evolutionary [morality] that it is not a complete account of morality itself--it can only be an account of what is happening. For example, we cannot suggest that amphibians that exist or have existed are the complete set of possible amphibians--not all mutations can possibly be tried. So the evolutionary history of amphibians is not a complete account. That's all.

Survival of the individual is not the point from the POV of evolution.

I said as much in my post. My point was that we can really conflate moral and evolution as an entailment because morality often deals with individual choices while evolution never does, evolution always works on populations.

Nor is happiness.

Of course not. But happiness is, to some, a hallmark of morality.

Cutures can even propagate themselves by creating strategies that take advantage of genetic predispositions to such a degree that individuals who are most willing to comply with those conventions are selected out, and yet the cuture can develop new strategies to take advantage of what biologic predispositions are left with a speed unimaginable on a human genetic timeframe. Examples available upon request.

Yes, I don't intend to suggest otherwise at all. I don't believe anything in my post could be construed otherwise.

[Xenologist]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Altruism is selected for to the extent that the individual being altruistic shares genes with the beneficiary. Thus you, in an evolutionary sense, "should" be quite altruistic to your children, a little altruistic towards your nephew, and just a smigen altruistic towards your first cousin. However, at some point after most of this altruism evolved, language came in, and, with it a heightened ability to see analogies. One such analogy: the needs of your children are analogous to those of your neighbors, and, even those of your military adversaries.

If I am right, a million years from now evolution will catch up with languge and bring us back the Hobbian world of pre-linguistic man. This explains why SETI can't find anyone. The escape from a Hobbian world is temporary, leading to all civilizations, at least in this corner of the galaxy, eventually destroying themselves.

As you can see, I am not an optimist.

I applaud you for seeing through the weakness in modern retard morality, but it doesn't take as long as all that.
Besides, there is always psychological eugenics, and the concept of Volk....

Though I don't suppose anyone with "berg" in their handle is going to think much of National Socialism.

[matt]

I found the New Scientist article I remembered:

Moral outrage

New Scientist vol 173 issue 2325 - 12 January 2002, page Page 11


And another article that is relevant,

Together we are stronger

New Scientist vol 177 issue 2386 - 15 March 2003

Both can be seen online in the archives at www.Newscientist.com, but you have to register. It's free for seven days, or completely free if you subscribe to the paper magazine.

The experiment they discribe is more or less as I summarised. Players in the game were allowed to invest "monetary units" into an investment pool that always returned 1.6 times the investment, but the dividend was shared equally between the players regardless of who invested what.

Equal investments gave equitable returns, but to maximise your own return you could free-ride - invest little or nothing and take your share of the dividend anyway. Other investors would find their share to be below their investments in that case.

When played openly and face to face, people tended to play fair and everyone made moderate profits. But played anonymously, cooperation disappeared as people took the oportunity to free-ride.

When the option of punishing the anonymous free-riders was introduced, at a cost to the punisher, cooperation was re-established. Players finding their return smaller than their investment would altruistically punish free riders rather than relying upon other players to do it. Fear of punishment enforced cooperation.

The experimenters claimed that a sense of "moral outrage" was built into the players. Righteous anger drove players to punish cheats even though it was personally costly to do. Whether such moral outrage is biological or cultural is debatable. The same kind of game played with primates may yield some answers!



erislover said:

"The only way I can see that this is sound is if we define moral advantage as biological advantage--something that I have found to be a perilous proposition that, in fact, runs contrary to the very morals we hold (and hence would require inconsistency in the theory--not the hallmark of profundity), and in any case begs the question to be answered which is whether this is in fact the case."

You've cut to the heart of the matter. In The Origins of Virtue, Ridley described variations on "Tit for Tat." The strategy of tit-for-tat was to cooperate with others the first time around, and then do to them what they did to you forever after. In very simple games, it proved to be the optimal strategy.

A weakness in tit-for-tat arises when you allow weighted "misunderstandings" - say one in ten cooperations is mistaken for betrayal, but only one in twenty betrayals are mistaken for cooperations. Then, tit-for-tat players become locked into cycles of retaliations that are re-established more often than they are broken.

In that case,"tit for tat" then becomes less effective than "forgiving tit for tat", which forgives a betrayal one time in three. This allows misunderstandings to be rapidly resolved, so a population of "forgiving tit-for-tat" will be more successful than one of simple "tit-for-tat" which is torn apart by vendetta.

What I find fascinating about this is that from very simple games, a basic tenet of our morality (forgiveness) can arise as an optimal strategy. It is far from a proof that moral advantage equates to biological advantage, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Debates like these make me wish TVAA hadn't been banned. He would champion the ultra-materialist view, which kept things lively!

[DSeid]

I don't have anything more to add, but I wanted to acknowledge the points made. Matt, that bit on the utility of forgiveness to avoid the adverse outcome of Hatfield-McCoy spirals, and thus being a selected for virtue, is wonderful!

Eris, I apologize. I think I was a bit snarkey in my response to you (on reread).

To the partiular: Evolution works on populations by way of the expression of invidual phenotypes. Including the tendency to make individual choices of certain types.

My by way of aside constructive criticism: I hope that you by now recognize that I am not exactly a poorly read fellow. If you are writing in a such a way that I can't follow then you may want to consider that you are using more philosophicalese than the average well-read intellectual has a good command of. In certain threads, where only philosophy wonks need apply, (you can spot those by their having "ontology" or "universals" in their titles!) such is an appropriate use of short hand. I venture in forwarned to be ready to translate into commonsense speech as I go, knowing that "realism" has a different meaning in this context than in many others. But other threads require that you use common sense speech and define as you go, (if you wish to do more than have others go "Wow. He must know something because I don't understand a word of what he just said!" anyway.)

[erislover]

Originally Posted by matt

A weakness in tit-for-tat arises when you allow weighted "misunderstandings" - say one in ten cooperations is mistaken for betrayal, but only one in twenty betrayals are mistaken for cooperations....

In that case,"tit for tat" then becomes less effective than "forgiving tit for tat", which forgives a betrayal one time in three. This allows misunderstandings to be rapidly resolved, so a population of "forgiving tit-for-tat" will be more successful than one of simple "tit-for-tat" which is torn apart by vendetta.

What I find fascinating about this is that from very simple games, a basic tenet of our morality (forgiveness) can arise as an optimal strategy. It is far from a proof that moral advantage equates to biological advantage, but it is interesting nevertheless.

It is very interesting indeed. It does make us wonder. However, I find it important to note that when an optimal strategy is realized, it can be exploited. For example, given two parties who are to cooperate, if the strategy for one is the optimized forgiving tit-for-tat, then the strategy for the other can be said to maximize betrayal without affecting overall retaliation. This is not a result most would like to produce; that is, we do not often like to encourage betrayal at all. Betrayal per se is wrong.

So if we start to equate moral advantage with biological advantage, which of the two teams is acting morally? No answer.

Debates like these make me wish TVAA hadn't been banned. He would champion the ultra-materialist view, which kept things lively!

Well, that's one way of putting it! Though I do miss him, I agree.

[erislover]

Originally Posted by DSeid

Eris, I apologize. I think I was a bit snarkey in my response to you (on reread).

Ah, I didn't read it that way. You've never given me any reason to think of you as snarky. I hope I have returned that kindness.

To the partiular: Evolution works on populations by way of the expression of invidual phenotypes. Including the tendency to make individual choices of certain types.

Errr.... yeahhh. But I think that is stretching it a bit thin. Even if one member of a population has expressed a "better" (more conducive to survival) phenotype, this is not to suggest that it will in fact cause this individual to survive better, and certainly not the group as a whole or a subset of the group to which this individual belongs. Morality does not operate analogously. For example, at any time I have a plethora of moral codes available to me from which I must select by various conscious and unconscious means. For a cultural relativist, the analogy becomes stronger--except for the little flaw that cultural relativism doesn't hold, because within any culture there are significant dissidents. (Any history book should demonstrate this beyond a reasonable doubt ). We don't get to have it both ways in the sense of culture selecting morals, but also not selecting morals because cultural mores change due to those dissidents.

To see the difference more clearly: at any time, I have a set of moral codes that I may select from (or synthesize myself), yet the same is not true for biological matters. I only have, biologically, what I was given. Now, in some unspecified future where I can alter my own genetics, this conversation will definitely become more interesting.

My by way of aside constructive criticism: I hope that you by now recognize that I am not exactly a poorly read fellow.

Never thought otherwise.

If you are writing in a such a way that I can't follow then you may want to consider that you are using more philosophicalese than the average well-read intellectual has a good command of.

It is my failing. I sacrifice legibility for conciseness because I am so very tired of nitpickers. However, as a context from which to view my previous post, it is simply that I am comparing two possible entailments that would express the idea that there is a relationship between morality and biology. First, I consider that morality entails survival; that is, the notion that if we are acting morally we will survive, thus putting a link in that direction. The last paragraph then considers the other notion, that survival entails morality; that is, the notion that if we are surviving then we are acting morally. My post was meant to demonstrate that neither of these are true, and that even if they were, an evolutionary perspective on morality would not be able to account for the facts of the matter.

"He must know something because I don't understand a word of what he just said!"

I never wish to come off that way, believe me. I have been wrong enough times privately and publically and on this board certainly that it is never my aim to make my points by hiding behind obscurity. When I see I am wrong I admit it right away. But the less I complicate things, the more I sacrifice accuracy and open myself up to nitpicking--it can't be both ways. Either someone talks technically in an attempt to provide as much conciseness as is possible on a message board, or a point is made more easy to digest while suggesting things that are open to extreme criticism. I will back off the technical matters of morality some to clear up my previous post, but please keep that in mind before you jump on an incorrectly stated proposition.

[edwino]

I haven't time to read the thread right now but let me also suggest The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. It deals with many of these things; the parts that I found most interesting was where he attempts to discover a "base" human condition by comparisons of thousands of different human cultures and dozens of primate cultures. He comes up with some very general rules (like tit-for-tat, power seeking, polygyny, and a few others) and comes up with how they are behind very specific characteristics of both individual psychology and modern cultural practices.

[DSeid]

Eris,

I know that your intent is not to dazzle em with BS. The fact that I've so often taken the time to reread until I comprehend your points is the best evidence I can offer that I think the ideas in there are worthwhile .... even if I often disagree! Heck, before geting into some of your threads, I thought epistemology was a bad pronounciation of what Public Health is all about.

I think that we are not too far off from agreement in this case. Morality (that which we consider right and wrong, which may or may not have a 100% correlation with some independent objective universal standard of the same) is a product of both biological selection and cultural evolution of societal organisms that takes advantage of those biologic tendencies. And of course the slower genetic response to the new environment created by the cultural changes. Within the societal organism individuals respond according to that which they have been endowed with, their own experiences, and their own synthesis of those factors. They may come on a new strategy or a modification of current strategies, that can propagate throught the society. Or be sent off to a labor camp.

Morality is in this "particular" sense is merely that standard for determining right and wrong that a particular individual or group of individuals (society) consistently utilize and believe represent some more universal value. Within a society someone who utilizes a standard significantly different from the majority of others risks the cost of being punished, being considered insane, or becoming a prophet and having their views become a new standard in the future. The strategies created may themselves not be "moral" according to of the standards themselves. And we only hope that there is a universal of morality that we have well approximated by this process.

[erislover]

Originally Posted by DSeid

I think that we are not too far off from agreement in this case. Morality (that which we consider right and wrong, which may or may not have a 100% correlation with some independent objective universal standard of the same) is a product of both biological selection and cultural evolution of societal organisms that takes advantage of those biologic tendencies. And of course the slower genetic response to the new environment created by the cultural changes. Within the societal organism individuals respond according to that which they have been endowed with, their own experiences, and their own synthesis of those factors. They may come on a new strategy or a modification of current strategies, that can propagate throught the society. Or be sent off to a labor camp.

Now, what I agree here is that this is an account of what happened. It might even serve as an explanation of the development of morality. But what good does it do me, a moral agent, in deciding what to do? Is there an analogous atavism available to morality? For example, could choices that once served to promote the species (and were, by hypothesis, more moral) no longer be applicable? Or could choices that are now not helping anything worth removing? As a moral agent, how I am to use this evolutionary perspective to make a moral choice? This was one of my criticisms to the previously mentioned TVAA who often promoted this view. Yet I have never found an answer as to why the question is improper; or, if it is proper, how we are to use this perspective to answer it.

Within a society someone who utilizes a standard significantly different from the majority of others risks the cost of being punished, being considered insane, or becoming a prophet and having their views become a new standard in the future.

Yet it is precisely these dissidents that shape the ever-changing cultures! Without them culture stagnates. And we do not see much historical evidence of stagnation over time. So how do we explain this anomoly?

The strategies created may themselves not be "moral" according to of the standards themselves. And we only hope that there is a universal of morality that we have well approximated by this process.

So what of atavism? How have we ruled it out? This evolutionary perspective seems to strongly support various moral relativisms, not anything like a universal perspective, any more than biological evolution creates the best being (i.e.-biological complexity is not a measure of value per se). Now, I am fond of moral relativisms myself, but that is neither here nor there.

[DSeid]

But what good does it do me, a moral agent, in deciding what to do?

None. But still an interesting question. Like universals, eh?

It doesn't preclude an extant objective morality (on the other side of the screen); it is the mechanics of how this current one that we percieve came into existence. Certainly it dovetails with philosphies of moral relativism but it is not proof of such. God could have used this as the means to create these morals within us. Not being a fan of moral relativism, I choose to believe that there is an absolute morality even while being a fan of evolutionary psychology as the means of moral ontogeny, and thus logically am I a soft theist.

As to the role of dissidents to alter societal norms: I did include the possibilty of being a prophet. Like other concepts, our concept of what is moral evolves with time. Others take the ideas and translate them into new domains, rotate them, transform them. And society changes as a result. And judges past societal norms as immoral.

I am not quite sure what atavism has to do with it though.

[erislover]

Originally Posted by DSeid

None. But still an interesting question. Like universals, eh?

Touche!

It doesn't preclude an extant objective morality (on the other side of the screen); it is the mechanics of how this current one that we percieve came into existence.

Is it, though? Because morality does deal with individual choices. How do they make these choices? How do we account for dissidents if society is the selective agent? Biologically speaking, different genes may be expressed without undermining the species, and thus there would be competition among them internally on, one presumes, biological matters. But this is not the same for society as a selective agent which is not encumbered by such niceties. It can go out of its way to find difference--including biological difference. (Here we see how the two may interact, and how we might be begging the question. Might be.)

Certainly it dovetails with philosphies of moral relativism but it is not proof of such.

Absolutely. But the comparison is interesting.

As to the role of dissidents to alter societal norms: I did include the possibilty of being a prophet. Like other concepts, our concept of what is moral evolves with time. Others take the ideas and translate them into new domains, rotate them, transform them. And society changes as a result. And judges past societal norms as immoral.

Right, clearly this is so. Yet this means society isn't strictly the selective agent, because it does show a preference in these matters, yet they persist. A deeper analysis is necessary, and I think this deeper analysis will have to let go of the evolutionary perspective to retain consistency and be constructive.

I am not quite sure what atavism has to do with it though.

Well, I'm going to assume we've got the biological form of atavism down and proceed with atavism in an evolutional morality perspective. My point is that since society is changing, we can't (as far as I can tell) suggest that what was once morally proper, but no longer is, won't occur again. This goes to work against universal morality (a sort of teleology when we're under evolutionary analogies) and also works against any particular thing being moral--for how are we to know this isn't the time to bring back slavery (for example)? As an individual and as a society it leaves us no way to properly select morals because anything we currently hold might be atavistically invalid--and how will we know until we try?

[lekatt]

Originally Posted by matt

The idea that morality has evolved is the thesis of a book, The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, which is well worth a look. It includes a fair bit of game theory, among other things. "Tit for tat" is only the start.

DSeid said

"A group that has a tendency to cooperate with reciprocity and punishment of cheaters will survive better and its members will reproduce more."

Punishment of cheaters is interesting. The problem of people taking advantage of cooperation by screwing the cooperators over has been given many names. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the two person version of it, the Problem of Free Riders is the multi-person version, and The Tragegy of the Commons is an example of the multi-person version.

I remember reading an article (probably New Scientist, but I can't recall exactly) about an experiment where a cooperating group were allowed to punish cheats, but punishing the cheats cost each individual more than just letting them get away with it. People tended to punish the cheats anyway, even to their own detriment. The experimenters argued that a tendency to punish cheats even if it expensive to do so has evolved because it promotes a greater degree of cooperation.

If morality is hardwired then all would be moral. The premise is faulty.
Tit for tat produces constant war and turmoil.
Morality comes from the spiritual presence within each being.

Nothing in the way of behaviour is hardwired. I know some scientists have tried to promote this idea by brain mapping. If fact this spoof is wide spread, but false.

http://ndeweb.com/info02.htm

Love

[Ludovic]

YOu seem to have fallen victim to generalization in the following:

It may be a generalization,but only a false generalization when there are cases of it being untrue. I am unaware of any.

Second, what you are saying is that there is nowhere to draw the line in how much we spend on helping the starving.

I agree, but at some point the point would be reached at which it would be more cost effective to spend the money on law enforcement, aid to people here at home, and we can't be spending no money on roads, and space exploration for when the earth becomes uninhabitable.

I am told there is enough food on the planet to feed everyone. This elimates the problem except for the "autocratic foreign regimes".

Which I focused on. There are certainly plenty of underfed people, but they are not in danger of dying. Unless you can point me to a country where people are currently dying of hunger, and they would be free to receive food, but no one is offering them food.

Now, if the people are underfed rather than starving, it then becomes a question of whether to spend the extra money to send extra food for them, which will help their health marginally (if not overdone, of course, too much can be as bad or worse than too little), but also possibly help to support an unfree nation by subsidizing their budget.