An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics (31 page)

1.
Attempts to characterize what lies
beyond
our moral experience – i.e., the nature of the “moral world” itself – will be discussed in part II.

2.
This does not mean that they have to do as they judge, or even that they have to judge correctly. Even Hitler would count as a moral creature in this minimal sense simply because (we'll assume) he could judge that some actions are forbidden. Being a moral creature has to do with what someone is
capable of
– not what he does.

3.
If I seem overly cautious in my analysis of morality (“morality
appears
to be this and that,” and so on), it's because serious debate continues in philosophy over whether or not these appearances are deceiving. Some philosophers, for example, are happy to admit that morality
appears
one way, but will insist that, in truth, it is another.

4.
In study after study, males around the world consistently rank the attractiveness of females according to just those traits.

5.
Strictly speaking, of course, the best guarantee that Ogg will avoid committing those types of actions (short of disabling him) would be to hard-wire Ogg in such a way that his behavior becomes inflexible. For reasons we'll get to shortly, this option faces real drawbacks.

6.
In the next section we'll explore in more depth the connections between reputation, punishment, and morality.

7.
See
https://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/wuerl-2006-red-mass.htm
.

8.
Recent studies on the evolution of social behavior support this hypothesis, as we'll see in chapter 4.

1.
In fact, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar has hypothesized that language evolved in humans precisely because it enabled us to
gossip
. The best way to learn about the behavior and reputation of others is to listen to the “dirt” that's going around. When the psychologist Jonathon Haidt and a student Holly Hom asked fifty-one subjects to keep a journal of longer conversations they had with friends, they discovered that “gossip is overwhelmingly critical, and it is primarily about the moral and social violations of others” (2006: 54). “Gossip,” concludes Haidt, “is a policeman and a teacher.”

2.
I take this to be especially important in coming to understand the nature of morality itself, as I argue in chapter 12.

3.
Punishment appears to be costly in another way. Psychologists Kevin Carlsmith, Daniel Gilbert, and Timothy Wilson (2008) showed that revenge is not all that sweet. When subjects were exploited in a public goods game (by an undercover member of the experiment team who, after pleading with other members to invest heavily, defected), some subjects had the option to retaliate; other subjects did not. Those subjects who had the option to punish and did so “reported a significantly worse mood” after punishing than those subjects who did not have the option but expressed a wish to punish. Moreover, punishers ruminated far longer about the free-rider than those unable to punish. Evidently, contrary to folk wisdom, turning the other cheek can indeed be more satisfying.

4.
As I write, the public is coming to grips with Bernard Madoff and the $50 billion investment fraud he committed. When asked by National Public Radio what Madoff's “biggest and hardest-to-forgive transgression” was, the rabbi Mark Borovitz said without hesitation: “The rape of trust. They call it ‘affinity theft.’ … I get you to like me, I get you to trust me and then I not only steal your money, I steal your belief that people are good and decent and caring.” So how will Madoff be punished if, according to Jewish tradition, there is no hell? “Mr. Madoff has to live with this himself … There's nobody that he can turn to without seeing the harm that he's done. And being shunned, being ostracized …
that's hell
.”

5.
As quoted in the
Daily Telegraph
, August 8, 2008.

Chapter 5 The Science of Virtue and Vice

1.
But this conservative explanation may not suffice to explain what Warneken and his colleagues saw (2009): chimpanzees were nearly as helpful as infants when someone was in need. And like the infants tested, the chimps were prompted to respond “even in the absence of encouragement or praise.”

2.
In some cases, patients exhibit other recognition impairments – for example, an inability to recognize common plants and animals or an inability to recognize places or facial expressions.

3.
When we are exposed to images depicting individuals in severe distress (victims of car accidents, patients undergoing crude surgeries), our bodies react in characteristic ways: our heart-rate increases, our palms sweat, our blood pressure rises. These are responses of the autonomic nervous system, a system that operates (mostly) independently of our will. Individuals identified as psychopathic do not show such reactions. They are indifferent to the distress of others.

4.
The psychologist Joshua Greene reports that “the posterior cingulate gyrus, a region that exhibits increased activity during a variety of emotion-related tasks, was less active in the psychopathic group than in the control subjects” 2005: 343).

5.
Just to be sure: in (1) “himself”
must
refer to
Bill.
In (2) “himself” could be just about anybody (as long as, I suppose, he's male). In (3), “him” could refer to just about anybody
but
Bill
. Bill
can't be the referent of “him” in (3). In (4) the correct imperative is “Is the boy who is happy missing?” And in (5) the correct imperative is “Was the duck sad that the chicken was missing?”

6.
For example, while almost all human languages are either subject-verb-object (as is English: “He opened the box”) or subject-object-verb (as is Japanese), virtually none is object-subject-verb. This should indeed be striking if, as non-nativists maintain, human language is not innately constrained.

7.
Advertisers are forever crafting slogans that have just the right
something
to spread throughout the population of consumers. For (the thinking goes) the more people remember your slogan, the more they remember the product, and the more they remember the product, the more likely they are to purchase that product.

Chapter 6 Social Harmony: The Good, the Bad, and the Biologically Ugly

1.
There are some constraints, of course. Variations in organismic form build off existing forms, so while one's offspring might, through some mutation, develop a thicker plumage, one's offspring won't develop a full plumage where none existed before.

1.
This is really just the tip of a vast philosophical iceberg. At the risk of running us entirely off the tracks, I'm going to leave this discussion where it is, hoping that my reader has some sense of the distinction. For more on this, see the Further Reading at the end of the chapter.

2.
Hume died eighty-three years
before
the publication of the
Origin
, so we cannot say, for obvious reasons, that Hume was a critic of Social Darwinism. We could probably get away with saying that Hume
would have been
a critic of Social Darwinism.

Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy

1.
I am assuming that the question is not being asked jokingly or ironically – or in some other non-standard way made evident by the context. This is a question put forward sincerely.

1.
The philosopher James Rachels (1990: 70–1) draws the distinction this way. It's one thing to offer a
definition
of a term (like “bachelor” or “water”); it's another thing to offer a
criterion
of a term.

2.
One of the central tasks of normative epistemology is examining the nature of justification as it figures in claims to knowledge. Suffice it to say, much disagreement persists.

1.
And many others besides Spencer. Joyce takes at aim at several recent attempts to vindicate a kind of moral realism in the context of evolution: Robert Richards (1986), Richmond Campbell (1996), Daniel Dennett (1995), and William Casebeer (2003).

2.
This is not unlike the example I introduced in chapter 10 regarding the engine warning light on your dashboard. Since the light's appearance was not caused by an engine malfunction (but by some arbitrary short-circuit elsewhere), you are not justified in believing that there's an engine malfunction on the basis of the light alone.

3.
To be fair, not all philosophers will gladly accept this. The view I am presupposing here is naive realism, according to which the world's properties are pretty much as we perceive them to be. The view receives unanimous(?) support from common sense. It receives mixed support from philosophers.

4.
The philosopher Philip Kitcher presses the same point: “there's no issue here of perceiving moral truths … The criterion of success isn't accurate representation, but the improvement of social cohesion” (2005: 176).

Chapter 12 Options for the Evolutionary Realist

1.
The philosopher Crispin Wright laments that “a philosopher who asserts that she is a realist about … ethics, has probably, for most philosophical audiences, accomplished little more than to clear her throat” (1992: 1).

2.
Casebeer's proposal is unorthodox in more ways than one: virtue ethics is standardly thought to be a normative ethical position – not a metaethical position. That is, virtue ethics has traditionally aimed at giving us guidance on how to live, not at explaining the underlying metaphysical structure of moral talk and behavior.

References

Aristotle (1988/350 BCE)
The Nicomachean Ethics
, trans. D. Ross, ed. J.L. Ackrill and J.O. Urmson (Oxford University Press).

Barkow, Jerome, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (1995)
The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Generation of Culture
(Oxford University Press).

Baron-Cohen, S. (1995)
Mindblindness
(MIT Press).

Binmore, K.G. (1998)
Game Theory and the Social Contract, II: Just Playing
(MIT Press).

Black, Max (1964) The Gap Between “Is” and “Should.”
The Philosophical Review
, 73/2: 165–81.

Blair, J. (2005)
The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain
(Wiley-Blackwell).

Boehm, C. (1999)
Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior
(Harvard University Press).

Boehm, C. (2000) Conflict and the Evolution of Social Control.
Journal of Consciousness Studies
, 7/1–2: 79–101.

Brockman, John (1995)
The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution
(Touchstone).

Buller, David (2006)
Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature
(Bradford Books, MIT).

Burnstein, E., C. Crandall, and S. Kitayama (1994) Some Neo-Darwinian Decision Rules for Altruism: Weighing Cues for Inclusive Fitness as a Function of the Biological Importance of the Decision.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, 67, 773–89.

Buss, David (2007)
Evolutionary Psychology and the New Science of the Mind
(Allyn & Bacon).

Campbell, R. (1996) Can Biology Make Ethics Objective?
Biology and Philosophy
, 11: 21–31.

Carlsmith, K.M., J. Darley, and P. Robinson (2002) Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, 83: 284–99.

Carlsmith, K.W., T. Wilson, and D. Gilbert (2008) The Paradoxical Consequences of Revenge.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, 95/6: 1316–24.

Carruthers, Peter, Stephen Laurence, and Stephen Stich (eds.) (2005–6)
The Innate Mind
, vols. 1 and 2 (Oxford University Press).

Casebeer, W. (2003)
Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition
(MIT).

Chapais, Bernard, Liane Savard, and Carole Gauthier (2001) Kin Selection and the Distribution of Altruism in Relation to Degree of Kinship in Japanese Macaques.
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
, 49/6: 493–502.

Chomsky, Noam and Carlos Peregrín Otero (2004)
Language and Politics
(AK Press).

Cima, Maaike, Franca Tonnaer, and Marc Hauser (2010) Psychopaths Know Right from Wrong But Don't Care.
Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience
. Advanced access:
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/01/06/scan.nsp051.full
.

Darwin, Charles (2003/1859)
On the Origin of Species
(Signet Classics).

Darwin, Charles (2009/1871)
The Descent of Man
(Dover Publications).

Darwin, Charles (2007)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
, vol. 2 (Kessinger Publishing).

Dawkins, Richard (1982)
The Extended Phenotype
(Oxford University Press).

Dawkins, Richard (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker
(Norton).

Dawkins, Richard (1995)
The Selfish Gene
(Oxford University Press).

Dawkins, Richard (1999), Eating People Is Wrong. Interviewed by Mary Riddell,
New Statesman
, March 26.
http://www.newstatesman.com/199903260013
.

De Waal, Frans (1989)
Peacemaking Among Primates
(Harvard University Press).

De Waal, Frans (1996)
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
(Harvard University Press).

De Waal, Frans (2005)
Our Inner Ape
(Riverhead).

De Waal, Frans (2006)
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
(Princeton University Press).

Deigh, Jonathon (1996)
The Sources of Moral Agency
(Cambridge University Press).

Dennett, Daniel C. (1995)
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
(Simon & Schuster).

Desmond, A. and J. Moore (1991)
Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist
(Norton).

Dobzhansky, Theodosius (1964) Biology, Molecular and Organismic.
American Zoologist
, 4: 443–52.

Dreber, A., D. Rand, D. Fudenberg, and M. Nowak (2008) Winners Don't Punish.
Nature
, 452/7185: 348–51.

Dugatkin, Lee Alan (2006)
The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness
(Princeton University Press).

Dunbar, Robin (1997)
Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
(Harvard University Press).

Dunford, C. (1977) Behavioral Limitations of Round-Tailed Ground Squirrel Density.
Ecology
, 58: 1254–68.

Ehrlich, Paul R. (2002)
Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect
(Penguin).

Eisenberg, Nancy and Paul Henry Mussen (1989)
The Roots of Prosocial Behavior in Children
. Cambridge Studies in Social and Emotional Development (Cambridge University Press).

Emlem, S.T. and P.H. Wrege (1988) The Role of Kinship in Helping Decisions among White-Fronted Bee-Eaters.
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
, 23/5: 305–15.

Essock-Vitale, S. and M.T. McGuire (1985) Women's Lives Viewed from an Evolutionary Perspective. II: Patterns of Helping.
Ethology & Sociobiology
, 6: 155–73.

Farmer, Colleen (1997) Did Lungs and the Intracardiac Shunt Evolve to Oxygenate the Heart in Vertebrates?
Paleobiology
, 23/3: 358–72.

Fehr, E. and Simon Gachter (2002) Altruistic Punishment in Humans.
Nature
, 415: 137–40.

Frank, Robert (1988)
Passions within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions
(Norton).

Frohlich, N. and J.A. Oppenheimer (1993)
Choosing Justice: An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory
(University of California Press).

Ghiselin, Michael T. (1974)
The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex
(University of California Press).

Godfrey-Smith, P. (1994) A Modern History Theory of Functions.
Nous
, 28: 344–62.

Goldman, A. (2006)
Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading
(Oxford University Press).

Gould, Stephen J. (1992)
The Panda's Thumb
(Norton).

Gould, Stephen J. (1996)
The Mismeasure of Man
(Norton).

Greene, J. (2005) Cognitive Neuroscience and the Structure of the Moral Mind. In P. Carruthers
et al.
(eds.),
The Innate Mind: Structure and Contents
, vol. 1 (Oxford University Press).

Haidt, Jonathan (2006)
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
(Basic Books).

Hamilton, W.D. (1964) The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour, I and II.
Journal of Theoretical Biology
, 7: 1–16, 17–52.

Hamilton, W.D. (1998)
The Narrow Roads of Gene Land: The Collected Papers of W.D. Hamilton. Evolution of Social Behavior
(Oxford University Press).

Hauser, Marc (2006)
Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong
(Ecco).

Hitt, Jack (1999) This Is Your Brain on God.
Wired
, 7.1.

Howard, Jane (1978)
Families
(Simon & Schuster).

Hudson Institute (2007)
Index of Global Philanthropy
(Hudson Institute).

Hume, David (2009/1882)
A Treatise on Human Nature
(General Books LLC).

Huxley, Thomas (1863)
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature
(Williams & Norgate).

Iredale, W., M. Vugt, and R. Dunbar (2008) Showing Off in Humans: Male Generosity as Mating Signal.
Evolutionary Psychology
, 6/3: 386–92.

Irons, William (2001) Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment. In R. Nesse (ed.),
Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment
(Russell Sage Foundation).

James, S. (2008) The Caveman's Conscience: Evolution and Moral Realism.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy
, 87/2: 1–19.

James, S. and P. Carruthers (2008) Human Evolution and the Possibility of Moral Realism.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
, 77/1: 237–44.

Joyce, Richard (2006)
The Evolution of Morality
(MIT Press).

Joyce, Richard (2008) Replies.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
, 77/1: 245–67.

Kass, Leon (1997) The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Human Beings.
The New Republic
, June 2.

Kitcher, Philip (1985)
Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature
(MIT Press).

Kitcher, Philip (2005) Biology and Ethics. In D. Copp (ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of Ethics
(Oxford University Press).

Levy, N. (2004)
What Makes Us Moral? Crossing the Boundaries of Biology
(Oneworld).

Locke, John (1996/1693)
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(Hackett).

Lorenz, Konrad and Robert D. Martin (1997)
The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research
(MIT Press).

Lumsden, C.J. and E.O. Wilson (1983)
Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process
(Harvard University Press).

Mackie, J.L. (1977)
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
(Viking).

Mann, Horace (1855)
The Life and Works of Horace Mann
(Nabu Press).

Masserman, J.H., S. Wechkin, and W. Terris (1964) “Altruistic” Behavior in Rhesus Monkeys.
American Journal of Psychiatry
, 121: 584–5.

May, Rollo (1975)
The Courage to Create
(W.W. Norton).

Maynard Smith, J. (1974)
Models in Ecology
(Cambridge University Press).

Maynard Smith, J. (1982)
Evolution and the Theory of Games
(Cambridge University Press).

Mayr, Ernst (2002)
What Evolution Is
(Basic Books).

Mikhail, John (2009) The Poverty of the Moral Stimulus. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.),
Moral Psychology: The Evolution of Morality
, vol. 1 (MIT Press).

Miller, Greg (2002) Gene's Effect Seen in Brain's Fear Response.
Science
, 297/5580: 319.

Moore, G.E. (1903)
Principia Ethica
(Cambridge University Press).

Moore, Thomas (1868)
The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore
(D. Appleton).

Nichols, Shaun (2004)
Sentimental Rules: On the Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment
(Oxford University Press).

Nowak, M.A. (2008) Generosity: A Winner's Advice.
Nature
, 456: 579.

Nucci, L., E. Turiel, and G. Encarcion-Gawrych (1983) Children's Social Interactions and Social Concepts: Analyses of Morality and Convention in the Virgin Islands.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
, 14: 469–87.

Packer, C. (1977) Reciprocal Altruism in Papio Anubis.
Nature
, 265: 441–3.

Pinker, Steven. (1994)
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
(Morris).

Pinker, Steven (1997)
How the Mind Works
(Norton).

Pinker, Steven (2002)
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
(Viking).

Pratchett, Terry (1999)
Hogfather
(Harper).

Prinz, Jesse J. (2007)
The Emotional Construction of Morals
(Oxford University Press).

Prinz, Jesse J. (2008a) Acquired Moral Truths.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
, 77/1: 219–27.

Prinz, Jesse J. (2008b) Is Morality Innate? In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.),
Moral Psychology: The Evolution of Morality
, vol. 1 (MIT Press).

Quine, W.V. (1969) Natural Kinds. In
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
. (Columbia University Press).

Rachels, James (1990)
Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism
(Oxford University Press).

Richards, Robert (1986) A Defense of Evolutionary Ethics.
Biology and Philosophy
, 1: 265–92.

Rosaldo, M.Z. (1980)
Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life
(Cambridge University Press).

Rottschaefer, William A. and David Martinsen (1995) Really Taking Darwin Seriously: An Alternative to Michael Ruse's Darwinian Metaethics. In P. Thomson (ed.),
Issues in Evolutionary Ethics
(SUNY Press).

Ruse, Michael (1986)
Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy
(Oxford University Press).

Ruse, Michael (1995) Evolutionary Ethics: A Phoenix Arisen. In P. Thomson (ed.),
Issues in Evolutionary Ethics
(SUNY Press).

Ruse, Michael (1998)
Evolution and Ethics: The Sociobiological Approach
. In L. Pojman (ed.),
Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings
(Wadsworth).

Ruse, Michael and E.O. Wilson (1986/1994) Darwinism as Applied Science.
Philosophy
, 61: 173–92; repr. in Sober (1994: 421–38).

Sadava, D., H.C. Heller, G.H. Orians, W.K. Purves, and D.M. Hillis (2008)
Life: The Science of Biology
, 8th edn. (Sinauer Associates and W.H. Freeman).