An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

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An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/health/psychology/31book.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Quote:

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.

snip

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?

What say we? Are our political differences arising from inarticulations of the "foreseen/intended distinction," Dr. Hauser says?

If one considers just about all topics included under the penumba of "politics" one finds debate hinging on such a "foreseen/intended" distinctions of those debating the issues.

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kuvasz,

Good material to chew on......it would help maybe If you could extrapolate a little to specific political issues. How about Iraq...stay vs pull out ?

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fresco wrote:

kuvasz,

Good material to chew on......it would help maybe If you could extrapolate a little to specific political issues. How about Iraq...stay vs pull out ?

hey buddy, glad to clarify, but its hard to prevent personal positions from tainting such suppositions, so....

with iraq, the impetus for invasion being the need to prevent potential national damage versus the rational expectation of having deaths of american soldiers and marine as well as iraqis.

if one has decided that WMD existed and would be used against the US then this would be a forseen harm whose resolution would be seen as "intended" harm, attacking IRAQ. Which for many denizens on the Right was correct, yet to others, the mere attack on iraq was wrought with forseen harm that did not rise to the level of the intended harm of doing nothing.

elswhere, with stem cell research where to some, the opening of research with government funding, would cause unforseen problems on down the road, clonal harvesting and the deminunation of humans to crops, to mere things, vesus the intended value to conquer disease.

abortion;

the intentional snuffing out of a "potential" human life and its intentional harm to the fetus versus the unforseen (albeit rationally predicable) harm a 13 year old girl impregnated by her own father might have upon bringng the fetus to term.

what seems valuable in this topic is that there is identfied in this work a set of positions held viscerally yet uncommicatible to the other side of the discussion.

we need a basis for negotiation... like the old star trek show, "Darmok" where another race articulated merely by metaphor and unless the metaphorical references, i.e., "experience" were known the words were just gibberish...which is the way the Left and Right look upon each other around here when they post.

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I think the forseen/intended distinction has some merit regarding "visceral morality" but I also think psychological "distance" is another major factor. By this I mean that visceral responses are strongest when the empathic "distance" is least. The "morality of primates" seems to operate at the "within tribe" level....for humans, white caucasians take less interest in the problems of others than those of themselves.Cynically, the Iraq adventure was more likely to have been triggered by "threat to the West" than the altruistic removal of a local despot. Similarly the decision when to leave is likelyl be based on "our interests" rather than "their interests".

However there is also problem of anthropomorphism in attempting to extend the visceral argument to politics. Unless we condone simplistic stereotyping it is hard to see how we can legitimately imagine viseral responses to "social groups". In essence the visceral argument is a "bottom up" explanatory model for "social cohesion" which contrasts with the "top-down" models implied by systems theory in which the individual as a "social element" cannot be understood except in terms of a higher level system. Indeed in contrast to the Chomsky analogy, yet cashing in on other linguistic considerations, it may be that the common contents of languages supply the necessary metastructure for societies rather than merely providing nuances of detail for visceral operations.

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Re: An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

kuvasz wrote:

An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/health/psychology/31book.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Quote:
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.

I apparently agree with this article... here are several posts I made to the "Morality Without God" Thread

rosborne979 wrote:

baddog1 wrote:
Then who/what created morality?

We did.

Morality is just compassion wrapped in cultural trappings.

Compassion is the outward expression of empathy.

Empathy is a form of emotional communication which is an innate emotional characteristic of most social animals (like humans).

(IMO of course)

rosborne979 wrote:

agrote wrote:
But don't Christians believes something more than this? Isn't something lost if we reject religious ethics? Namely, actions actually being wrong, rather than just a bad idea if it happens to go against your desires.

There is no 'actually being wrong' as you put it. 'Right' and 'Wrong' are purely subjective concepts, there's no 'actually' to it.

Various religious ethics are chosen to represent selected moralities. Different cultures choose them differently.

Most cultures however have a level of similarity in ethics, which derive from the various needs of the culture. This is a strong indication that all ethics and morality have a basis in human needs and desires. These things don't come from god, they come from the base of our brain and the roots of our physiology.

rosborne979 wrote:

agrote wrote:
This is because the unit of survival is the individual, or the gene.

For humans, that probably isn't true.

The unit of survival for humans is certainly the pair (male and female), and probably the clan (a group of individuals).

Despite the fact that we are relatively intolerant of differences in people, we are extremely tolerant of our own group, whatever that may be, color, social class, religion, whatever. As a matter of fact, it's this tendency to define groups and clans which actually create divisions which we are intolerant of.

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Quote:

....empirical results derived by moral philosophers.

Can philosophy result in something empirical?

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Quote:

Why does the moral grammar generate such different judgments in apparently similar situations?

I would be reluctant to throw the fat man off the bridge because that would be murder and I could be put in jail for a long time if caught. Secondly I would put myself in danger by trying throw the fat man.

These are my main reasons for not throwing him. The switch, on the other hand, opposes no danger to me if I use it. With minimal effort I can save 5 peoples lives.
It is not hard for me to articulate this.

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Re: An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

kuvasz wrote:

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.

Dr. Hauser is missing an important difference in the two questions. There is an implied third choice in the second scenario: Instead of pushing the man next to you, you could jump (sacrifice) yourself.

You don't have this option when throwing a switch.

There is another difference, which Hauser is overlooking. There is an emotional component to physically pushing a warm body and seeing the shock on their face, which isn't there with throwing a lever.

In order for anyone to start to make moral or ethical deductions from people's choices in these cases, they need to first remove those two distinctions. Otherwise all they are isolating is the guilt we feel for not sacrificing ourselves in that situation, or the simple emotional response to a direct connection to another human-being in distress.

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I don't think a theory of right and wrong can be based purely on empirical observations. Anyways, this is more a theory of how human beings evolve to possess the capability of moral reasoning and moral tendencies.

Dr. Hauser's theory on intended vs. foreseen consequences is interesting, but I doubt this is the reason for disagreements. I've thought about the train dillemma before and I've made up my mind that I would not pull the lever. I think that pulling the lever is the same as throwing the person out the window and if I pull the lever, I am sacrificing an innocent person's life, it is not my decision to make (his life), and that to me is not right. The five people dying is horrible, that is for sure, but it is a circumstance which I have no control over. I'm thinking this has more to do with means vs ends.

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Ray wrote:

Dr. Hauser's theory on intended vs. foreseen consequences is interesting, but I doubt this is the reason for disagreements. I've thought about the train dillemma before and I've made up my mind that I would not pull the lever. I think that pulling the lever is the same as throwing the person out the window and if I pull the lever, I am sacrificing an innocent person's life, it is not my decision to make (his life), and that to me is not right. The five people dying is horrible, that is for sure, but it is a circumstance which I have no control over. I'm thinking this has more to do with means vs ends.

What if it was 5000 people or 1? What about 5000000 people instead of 1?

Do the numbers matter to you, or will your actions always be the same no matter how big the number gets?

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Quote:

Dr. Hauser is missing an important difference in the two questions. There is an implied third choice in the second scenario: Instead of pushing the man next to you, you could jump (sacrifice) yourself.

I think that is why a fat man is on the bridge. We have to make a lot of other presumptions that makes this situation very unnatural.

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hungry hippo wrote:

Quote:
Dr. Hauser is missing an important difference in the two questions. There is an implied third choice in the second scenario: Instead of pushing the man next to you, you could jump (sacrifice) yourself.

I think that is why a fat man is on the bridge. We have to make a lot of other presumptions that makes this situation very unnatural.

I agree. Over all, I think the conclusions Dr. Hauser is drawing are not the only logical conclusions from the scenario he presented people with. He needs to come with a better scenario in which the other implied choices are ruled out.

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Quote:

What if it was 5000 people or 1? What about 5000000 people instead of 1?

Do the numbers matter to you, or will your actions always be the same no matter how big the number gets?

I know I will get flamed for this, but I don't think it's wrong for me to not pull the lever to sacrifice one man for 50000000 or whatever number. If a person chooses to sacrifice himself, then that's a different story for me.

It's the old age question of means vs. ends.

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Ray wrote:

Quote:
What if it was 5000 people or 1? What about 5000000 people instead of 1?

Do the numbers matter to you, or will your actions always be the same no matter how big the number gets?

I know I will get flamed for this, but I don't think it's wrong for me to not pull the lever to sacrifice one man for 50000000 or whatever number. If a person chooses to sacrifice himself, then that's a different story for me.

It's the old age question of means vs. ends.

I won't flame you. At least you're consistent.

It's an interesting viewpoint. You seem to give infinite value to each life, so 5 gazillion infinites is no better than 1 infinite.

I'm not sure I can equate things that way. Even though it's hard to measure the value of any life, it's hard to feel that one is equal to millions. An interesting question all by itself.

Thanks,

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Thanks for the understanding reply Ros.

It is a hard choice to make, but I did base my view on thinking that a person's value as infinite like you said. Come to think of it, I think Rights Theory is based on such a view. I just don't think it's right to violate one person's right for the sake of five million and vice versa.

If I were given a choice to give food relief to either 100 starving people or 10000 starving people, then I would give it to the latter. I don't think this is inconsistent with my previous answer because in this situation, if values are infinite then the basis of my action cannot be solely from value and I'm not cancelling people's values out or anything...

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Ray wrote:

If I were given a choice to give food relief to either 100 starving people or 10000 starving people, then I would give it to the latter. I don't think this is inconsistent with my previous answer because in this situation, if values are infinite then the basis of my action cannot be solely from value and I'm not cancelling people's values out or anything...

It's interesting that you would choose to give a limited amount of food to 10000, rather than the same amount of food to 100 people (where it might feed 100 people enough to keep them alive, but might not feed 10000 people enough to keep any alive).

Animals in nature make the opposite choise. Birds with multiple chicks will feed the strongest one first, and let the weaker one die if food supplies are short. For the bird it's better to have one live (and strong) chick, rather than two weak (dead) chicks.

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If there were no people in danger, would it still be OK to push the fat man off........?

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Quote:

It's interesting that you would choose to give a limited amount of food to 10000, rather than the same amount of food to 100 people (where it might feed 100 people enough to keep them alive, but might not feed 10000 people enough to keep any alive).

Yes, well I'm thinking that if the food is enough to relief 10000 people and you can only give to one population due to limitations, etc.

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eorl

Yes. He is shock-absorbant. He'll come through just fine. Smile

But if he were to land on someone and kill them, would that be your fault or his?

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I read of an actual incident on a bridge in New York. A man was about to jump and a passerby tried to dissuade him. The man leapt off anyway, and the passerby grabbed him as he jumped and held on tight. If a passing policeman had not stopped and immediately gripped the passerby, he would have gone over with the jumper. After the incident, the passerby was asked, why he held on when he was obviously going to be pulled over with the jumper. He had no answer other than that it was the only thing he could do, it was instinctive and that he hadn't even thought before acting.

How does one explain this? Are we encoded to ensure the survival of our type, our fellow humans, rather than our own selves? One would think that self-survival would be a more important instinct to ensure survival of the species than any one individual impulsively offering up his life to save another.

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An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

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