Transcript EP Haidt 1

Jonathan Haidt:
Biological Theory
of Morality
Haidt: Biological Theory of Morality
How do people come to know what is right and wrong?
Haidt: moral knowledge fundamentally intuitive or
emotional.
Social Intuitionist Model: moral emotions/intuitions and
moral reasoning work together to produce moral
judgments. Moral judgments are like aesthetic judgments –
we make them quickly, intuitively, automatically. We know
what is right and wrong much the same way we know what
is beautiful and ugly. When called on to explain ourselves,
we make up reasons after the fact. Moral reasoning does
affect judgment, but this happens primarily in a social
context, as people talk, gossip and argue.
Chapt 1: Where Does Morality Come From
1. Re the origin of morality, what, according to Haidt, is the difference between nativism,
empiricism and rationalism? Which, if any, of these theories does Haidt favor?
nativism (inborn)
empiricism – we learn them (thus morals vary extensively from one culture to another)
rationalism – we construct them on the basis of our (social) experiences, but only as on
the mind develops (Piaget, Kohlberg, Turiel)
2. Note 7 (p 7) – Haidt: infants may actually react to violations of fairness as early as 15
months (Schmidt & Sommerville 2011). That’s our seminar paper for Thursday (I will
present it, as an example of the kind of presentation I want folks to give).
3. What is Kohlberg’s view of moral development? What is the difference between the pre-
conventional, conventional, and post-conventional stages? How does his view relate to
Piaget’s developmental theory?
4. What does Haidt mean when he says that American and W. European cultures have
‘stripped down and thinned out the thick, all-encompassing moral orders [typical of
original cultures]”?
5. What is the distinction Turiel makes between moral rules and social conventions?
Chapt 1: Where Does Morality Come From
6. What is the distinction Shweder makes between individualistic and sociocentric cultures?
In his study, in what ways did individuals in in Hyde Park, Chicago differ from those in Orissa,
India?
Shweder, Mahapatra & Miller 1987 “Culture and Moral Development” –Shweder: “all
societies must resolve a small set of questions about how to order society, the most
important being how to balance the needs of individuals and groups … seem to be just
two primary ways of answering this question – – individualistic vs sociocentric cultures –
latter is much more common – “no bright line separated morel rules (preventing harm)
from social conventions (regulating behaviors not linked directly to harm). Study
compared individuals who lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, and Brahmins in a town in Orissa,
India (Brahmins and untouchables).
7. What is Turiel’s major criticism of the Shweder et al study? In Haidt’s research, how did
he deal with this criticism?
That Shweder used ‘trick’ questions – didn’t control by asking subjects about harm (e.g.,
wife is hurting her husband by eating a ‘hot’ food which could lead her into having sex)–
would they condemn actions that were harmless? Haidt used harmless taboo violations
(eating your dead dog, sex with chicken) – most involve disgust or disrespect (but action
done in private, no one harmed)
Chapt 1: Where Does Morality Come From
8. What were the results of Haidt’s research. Did they favor Turiel or Shweder?
What was the biggest surprise in these results?
9. What is ‘moral dumbfounding’?
Person rendered speechless or searching for explanations when asked to explain
verbally what they knew intuitively.
10. What does Hume mean by “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the
passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey
them”?
That reason find the means to achieve whatever ends are chosen by the passions
(emotional intuitions).
In sum: Morality doesn’t come primarily from reasoning, but some
combination of innate reactions and social learning.
Chapt 2. The Intuitive Dog and the Rational Tail
(Intuitions come first, reasoning follows)
1. How do (1) the rationalists, e.g., Plato, Kant and Kohlberg), (2) Jefferson, and (3) Hume
differ on the relative roles of reason and ‘the passions’ in determining our behavior?
viewed ‘sacrilized’ reason, thought that reason did (or should) rule the passions.
Jefferson perceived them as co-equals. Hume: reason the servant of the passions.
2. What were Darwin’s views on morality?
A nativist about morality. Thought that “natural selection gave us minds that were
preloaded with moral emotions”.
3. What is Social Darwinism?
Richest, most successful individuals, races, nations were the fittest [and thus deserved
what they had]. Giving charity “interferes with the natural process of evolution”.
4. What does E. O. Wilson mean by ‘consilience’?
5. de Waal: chimps have the ‘building blocks’ of morality. See reading by de Waal.
Chapt 2. The Intuitive Dog and the Rational Tail
(Intuitions come first, reasoning follows)
6. According to Damasio, why does damage to the vm prefrontal cortex, which seems to rob
individuals of emotions, also significantly impairs their judgment:?
Can’t murder someone, for example, because feelings of horror rush in – without the
emotional basis, person knows right from wrong but its all academic. Thus every option –
good or bad – was as good as every other. Decision making was impaired in every area, even
ones that appeared to be purely rational (like picking the best washing machine).
7. What is the point of the ‘cognitive load’ tasks? What did Haidt conclude from his studies
using these methods?
8. Would you drink roach juice? What you sell your soul even if it was a non-binding
contract?
9. Look carefully at Haidt’s social intuitionist model (summarized in Fig. 2.4). What is the
most likely route by which a person might change his or her moral judgment? How does
‘confirmation bias’ figure in here?
10. So, according to Haidt (and Dale Carnegie), what is the best way to try and change
someone’s mind on a moral issue?
Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model
Chapt 3. Elephants Rule
1. What is meant by ‘affective primacy’?
2. If you haven’t already, try an Implicit Association Test:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
3. Check out the Bloom Lab puppet shows:
http://www.nytimes.com/video/2010/05/04/magazine/1247467772000/can-babies-tellright-from-wrong.html
4. How do psychopaths, discussed in this chapter, compare with Damasio’s patients with
damage to their vm prefrontal cortex, discussed in chapter 2?
5. What is the philosopher’s ‘trolley problem’? What is the utilitarian solution? What is the
deontological solution?
6. How can science possibly work if scientists are ruled by their elephants and inevitably
prone to confirmation bias?
7. The old saw about how to avoid argument (e.g., with your spouse) was “count to 10
before you say (or do) something”. What would Haidt give us a reason this may work (at
least some of the time)?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/video/program-three-brain-matters-video-excerpt-social-networks-and-the-spark/421/
http://vimeo.com/11716532
http://www.nytimes.com/video/2010/05/04/magazine/1247467772000/can-babies-tell-right-from-wrong.html
The Trolley Dilemma
Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the timing and anatomical localization of brain microstates in response
to accidental harm (top left) in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS)/temporoparietal junction
(62–140 ms) and to intentional harm (bottom left) in the right amygdala/temporal pole (122–180 ms)
and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (182–304 ms). Stimulus exemplars of the 2 classes of stimuli
(intentional and accidental harmful actions) are shown at right. Three transverse brain sections show the
estimated localization of the intracranial brain generators of the 3 main microstates.
Chapt 4: We are all intuitive politicians
Glaucon: most important principle for designing an ethical society is
to make sure that everyone’s reputation is on the line all the time, so
that bad behavior will always bring bad consequences.
“When you see 100 insects working together toward a common goal,
it’s a sure bet they’re siblings. But when you see 100 people working
on a construction site or marching off to war, you’d be astonished if
they all turned out to be members of one large family. Human beings
are the world champions of cooperation beyond kinship, and we do it
in large part by creating systems of formal and informal
accountability”.
Accountability: (Tetlock) Explicit expectation that one will be called
upon to justify one‘s beliefs, feeling or actions to others, coupled with
an expectation that people will reward or punish us based on how
well we justify ourselves. When nobody in answerable to anybody,
when slackers and cheaters go unpublished, everything falls apart”.
Chapt 4: We are all intuitive politicians
Tetlock’s view (we are all intuitive politicians striving to maintain
appealing moral identities in front of our multiple constituencies) vs.
view Kohlberg , Turiel, rationalists (children are little scientists who
use logic and experimentation to figure out the truth for themselves)
• In physical world, we are rationalist, do converge on the truth.
• But social world is different, Glauconian: appearance is usually far
more important than reality.
• Exploratory thought: an evenhanded consideration of alternative
points of view
• Confirmatory thought: a one-side attempt to rationalize a
particular point of view
• Most of our thinking is confirmatory!
Chapt 4: We are all intuitive politicians
Tetlock
A central function of thought is make sure that one acts
in ways that can be persuasively justified or excused to
others. Indeed, the process of considering the
justifiability of one’s choices may be so prevalent that
decision makers not only search for convincing reasons
to make a choice when they must explain that choice to
others, they search for reasons to convince themselves
that they have made the “right” choice.
Confirmation Bias in Action?
Wason Selection Task: Subject is asked to look for violations of a
conditional rule of the form If P then Q.
Rule: "If a card has an even number on one face, then its opposite face
is red”.
Which card(s) must be turned over to see if this rule has been violated.
‘8’ and brown cards – only ~25% of subjects get this right!
‘8’ and ‘red’ = most common answer
We lie, cheat, and justify so well that
we honestly believe we are honest
Ariely (2008):
When given the opportunity, many honest people will
cheat. In fact, rather than finding a few bad apples
weight the averages, we discovered that the majority of
people cheated, and that they cheated just a little bit.
We can believe almost anything that
supports our team
Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning: An fMRI Study of Emotional
Constraints on Partisan Political Judgment in the 2004 U.S.
Presidential Election
Drew Westen, Pavel S. Blagov, Keith Harenski, Clint Kilts & Stephan Hamann
Research on political judgment and decision-making has converged
with decades of research in clinical and social psychology suggesting
the ubiquity of emotion-biased motivated reasoning. Motivated
reasoning is a form of implicit emotion regulation in which the brain
converges on judgments that minimize negative and maximize
positive affect states associated with threat to or attainment of
motives. To what extent motivated reasoning engages neural circuits
involved in ‘‘cold’’ reasoning and conscious emotion regulation (e.g.,
suppression) is, however, unknown. We used functional
neuroimaging to study the neural responses of 30 committed
partisans during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004.
Westen et al: Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning
Westen et al: Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning
We presented subjects with reasoning tasks involving judgments
about information threatening to their own candidate, the
opposing candidate, or neutral control targets. Motivated
reasoning was associated with activations of the ventromedial
prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate
cortex, insular cortex, and lateral orbital cortex. As predicted,
motivated reasoning was not associated with neural activity in
regions previously linked to cold reasoning tasks and conscious
(explicit) emotion regulation.
These findings provide the first neuroimaging evidence for
phenomena variously described as motivated reasoning, implicit
emotion regulation, and psychological defense. They suggest that
motivated reasoning is qualitatively distinct from reasoning when
people do not have a strong emotional stake in the conclusions
reached.
In Sum
First principle of moral psychology: Intuitions come first, strategic
reasoning second.
• We are obsessively concerned about what others think of us,
although much of the concern in unconscious and invisible to us.
• Conscious reasoning function like a press secretary who
automatically justifies any position taken by the president.
• With the help of our press secretary, we are able to lie and cheat
often, and then cover it up so effectively that we convince even
ourselves.
• Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach,
because we ask “Can I believe it?” when we want to believe
something, but “Must I believe it” when we don’t want to.
• In moral and political matters we are often groupish, rather than
selfish. We can believe almost anything that supports our team.
We can believe almost anything that
supports our team
Bill Moyers talk
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/
start at ~2:30
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 5. Beyond WEIRD Morality
• Haidt tells the dead chicken story and then asks “Can you tell
me why that was wrong?”
• Customer at McDonald’s (after a long pause): “You mean you
don’t know why it’s wrong to do that to a dead chicken? I have
to explain this to you? What planet are you from?”
• Penn students typically judged the behavior in this story as ok (if
strange): “It’s his chicken, he’s eating it, nobody is getting hurt”.
• WEIRD cultures: Western, educated, industrialized, rich and
democratic. The WEIRDer you are the more you see a world full
of separate objects, rather than relationships.
• Similar to Shweder’s distinction of sociocentric vs. individualistic
cultures.
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 5. Beyond WEIRD Morality
WEIRD
NON-WEIRD
Individualistic
Sociocentric
Autonomy
Interdependency
“I am… happy, outgoing, interested
in jazz…”
Analytic
a son, a husband, an
employee of…”
Holistic
Philosophers Kant, Mill
Durkheim (Chapt 8)
Psychologists Kohlberg, Turiel
Shweder
Predominant moral Harm & fairness
concern
More than harm & fairness:
community, divinity
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 5. Beyond WEIRD Morality
Shweder: “Yet the conceptions held by others are available to
us, in the sense that when we truly understand their
conception of things we come to recognize possibilities latent
within our own rationality ... and those ways of conceiving of
things become salient for us for the first time, or once again.
In other words, there is no homogenous “backcloth” to our
world. We are multiple from the start.”
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 5. Beyond WEIRD Morality
Haidt: “Our minds have the potential to become righteous about
many different concerns, and only a few of these concerns are
activated during childhood. Other potential concerns are [may be]
left undeveloped and unconnected to the web of shared
meanings and values that become our adult moral matrix.
• If you grow up in a WEIRD society, you become so well
educated in the ethic of autonomy that you can detect
oppression and inequality even where the apparent victims see
nothing wrong...
• Conversely, if you are raised in a more traditional society, or
within an evangelical Christian household in the U.S., you
becomes so well educated in the ethics of community and
divinity that you can detect disrespect and degradation even
where the apparent victims see nothing wrong...”
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 5. Beyond WEIRD Morality
Coming up:
• Catalog of moral intuitions (more than harm and fairness)
• How a small set of innate and universal moral foundations
can be used to construct a great variety of moral matrices
• Tools for understanding moral arguments emanating from
matrices that are not your own
Part II. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
Morality is rich and complex, multifaceted, internally contradictory.
• “Pluralists such as Shweder rise to the challenge, offering theories
that can explain moral diversity within and across cultures”.
• Others “reduce morality to a single principle, usually some variant
of welfare maximization or fairness, rights, respect for individuals”.
• Utilitarian Grill – serves only sweeteners (welfare)
• Deontological Diner – serves only salts (rights)
• Haidt & Shweder: “moral monism – the attempt to ground all of
morality on a single principle – leads to societies that are
unsatisfying to most people and at high risk of becoming inhumane
because they ignore so many other principles”.
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
“The righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors. In this
analogy, morality is like cuisine: it’s a cultural construction,
influenced by accidents of environment and history, but it’s not so
flexible that anything goes … Cuisines vary, but they all must please
tongues equipped with the same five taste receptors. Moral matrices
vary, but they all must please righteous minds equipped with the
same six social receptors”.
Hume (according to Haidt): “Philosophers who tried to reason their
way to moral truth without looking at human nature were no better
than theologians who thought they could find moral truth revealed
in sacred texts”.
“In the decade after Hume’s death the rationalists claimed victory
over religion and took the moral sciences off on a 200-year tangent”.
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
Systemizers versus Empathizers
Empathizing: drive to identify another person’s emotions and
thoughts, and to respond to these with the appropriate
emotion”.
Systemizing: drive to analyze the variables in a system, to
derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the
system”.
Autism: individual high on systemizing, low on empathizing.
Bentham and Kant: high on systemizing, low on empathizing.
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
Jeremy Bentham’s principle of utility: approves or disapproves an
action depending on whether it augments or diminishes the
individual's happiness. When multiple individuals are affected,
law should maximize the utility of the community (= Σ of all the
individual utilities). Utilitarianism.
Consequentialist: moral worth of act judged by its consequences.
Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative: Act only according to that
maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should
become a universal law. ( Golden Rule)
Deontological ethics: position that judges the morality of an action
based on the action's adherence to moral rules. Sometimes
described as "duty" or "obligation" or "rule"-based ethics.
Bentham and Kant both rationalists. Kohlberg too a rationalist and
his theory of moral development is Kantian.
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
S. Baron-Cohen
Chapt 6. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
Moral Foundations Theory: an account of how five six innately-based
psychological systems form the foundation of an “intuitive ethics,”
and how each culture constructs its own sets of virtues on top of
these foundations.
Modular: mechanisms that are switched on by patterns that were
important for survival in a particular ecological niche (in the EEA),
and when they detect that pattern, they send out a signal that
changes the animal’s behavior in a way that is (usually) adaptive
(e.g., snake detectors, face detectors).
Moral receptors draw person’s attention to certain kinds of events
(such as cruelty or disrespect), and trigger instant, intuitive reactions,
perhaps even specific emotions (such as sympathy or anger).
Role of cultural learning: Culture can modify, shrink or expand the
triggers. Distinguish between original and current triggers.
The Five Moral Foundations
1. Care/harm: Related to our long evolution as mammals with
attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of
others. Underlies compassion, empathy, kindness, nurturance.
2. Fairness/cheating: Related to the evolutionary process of
reciprocal altruism. Generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.
3. Loyalty/betrayal: Related to our long history as tribal creatures
able to form shifting coalitions. Underlies virtues of patriotism and
self-sacrifice for the group. “One for all, and all for one!"
4. Authority/subversion: Shaped by our long primate history of
hierarchical social interactions. Underlies virtues of leadership and
followership, including deference to legitimate authority, respect for
traditions and the fulfillment of role-based duties.
5. Sanctity/degradation: Shaped by the psychology of disgust and
contamination. Underlies religious notions of striving to live in an
elevated, less carnal, more noble way, idea that the body is a temple
which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants.
Chapt 7. The Moral Foundations of Politics
Homo economicus versus Homo Sapiens
“Behind every act of altruism, heroism and human decency
you’ll find either selfishness or stupidity. That at least is the view
long held by man social scientists who accepted the idea that
Homo sapiens is really Homo economicus”.
Chapt 7. The Moral Foundations of Politics
Homo economicus versus Homo Sapiens
Chapt 7. The Moral Foundations of Politics
Sidebar on Innateness (from Haidt “The Righteous Mind”)
“It used to be risky for a scientist to assert than anything about
human behavior was innate. To back up such claims, you had to
show the trait was hardwired, unchangeable by experience, and
found in all cultures. With that definition, not much is innate, aside
for a few infant reflexes ... If you proposed that anything more
complex than that was innate – particularly a sex difference – you’d
be told that there was a tribe somewhere on Earth that didn’t show
the trait, so therefore it’s not innate … We’ve advanced a lot since
the 1970s in our understanding of the brain, and now we know that
that traits can be innate without being hardwired or universal. As
the neuroscientist Gary Marcus explains,
Nature bestows upon the newborn a considerably complex brain,
but one that is best seen as prewired – flexible and subject to
change – rather than hardwired, fixed and immutable.
Chapt 7. The Moral Foundations of Politics
“To replace wiring diagrams, Marcus suggests a better analogy:
The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the
genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at
birth, and some are just rough outlines waiting to be filled in
during childhood. But not a single chapter – be it on sexuality,
language, food preferences, or morality – consists of blank pages
on which society can inscribe any conceivable set of words.
Marcus’s analogy leads to the best definition of innateness I have
ever seen:
Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises….
‘Built-in’ does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in
advance of experience.
The Moral Foundations
Cuteness primes us to care, nurture, protect, and interact. It gets the
elephant leaning … the Care foundation can be triggered by any child.
A current trigger for the Care/Harm foundation
Lorenz on the
“Cute Response”
Baby schema modulates the brain reward system
in nulliparous women
Glocker et al PNAS 2009
Ethologist Konrad Lorenz
defined the baby schema as a
set of infantile physical
features, such as round face,
high forehead and big eyes,
that is perceived as cute and
motivates caretaking behavior
in animals including humans,
with the evolutionary function
of enhancing offspring
survival.
Baby schema modulates the brain reward system
in nulliparous women
Glocker et al PNAS 2009
Baby schema modulates the brain reward system
in nulliparous women
Glocker et al PNAS 2009
“Using functional magnetic resonance
imaging and controlled manipulation
of the baby schema in infant faces, we
found that the baby schema activates
the nucleus accumbens, a key
structure of the mesocorticolimbic
system mediating reward processing
and appetitive motivation, in
nulliparous women. Our findings
suggest that engagement of the
mesocorticolimbic system is the
neurophysiologic mechanism by which
baby schema promotes human
caregiving, regardless of kinship.”
Baby schema modulates the brain reward system
in nulliparous women
Glocker et al PNAS 2009
Liberal and conservative caring
Fairness Left and Right
A car decorated with emblems of loyalty, and
a sign modified to reject one kind of loyalty
Two rather different valuations of the
Authority/subversion foundation
Two different views of the
Sanctity/degradation foundation
Care/ harm
Fairness/
cheating
Loyalty/
betrayal
Authority/
subversion
Sanctity/
degradation
Protect and care
for young,
vulnerable or
injured kin
Suffering,
distress, or
neediness
expressed by
one’s kin
Reap benefits
of two-way
partnerships
with non-kin
Reap benefits
of cohesive
coalitions
Forge beneficial
relationships
Avoid microbes
within
and parasites
hierarchies
Cheating,
cooperation,
deception
Threat or
challenge to
group
Signs of
Waste products,
dominance and
diseased people
submission
New
triggers
Baby seals,
cute cartoon
characters
Marital fidelity,
Sports teams,
broken vending
nations
machines
Characteristic
emotions
Compassion,
empathy
Anger,
gratitude, guilt
Adaptive
challenge
Original
triggers
Relevant
virtues
Group pride,
belongingness,
rage at traitors
Fairness, justice, Loyalty,
Caring, kindness honesty
patriotism,
trustworthiness self-sacrifice
Bosses,
respected
professionals
Taboo ideas
(communism,
racism)
Respect, fear
Disgust
Obedience,
deference
Temperance,
chastity, piety,
cleanliness
Chapt 8. The Conservative Advantage
Chapt 8. The Conservative Advantage
Figure 8.3. The flag of Virginia, illustrating the Liberty/oppression foundation.
Figure 8.4. Liberal liberty: Interior of a coffee shop in New Paltz, New York. The sign on the
left says “No one is free when others are oppressed.” The flag on the right shows corporate
logos replacing stars on the American flag. The sign in the middle says “How to end
violence against women and children
Figure 8.5.
Conservative liberty:
Car at a dormitory at Liberty
University, Lynchburg, VA.
The lower sticker says:
“Libertarian: More freedom,
less government.”
Figure 8.6. Fairness as proportionality. The right is usually
more concerned about catching and punishing free-riders
than is the left. (Campaign poster for the Conservative Party
in the U.K. parliamentary elections of 2010.)
Figure 8.7. A car in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose owner prefers
compassion to proportionality.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
To this point, Haidt’s portrait of human nature somewhat
cynical – Glaucon: we care more about looking good
than being good.
“I do believe that you can understand most about moral
psychology by viewing it as a form of enlightened selfinterest”.
We may be altruistic, but we are strategically altruistic,
not universally altruistic.
If moral psychology is fundamentally selfish then, it can be
explained by natural selection working at the level of
the individual.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
But this portrait is incomplete: we are also groupish.
Although some mental modules designed to further our
own selfish interests, others are designed to further our
group’s interests (perhaps at a cost to ourselves).
“We are not saints, but we are sometimes good team
players”.
“Do we have groupish mechanisms…because groups that
succeeded in coalescing and cooperating outcompeted
groups that couldn’t get it together? If so, then I’m
invoking a process known as ‘group selection’, and
group selection was banished as a heresy from
scientific circles in the 1970’s”.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Haidt argues that “group selection was falsely convicted
and unfairly banished”.
Chapter plan: to present four pieces of new evidence that
he believes “exonerate group selection (in some but not
all forms)”.
The new evidence demonstrates the value of thinking
about groups as real entities that compete with each
other.”
“Evidence leads directly to the third and final principle of
moral psychology: Morality binds and blinds”.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Haidt: “human nature mostly selfish, but with a groupish
overlay that resulted from the fact that natural selection
works at multiple levels simultaneously ”.
Individuals compete with individuals within groups – which
favors selfishness (including strategic cooperation),
Groups compete with groups – between group competition
favors true team players.
“These two processes [individual-level and group-level
selection] pushed human nature in different directions
and gave us the strange mix of selfishness and
selflessness that we know today”.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Haidt: “A gene for suicidal self-sacrifice would be favored
by group-level selection (it would help the team win),
but it would be so strongly opposed by selection at the
individual level that such a trait could evolve only species
such as bees, where competition within the hive has
been nearly eliminated and almost all selection is group
selection13”.
Footnote 13: Bees “perfectly consistent with inclusive
fitness theory … but [some] people who work with bees,
ants [etc.] sometimes say that multilevel selection helps
them see phenomena that are less visible when they
take the gene’s eye view”.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Most groupish groups fare best. But how did early humans
get these groupish abilities? According to Darwin:
1. Social instincts (hang with the group)
2. Reciprocity
3. Concern with reputation (Glaucon) – moral
sentiments sense of shame and love of glory evolved
by individual-level selection
4. Capacity to treat duties and principles as sacred (part
of our religious nature)
Free-riding no longer so attractive. Group-level selection
now becomes more potent. Groups now outcompete –
and replace – other groups.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Willliams: Morality is “an accidental capability
produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological
process that is normally opposed to the expression
of such a capability”.
Williams: “only by a theory of between-group
selection could we achieve a scientific explanation
of group-related adaptations.”
Haidt takes up this challenge.
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Evidence for Group Selection (Exhibits):
A. Major Transitions
B. Shared Intentionality
Tomasello: you’ll never see 2 chimps carrying a log
C. Genes and Cultures Co-evolve
D. Evolution can be Fast
Lactose tolerance as example of C and D
Belayev’s foxes as example of D
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
Evolution can be Fast
Belayev’s foxes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOjlsUd7j8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoB0pdhxfZs
Lactose Intolerance
Mammals stop drinking milk at weaning. They also stop producing
lactase, the digestive enzyme that breaks down lactose (the main
carbohydrate in milk) into glucose and galactose (sugars that are
easily absorbed in the bloodstream and provide energy). Cessation
of both lactase production and milk drinking characterizes most
human populations, especially those of African and Asian descent.
In the majority of non-European populations, fresh milk is
considered an unpleasant substance to be consumed only as a last
resort. Lactose intolerance is the rule, and it is now clear that
lactose tolerant Europeans are atypical among humans (as well as
among all mammals).
Why do some humans, however, retain the ability to digest lactose?
A genetic mutation that maintains lactase production into
adulthood occurs among certain populations that practiced cattle
domestication. These individuals have the lactase persistence trait.
LM = lactose
malabsorption
Bloom & Sherman 2005
Masai – Kenya
When nutrient rich nonhuman milk became widely available in pastoralist
societies, the rare genetic variations that allowed some adults to easily digest
lactose were selected for and this trait became more common.
Lactase persistence gene that has evolved in Africa has evolved independently
of the gene variants predominant in Europe.
% of Population
Lactose Tolerant
Age of
Gene
Age of
Domestication
of Cattle
West
Africa
5 to 20%
6000 to 7000
years ago
7700 to 9000
years ago
East
Africa
26 to 88 %
2700 to 6800
years ago
3300 to 4500
years ago
Southern
Europe
50%
8000 to 9000
years ago
8000 years
ago
Northern
Europe
90%
2000 to 20,000
years ago
8000 years
ago
Region
Chapt 9. Why are we so Groupish?
“Group-related adaptation” (= ?) requires group selection,
i.e., this adaption may be disfavored within the group, but
groups with this adaptation fare better than groups
without it. Altruists suffer within the group, but groups
with altruists outcompete groups without altruists. Note:
‘group selection’ still talking about gene-based traits.
Cultural selection is a form of group selection but it is not
gene-based. Good ideas concerning making tools, making
foods, avoiding poisons, keeping young alive, fighting,
etc., will spread with dispersal of individuals with this
knowledge into new groups. It’s not genes that are
selected, but the ideas (memes).
The gene-based traits that are selected are mechanisms
for intelligence, having good ideas, learning and teaching.
It’s Not All About War
“I’ve presented group selection so far in its simplest possible form: groups
compete with each other as if they were individual organisms, and the most
cohesive groups wipe out and replace the less cohesive ones during intertribal
warfare. That’s the way that Darwin first imagined it. But … Lesley Newson points
out:
I think it is important not to give readers the impression that
groups competing necessarily meant groups being at war or
fighting with one another. They were competing to be the most
efficient at turning resources into offspring. Don’t forget that
women and children were also very important members of
these groups.
Of course she’s right. Group selection does not require war or violence. Whatever
traits make a group more efficient at procuring food and turning it into children
makes that group more fit than its neighbors. Group selection pulls for
cooperation, for the ability to suppress antisocial behavior and to spur individuals
to act in ways that benefit their groups. Group-serving behaviors sometimes
impose a terrible cost on outsiders (as in warfare). But in general, groupishness is
focused on improving the welfare of the ingroup, not on harming an outgroup.