Expanding Horizons of Morality from Man to Animal – A Critical Appraisal (original) (raw)
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Complex animal societies are most successful if members minimise harms caused to one another and if collaboration occurs. In order to promote this, a moral structure inevitably develops. Hence, morality has evolved in humans and in many other species. The attitudes which people have towards other humans and individuals of other species are greatly affected by this biologically based morality. The central characteristic of religions is a structure which supports a moral code, essentially the same one in all religions. A key obligation to others is to help to promote their good welfare and to avoid causing them to have poor welfare. Human views as to which individuals should be included in the category of those to whom there are moral obligations have broadened as communication and knowledge have progressed. Many people would now include, not only all humans but sentient animals, e.g. vertebrates and cephalopods, as well. Amongst sentient animals, coping with adversity may be more difficult in those with less sophisticated brain processing.
On the Evolutionary Origin of Morality
Beytülhikme An International Journal of Philosophy, 2022
In this study, I will approach morality from a naturalistic perspective and defend that morality is a product of evolutionary processes shared by both human and non-human animals rather than that of human culture. My natural- istic approach is based on simpler components instead of high-level cognitive capabilities such as cognition. Rationality , judgment, and free will are indeed pre- sented as necessary for morality in classical definitions of morality. However, I will put forward that the roots of morality can be understood as the biological disposition in the evolutionary process. Moreover, in this paper, I will propose that morality is not a phenomenon that ought to be restricted to humans. I think morality is not a phenomenon that is exclusively human; rather, morality can be expanded to non-human animals. To defend this claim, I will indicate that mo- rality has a natural content and that this content does not have a structure that can only be justified on a rational basis, but that this normative structure can be established through biological/evolutionary mechanisms and can be explained in this way.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2015
This article looks at the origins of human morality, and examines the contributions of both biological evolution and cultural evolution. Biological evolution may help explain certain categories of moral behavior (such as altruism), as well as certain morally relevant capacities (such as empathy). Cultural evolution may explain how different moral systems emerge in different times and places, and why they tend to foster aspects of human nature that enhance group success and discourage aspects of human nature that undermine it. Morality must be understood as the joint production of both biological and cultural evolution.
THE ASCENT OF MORALITY, FROM NON-HUMAN TO HUMAN ANIMALS: AN EMOTION-BASED ACCOUNT
2021
The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether morality is uniquely human, and to argue that emotions are the basis of morality in the sense that moral behavior is produced by emotions. In order to support my suggestion, I first intend to investigate the nature and function of emotions. Furthermore, I adopt an evolutionary perspective suggesting that our biology pushed us toward caring about certain things surrounding us. In accordance with this assertion, I endeavor to examine whether moral judgments and moral beliefs can be illustrated in a non-cognitivist way from the perspectives of both naturalist philosophers and evolutionary scientists. Accordingly, I defend the view that moral judgment is a non-propositional, psychological attitude. From a contemporary perspective, we might argue that Hume‘s interpretation of moral judgment adopts a non- cognitivist and non-propositional attitude. Moreover, moral judgment does not express a proposition that describes facts and is truth evaluable; rather, it expresses feelings. In this sense, moral judgment is a psychological inclination to feeling a specific emotion and, accordingly, the particular emotion comprises approval or disapproval in terms of moral judgment.
Reflections on the evolutionary basis of morality
Metascience, 2017
is a distinguished primatologist who has worked for decades studying the behavior of primates, especially chimpanzees. This book presents De Waal's 2003 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, in which he argues that ''the building blocks of morality are evolutionarily ancient'' (7). The book also includes responses to De Waal's argument by the evolutionary psychologist, Robert Wright, and by three philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher, and Peter Singer. De Waal replies to his commentators in an afterword, and there is a useful introduction by Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober. De Waal argues that the behavior of primates, including especially chimpanzee behavior, provides evidence that the emotional and motivational building blocks of morality are present in these animals. Further, given that human beings evolved from primates and that our closest primate relatives are chimpanzees, De Waal argues, we have reason to believe that these emotional and motivational building blocks are evolved characteristics of human beings as well. The emotional and motivational characteristics in question are empathy, prosocial tendencies, including a willingness to cooperate as well as a willingness to look out for the well-being of conspecifics who are not kin, and a tendency to seek fairness of treatment and to reciprocate. De Waal concedes of course that morality is ''more than this,'' but he holds that morality as we know it in humans would be ''impossible'' without these building blocks. He holds, then, that morality as we know it in humans is a product of evolution in that it rests on evolved emotional and motivational features that are ''continuous'' with what is found in other primates (7). Morality is not solely a product of culture or other environmental influences. Instead of simply and straightforwardly arguing for the views I have outlined, however, De Waal structures his discussion as an argument against something he
An evolutionary perspective on morality
2011
Moral behavior and concern for others are sometimes argued to set humans apart from other species. However, there is some evidence that humans are not the only animal species to possess these characteristics. Work from behavioral biology and neuroscience has indicated that some of these traits are present in other species, including other primates. Studying these behaviors in other species can inform us about the evolutionary trajectory of morality, either helping understand how the behaviors evolved and which environmental characteristics were critical for their emergence. While this evolutionary approach to human behavior is not always well received, a brief historical look indicates that this has not always been the case. For instance Adam Smith, better known for his economics than his natural history, was clearly sympathetic with the view that moral behaviors are present in species other than humans. This paper focuses on how individuals respond to inequity, which is related to moral behavior. Recent evidence shows that nonhuman primates distinguish between inequitable and equitable outcomes. However, this is primarily in situations in which inequity hurts the self (e.g. disadvantageous inequity) rather than another (e.g. advantageous inequity). Studying such responses can help us understand the evolutionary basis of moral behavior, which increases our understanding of how our own morality emerged.
Introduction. The Evolutionary Approach to Ethics: From Animal Prosociality to Human Morality.
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2020
Evolutionary research on the biological fitness of groups has recently given a prominent value to the role that prosocial behaviors play in favoring a successful adaptation to ecological niches. Such a focus marks a paradigm shift. Early views of evolution relied on the notion of natural selection as a largely competitive mechanism for the achievement of the highest amount of resources. Today, evolutionists from different schools think that collaborative attitudes are an irremovable ingredient of biological change over time. As a consequence, a number of researchers have been attracted by evolutionary studies of human behaviors. Some think that a continuity among prosocial attitudes of human beings and other social mammals (particularly primates) can be detected, and that this fact has relevance for accounting for human morality. Others deny one or the other of these claims, or both. The papers in the present special issue address how these topics impact ethics and religion.
Morality as an Evolutionary Exaptation
2021
The dominant theory of the evolution of moral cognition across a variety of fields is that moral cognition is a biological adaptation to foster social cooperation. This chapter argues, to the contrary, that moral cognition is likely an evolutionary exaptation: a form of cognition where neurobiological capacities selected for in our evolutionary history for a variety of different reasons—many unrelated to social cooperation—were put to a new, prosocial use after the fact through individual rationality, learning, and the development and transmission of social norms. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the emerging behavioral neuroscience of moral cognition. It then outlines a novel theory of moral cognition that I have previously argued explains these findings better than alternatives. Finally, it shows how the evidence for this theory of moral cognition and human evolutionary history together suggest that moral cognition is likely not a biological adaptation. Instead, like reading sheet music or riding a bicycle, moral cognition is something that individuals learn to do—in this case, in response to sociocultural norms created in our ancestral history and passed down through the ages to enable cooperative living.
Moral Motivation and Nonhuman Animals
In this paper I criticize an explanation of the nature of moral emotions that restricts moral motivation to humans and then argue for a novel account of human and nonhuman emotions that entails that it is possible for nonhuman animals to be morally motivated. I label the restrictive kind of explanation that I critique "strong cognitivism." Strong cognitivism holds that moral emotions consist of complex moral judgments. Because of this, strong cognitivism implies that nonhuman mammals cannot be morally motivated. Accordingly, my critique of strong cognitivism serves as a partial defense of the possibility of some nonhuman mammals being able to be morally motivated. I begin my critique of strong cognitivism by arguing that it is untenable as an explanation of amoral human emotions because: (a) it does not have the resources to explain a wide variety of mental states that are pretheoretically considered to be paradigmatic emotions; (b) it cannot explain how emotions are value determining in a way that can override judgments; and (c) it cannot adequately explain the phenomenology and physiology that accompanies emotional states. Then I argue that strong cognitivism imposes too strict a criterion for specifically moral motivation in the case of humans. Since strong cognitivism cannot adequately explain even human amoral and moral emotions, it can give us no reason to reject the possibility of ascribing moral emotions to nonhuman animals. I conclude by suggesting an alternative model of amoral and moral emotions that explains how animal emotions might acquire moral content. This model of moral emotions implies that some nonhuman animals might be able to be morally motivated without being able to understand moral norms and selfreflectively regulate their behavior on the basis of moral judgments.