Moral Minds
I just read Moral Minds by Marc Hauser. I enjoyed it–it certainly gave me a lot to think about.
I was a little put-off at first; he lays a groundwork for discussion by presenting Kantian, Humean and Rawlsian creatures to represent different…well, different what? Presumably different approaches to how our morality could work, but the concepts presented represent a concious formula, an emotional means to an unconcious end, and an abstract procedural method of uncertain concious status. They are used somewhat inconsistently through the text as well, and I don’t recall him explicitly mentioning other alternatives or the obvious overlaps.
But once past that, things got interesting. Sure, there’s some armchair theorizing; but he’s reasonably good about pointing it out (and he’s very obviously spent a great deal of quality time in that armchair). And there’s lots of good science, enough that I think he’s clearly shown his major point. Which is that we don’t make moral decisions conciously–there is an unconcious circuit dedicated to the cause that has some very complicated features. Not that Hauser is a determinist–it is possible for a person to make a rational decision against their nature and stick with it, and in fact that’s my personal definition of what makes humans unique–but that’s hard. The vast majority of decisions are made unconciously, and rationalized later. This is consistent with several pieces of research I’ve seen in the past few years.
Other good points he makes:
- The unconcious mechanism seems to be very like the current view of language acquisition–there is neural hardware that gives us a universal propensity to acquire a moral code, and all moral codes seem to have a lot of general structure in common. But the environment (culture) can have a large effect on the specifics.
- While people (and some animals) from a young age have an immediate sense of right and wrong and are outraged when others bend the rules, they quite often bend the rules themselves when they think they will not be detected.
- Some of the procedural features of the system are fascinating. For example, intent matters more than effect, which means the system requires a theory of mind (and he shows that apes can do this as well as we can). Commission is much more relevant than omission, which interestingly enough he relates to the problems of cheater detection. This leads to some very different default moral judgements in some test scenarios that are very difficult to explain conciously. Our moral circuitry is clearly not of a simple utilitarian bent. He points out that we’ve also evolved a propensity a punish cheaters even at personal cost that won’t obviously be repaid–but that this is necessary to ensure that cheaters don’t proliferate and destroy the social system.
- While he doesn’t state this clearly, he gives enough examples that it’s obvious that the rules and methods that are common are very consistent with self-interest and so could easily be simple evolved traits. (I suspect he didn’t make any claims here because they’re so hard to prove–although E.O. Wilson has done some good work in this area). Although doing the “right” thing often means you may miss out on an immediate reward, it will change your status in the eyes of those around you, and they will treat you better in the future. Hauser does point out that this only works in a species that have a theory of mind and can delay gratification, and he points out studies showing that other species–even the higher apes–discount the future too much for this to be a major force. (I’m speaking here of “default” Rawlsian moral behavior based on the innate circuitry. As noted before, people are, with much effort, capable of behaving in a way which is not in their genetic self-interest, for example by conciously applying the Kantian approach. I believe this is an unintended side effect of our problem-solving abilities, which were meant to solve problems deemed important by our genes as spoken through our emotions and drives. But I also think it happens infrequently enough that it is not in danger of being selected against).
- Many of the elements of our moral system–although not the whole shebang–are present in other species, including some very distant ones, like the corvids. (Eusocial insects don’t count, despite having some very altruistic-looking behavior, as it is entirely reflex-based. And the moral rules would have to evolve differently anyway because of their unique sibling-versus-child genetic relationships).
I was raised Catholic, and took my religion seriously as a child. Although of course I had the same innate moral system everybody else has, I tried to apply the rules I was taught to make concious decisions. There were some pieces that I was uncomfortable with, so when I was 18 I took classes in religion and psychology, hoping to get more information to resolve my “confusion”. What I did instead was immediately change my concious moral system, dropping the rules that other people had given me, and instead applied the Kantian method. I’ve stuck with this system ever since, and I think it’s a pretty good one. However, over the past few years I have noticed a couple of problems. One is that it just doesn’t cover all situations in enough detail to make a decision. Another is that it’s clearly not the way that most other folks are acting.
Should I just give in to my inner Rawlsian? I had a friend suggest that I should–his claim was that we would lose our humanity if we don’t. And I’d certainly save some time reflecting on these issues. :-) But I feel the major benefit to being human is that we don’t have to. We can do better than obeying the dictates of our genes (as they’ve interacted with our culture), and while it’s still missing pieces, I feel the Kantian method is a good basis. I’m still struggling with how to integrate our new knowledge of how moral decisions are made to see if I can make even better ones.