FEB 4

7: FEB 4.

Assigned

• Tomasello – “The Origins of Human Morality” SciAm – (5) – Key Concepts: Logic of interdependence, obligate collaborative foraging, cultural norms, outgroups.
• Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (135-157); 22) - Key Concepts:

In Class

• SW1 - Evolved Morality - Prompt discussion.

Tomasello – “The Origins of Human Morality” SciAm – (5)

• 400,000 y ago. Collaborative hunting and gathering starts process toward sense of obligation.

• Two lines of research to explain origin of morality: 1. “inclusive fitness” or kin selection and 2. Reciprocal altruism.

• But we need to explain “sense of obligation” - Logic of interdependence.

• The Role of Collaboration

• How chimps and bonobos forage - only partially collaborative.

• Key environmental change around 2 million y. Ago - global cooling and drying led to proliferation of terrestrial monkeys. Selection pressure on homo ergaster. Much later, 400,000 y ago, how heidelbergensis engaged in collaborative foraging. Collaboration became obligate (compulsory).

• Partner choice - puts pressure on homo who can communicated well and less aggressive (note overlap with Wrangham).

• Evidence - Some from historical record. Some from study of cognitive adaptations of young children and compared to primates.

• Logic collaborations - roles independent of individuals, dev of role specific standards and expectations (Values!), roles interchangeable, equality of partnership. Part of our commitment to roles would be acceptance of fault on failure. Even guilt or self-condemnation. Result:

• Second-person morality - understanding of self and other as equal partners in collaborative enterprise. Entails equal respect and fairness.

• The Birth of Cultural Norms

• 2nd step starts about 200,000 y ago - competition among human groups. Leads to collective group identity. (“We” instead of the “you” of 2nd person morality). Pressure to conform (note overlap with Wrangham). Identity based on shared practice of the group.

• The People of We

• With culture, we need to worry about what the group thinks of me, and what I think of my behavior in light of group expectations.

• Them v Us. This environment fostered strong out group dis-preference. (Hatred)

Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (135-157; 22)

• Theories of origins of morality focus on group processes, but evidence from moral psychology suggests dyadic relationships were important. Eye contact, voice direction, body language all part of partner behaviors. From there, we developed a group identity in culture.

• Two parts of the theory: second personal morality from dyadic experience and group morality from collective cultural experience. Pattern in both: 1. Ecology changes creating food competition; 2. Cooperative behaviors increase to meet challenge; 3. Shared intentionality and new social, cooperative skills, as well as self-regulation.

• Theories of Evolution of Morality

• Three kinds of theorizing:

• 1. Evolutionary ethics theories focus on reciprocity and social exchange. Boehm’s theory of transition to from dominance to egalitarianism (Wrangham too); Baumard’s focus on reputation gossip in maintaining values. “Most cost-effective way to secure a good reputation would be to be a good person.”

• Tomasello et al agree with these theories, but think there is a specific logic of collaboration that links dyadic and collective values. Interdependence is a kind of symbiosis. Sense of “we” and “self—other equivalence” missing from other theories.

• 2. Moral psych theories - focus on proximate psychological mechanisms - judgements of harm, Trolley problem, prominent role for emotions and intuitions. Haidt exemplary. For him, reason is ad hoc, system 2, comes later. Moral foundations theory. CFLAS. Pro sociality creates more effective groups. Relies on MLS.

• 3. Cultural explanations of morality - Theorists like Schweder give cultural a more dominant role and de emphasize universal accounts of child morality. But other cultural evolutionist like Richerson and Boyd suggest cultures create competition that creates objective selection pressures for imitation of successful individuals and conformity to successful practices. Tomasello thinks this sort of explanation can only work over the last 12,000 years or so, with highly developed culture and writing.

• Tomasello’s theory. Claims to be more comprehensive. Two step process from dyadic logic of interdependence to cultural level. Specific account of how these process created adaptations. Finally, gives account of “cooperative rationality” (in dyadic relationship) and “cultural rationality” (collective intentionality).

• Note: The text has a couple of pages at the end from a different part of the book. This material summarizes some of the early childhood research that Tomasello uses to support his theory.

• Diffs bt US and other primates:

• Great apes are "instrumentally rational"; mostly competitive, some friendships, not a lot of helping.
• Chimps and bonobos don't use structured cooperation, don't exclude freeriders, no concept of fairness.

• Hypothesis: We (400K ago) were forced to develop a cooperative rationality that included concern for the well being of the partner, then group. Values this explains: mutual respect, fairness, exclusion of free riders, allowance for "2nd person protest" ("Hey, you said you would..."). From there a collective intentionality that recognizes right and wrong as having an objective status.

• 147: Paraphrased from "Rather.." Morality doesn't develop just by assessing the rational costs for individuals involved, but it might develop if we recognized our dependency on partners and the group. Relationships involve "investment", not just "payoffs" (as in game theory models).

• Cooperation in reciprocal altruism models is fragile. Someone is always ready to make a sucker out of you and then cooperation goes to zero.

• Interdependence cultivates genuine concern for the partner, shared intentionality, self-other equivalence (of roles), "deservingness".

• Ontogeny - how something comes to be.

• Digression from text: "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" - meaning "This phrase suggests that an organism's development will take it through each of the adult stages of its evolutionary history, or its phylogeny. Sort of true. [1]. The slogan is still used, but evolutionists would deny that it is a powerful or general principle. Distinguish from the philosophy field: Ontology.

• Still, Contemporary children pass through two stages similar to the stages of the theory (2nd person morality and joint commitment). read at 155. The extra pages are from C3, which he mentions as providing evidence. See summary box at end of pdf.

• prior to age 3, no recognition of social norms, but after, they will engage in 3rd party punishment.

• Go through text boxes from Chapter 3 at the end of the pdf.

SW1 Evolved Morality (800 words)

• Stage 1: Please write an 800 word maximum answer to the following question by Sunday, February 9, 2025, 11:59pm.

• Topic: In this first unit of the course, we have been studying ways in which our natural history has shaped behaviors and capacities in us that might explain the origins of morality, including some of the evolved emotions that distinguish us from other mammals and primates. In a well-organized essay, summarize the most important facts and theory from our biology and evolutionary history that bear on the origin of morality. How do the ideas of authors Sapolsky, Churchland, Hare and Woods, Wrangham, and Tomasello fit together?

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. Please follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file in .docx format with the name: EvolvedMorality.
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "1 - Points" dropbox.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow and Content areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by Thursday February 13, 2025, 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, you will receive an email from me with your animal name and a list of animals in this assignment. Find your animal name on the list and review the next four animals, looping to the top of the list if necessary.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the list and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1 point or so of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• Stage 4: Back-evaluation: After you receive your peer comments and my evaluation, take a few minutes to fill out this quick "back evaluation" rating form: [2]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due TBA, 2025, midnight.