OCT 13

14: OCT 13: Some Cultural Evolutionary Theory

Assigned

• Sapolsky, Chapter 13, "Culture, context, public goods games, religion" (493-503) (10)
• The Paradox of Moral Experience

In-Class Topics

• Hitting Rock Bottom

Paradox of Moral Experience

• The Paradox of Moral Experience involves a conflict between two "standpoints" for seeing values. 1 and 2 below:

• 1. We experience our morality as beliefs we hold true. They are compelling to us in a way that leads us to expect others to find them compelling. We can be surprised or frustrated that others do not see our reasons as compelling. From this standpoint, our moral truths feel necessary rather than contingent.

• Examples: "What's wrong with those (lib/con)s, don't they see X/Y?" "How can anyone think it's ok to act like that?")

• 2. But, when we study morality as a functional system that integrates people who see and interpret the world differently, it is less surprising that we often do not find each others' reasoning or choices compelling. We can also see how groups of people might develop "values cultures" that diverge on entire sets of values (or, "cooperative toolkits") while still solving some of the same underlying problems that all human societies face. From this standpoint, the functions of morality are universal, but the specific strategies that individuals and cultures take seem very contingent. But, knowing this, why don’t we experience our own values as contingent?

• Examples: Sociocentric / Individualist cultures, Specific histories that groups experience (Us vs. Europe vs. ...)

• Roughly, 1 is normal experience, when you are "in your head". 2 reflects an attempt, through knowledge, to get a "third person" experience, to "get out of your head".
• Likely evolutionary basis: Belief commitment (believing that our beliefs are true) is advantageous, but we also need to be open to belief revision through social encounters.

• Some implications:

• We have a bias against seeing others' moral beliefs as functional. Rather, we see them as caused, and often wrongheaded. (Italians are more sociocentric because their culture makes them that way. Rather than, sociocentric culture function to solve basic problems, just like individualistic ones.)
• Different moral "matrices" are connected to our personality and identity. Areguing for the truth of your moral orientation (as opposed to focusing on issues) can be like telling someone they shouldn't be the people they are. (!)

Sapolsky, Chapter 13,"Culture, context, public goods games, religion" (493-520)

• Context, Culture, and Moral Universals

• given all of the ways our moral judgements can be altered by context and culture, are there universals? Some forms of murder, theft, and sexual misbehavior. The Golden Rule is nearly universal. (Note that it is a basic fairness doctrine and that it’s “indexed” to a view of human nature. Consider again the passenger’s dilemma.)

• Schweder. autonomy,community, divinity
• Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. (A “matrix” is already a way of thinking about “general variables”.)

• Cooperation and Competition in Public Goods Game research

• Public goods game research - review experimental model p. 495. Should remind you a bit of Prisoner’s Dilemma, uncertainty is a problem in both cases. Important 2008 research result: Rational choice theory predicts zero contribution to public good. But, research documents consistent prosociality, with some variation by culture.

• Simple version: sucker's payoff reduces cooperation to zero
• Punishment version: Robust pro-social results:

• 1. Everyone is somewhat prosocial. In no culture do people just not contribute.
• 2. In all cultures, people punish low contributors. (Prosocial or altruistic Punishment)

• Interesting recent result: Anti-social punishment is also universal, though it's strength varies. Interestingly, the lower the social capital in a country, the higher the rates of antisocial punishment. (Another way to theorize this result - We lose “face” or experience hierarchy in the presence of overly generous people. Not a problem in individualist cultures so much.)

• Other Public Good research:

• The Dictator Game (a simple measure of fairness) (Ultimatum game without the option to refuse the division of goods).
• Two versions of the Ultimatum Game. One with “pay to punish” option. One with 3rd party punishment option.

• Results: Variables that predict prosocial patterns of play: market integration predicts more pro social behavior (higher offers in Dictator and Ultimatum), community size (more 2nd and 3rd party punishment), religion (predicts great 2nd and 3rd party punishment). 498. Point: We are seeing culturally evolved “mental adaptations” in these results.

• World Religions and Moralizing Gods

• What is the connection between participation in world religion and prosocial play? 499: When groups get large enough to interact with strangers, they invent moralizing gods (research from Chapter 9). The large global religions all have moralizing gods who engage in third party punishment. So we do. Still. Think about that. (We’ll read a couple of pages from “The WEIRDEST People in the World on this later.)

• Explaining Public Goods Game Results499: Two hypotheses:

• 1. Our sense of fairness is an extension of a deep past in which sociality was based on kin and near kin. (don't forget monkey fairness) or,
• 2. Fairness is a cultural artifact (product of culture) that comes from reasoning about the implications of larger groups size. Looks more plausible now to say both.

• Note theoretical puzzle on p. 500: You might expect small kin-based communities to have higher offers in PG games, punishing unfairnes, but "impersonal prosociality" and "impersonal fairness" are really part of a different "cooperative toolkit". In a way, the “market toolkit” is much simpler than a small group situation. “You give me this now, and I pay you now.”

• Honor and Revenge - (mention Mediterranean hypothesis - Italian honor culture & research on southerners....) 501

• Shamed Collectivists v. Guilty Individualists 501

• more likely to sacrifice welfare of one for group. Use individual as means to end. focus of moral imperatives on social roles and duties vs. rights.
• uses shames vs. guilt. read 502. shame cultures viewed as primitive, but contemporary advocates of shaming. thoughts?....examples p. 503.
• gossip as tool of shaming -- as much as 2/3 of conversation and mostly negative.

• Fools Rush In -- Reason and Intuition p. 504

• How do we use insights from research to improve behavior?
• Which moral theory is best? (trick question). In this section, he's

• Virtue theory looks outdated, but maybe more relevant than we think.
• reviews the point from trolley research about the utilitarian answer from the dlPFC and the nonutilitariain from the vmPFC. Why would we be automatically non-utilitarian? One answer: nature isn't trying to make us happy, it's try to get our genes into the next generation.
• Moral heterogeneity - new data: 30% deontologist and 30% utilitarian in both conditions. 40% swing vote, context sensitive. theorize about that.
• Major criticism of utilitarian - most rational, but not practical unless you don't have a vmPFC. "I kinda like my liver". Triggers concerns that you might be sacrificed for the greater happiness.

• Sapolsky claims that optimal decisions involve integration of reason and intuition. 508:"Our moral intuitions are neither primordial nor reflexively primitive....[but] cognitive conclusions from experience. morality is a dual process, partitioned between structures for reasoning and intuition. (Note that both processes are cognitive. Intuition sometimes called "automatic inference" in both how they emerge and are applied. Saying "thank you".)

• Slow vs. Fast

• More Josh Greene research. Old problem: tragedy of the commons -- how do you jumpstart cooperation. It's a "me vs us" problem. But there's an "us versus them" version when there are two groups (cultures) with competing models for thriving.

• Tragedy of Commonsense Morality (a group version of what I call The Paradox of Moral Experience). It's really hard not to conclude that your way of doing something isn't just culturally contingent, but really true.

• Example of Tragedy of commonsense morality using Dog meat. -- used as example of how you could induce us vs. them response.

• Example of framing: Samuel Bowles example of switching people's mind set in the case of the school responding to late parents.

• Veracity and Mendacity

• Note range of questions 512. Truth telling not a simple policy matter.
• Primate duplicity -- capuchin monkeys will distract a higher ranking member to take food, but not a lower one.
• Male gelada baboons know when to hold off on the "copulation call"
• Differences with humans: we feel bad or morally soiled about lying and we can believe our own lies.

• Human resources for lying -- poker face, finesse, dlPFC comes in with both struggle to resist lying and execution of strategic lie.
• Neuroplasticity in white and gray matter in habitual liars. 516. Compulsive liars have more white matter in their brains.
• 517: Swiss research (Baumgartner et al) -- playing a trust game allowing for deception, a pattern of brain activation predicted promise breaking. Think of a time when you broke a promise..... Did it feel like what S is describing? A noisy brain cut off by a decision. (Good example of cognitive dissonance.)

• Subjects who don't cheat. will vs. grace. grace wins. "I don't know; I just don't cheat."

Lecture Note on Philosophical Method: "Hitting Rock Bottom"

• Today we hit "Rock Bottom" in the course. Here what that means in terms of philosophical method.

• Direction of philosophical inquiry: toward "first principles".

• In Classical Greece, a model for first principles comes from math and geometry. Also, Essences.
• In a Post-scientific revolution world, with evolution on board, the idea of essences looks different.

• Rock bottom means: Hitting a limit to the inquiry, ideally getting to a basic level of understanding and explanation that makes sense of the phenomena, here, our moral behaviors and rational thought about values. That mix of intuition and reason that has evolved in our big brained species. Morality works by using the "machinery" provided by evolution to teach, pass on, and monitor moral culture and behavior (maybe the conservative side, though we all contribute to preserving culture). It also, of course, involves the criticism of current practices and proposals for new practices (maybe the liberal side, though we all contribute to criticizing culture).

• Where we are in our investigation. "Rock Bottom" theories for each "frame" we have been studying:

• Individual Frame - Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. C F L A S
• Group/Political Frame - Hibbing et al. "Bedrock Social Dilemmas"
• Cultural Frame - Henrich (in Sapolsky) on cultural evolution - Mental adaptations that culture makes and sustains.

• What comes after "rock bottom"? The way up! Using the point of view we have developed to look at our experience in new ways.

• Example of SW2. How do you locate and negotiate fairness in the context of actual differences in perception and judgement? How do I bring fairness concepts and an understanding of a contract (rider) into line with my intuitions about this case (elephant). What does my culture tell me about fairness in contracts?