Reaction to Donald Maurice Broom’s “The Evolution of Morality"
A reaction to a paper that came my way. I am working my way through a to-do list of them.
Abstract: 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.
Well let’s start with those two first sentences… I know this is an abstract but…
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.
So, not sure if you can leap from co-ordination, nor even from unnegotiated co-operation, to “a moral structure inevitably develops.” Chicken/egg?
I’ll keep reading with that put in a bag by the door.
Hence, morality has evolved in humans and in many other species.
It’s inevitable, so it has evolved.
The attitudes which people have towards other humans and individuals of other species are greatly affected by this biologically based morality.
Yeah, I think we are back-forming something as morality, and so then the outcome of that process (here) is attitudes to others. Not sure how that is all carried forward in time, let alone through generations and genetic bottlenecks.
So then we make a leap, if not of faith, the at least from morality to religion.
The central characteristic of religions is a structure which supports a moral code, essentially the same one in all religions.
It is even more of a leap than the opening two sentences. And not just the one leap.
Religions and moralities are outcomes, both derived, both can exists without the other (unless you back-form one into the past as not-quite-what-it-is today then you can claim they are not derived.)
Similarly, seem to be an elision|ellipsis/error between what I would call worlding as the superset of activities/practices and communications/performances—in which religion is a subset preferred by stratified or state based societies. And there is one moral code which is the same in all these subset subsets (religion and what are classes as separate religions). I guess the 'moral code' is selected for, this being the back-formation.
Now, I could take this as evidence for my ‘worlding’ superset of which religions organised and spiritual are sacred examples. And I do, but this one moral code is dubious. Even though the varieties of morality are similar in many cases, it’s just that moralities are not without very varied and odd strange attractors as well.
A key obligation to others is to help to promote their good welfare and to avoid causing them to have poor welfare.
Hmmh, I guess this is the code, the golden rule. Seeing we have to re-discover it all the time I reckon it is more of an attractor, if so selecting for it would be difficult. Remember folks, just-so storying is a type of design. Rules, codes, religions are outcomes of shoulding, which we do to organise things. We have an urge to en-world the self/body, just as we more obviously embody the self and somtimes call it ego or id. [The superego can be seen as a type of internalised worlding event, unavailable to narcissists who have more of a worlding-pathology than psychopatholgy].
This moves us to a discussion from the feelings we should should, for the good, and not bad, but actually that is a derived characterisitcs of worlding, where what we should should allows us a world to move in, [the politicking is more safely negotiated] for the good doing good can be a good thing, and is thus derived. But not always. The primary success in survival is to do something and learn from those mistakes together each and all such that we come up with obvious things, like the golden rule.
Altrusim is a pothole on the way to understanding ‘morality’, stops you possibly exploring it as an outcome and stops you assuming it is a structure that ‘inevitably develops’. Game thoery is a different kind of halting problem… — it can be a frame that stop you getting out of the pothole in the road, round and round you go, like a goldfish in a bowl, only with no view.
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.
The end of the abstract and I have no idea how we would end up here. Not sure if I even disagree with any of this but… —how did we get here???
Now to look through the rest of the paper: Ah, it’s all about animals and evolution.
So we get a defence of biologizing ethics… and then yep, altruism on my bingo card.. we leap over to taboo and selfishness… hence to cooperation and/but cheating… communication & co-ordination… groups and their collaborative defence… and then we pothole on genes for altruism and their selection.
Bingo.
Game theory.
Motivational systems.
I don’t have any issues with these description, mechanical notes and calculations per se. See pothole note above about framing.
The key points of the arguments presented here about morality and its evolution and elaborated by Broom (2003) are as follows, I comment on each.
5. Morality and its evolution
Morality is defined. True morality does not include customs, or attitudes to sexual behaviour stemming from mate-guarding, etc., except indirectly by effect.
“ True morality ” frame here is to talk about a core of morality, when it is an outcome of worlding… one might say what is excluded are the outcomes (indirectly by effect) and thus one might be tempted to say “true morality” may equal ‘worlding’, but it’s a pothole of effort.
2. Laws may indicate what is morally right but may protect the persons and property of the powerful or perpetuate tribal or other customs. Although more likely to do so in a democracy, laws will not always indicate what is right.
Well, the palaeolithic egalitarian revolution is neither complete, nor ineffectual.
3. There is widespread occurrence of cooperative and altruistic behaviour in social animals.
For whom morality means nothing. The worlding urge is not moral, indeed in this frame one can argue while morality judges the good, survival does not care about that judgement, but the action from which survival or learning to survive occur.
4. Awareness, feelings and cognitive ability are clearly demonstrated in mammals, birds and other animals to a lesser extent.
And… ?
5. There is great overlap in the gene complement of humans and other animals which suggests that any genes that promote moral actions are not likely to be unique to humans.The likely success of strategies that involve moral action is demonstrated by modelling and the actual success is apparent from behavioural and other observation.
Ditto… I mean how could it be any other way?
6. The likely success of strategies that involve moral action is demonstrated by modelling and the actual success is apparent from behavioural and other observation.
In worlding actions with others, yes, but otherwise this frame is a likely pothole.
7. Reciprocal altruism is important in the evolution of morality but is not all of the biological basis. Some actions which do not harm, or which directly benefit others, are not reciprocal but are directed towards individuals who need help and who have not previously provided benefit to the actor. Such actions may make a contribution to the stability of the social group.
Confusion here between individual health/benefit and stability of group. If worlding allows survival without the stability of the group then it will do so. Stability is an outcome, obviously we should like that routine consistency in helping group decision-making and institutional support for agreement among members through time (raising children), but in worlding our world at its most grandiose and heavenly, who is regarded as a member or not, is not always clear. This is my criticism of "inevitably develops".
The next section continues with:
6. The moral core of religion
A religion is a system of beliefs and rules which individuals revere and respond to in their lives and which are seen as emanating directly or indirectly from some intangible power (Broom, 2003). All religions have a moral code that is central to their functioning. The differences among religions are in peripheral aspects, including tribal components. Holy books are a source of information about what is moral but they also include much history. Religions have a guide to behaviour and a system for discouraging cheats or those who harm others. The moral code in each religion is very similar and includes a variety of commandments used by those who adhere to the religion.
Nope. Religion is a ‘subtype’, or better an (ex)type, of worlding in which practices of individual and community maintain themselves as routines (rituals/rites/performances) and which have been shoulded into a certain consistency by political forces, especially imperial forces in the axial age’s aftermath. Codes are part of this consistency and arise when people double-down on their preferences (tribal support or converted stridency) and create doctrinal coercion or dogma (attractive to emperors as a tool of power). Worlding does not require any of this stuff to succeed.
Similarities between religions arise from the worlding urge and its evolution in the egalitarian revolution of the palaeolithic among Homo species.
Broom, Donald Maurice . “The Evolution of Morality.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 100.1–2 (2006): 20. via academia.edu web.
Crossposted at substack.
A list of reactions to other evolution~morality papers and chapters and stuff can be found at Reactions to papers on evolution~morality.