Reaction to ‘Evolutionary Theories of Morality and the Manipulative Use of Signals’ by Lee Cronk
Cronk, Lee. “Evolutionary Theories of Morality and the Manipulative Use of Signals.” Zygon 29, no. 1 (1994): 81.https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1467-9744.1994.TB00651.X [also via academia.edu]
So.
1994.
This might be my oldest paper on this topic of evolution~morality. And thus the cranky PDF is hard to copy from.
Abstract: Several attempts have recently been made to explain moral systems and moral sentiments in light of evolutionary biological theory. It may be helpful to modify and extend this project with the help of a theory of communication developed by ethologists. The core of this approach is the idea that signals are best seen as attempts to manipulate others rather than as attempts to inform them. This addition helps to clarify some problematic areas in the evolutionary study of morals, and it generates new, testable predictions about moral statements.
Keywords: communication; cultural transmission; evolutionary, biology; morality; signals; social manipulation.
So appears to be moral psychology minecrafting its way without a notion of the ‘world’, or working in the world without worrying about the ‘worlding’ we do? Not even taken for granted? We’ll see.
“Why do we have morality? How could a concern for the welfare of others evolve if, as is currently thought to be the case, natural selection only rarely favors traits that benefit groups but not individuals (see Trivers 1985, chap. zyx4; Williams 1966)? The main theorists have taken three different but related approaches to this issue.
- Individual benefit models
- Cultural group selection
- Moral sentiment
This and these then go on for quite a few pages of discussion. Sections 1 & 2 work through various stages/platforms of/for game-theorying: reputation, risk-pooling, norms indicating trustworthiness… sounds like Web 2.0. How's that going for ya?
No. 3 is about, or is framed as, the innate versions (shortcuts I guess) of those things in 2 & 3. This neatly seques into an introduction to ethology and its movement from considering ‘animals signals as mutually beneficial transfers of information from one individual to another’ in a social group, to evolutionary theory’s emphasis on individual benefits:
‘Dawkins and Krebs (1978) proposed that signals may best be seen as attempts to manipulate others rather than to inform them.’
Manipulation is one way to world I guess. But manipulation, like mimicry, requires something to transgressly copy/mutate in the first place. I guess manipulation is meant very broadly here. Should I suggest worlding is a better term or framework, especially when things as fuzzy as prosocial outcomes are potentially available?
Arh, I learn this ‘view of communication later became part of Dawkins’s (1982) idea of the “extended phenotype.” ‘ An influence on me when I read the book of the same name in West Cork in the early 1990s, and certainly frames my use of ‘worlding’.
So, mmmh, yes worlding is a better term, manipulation leads one to game-theory an ‘arms race’ between ‘manipulators’ and ‘receivers’; with quiet signals being an optimal outcome. This is a bit of a pot hole.
“In short, cooperative signals should be muted and economical, while noncooperative signals should be conspicuous and repetitive. Krebs and Dawkins (1984, 391) illustrate their point….”
A bit on ‘honesty’, but still ‘manipulative’. We get Zahavi’s lace story, see also how the value of diamonds drop in recent years once peeps started buying artificial diamonds en masse.
So this ‘manipulation’ is then put forward as a third source of human morality. And a ‘morality’ which seems a bit restricted to just explaining altruism, and not the wider sense of worlding in extending the phenotypic ‘effort’ amongst social animals (duties/requirements/responsibilities), of which altruism is a mechanick.
Fiction links ‘manipulation’ to worlding, just as manipulation links our making hands as a morality of effort, the labour of values.
Cynicism gets a mention, in relation to a phrase by Maze about moralism as a ‘special technique of social manipulation’. Here I remember the original cynics were named for the temple dogs who waited their turn at the scraps of sacrifice.
A ‘manipulative approach’ looks at intra-group conflicts of interest rather than between groups (maybe not useful for intergroup competition then?...?? Except that…) this approach can help us understand those rules ‘which serve to justify and perpetuate inequalities in power, prestige, and access to resources and reproductive opportunities…’.
RUN AWAY lad RUN AWAY!
Choose another group.
‘Manipulation’-based moralities would also have to stop people leaving for other groups if a group is dominated by narcissists (whose dark triad of traits includes Machiavellianism as well as narcissism and impulsivity). It is interesting to note that in modern mass societies we deal with narcissists by letting them move on to a new bunch of suckers once we have learned our own lessons. Note also they can move on by moving up the hierarchy as much as over to the next village of idiots.
So remember ‘boundary issues’ at not always about keeping people out, but removing some, while keeping the opportunity alive to remove oneself.
One problem of game-theory when looking at individuals is that all the individuals under discussion are just multiple instances of some version of, say, Homo economicus. I know this is done to keep things simple, i.e. reducing variables, but really?? No variation? But evolution works on variety of individuals… But here it can make everyone either a narcissist or a failed narcissist, and that is about it. RUN AWAY!
No surprise that we get a Nietzsche quote at this point, and some boosterism on credentialism (it was still a valid dream back in 1994, but no more).
Then we get a run down on a manipulative approach as exampled in warfare, religion, children’s support of their elderly, and cultural group selection (not inter-group selection i.e. competition between groups for individuals).
Spends quite a bit of time on this last item (cultural group selection) and its failures, but then get’s a bit lost talking about clade selection, pot-holes on the biology not the world (extended phenotype) of a social animal. However, shows it is on the way to intergroup competition for individuals by the last sentence of this section: ‘To explain the origins of such complex systems, however, we must as always focus our attention on the behaviours of individuals.’ So true, but I ask, are they seen as a population of a variety of individuals (regardless of their stereotypical clustering).
And the very short conclusion ends:
‘It is to be hoped that the evolutionary study of moral systems will soon include detailed analyses of the moral and ethical lives of people with a variety of different cultures.’
And it is this anthropological work that we get Joseph Henrich's idea of intergroup competition for individuals, past, present, future and the lovely one next door, as we all enjoy prosocial outcomes in the world, which we then call/name/label/separate-out as art, religion, nation and even the social institution of the individual among others, and wonder where on earth they come from?
They are splinters of the worlding we do.
Crossposted from substack.com.