Evolution, Morality and Review

Question 1

what are the 3 main premises of darwin’s evolution?

Answer 1

1. individuals of a species show variation in traits
2. some variations will be passed through generations (heritable)
3. some traits provide benefits for survival and reproductive success (adaptation)

Question 2

what is an assumption of evolutionary psych that sets it apart from other types of psych?

Answer 2

that the mind is composed of a collection of evolved psych mechanisms that are domain specific, designed to solve various recurrent problems faced by ancestors, eg, disease avoidance, mate selection

Question 3

what is inclusive fitness ?

Answer 3

the capacity of genetic info to spread in the population

Question 4

what are the two types of inclusive fitness?

Answer 4

• direct -classical - fitness: (I have offspring thus increasing chance said gene will continue)
• indirect fitness: (increasing the classical fitness of others who also share my genes, eg, kin, relatives)

Question 5

why might we be more inclined to help kin and those we are closely related to?

Answer 5

indirect fitness… that helping kin survive and reproduce, we indirectly increase chance that shared genes spread in the population

Question 6

what did daly and wilson 1988 find re child abuse ?

Answer 6

that abuse was more likely if there was at least one step parent in the home, so, genetic closeness between a parent and child affects how child is treated

Question 7

what is paternity uncertainty?

Answer 7

that because a mother is certain that it is her child, she may be more caring/concerned for their offspring

Question 8

what did simon et al 2005 find re grandparents ?

Answer 8

that mother’s mother had strongest investment and father’s father had weakest.
also found that father’s mother was more likely to invest if she did not have another more certain line (daughter’s kids) of genetics, as she would prioritise them

Question 9

what are some challenges and criticisms to evolutionary psych ?

Answer 9

• pan-adaptationism (that every psych attribute is an adaptation)
• genetic determinism (that nurture plays no role, and that there’s implications that we cannot help our behaviour)
• implications for morality (that excuses are made for bad behaviour)

Question 10

what is the naturalistic fallacy?

Answer 10

that because something is true then something is good
eg, excusing bad behaviour because it is a product of genetics, and anything that is a product of genetics is natural therefore it is good

Question 11

what value does evolutionary psych offer?

Answer 11

• provide integration
• addresses what is the function of human behaviour, not just what causes certain behaviour, but what are they aimed at?
• good at unpacking distal (ultimate) causes of aspects of behaviour
• fruitful, provides novel hypotheses

Question 12

what is the moral/conventional distinction?

Answer 12

asked a set of questions or violations of rules and asked if they were in fact violations? then asked a bunch of other questions as to why they are wrong, etc

Question 13

what is the signature moral response?

Answer 13

factors that are used to determine if something is morally wrong

Question 14

what are the factors of the signature moral response to determine if something is morally wrong?

Answer 14

1. is it wrong/bad and serious?
2. is it punishable
3. authority independent (wrong regardless of what teachers/gov. etc say about it)
4. general in scope (universally wrong, no matter when in time or where geographically)
   that harm of injustice is done

Question 15

what is the key challenge to the signature moral response?

Answer 15

non harm violations can still evoke the signature moral response eg someone cleaning toilet with flag

Question 16

what does Haidt think about morality?

Answer 16

that there is more to it than whether or not harm and injustice take place

Question 17

what 3 domains (ethics) that Shweder proposes make up the content of what people consider to be right or wrong?

Answer 17

1. autonomy (harm/injustice/rights)
2. Community (hierarchy)
3. Divinity (purity)

Question 18

what are Haidt’s moral foundations? moral foundation theory?

Answer 18

1. harm/care - violence and suffering of others
2. fairness/reciprocity - equality/rights/justice etc
3. authority/respect - obedience, duty, hierarchical relations
4. in-group/loyalty - loyalty, betrayal, treatment of group members
5. purity/sanctity - living in noble, less carnal way, purity of body mind soul

Question 19

what has been the main debate about how morality takes place?

Answer 19

whether reasoning or emotion/intuition plays a bigger role in moral assessments

Question 20

what is at the heart of Haidt’s social intuitionist model?

Answer 20

moral dumfounding… that people base their moral judgement off intuition and then aim to justify it through reason… reasoning happens after….

Question 21

what process of moral judgement does haidt propose? what about Kohlberg and others?

Answer 21

Haidt: stimulus, intuition, judgement, reasoning
Kohlberg: stimulus, reason, judgement

Question 22

what is the utilitarian option?

Answer 22

the greatest good for the greatest number

Question 23

what is the deontological option?

Answer 23

rule of do not kill innocents

Question 24

what does Greene et al 2001, 2004 argue?

Answer 24

Deontological responses are driven by gut reactions/emotions
utilitarian responses are driven by controlled, effortful reasoning processes
and the personal dilemma or the emotional aversion influences a utilitarian or deontological decision

Question 25

if we reduce negative affect during dilemma processing. what should we expect to see?

Answer 25

more utilitarian processing

Question 26

what is the moral dyad?

Answer 26

a relational model between the agent doing the thing (the perhaps immoral thing), their intention and the patient (who they are doing it to)

Question 27

what did Simpson, Laham and Fiske look into in 2016?

Answer 27

how relational models influence moral judgements, how the same action in different relational contexts might be morally judged differently, depending on how it aligns with the value being pursued in the relationship

Question 28

what is pursued in the 4 different types of relational models?

Answer 28

communal sharing : unity (siblings)
Authority ranking: hierarchy (student/professor)
Equality matching: equality (housemates)
market pricing: proportionality (customers/sales people)

Question 29

what is the moral circle?

Answer 29

the category of entities in the world worth of moral concern

Question 30

what is the inclusion exclusion discrepancy?

Answer 30

that inclusion mindsets (circling) lead to smaller final choice sets than exclusion mindsets (crossing out)

Question 31

what did laham 2009 study and find in regards to moral circle?

Answer 31

gave list of non human animals/margins of life things and asked some people to circle what is worthy of moral consideration and others to cross off what is not worthy…. found that those who crossed off ended up with larger lists, and this also influenced the scope of their actual moral judgements in a later task