Lecture 22 Morality Flashcards
Evolution Morality
Evolution has cast a circle of morality over different cultures in which most cultures follow, the same with food practices
Why do we have morality?
The theory that claims that we have morality to benefit our group but not necessarily the outside group. The groups that were the most moral and cooperative were the most successful.
150
is the number of people you can keep in your head, the average size of a group,
Large group size
The larger the size of a primates brain the larger their respective group.
evolutionary conflict
Groups in competition within our own species, (if you’re eating blueberries, you will have to compete with other groups who also eat blueberries)
Self
I care about myself and my family.
Friendship:
I care for historical cooperation partners ( you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours)
Tribalism:
I care about us, but not them. ( where you see nationalism)
the tragedy of the commons
if there is a shared resource that no one is responsible for, (throwing a cup in the park), Mediterranean see for example because no one wants to take responsibility to stay competitive with fishing.
How do we know morality evolved
If you’re mind is occupied you are more likely to act instinctively,
Prisoners dilemma
Do you cooperate to help yourself, or do you help your partner in crime, if you make them do it quickly they are more likely to cooperate, if you give them time they will not cooperate.
In a moral dilemma
Your brain is in conflict with itself, the front brain is utilitarian while you back side of the brain is more ontological.
Natural aversion to killing
People tend to avoid killing people, so the military trains people to kill
Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory
You have a tendency to do either or in a given situation
Care/Harm
Liberty/Oppression
Authority/Subversion
Fairness/Cheating
Loyalty/Betrayal
Sanctity/Degradation
Disgust
One study would present scenarios in which Bob engaged in disgusting behavior, people would judge them more harshly, but even more so if Bob was a disgusting person himself.
Moral Dumbfounding
A man comes home with a ready cooked chicken, has intercourse with it and then eats it, nothing wrong with this but the study found that our moral judgements come first before we look at things as they are.
Politics and Morals
Right
wing people tend to have all six moral
foundations fairly strong.
Left
wing people tend to have only
care/harm, fairness/oppression, and liberty/oppression strong.
Libertarians tend to only
have liberty/oppression
strong.
This is mostly genetic,
which means your politics
is mostly genetic.
Chimps
reconcile after fighting, they also do it with sex, they make sure things that are broken are fixed,
Synchronization
Animals follow the same pattern of behavior like yawning, it has to do with empathy the same with consolation.
Fairness Study
Two monkeys were put side by side, they are willing to do any task with cucumber, with grapes you create inequity, the monkeys were able to realize the inequity and reacted to not wanting the cucumber.
