Evolutionary theories of morality, beginning with Darwin, have focused on explanations for altruism. More generally, these accounts have concentrated on conscience to the neglect of condemnation. As a result, few theoretical tools are available for understanding the rapidly accumulating data surrounding third-party judgment and punishment. Here we consider the strategic interactions among actors, victims, and third-parties to help illuminate condemnation. We argue that basic differences between the adaptive problems faced by actors and third-parties indicate that actor conscience and third-party condemnation (...) are likely performed by different cognitive mechanisms. Further, we argue that current theories of conscience do not easily explain its experimentally demonstrated insensitivity to consequences. However, these results might be explicable if conscience functions, in part, as a defense system for avoiding third-party punishment. If conscience serves defensive functions, then its computational structure should be closely tailored to the details of condemnation mechanisms. This possibility underscores the need for a better understanding of condemnation, which is important not only in itself but also for explaining the nature of conscience. We outline three evolutionary mysteries of condemnation that require further attention: third-party judgment, moralistic punishment, and moral impartiality. (shrink)

The adequacy of currently popular accounts of the genetic basis for psychological altruism, including inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism, sociality, and group selection, is questioned. Problems exist both with the evidence cited as supporting these accounts and with the relevance of the accounts to what is being explained. Based on the empathy-altruism hypothesis, a more plausible account is proposed: generalized parental nurturance. It is suggested that four evolutionary developments combined to provide a genetic basis for psychological altruism. First is the evolution (...) in mammals of parental nurturance. Second is the evolution in humans of the ability to see others as sentient, intentional agents and, thereby, to recognize other's needs, even subtle ones. Third is the evolution in humans of tender, empathic emotions as an important component of parental nurturance. Fourth is the evolution in humans of cognitive capacities that make it possible to generalize tender, empathic feelings and, thereby, altruism beyond offspring. (shrink)

There seems to be an overarching historical process in which life in small groups has evolved into life in large societies. This paper describes the design of a simulator for the study of that process. The simulator is named after David Hume (1711–1776), who presented a rich, informal, and still modern theory about the problems, useful inventions, and driving mechanisms in the evolution from small groups to large societies. HUME1.0 is a simulator that is meant to cover the interplay of (...) some key factors and forces in that process. The focus is on division of labor, possible gains from specialization, risky exchange with more or less distant others, possible fraud, moral control, and (at the next stage) establishment of monitoring and punishing authorities. Finally, we discuss the status, purposes, and relevance of simulators like HUME1.0 that create well-defined artificial worlds and allow for some (thought) experimenting with them. (shrink)

Cognitive modules are internal mental structures. Some theorists and empirical researchers hypothesize that the human mind is either partially or massively comprised of structures that are modular in nature. Modules are also invoked to explain cognitive capacities associated with the performance of specific functional tasks. Jerry Fodor (1983) considered that modules are useful only for explaining relatively low-level systems (input systems). These are the systems involved in capacities like perception and language. For Fodor, the central (high-level) systems of mind — (...) those involved in capacities like judgment (the “fixation of belief” in Fodor’s jargon), planning (practical reasoning), decision-making, and so forth — are not explainable in terms of modular mechanisms. However, some other philosophers as well as proponents and practitioners of evolutionary psychology consider that it is sensible — and even necessary — to invoke modules for explaining these systems, too. Indeed, the debate over modularity is mainly a debate over the modularity of central systems (high-level cognitive capacities). Admittedly, it is also possible to raise doubts about the modularity of peripheral systems (Prinz, 2006), but this kind of skepticism is not widespread in the literature. In contrast, both the empirical and the theoretical (a priori) cases in favor of central modularity are usually contested on multiple fronts and in tough terms. The case for the modularity of central systems is the core of the case for the massive modularity of mind hypothesis (viz. the hypothesis that consists in asserting that both the peripheral and the central systems of human mind are largely composed of modules). Granted, the massive modularity of mind hypothesis is an empirical statement and, as such, its truth should be ultimately decided in an empirical way, not a priori (Sperber, 1994, 2001). Nonetheless, much of the debate over massive modularity has taken place on theoretical grounds. This is due to an alleged underdetermination of the hypotheses regarding the modularity of central systems by data. In such conditions, the remaining open option has been to advance theoretical considerations in favor of the plausibility — and not directly in favor of the empirical truth or truthlikeness — of the massive modularity of mind generally, and of the modularity of some central systems in particular. These theoretical considerations are mostly based on an adaptationist view of evolution cum a classical computationalist approach to mind. They include arguments about the nature and evolution of hierarchically ordered complex systems (the evolvability of complexity argument), a presumption of optimality expressed in the apparent design of phenotypic traits shaped by natural selection (the task-specificity argument) and dismissing nonmodular mental architectures as computationally intractable (the tractability argument). Is the massive modularity of mind hypothesis a cogent view about the ontological nature of human mind or is it, rather, an effective/ineffective adaptationist discovery heuristic for generating predictively successful hypothesis about both heretofore unknown psychological traits and unknown properties of already identified psychological traits? Considering the inadequacies of the case in favor of massive modularity as an ontological hypothesis, I suggest approaching and valuing massive modularity as an adaptationist discovery heuristic. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has many times been suggested as a promising recipe for the construction of artificial moral agents due to its emphasis on moral character and learning. However, given the complex nature of the theory, hardly any work has de facto attempted to implement the core tenets of virtue ethics in moral machines. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate how virtue ethics can be taken all the way from theory to machine implementation. To achieve this goal, we (...) critically explore the possibilities and challenges for virtue ethics from a computational perspective. Drawing on previous conceptual and technical work, we outline a version of artificial virtue based on moral functionalism, connectionist bottom–up learning, and eudaimonic reward. We then describe how core features of the outlined theory can be interpreted in terms of functionality, which in turn informs the design of components necessary for virtuous cognition. Finally, we present a comprehensive framework for the technical development of artificial virtuous agents and discuss how they can be implemented in moral environments. (shrink)

Although virtue ethics has repeatedly been proposed as a suitable framework for the development of artificial moral agents, it has been proven difficult to approach from a computational perspective. In this work, we present the first technical implementation of artificial virtuous agents in moral simulations. First, we review previous conceptual and technical work in artificial virtue ethics and describe a functionalistic path to AVAs based on dispositional virtues, bottom-up learning, and top-down eudaimonic reward. We then provide the details of a (...) technical implementation in a moral simulation based on a tragedy of the commons scenario. The experimental results show how the AVAs learn to tackle cooperation problems while exhibiting core features of their theoretical counterpart, including moral character, dispositional virtues, learning from experience, and the pursuit of eudaimonia. Ultimately, we argue that virtue ethics provides a compelling path toward morally excellent machines and that our work provides an important starting point for such endeavors. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018.

If humans have an evolved moral psychology, then we should not expect it to function in an identical way between individuals. Instead, we should expect a diversity in the function of our moral psychology between individuals that varies along genetic lines, and a corresponding diversity of moral attitudes and moral judgements that emerge from it. This is because there was no one psychological type that would reliably produce adaptive social behaviour in the highly heterogeneous environments in which our minds evolved. (...) As such, there was no single psychological type towards which evolution could gravitate. Instead we evolved a stable polymorphism of psychological types, maintained by frequency-dependent selection, each predisposed towards particular social and moral attitudes and behaviours. This can help explain the existence of moral diversity, particularly intra-cultural moral diversity, and seemingly intractable moral disagreement. (shrink)

Most theory in business ethics is still steeped in rationalist and moral-realist assumptions. However, some seminal neuroscientific studies point to the primacy of moral emotions and intuition in shaping moral judgment. In line with previous interpretations, I suggest that a dual-system explanation of emotional-intuitive automaticity and deliberative reasoning is the most appropriate view. However, my interpretation of the evidence also contradicts Greene’s conclusion that nonconsequentialist decision making is primarily sentimentalist or affective at its core, while utilitarianism is largely rational-deliberative. Instead, (...) I propose that current research on the human brain, in conjunction with converging experimental evidence, hints at moral subjectivism and its evolutionary basis as the most persuasive explanation of morality. These anti-realist conjectures have far-reaching implications for a wide range of topics in business ethics, as illustrated with the specific case of corporate social responsibility as a potentially tribal conception of the good. (shrink)

Our discussion of the commentaries begins, at the evolutionary level, with issues raised by our account of the evolution of morality in terms of partner-choice mutualism. We then turn to the cognitive level and the characterization and workings of fairness. In a final section, we discuss the degree to which our fairness-based approach to morality extends to norms that are commonly considered moral even though they are distinct from fairness.

The paper gives an overview of primate research and the economic-ethical 'lessons' we can derive from it. In particular, it examines the complex, multi-faceted and partially conflicting nature of (non-) human primates. Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, apparently walk on two legs: a selfish and a groupish leg. Given evolutionary continuity and gradualism between monkeys, apes and humans, human primates seem to be bipolar apes as well. They, too, tend to display a dual structure: there seems to (...) be a pro-social and a self-interested side to our species and a bipolar tension seems to exist between competition and cooperation respectively between self-interest and the common good. We are apparently at the same time Homines oeconomici and Homines culturali. Our inner ape tries to combine self-interested and common good motives. Based on de Waal's Russian doll model, the essay investigates the evolutionary origins of morality and 'eusociality'. With the help of selected case studies stemming from behavioural sciences/economics, the paper illustrates examples of empathy, altruism, reciprocal fairness, pro-social and other-regarding preferences, inequity aversion and altruistic punishment in (non-)human primates. Beside this selfless and groupish side, the paper also reflects on the self-interest and egoistic nature of (non-)human primates and the behavioural and cognitive differences between monkeys, apes and humans. (shrink)

Disertační práce se zabývá problematikou připisování myšlení jiným entitám, a to pomocí imitační hry navržené v roce 1950 britským filosofem Alanem Turingem. Jeho kritérium, známé v dějinách filosofie jako Turingův test, je podrobeno detailní analýze. Práce popisuje nejen původní námitky samotného Turinga, ale především pozdější diskuse v druhé polovině 20. století. Největší pozornost je věnována těmto kritikám: Lucasova matematická námitka využívající Gödelovu větu o neúplnosti, Searlův argument čínského pokoje konstatující nedostatečnost syntaxe pro sémantiku, Blockův návrh na použití brutální síly pro (...) řešení imitační hry, Frenchova teorie subkognitivních informací a Michieho skepticismus ohledně možnosti umělého vědomí. Závěr práce zachycuje současný stav recepce Turingova testu a představuje pokusy o jeho praktickou realizaci, například v každoroční soutěži o Loebnerovu cenu. Autor práce zastává názor, že ani po více než šedesáti letech od uveřejnění Turingova paradigmatického eseje stále neexistují žádné vážné důvody pro zamítnutí jeho tvrzení. Tradiční komputační funkcionalismus možná není ideální teorií vysvětlující činnost myslí a jako slibnější se může jevit vývoj v neurálních vědách, ale Turingův test je přesto užitečným a snad i jediným nástrojem pro detekci inteligence u lidmi vytvořených strojů. (shrink)

The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...) individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various non-genetic ‘scaffoldings’, ‘constraints’, and ‘affordances’ for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the ‘offspring effect’ to contrast it from the ‘parental effect’. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language. (shrink)

Este artículo está escrito para una colección de ensayos introductorios sobre filosofía de las ciencias cognitivas. Es una revisión (selectiva) de la literatura sobre la psicología del juicio moral.

Is there some general reason to expect organisms that have beliefs to have false beliefs? And after you observe that an organism occasionally occupies a given neural state that you think encodes a perceptual belief, how do you evaluate hypotheses about the semantic content that that state has, where some of those hypotheses attribute beliefs that are sometimes false while others attribute beliefs that are always true? To address the first of these questions, we discuss evolution by natural selection and (...) show how organisms that are risk-prone in the beliefs they form can be fitter than organisms that are risk-free. To address the second question, we discuss a problem that is widely recognized in statistics – the problem of over-fitting – and one influential device for addressing that problem, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). We then use AIC to solve epistemological versions of the disjunction and distality problems, which are two key problems concerning what it is for a belief state to have one semantic content rather than another. (shrink)

This article considers the meanings of “life” within Objectivist ethics. It distinguishes between life lived moment to moment and life-as-a-whole. It examines life's finality as related to life being the ultimate value. It questions whether one “lives to consume” or “consumes to live” from a desert island perspective. It discusses what one's whole life entails within the context of decision making. It looks at decisions between competing values. Finally, it discusses the distinction between ethical and ethically neutral actions and suggests (...) ways in which inquiries regarding these may be approached. (shrink)

Selection explanations explain some non-accidental generalizations in virtue of a selection process. Such explanations are not particulaizable - they do not transfer as explanations of the instances of such generalizations. This is unlike many explanations in the physical sciences, where the explanation of the general fact also provides an explanation of its instances (i.e. standard D-N explanations). Are selection explanations (e.g. in biology) therefore a different kind of explanation? I argue that to understand this issue, we need to see that (...) a standard D-N explanation of some non-accidental generalization (al Fs are Gs) may also ipso facto explain its contrapositive (all non-Gs are non-Fs), but the explanation is particularizable with respect to the former but not to the latter. This can be seen by noting that the Raven Paradox counterexample to the H-D model of confirmation also generates a counterexample to the D-N model of explanation (all ravens are black does not explain why the non-black shoe is a non-raven). In such cases it is natural to take the generalization with the positive predicates to have a particularizable explanation. However, this need not be the case, and in selection explanations it is the generalization with the positive predicates whose explanation is no particularizable. Thus there is no need to suppose that selection explanations are fundamentally different. (shrink)

Minimizing the costs that others impose upon oneself and upon those in whom one has a fitness stake, such as kin and allies, is a key adaptive problem for many organisms. Our ancestors regularly faced such adaptive problems (including homicide, bodily harm, theft, mate poaching, cuckoldry, reputational damage, sexual aggression, and the infliction of these costs on one's offspring, mates, coalition partners, or friends). One solution to this problem is to impose retaliatory costs on an aggressor so that the aggressor (...) and other observers will lower their estimates of the net benefits to be gained from exploiting the retaliator in the future. We posit that humans have an evolved cognitive system that implements this strategy – deterrence – which we conceptualize as a revenge system. The revenge system produces a second adaptive problem: losing downstream gains from the individual on whom retaliatory costs have been imposed. We posit, consequently, a subsidiary computational system designed to restore particular relationships after cost-imposing interactions by inhibiting revenge and motivating behaviors that signal benevolence for the harmdoer. The operation of these systems depends on estimating the risk of future exploitation by the harmdoer and the expected future value of the relationship with the harmdoer. We review empirical evidence regarding the operation of these systems, discuss the causes of cultural and individual differences in their outputs, and sketch their computational architecture. (shrink)

On-Line Discussion and Public Deliberation This paper surveys how the principles of the development of collective intelligence in on-line discussion and the consequences of the open source movement can influence the shape and recommended format of public deliberation processes. It raises the question of the conditions and factors which explain the difference in the quality of discussion results when technological issues are discussed and when values are discussed. It also raises the question of the importance of formats and types of (...) facilitation which allow for deliberation to be structured towards achieving better productivity and the more effective participation of discussion participants. (shrink)

The paper provides an account of the pragmatist philosophical conception of reciprocity and altruism based on the ontology of “panrelationalism”. The Deweyan concepts of transaction and cooperation are also outlined in some detail as well as the pragmatist (Rortyan) idea of justice. The author attempts to show that altruism is not necessarily just reciprocal but demands as its supplement (at least) altruism without reciprocation.

A healthy civil society is essential in order to deal with “wicked” societal problems. Merely involving institutional actors and mass media is not sufficient. Intermedia can play a crucial complementary role in strengthening civil society. However, the potential of these technologies needs to be carefully tailored to the requirements and constraints of the communities grown around them. The GRASS system for group report authoring is one carefully tailored socio-technical system aimed at unlocking this potential. Such systems may help to develop (...) stakeholder communities that are more productive in societal conflict resolution. (shrink)

A number of theorists have proposed mechanisms suggesting that corporate social responsibility produces better financial results. Others subscribe to the theory that, realistically, less ethical means are necessary. This article contains an analysis of these perspectives drawing on observations from evolutionary game theory and nature. Based on these analyzes, it is concluded that the financial returns of corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility (CSR and CSI) are equal on average. The explanation is that CSR and CSI are driven to a state (...) of equilibrium, because if one or the other were to offer higher profits, it would attract more players who would compete for the best opportunities until there was no difference in average profit. Existing empirical research generally shows a positive correlation between CSR as measured and financial outcomes. It is argued that what is actually causing that finding is probably not CSR but management skill. More skillful managers, whether actually responsible or irresponsible, are able to obtain both higher profits and greater credit in imperfect measures of CSR. Next it is shown that this theory of equal returns implies greater moral freedom and therefore responsibility for business leaders. It is concluded that this insight can intensify the interest of decent business leaders in vigorously championing CSR. (shrink)

Reciprocity is a fundamental aspect of social life, and a phenomenon studied from a wide variety of philosophical, theological, and social scientific perspectives. In this study, we use social exchange theory to investigate why employees help other employees. We hypothesize, based on the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), that a significant cause of an employee''s helping behavior is how much organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) the employee has received from coworkers. To provide evidence of the discriminant validity of OCB received as (...) an antecedent of helping behavior, we also assess its effects on another form of extra-role behavior, voice, as well as in-role performance. We found, in a sample of 157 employee-supervisor dyads, that OCB received was related to helping behavior after controlling for several antecedents of helping behavior identified in past research, and was less related to voice and in-role behavior, as hypothesized. Implications for theory and practice are presented. (shrink)

Social network analysis has become an increasingly important tool among political scientists for understanding legislative cooperation in modern, democratic nation-states. Recent research has demonstrated the influence that group affinity (homophily) and mutual exchanges (reciprocity) have in structuring political relationships. However, this literature has typically focused on political cooperation where costs are low, relationships are not exclusive, and/or partisan competition is high. Patterns of legislative behavior in alternative contexts are less clear and remain largely unexamined. Here, we compare theoretical expectations of (...) cooperation in these contexts from the political and biosocial sciences and implement the first assessment of political alliance formation in a novel legislative environment where costs to cooperation are high and party salience low. We implement a stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM) to examine bill floor sponsorship, a process in which a “floor sponsor” becomes the exclusive advocate for a colleague’s piece of legislation, in the Utah state legislature from 2005 to 2008—a context in which gender (male) and political party (Republican) supermajorities exist. We find that (1) party and gender homophily predict who legislators recruit as floor sponsors, whereas seniority does not, and (2) legislators frequently engage in reciprocal exchanges of floor sponsorship. In addition, whereas gender homophily increases the likelihood of reciprocity, party homophily decreases it. Our findings suggest that when the cost of cooperation is high, political actors use in-group characteristics for initiating alliances, but once a cooperative relationship is established with an out-group political member, it is reinforced through repeated exchanges. These findings may be useful for understanding the rise of political polarization and gridlock in democracies internationally. (shrink)

Morality is serious yet it needs to be reconciled with the free play of alternatives that characterizes rational and ethical agency. Beginning with a sketch of the seriousness of morality modeled as a constraint, this paper introduces a technical conception of play as degrees of freedom. We consider two ways to apply game theory to ethics, rationalist and evolutionary game theory, contrasting the way they model moral constraint. Freedom in the rationalist account is problematic, subverting willful commitment. In the evolutionary (...) account, freedom is also problematic, leading to an infinity of possible social norms with dubious normative force. While these two approaches complement each other, we argue that the evolutionary approach is superior on both theoretical and practical grounds. (shrink)

Is game theory good for us? This may seem an odd question. In the strict sense, game theory—the axiomatic account of interaction between rational agents—is as morally neutral as arithmetic. But the popularization of game theory as a way of thinking about social interaction is far from neutral. Consider the contrast between characterizing bargaining over distribution as a “zero-sum society” and focussing on “win-win” cooperative solutions. These reflections bring us to the book under review, Prisoner's Dilemma, a popular introduction to (...) game theory and its relation to ethics by the respected science writer William Poundstone. The book begins with a moral dilemma and ends by discussing the evolution of co-operation. Poundstone emphasizes—correctly, to my mind—the ethical potential of game theory. He concludes his first chapter with this striking claim: “Today's practitioners of game theory are attempting to forge a kind of ethical progress. Is there any way to promote the common good in a prisoner's dilemma? The attempt to answer this question is one of the great intellectual adventures of our time”. (shrink)

This paper provides a model of the transition from hegemonic trade to contemporary (or fair) trade. Hegemonic trade is an instance of the two player game called Bully (Poundstone 1992) and Called Bluff (Snyder and Diesing 1977); contemporary trade is an instance of Prisoner's Dilemma (Krugman and Obstfeld 1991). In this paper, I show that a nation under the thumb of a hegemon, called the conciliatory nation, can induce fair trade. Further, I show that to induce fair trade, the conciliatory (...) nation must not be timied. (shrink)

The shift in corporate strategy, from vertical integration to strategic alliances, has developed hand in hand with the evolution of organizational structure, from the vertically integrated firm to the network organization. The result has been the elimination of boundaries, more flexible organizations, and a greater interaction among individuals and organizations. On the negative side, the specialization of firms on single areas of competence has resulted in the disaggregation of the value chain and in the disaggregation of ethical and legal responsibility. (...) To illustrate this point, the paper considers some cases, such as the case of the "beer girls" of Southeast Asia, who are used unethically by distributors to sell beer and liquor. To deal with the problem of the disaggregation of ethical responsibility, managers can use organizational culture and ethical values to control the performance of employees and of other organizations. Contemporary developments in business ethics also offer tools for dealing with the problem. For example, "global corporate citizenship," integrated social contracting theory, and stakeholder learning dialogues provide ways of integrating the interests of all stakeholders. The task is now to use these new approaches to create a governance process that incorporates the voices of all stakeholders, especially the voices of those stakeholders that have legitimate and urgent moral claims, but lack the power to establish those claims. (shrink)

Cooperation requires that individuals are able to identify, and preferentially associate with, others who have compatible preferences and the shared background knowledge needed to solve interpersonal coordination problems. The present study investigates the nature of such similarity within social networks, asking: What do friends have in common? And what is the relationship between similarity and altruism? The results show that similarity declines with frequency of contact; similarity in general is a significant predictor of altruism and emotional closeness; and, specifically, sharing (...) a sense of humor, hobbies and interests, moral beliefs, and being from the same area are the best predictors. These results shed light on the structure of relationships within networks and provide a possible checklist for predicting attitudes toward strangers, and in-group identification. (shrink)

Dominance hierarchies are ubiquitous in the societies of human and non-human animals. Evidence from comparative, developmental, and cognitive psychological investigations is presented that show how social dominance hierarchies shaped the evolution of the human mind, and hence, human social institutions. It is argued that the pressures that arise from living in hierarchical social groups laid a foundation of fundamental concepts and cognitive strategies that are crucial to surviving in social dominance hierarchies. These include recognizing and reasoning transitively about dominance relations, (...) fast-track learning of social norms (permissions, prohibitions, and obligations), detecting violations of social norms (cheating), monitoring reciprocal obligations, and reading the intentions of others. (shrink)

When reasoning about deontic rules (what one may, should, or should not do in a given set of circumstances), reasoners adopt a violation‐detection strategy, a strategy they do not adopt when reasoning about indicative rules (descriptions of purported state of affairs). I argue that this indicative‐deontic distinction constitutes a primitive in the cognitive architecture. To support this claim, I show that this distinction emerges early in development, is observed regardless of the cultural background of the reasoner, and can be selectively (...) disrupted at the neurological level. I also argue that this distinction emerged as a result of selective pressure favouring the evolution of reasoning strategies that determine survival within dominance hierarchies. (shrink)

Research from ethology and evolutionary biology indicates the following about the evolution of reasoning capacity. First, solving problems of social competition and cooperation have direct impact on survival rates and reproductive success. Second, the social structure that evolved from this pressure is the dominance hierarchy. Third, primates that live in large groups with complex dominance hierarchies also show greater neocortical development, and concomitantly greater cognitive capacity. These facts suggest that the necessity of reasoning effectively about dominance hierarchies left an indelible (...) mark on primate reasoning architectures, including that of humans. In order to survive in a dominance hierarchy, an individual must be capable of (a) making rank discriminations, (b) recognizing what is forbidden and what is permitted based one's rank, and (c) deciding whether to engage in or refriin from activities that will allow one to move up in rank. The first problem is closely tied to the capacity for transitive reasoning, while the second and third are intimately related to the capacity for deontic reasoning. I argue that the human capacity for these types of reasoning have evolutionary roots that reach deeper into our ancestral past than the emergence of the hominid line, and the operation of these evolutionarily primitive reasoning systems can be seen in the development of human reasoning and domain-specific effects in adult reasoning. (shrink)

Mealey's evolutionary reasoning is logically flawed. Furthermore, the evidence presented in favor of a genetic contribution to the causation of sociopathy is overinterpreted. Given the potentially large societal impact of sociobiological speculation on the roots of criminality, more-than-usual caution in interpreting data is called for.

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. (shrink)

Game theory is a formal approach to behavior that focuses on the strategic aspect of situations. The game theoretic approach originates in economics but has been embraced by scholars across disciplines, including many philosophers and biologists. This approach has an important weakness: the strategic aspect of a situation, which is its defining quality in game theory, is often not its most salient quality in human cognition. Evidence from a wide range of experiments highlights this shortcoming. Previous theoretical and empirical work (...) has sought to address this weakness by considering learning across an ensemble of multiple games simultaneously. Here we extend this framework, incorporating artificial neural networks, to allow for an investigation of the interaction between the perceptual and functional similarity of the games composing the larger ensemble. Using this framework, we conduct a theoretical investigation of a population that encounters both stag hunts and prisoner’s dilemmas, two situations that are strategically different but which may or may not be perceptually similar. (shrink)

Norms—that is, specifications of what we ought to do—play a critical role in the study of informal argumentation, as they do in studies of judgment, decision-making and reasoning more generally. Specifically, they guide a recurring theme: are people rational? Though rules and standards have been central to the study of reasoning, and behavior more generally, there has been little discussion within psychology about why (or indeed if) they should be considered normative despite the considerable philosophical literature that bears on this (...) topic. In the current paper, we ask what makes something a norm, with consideration both of norms in general and a specific example: norms for informal argumentation. We conclude that it is both possible and desirable to invoke norms for rational argument, and that a Bayesian approach provides solid normative principles with which to do so. (shrink)

Paul MacLean, founder and long-time chief ofthe Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior,National Institutes of Health, is a pioneeringfigure in the emergent field of evolutionaryneuroscience. His influence has been widelyfelt in the development of biologicalpsychiatry and has led to a considerableliterature on evolutionary approaches toclinical issues. MacLean's work is alsoenjoying a resurgence of interest in academicareas of neuroscience and evolutionarypsychology which have previously shown littleinterest or knowledge of his extensive work. This chapter builds on MacLean's work to bringtogether new insights (...) into the neuralarchitecture of human development, hierarchy,conflict behavior, and reciprocity in the formof the Conflict Systems Neurobehavioral Model. Hamilton 's rule of kinship altruism orinclusive fitness is proposed to be the gene'seye complement to MacLean's evolutionaryneuroscience and the CSN Model derivedtherefrom. Hierarchy, conflict behavior andreciprocity are also central issues in healthydevelopment as well as in clinical syndromes ofdepression, mania, and other socialmaladjustments. The emerging insights permitthe integration of the concept of inclusivefitness underpinning evolutionary psychologywith MacLean's perspective on evolutionaryneuroscience as well as the definition of newchallenges for mental health and socialstability. The policy implications areindicated. (shrink)

In this paper, a model of norms as cognitive objects is applied to establish connections between social conventions and prescriptions. Relevant literature on this issue, especially found in AI and the social sciences, will be shown to suffer from a dychotomic view: a conventionalistic view proposed by rationality and AI scientists; and a prescriptive view proposed by some philosophers of law (Kelsen 1934/1979, Hart 1961, Ross, 1958).In the present work, the attempt is made to fill the gap between these views (...) by putting forward a hypothesis concerning the process from perceived behavioural regularities to normative assumptions. The emergence of norms will be here seen as intrinsically intertwined with the emergence of normative beliefs. Unlike that assumed by the conventionalistic sight, the process of emergence is seen as a non-continuous phenomenon. A given behavioural regularity will be argued to give rise to a normative belief if and as long as that regularity is believed to be prescribed within the community. Two corollaries of this hypothesis will be examined: (1) unlike that implied by the conventionalistic view, the spreading of norms is not only due to a passive behavioural social influence (imitation) but also to an active cognitive one (the spreading of normative wants and beliefs); (2) unlike that assumed by the prescriptive view, a norm is not necessarily explicitly and deliberately issued by some normative authority, but is grounded upon the norm-addressees' beliefs that they are generally prescribed to comply with it. (shrink)

Gilligan’s (1982) refinement of Kohlberg’s theory on moral development operates on two theses: (1) females, more so than males, reach moral decisions based on the personalities of the relevant individuals; and (2) female behaviors stemming from moral decisions are based upon “care” and “responsibility for others.” This article accepts the first thesis but argues that the second is incorrect. That is, self-interest—i.e., aiding “blood” kin and/or carefully monitoring reciprocity—rather than “altruism” is argued to be the operant dynamic in forging distaff (...) morality and resultant behavior. Six empirical examples are presented as contraindicative of Gilligan’s second thesis. Finally, it is suggested that selection for the psychological traits of independence and the mastery of subtle social chess yielded ancestral females who had more descendants—us—than did females with alternative profiles. (shrink)

Organizational citizenship behaviour has generally been associated with organizational effectiveness. However, recent research has shown that this may not always be the case and that certain types of organizational citizenship behaviour such as compulsory citizenship behaviour, may be inimical to the fulfillment of formal goals and organizational effectiveness. Using military historical and business organizational secondary data, the paper maintains that extreme variance in either organizational (task) or personal (social psychological) support organizational citizenship behaviour generates entropic citizenship behaviour which derails completely (...) the effective accomplishment of formal organizational goals. A general model of organizational citizenship behaviour with entropic citizenship behavior as its novel conceptual boundary is developed in the paper, and four specific propositions with implications for future empirical research are delineated. (shrink)