What is the relationship between morals and politics?

What’s the relationship between morals and politics? According to Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), people rely on multiple evolved intuitive “foundations” when making moral decisions, including: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. A substantial body of previous research has found that, when making moral decisions, political liberals place more emphasis on Care and Fairness, whereas political conservatives place more emphasis on Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. However: the way that this research has conceptualised moral and politics has been criticised; there have been some anomalous and contradictory empirical findings; and it remains unclear whether the relationship between morals and politics is causal as opposed to merely correlational. Here I review the literature and make suggestions for future research.

This working paper was a contribution to a JRC/EC project on "Science of values and identity in the political process".

Seven moral rules found all around the world (Press Release)

Anthropologists at the University of Oxford have discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules.

The rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others’ property, were found in a survey of 60 cultures from all around the world.

Previous studies have looked at some of these rules in some places – but none has looked at all of them in a large representative sample of societies. The present study, published in Current Anthropology, is the largest and most comprehensive cross-cultural survey of morals ever conducted.

The team from Oxford’s Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources.

Dr Oliver Scott Curry, lead author and senior researcher at the Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, said: 'The debate between moral universalists and moral relativists has raged for centuries, but now we have some answers. People everywhere face a similar set of social problems, and use a similar set of moral rules to solve them. As predicted, these seven moral rules appear to be universal across cultures. Everyone everywhere shares a common moral code. All agree that cooperating, promoting the common good, is the right thing to do.'

The study tested the theory that morality evolved to promote cooperation, and that – because there are many types of cooperation – there are many types of morality. According to this theory of ‘morality as cooperation’, kin selection explains why we feel a special duty of care for our families, and why we abhor incest. Mutualism explains why we form groups and coalitions (there is strength and safety in numbers), and hence why we value unity, solidarity, and loyalty. Social exchange explains why we trust others, reciprocate favours, feel guilt and gratitude, make amends, and forgive. And conflict resolution explains why we engage in costly displays of prowess such as bravery and generosity, why we defer to our superiors, why we divide disputed resources fairly, and why we recognise prior possession.

The research found, first, that these seven cooperative behaviours were always considered morally good. Second, examples of most of these morals were found in most societies. Crucially, there were no counter-examples – no societies in which any of these behaviours were considered morally bad. And third, these morals were observed with equal frequency across continents; they were not the exclusive preserve of ‘the West’ or any other region.

So, among the Amhara, 'flouting kinship obligation is regarded as a shameful deviation, indicating an evil character'. In Korea, there exists an 'egalitarian community ethic [of] mutual assistance and cooperation among neighbors [and] strong in-group solidarity'. 'Reciprocity is observed in every stage of Garo life [and] has a very high place in the Garo social structure of values'. Among the Maasai, 'Those who cling to warrior virtues are still highly respected', and 'the uncompromising ideal of supreme warriorhood [involves] ascetic commitment to self-sacrifice…in the heat of battle, as a supreme display of courageous loyalty'. The Bemba exhibit 'a deep sense of respect for elders’ authority'. The Kapauku 'idea of justice' is called 'uta-uta, half-half…[the meaning of which] comes very close to what we call equity'. And among the Tarahumara, 'respect for the property of others is the keystone of all interpersonal relations'.

The study also detected 'variation on a theme' — although all societies seemed to agree on the seven basic moral rules, they varied in how they prioritised or ranked them. The team has now developed a new moral values questionnaire to gather data on modern moral values, and is investigating whether cross-cultural variation in moral values reflects variation in the value of cooperation under different social conditions.

According to co-author Professor Harvey Whitehouse, anthropologists are uniquely placed to answer long-standing questions about moral universals and moral relativism. 'Our study was based on historical descriptions of cultures from around the world; this data was collected prior to, and independently of, the development of the theories that we were testing. Future work will be able to test more fine-grained predictions of the theory by gathering new data, even more systematically, out in the field.'

'We hope that this research helps to promote mutual understanding between people of different cultures; an appreciation of what we have in common, and how and why we differ,' added Curry.

The full paper 'Is it good to cooperate? Testing the theory of morality-as-cooperation in 60 societies,' can be read in Current Anthropology.

The virtues of the hawk, the virtues of the dove

From the introduction to: Curry, O. S. (2007). The conflict-resolution theory of virtue. In W. P. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral Psychology (Vol. I, pp. 251-261). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

There has been a long-standing debate in the history of moral thought over the nature of virtue—the enduring traits that are indicative of a good moral character. One tradition—represented by Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Hume—has celebrated the so-called “pagan” virtues of beauty, strength, courage, magnanimity, and leadership. Another tradition—represented particularly by theologians—has celebrated exactly the opposite set of traits: the so-called “Christian” virtues of humility, meekness, quietude, asceticism, and obedience (Berlin, 1997). But what are the virtues? Where do they come from? Why do they consist of these two apparently incompatible sets of traits? And why have they been considered moral?

Geoffrey Miller rightly argues that the virtues are not explained by existing evolutionary theories of morality, such as kin or reciprocal altruism. Instead, Miller argues, such traits are the product of sexual selection; specifically, they are products of mate choice for reliable signals of genetic and phenotypic quality. Thus, the virtues are analogous to the peacock’s tail; they are dazzling, conspicuous displays of the qualities and character traits that members of the opposite sex look for in a mate.

However, Miller’s theory leaves two kinds of virtues unaccounted for: first, virtues displayed in contexts other than courtship and, second, the traditional Christian virtues. Moreover, Miller’s theory doesn’t explain why some sexually attractive traits—such as beauty—have been considered moral. Nor does it provide a criterion for distinguishing sexually attractive traits that are morally virtuous, such as beauty, from sexually attractive traits that are morally neutral, such as immuno-compatibility.

I shall outline a more comprehensive evolutionary theory of virtue. This “conflict-resolution theory” argues that the virtues are adaptations for competing without coming to blows; they serve to avoid, forestall, or defuse more violent means of competing for scarce resources. This theory incorporates both the “pagan” and the “Christian” virtues. The pagan virtues are “signals of superiority.” They are used to resolve conflict in two ways. First, they are used to attract mates—for here, natural selection has favored aesthetic and altruistic displays over aggression as a means of competing for mates. These are the virtues that Miller draws attention to. Second, signals of superiority are used to deter rivals. They do this as part of a “display-defer” strategy—that is, a strategy that uses, on the one hand, displays of fighting prowess and, on the other hand, ritual displays of deference to superior displays to turn otherwise bloody battles into rela- tively harmless contests. These displays of prowess are the second kind of pagan virtue. And this brings us to the Christian virtues. For they are the flip side of the display-defer strategy of resolving conflicts. They are “signals of submission,” conspicuous displays of deference that bring conflict to an end.

Thus, the conflict-resolution theory provides a secure theoretical founda- tion that accounts for a broader range of virtues and that subsumes Miller’s mate-choice theory. What is more, the conflict-resolution theory explains why these particular sets of traits have been seen as moral; it is because, like other aspects of morality, they constitute a successful solution to one of the recurrent problems of social life—in this case, the problem of settling disputes.

Below I briefly review the evolutionary theory of conflict resolution and look at some animal examples. I review the evidence for equivalent traits in humans. And I show how the conflict-resolution theory of virtue makes sense of various aspects of traditional moral thought.

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Morality as Natural History

What are moral values and where do they come from? David Hume argued that moral values were the product of a range of passions, inherent to human nature, that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, psychology and neuroscience suggest that Hume was right to suppose that humans have such passions. This dissertation reviews these developments, and considers their implications for moral philosophy. I first explain what Darwinian adaptations are, and how they generate behaviour. I then explain that, contrary to the Hobbesian caricature of life in the state of nature, evolutionary theory leads us to expect that organisms will be social, cooperative and even altruistic under certain circumstances. I introduce four main types of cooperation – kin altruism, coordination to mutual advantage, reciprocity and conflict resolution – and provide examples of ‘adaptations for cooperation’ from nonhuman species. I then review the evidence for equivalent adaptations for cooperation in humans. Next, I show how this Humean-Darwinian account of the moral sentiments can be used to make sense of traditional positions in meta-ethics; how it provides a rich deductive framework in which to locate and make sense of a wide variety of apparently contradictory positions in traditional normative ethics; and how it clearly demarcates the problems of applied ethics. I defend this version of ethical naturalism against the charge that it commits ‘the naturalistic fallacy’. I conclude that evolutionary theory provides the best account yet of the origins and status of moral values, and that moral philosophy should be thought of as a branch of natural history.

Curry, O. S. (2005). Morality as Natural History: An adaptationist account of ethics. (PhD), London School of Economics, London.