A provocative and probing argument showing how human beings can for the first time in history take charge of their moral fate. Is tribalism—the political and cultural divisions between Us and Them—an inherent part of our basic moral psychology? Many scientists link tribalism and morality, arguing that the evolved “moral mind” is tribalistic. Any escape from tribalism, according to this thinking, would be partial and fragile, because it goes against the grain of our nature. In this book, Allen Buchanan offers a counterargument: the moral mind is highly flexible, capable of both tribalism and deeply inclusive moralities, depending on the social environment in which the moral mind operates. We can't be morally tribalistic by nature, Buchanan explains, because quite recently there has been a remarkable shift away from tribalism and toward inclusiveness, as growing numbers of people acknowledge that all human beings have equal moral status, and that at least some nonhumans also have moral standing. These are what Buchanan terms the Two Great Expansions of moral regard. And yet, he argues, moral progress is not inevitable but depends partly on whether we have the good fortune to develop as moral agents in a society that provides the right conditions for realizing our moral potential. But morality need not depend on luck. We can take charge of our moral fate by deliberately shaping our social environment—by engaging in scientifically informed “moral institutional design.” For the first time in human history, human beings can determine what sort of morality is predominant in their societies and what kinds of moral agents they are.
Author(s): Allen Buchanan
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xx, 271 pages ;
City: Cambridge, Mass
Copyright
Contents
Preface
What This Book Is About: Rethinking Moral Progress to Learn How to Take Charge of Our Moral Fate
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Darwinians’ Un-Darwinian Dogmas, or How Not to Think about Morality
Does the Idea of Human Nature Even Make Sense after Darwin?
The Tribalistic Moral Nature Dogma
The Highly Flexible Moral Mind
Niche Constructors Par Excellence
The Constancy of Basic Human Psychology
Flexibility Everywhere
The Cooperation Dogma
How the Cooperation Dogma Reinforces the Tribalism Dogma
Evidence for the Flexibility of the Human Moral Mind
Cumulative Culture
Why the Moral Mind Is Flexible
Evidence against the Tribalism Dogma: The Two Great Expansions
Evaluating the Supposed Evidence for the Tribalistic Moral Nature Thesis
Attempts to Soften the Tribalism Dogma
The Cognitive Pathology of the Cooperation Dogma
Explaining Descent with Modification, Not Just Origins
Explaining Progress Is the Key to Understanding and Stopping Regression
Strategy
1 Large-Scale Moral Change: The Shift toward Inclusive Moralities
The Late Arrival of the Concept of a Human Being
The Two Great Expansions of the Circle of Moral Regard
The Big Puzzle
Morality as an Adaptation
A Nonsolution to the Big Puzzle
The Puzzle Deepens
Morality Is More Than What It Originally Was
Cautious Darwinianism
An Overview of the Investigation
What Tribalism Is and Isn’t
2 The Big Puzzle: How Could a Tribalistic Great Ape Species Ever Develop Inclusive Moralities?
Origins Stories Old and New
Why the Origins of Human Moralities Matter
Being Supercooperators Makes Us Distinctive; Moralities Make Us Supercooperators
Avoiding Mistakes about What “Morality Is an Adaptation” Means
The Mistake of Hyperfunctionalism
The Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA)
The Evolutionary Roots of Tribalism: Cooperation among Us, for Competition with Them
Risks Humans Faced in the EEA and How They Shaped the First Moralities
The Asymmetry of Risks and Benefits of Interacting with the Other in the EEA
Prehistoric Risk-Management Techniques
Imagining What the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation Was Like: Hobbes’s State of Nature and The Walking Dead
Evoconservatism: Pessimistic Lessons from the Origins Story
The Way Forward
3 Failed Attempts to Solve the Big Puzzle: Cooperation Is Not Enough
Philosophical Thinking about the Big Puzzle
Solutions That Focus on How Morality Facilitates Cooperation
Kitcher’s Understanding of What Morality Is (and All It Is)
Expanding the Circle of Cooperation Doesn’t Produce the Two Great Expansions
Global Cooperation without Equal Regard
The Deeper Flaw in the Functionalist Understanding of Morality
The Squeaky- Wheel Model of Moral Progress
When the Wheel Can’t Squeak Loudly Enough
A Deeper Flaw of Squeaky- Wheel Views
Two Different Understandings of the Basis of Moral Regard: Strategic and Nonstrategic
Does Reducing Inequality Promote More Efficient Cooperation?
Enthusiastic Cooperation without Equality
The Bottom Line: Morality Is Not (Now) All about Cooperation
Did Moral Consistency Reasoning Cause the Two Great Expansions?
When Does the Right Kind of Moral Consistency Occur?
Failures of Moral Consistency Reasoning
Distorted Moral Consistency Reasoning: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Moral Consistency Reasoning by Cognitively Flawed Beings
Evolved Limitations on Who Is Seen as Being Worthy of Moral Regard
Progress through Failures: How Detective Stories Work
4 Revisionist Prehistory: Getting the Moral Origins Story Right
Two Assumptions That Create the Big Puzzle
One EEA or Many?
Why Intergroup Cooperation in the EEA Fell Short of the First Great Expansion
A New Hypothesis: The Variable Challenges of the EEA Produced an Adaptively Plastic Capacity for Moral Responses
Plastic Moral Responses
A Plea for a Richer Research Agenda in the Evolutionary Study of Morality
5 The First Piece of the Puzzle: Surplus Reproductive Success
The Key to Solving the Big Puzzle: A Story of Cultural Evolution
How Cultural Evolution Moved Us Away from the EEA
Why the Cultural Evolution Story So Far Isn’t Enough to Solve the Big Puzzle
Stepping through the Door That Cultural Evolution Opened
Another Necessary Condition for the Two Great Expansions: The Capacity for Critical, Open-Ended Moral Reasoning
The Continuing Evolution of Understandings of the Basis for Moral Regard
Toward a Moderately Rationalist Understanding of Basic Moral Change
6 Solving the Big Puzzle: How Surplus Reproductive Success Led to the Great Uncoupling of Morality from Fitness
A Creative and Subversive Human Capacity
When Does the Capacity for Critical, Open-Ended Moral Reasoning Contribute to the Two Great Expansions?
The Social-Epistemic Context for the Exercise of the Capacity
The Vital Role of Institutions
Motivation for Exercising the Capacity: The Need for Moral Identity
Originating versus Spreading
The Attractions of My (Proto)Solution to the Big Puzzle
But What about Religion?
The Costs of the Free Exercise of the Capacity for Critical, Open-Ended Moral Reasoning
A Puzzle about the Role of Moral Pioneers
Is My Solution to the Big Puzzle Evolutionary?
7 Turning Back the Moral Clock: Regression to Tribalistic Morality
How Contemporary Tribalism Resurrects the Threat Cues of the EEA
Intersocietal versus Intrasocietal Tribalism
“Pure” versus “Impure” Intrasocietal Tribalism
All Tribalism Involves Social Construction of the Other
A Framework for Explaining Regression to Tribalism
Fomenting Tribalism as Applied Social Epistemology
An Update on the Results of the Investigation So Far
Another Reason Why It’s Wrong to Say We Are Morally Tribalistic by Nature
8 Intrasocietal Tribalism and the Evolutionary Roots of Ideology
Case Study: Eugenics as an Example of Intrasocietal Tribalism Fueled by Ideology
What Was Eugenics?
Was Eugenics an Extended Holiday from Ordinary Morality?
Tribalism Doesn’t Bypass Ordinary Morality; It Hijacks It
The Power of Tribalism Is the Power of Morality
The Evolution of Tribalism and the Advent of Ideology
What Is Ideology?
What Ideologies Are and What They Do
The Social and Psychological Functions of Ideologies
The Centrality of Moralized Group- Based Identity in Ideologies
Our Moral Identity Defined in Opposition to Theirs
Ideologies as Heuristics
Ideologies as Belief Immune Systems
Ideologies Provide Ways of Signaling Group Identity
Ideology, like the Intrasocietal Tribalism It Promotes, Is a Modern Phenomenon
Modern Cooperation Is Based on Shared Systems of Beliefs
Competition among Groups within Society as a Major Driver of Cultural Evolution
Ideologies as an Adaptation for Competition under Modern Conditions
Ideology from an Evolutionary Point of View
Ideologies Foster Intragroup Cooperation but Erect Obstacles to Intergroup Cooperation
Ideologies as Resources for Moral Justifications
Why Our Ideological Justifications Look So Stupid to Them and Vice Versa
Ideologies and the Culture of Reason Giving
Does Eugenics Fit This Characterization of Ideologies?
Nonviolent Competition among Groups in Society without Ideologies?
What I Don’t Mean by “Ideology”
How Ideologies Undermine the First Great Expansion
9 Taking Charge of Our Moral Fate
References
Index
