Eyes, Bunnies, Neanderthal Extinction

Every week scientists seem to change their mind regarding the cause of the extinction of neanderthals. This week it was their big dreamy eyes, the other day it was rabbits, a while back it was their rubbish childhoods.

In truth, I'm sure most researchers aren't radically changing their minds so much so often, but adding nuances to complex theories. The problem is almost certainly down to hyperbolic science journalism. 

Silent killer.

 From what I understand, there are still a few key competing theories regarding neanderthal extinction: interbreeding, disease, genocide or some general competitive advantage possessed by humans. It's this last factor that causes trouble. As soon as we begin to speculate about the details of a plausible but vague competitive advantage, we open the doors to any hypothesis that sounds feasible. Superior communication? Diverse tools? More effective hunting strategies? Surely any and all of these are possible, but how would we come to any sort of sensible and testable comparison?

Giant eyes, killer bunnies; these guys had a hard time.

This a problem that frequents evolutionary psychology. In evolutionary psychology we look for evolutionary reasons for often highly specific and complex psychological traits and behaviour. But in doing so we run the danger of hysterical hypothesising- rapidly drawing conclusions that are frequently unverifiable. That's not to say there isn't an evolutionary explanation for those traits, but rather that our conclusions need to be moderate and uncertain. Likewise, I don't doubt the possibility of human competitive advantages over neanderthals- as a lay person who am I to dispute this? I also don't doubt the possibility and utility of comparing the plausibility of different adaptations as an explanation for human survival to some extent. However, I find the range of such assured headlines suspicious. I'm sure most scientists in the field take a nuanced approach that avoids such certainty.

The evolutionary implausability of outlandish alien cognition

Contemporary arguments for (and against) the extended mind hypothesis (eg. Sprevak 2009) regularly invoke hypothetical aliens with outlandish forms of internal cognition. Sprevak asks us to imagine an alien that stores memories "as a series of ink-marks" (ibid: 9). This is meant to be functionally equivalent to the case where someone 'stores' their memories in an external diary. The point is that, in order to preserve multiple realisability and the Martian intuition, we are forced to accept that both the alien and the diary-user constitute cognitive systems, with the only difference being that the latter extends beyond the biological brain.

Baby Martian?

In another example, this time intended as a reduction ad absurdum of functionalism and the extended mind, Sprevak proposes an alien with an innate, internal cognitive sub-system that calculates the exact date of the Mayan calendar (ibid: 21). Again, his point is that there seems to be no functional difference between this sub-system and the one that he claims to have installed on his office computer¹. Ergo, his extended mind includes this implicit knowledge of the Mayan calendar.

Ignoring for the moment any questions about the extended mind per se, we should question the plausibility of these kinds of aliens. In each case, but especially the second, it seems that our aliens would possess remarkably over-specialised brains. The ink-jet memory system seems cumbersome, and the Mayan calender calculator is an extremely niche-interest device, one that would probably never see any use. In both cases it is difficult to imagine how or why such a cognitive architecture would have evolved.

This doesn't constitute a counter-argument, as regardless of any evolutionary implausibility Sprevak's aliens serve their rhetorical purpose. However it's interesting to note that much of Clark's own use of the extended mind is intended to highlight the way in which human brains off-load these kinds of specialised skills on to the environment (see his 2003), meaning that we are precisely the kind of generalists that these aliens aren't. Perhaps it's important not to get too caught up with outlandish aliens when we consider the extended mind, and return to the much more homely (and relevant!) examples which it was originally intended for.


1. I have a meeting with him in his office tomorrow, so I'll try and check if is true...

References

• Clark, A. 2003. Natural Born Cyborgs. Oxford: OUP.
• Sprevak, M. 2009. "Extended cognition and functionalism." The Journal of Philosophy 106: 503-527. Available at (and references to) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/578710/homepage/Sprevak---Extended%20Cognition.pdf

Memes as Metaphor

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that memetics might still prove useful even if memes, strictly speaking, don't exist. Even if the unit of replication that Blackmore posits isn't real, the study of memes might still be tracking some feature of the world that is. Of course, if this turns out to be the case then we might not want to continue calling it memetics - or alternatively, we might want to adapt our definition of a meme.

In The Meme Machine, Blackmore spent a couple of chapters considering the possibility of morality evolving (either genetically or memetically), and it is this broad topic that concerns Richard Joyce in The Evolution of Morality. Given the complex relationship between culture and (genetic) evolution, and the recent popularity of memetic explanations of culture, I was surprised to find only a single, terse reference to memes in Joyce's book: a footnote explaining that his talk of cultural evolution "is not to be confused with 'meme theory'" (2006: 235, note 21).

Despite agreeing with Blackmore that "[t]here is nothing in the theory [of evolution] that says that the traits in question must be genetically encoded" (Joyce 2006: 42), as well as finding explanatory value in the idea that culture might evolve independently of genetics, Joyce keeps his distance from memetic explanations. His use of cultural evolution "leaves open the issue of whether cultural items satisfy the criteria for being considered replicators" (2006: 235). This is a fair point, but not one that should render any contribution from memetics completely worthless. A lot of what he has to say about the cultural evolution of morality meshes well with Blackmore's memetic explanation of altruism, although of course they place their emphasis differently (Joyce on genetic evolution, Blackmore on cultural). Nonetheless, the basic idea that culture might come to "harness" an innate compulsion to feel certain 'moral' emotions (such as guilt or empathy) is shared by both of them.

I think that the Dawkins-inspired 'memetic revolution' has hit upon a very powerful heuristic for investigating cultural evolution, but has also shot itself in the foot somewhat by trying to be too radical. Their emphasis on defining the meme as unit of replication akin to the gene has tended to undercut the seriousness with which some of their ideas might otherwise have been considered. This is unfortunate, as whilst the idea of cultural evolution per se isn't necessarily that radical, it could certainly do with some more focused study. Anthologies such as The Adapted Mind (Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992) and volume two of The Innate Mind (Carruthers, Laurence, & Stich, 2007) certainly go some way towards doing this, but by and large they are still limited by the artificial dichotomy between (genetic) evolution and culture. Memetics could break this dichotomy, if only it dropped some of its reverence for the slightly implausible comparison between memes and genes. There's certainly room for the meme as a unit of replication, although it will be a much vaguer unit than the gene, one that is necessarily somewhat metaphorical.

• Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. 1992. The Adapted Mind. Oxford: OUP.
• Blackmore, S. 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford: OUP. 
• Carruthers, P., Laurence, S. & Stich, S. 2007. Innate Mind, Vol. 2: Culture and Cognition. Oxford: OUP
• Joyce, R. 2006. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Memes vs Genes

(by Joe)

The term "meme" was introduced by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976: 191-201), to refer to a proposed unit of cultural information analogous to the standard unit of genetic information: the gene. He suggested that evolutionary analysis of memes could cast light on cultural oddities that evolutionary genetics sometimes struggle to explain, such as religion. His original introduction of memes was a somewhat off-hand way of illustrating that evolution by natural selection need not only apply to DNA and biology, but almost by accident he invented an entirely new field. Memetics now refers to the study of evolutionary models of cultural information transfer, although whether or not this is something worthy of study is somewhat controversial. A Journal of Memetics was published online from 1997 to 2004 (and is still available), but probably the most famous account of memetics is Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (1999).

Everything looked a bit like this in the 90s.

The basic idea behind memetics is extremely simple. Just as we can understand biological evolution in terms of competition between genes, we can understand cultural evolution as competition between memes. A gene will survive not because it is necessarily useful to its host, but because it is useful to itself, driving the kind of adaptation that allows it to be passed on. So the genes of a (non-fertile) worker ant that sacrifices itself for the hive will be passed on through that ant's close genetic relatives.  A meme will survive not because it is necessarily useful to its host, but because it is useful to itself, perhaps by being memorable or easily passed on. An annoying song that you can't get out of your head might not derive any pleasure for you, the host, but it will survive. Analysing behaviour in terms of the benefit for the cultural meme allows us to provide explanations that might not be available at either the genetic or organism level.

Memetics has been criticised for failing to identify a discrete unit of transmission (a meme might be anything from a few notes to a whole philosophical theory), but as Blackmore points out the same can, in a sense, be said about genetics (1999: 53-6). The study of memes more generally is accused of being too vague, even pseudoscientific, and I agree that there is a genuine risk of failing to make any meaningful claims. However I think what matters is whether memetics is able to provide a useful account of phenomena where other fields have failed - and this will only become clear with time. Daniel Dennett's account of consciousness and the self includes a memetic element (1991: 199-226) and Blackmore hopes that memetics might cast light on everything from altruism (1999: 147-74) to the development of agriculture (ibid: 26-7). Whether or not memes actually exists (whatever "existing" means) is not really important - memetics as a discipline can still be provide a useful heuristic, reminding us that cultural practices might propagate themselves simply because that's what they do, not because they are in any way useful to us.


Blackmore, S. 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford: OUP.

Dawkins, R. 1976 (2006). The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition. Oxford: OUP

Dennett, D. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown and Company.

Embodied Ethics

(by Joe, with credit to Marc Morgan at Trinity College Dublin for inspiring some of these thoughts. Marc is a contributor at socialjusticefirst.)

I used to think that the majority of actions were morally neutral, and that only those things that caused harm or suffering could be classified as 'bad'. In and of itself I wouldn't have said that lying was wrong, or sleeping good. Only when coupled with contingencies such as the lie being malicious, or the sleep necessary to rejuvenate the mind and body, could these things be considered in any way moral. My practical ethics are still largely consequentialist, but I've been reconsidering how I classify things within that framework.

A body.

When it comes to practical, applied ethics (certainly the most important kind of ethics), we need to look at everything in context. Whether an action is good or bad, whether it causes harm, will depend on so many contingent factors that it is extremely difficult to make accurate ethical judgments in advance. The best we can hope for is to establish guiding heuristics that will help us to make moral decisions in the future. With that in mind, let's return to the classic example of lying.

As I mentioned above, I used to say that lying was only immoral if it caused harm. That's still basically what I think, only now I'd be tempted to expand harm to include more subtle effects like the degradation of the liar's moral character, and the long-term instability of a relationship build on deception. So whilst in the abstract lying might be morally neutral, in practice it could almost always wrong. Of course there are going to be exceptions, such as if you're sheltering a refugee from a murderous band of thugs, but my moral compass is beginning to swing distinctly towards the "lying is usually wrong" side of things. 

We could call this kind of approach "embodied ethics", in that it emphasises the "in the world" nature of moral judgments. Another sense in which ethics should be considered embodied is that it is very much a product of our evolved and biological nature. To a large extent, things are essentially right or wrong to the degree that they facilitate a way of life that is guided by our evolution. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that everything we've evolved to do is inherently right, but only that evolution has guided the way in which we make ethical considerations, as well as defining the things that matter to us. So ethical discourse must be underwritten by an understanding of our biological, embodied nature.

Finally, ethics is embodied because the mind and the self are embodied. As I've written about elsewhere, the potential for the extension of the mind and perhaps even the self has serious ethical implications. More generally, an understanding of morality demands an understanding of the mechanics behind the human mind, and an understanding of how it interacts with the world. Otherwise our ethics will be too abstract to be meaningful - this is why the ethical debates that philosophers sometimes have can seem so odd and out of touch. I'm still working on the full details, but from now on I'm going to try and make sure that my ethical theorising is firmly embodied, in all three of the ways that I've outlined here.

Moral Realism and the Evolutionary Challenge

(by Joe)

Right, we're still sticking to the chimps, but this time I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb. I've been reading Primates and Philosophers as research for a paper that I'm planning to submit to Durham's Philosophical Writings, and I'd like to try and flesh out a few ideas here. Partly this is just a convenient way for me to get something solid written down, although I'd appreciate your thoughts and opinions as well.

In Primates and Philosophers (and elsewhere), Frans de Waal argues for the falsity of what he calls "veneer theory", the idea that morality is a "thin veneer" on top of an essential immoral nature. Instead, he argues, we should see morality as an essential element of human nature, something that can be explained in terms of evolution and, as such, is to some degree continuous with our ancestors and relatives (such as chimpanzees).

As Jonny discusses here, the degree to which morality is found in non-human animals is itself a contentious issue. What I'm interested in is something slightly different, namely what de Waal's argument might mean for what I'm going to call traditional moral realism. Whilst de Waal's characterisation of Veneer Theory is somewhat contentious, I think it does identify something that has traditionally been seen as an important aspect of morality: the concept of moral choice or agency. It's fairly intuitive to think that you can only be held (morally) responsible for doing something if you could have chosen to do otherwise. It hardly seems fair to blame somebody for an action that they did not consciously choose to commit. 

Both de Waal and his commentators in Primates and Philosophers seem to agree that to some extent what sets human morality apart from animal morality (supposing such a thing exists) is rationality. Whilst chimpanzees and other social animals might seem to behave altruistically, they do so because this happens to be their proximate desire (if not necessarily their long-term, evolutionary 'goal'). De Waal's proposed alternative to Veneer Theory is a naturalistic, evolutionary explanation of moral behaviour. I emphasise explanation, because that's precisely what I think it is. De Waal is able to explain how altruistic behaviour and morality more generally might have evolved, but I don't think that this is the same thing as giving an evolutionary account of moral realism. If I only behave morally because I am genetically predisposed to (under certain circumstances), then can I truly be called a moral agent?

I'm not sure. The responders to de Waal (in Primates and Philosophers) for the most part seem to think so, but I find it hard to agree. Peter Singer, for example, is comfortable with the idea that "automatic, emotional responses [...] constitute a large part of our morality" (P&P: 149). Certainly, such evolved responses might make the world a 'better' place, in the utilitarian sense of maximising well-being, but I don't think they constitute real moral agency, which is required for what I'm calling traditional moral realism. So I can't help but feel that evolutionary accounts of apparently moral behaviour tend to undermine traditional moral realism. It's not that I think such accounts are false - quite the contrary, in fact - but rather that if we are going to take them seriously, we will also need to consider their implications for moral realism.

One possibility that I've been considering is what we might call 'pragmatic moral irrealism'. Something of this kind is suggested by Tamler Sommers (2007), who gives a convincing evolutionary account of how the illusion of moral agency might arise, and why it might be beneficial for us to maintain it. I'm about to read The Myth of Morality, by Richard Joyce, which I think might express some similar thoughts. My rough plan for this paper, if I ever get round to writing it, is to demonstrate how 'traditional moral realism' is undermined by evolutionary accounts (which I take to be largely true), before sketching out a possible moral irrealism. I'd be interested to hear about anything similar or relevant to this, as well as any comments anyone has.

de Waal, F. 2006. "Morality Evolved: Primate Social Instincts, Human Morality, and the Rise and Fall of 'Veneer Theory'." In Primates and Philosophers, eds. Stephen Macedo, and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Joyce, R. 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.

Singer, P. 2006. "Morality, Reason and the Rights of Animals." In Primates and Philosophers, eds. Stephen Macedo, and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Sommers, T. 2007. "The Illusion of Freedom Evolves." In Distributed Cognition and the Will, eds. Ross et al. MA: MIT Press.

Justified anthropomorphism

(by Joe)

This is interesting, particularly in the context of our recent posts about Franz de Waal. As I've mentioned previously, de Waal is open about his tendency to treat chimpanzee psychology as being very similar to human psychology, and this research would seem to vindicate that approach. The paper discussed in the BBC article (Weiss et al, 2012) uses new data analysis techniques to compensate for any unjustified anthropomorphication in our attributions of personality traits to chimpanzees and orang-utans. They found that even after making these adjustments, the personality traits were consistent with judgments made by human observers. They conclude that "personality similarities between humans and great apes are best explained by genetic and phylogenetic affinity and not by anthropomorphic artefacts". In lay terms, when we look at chimpanzees and orang-utans and ascribe them human personalities, it's not just wishful thinking. Personality has a shared ancestry, going back at least as far as the point at which humans, orang-utan, and chimpanzee evolution diverged.

I haven't read the entire paper yet, so I may expand this post with a few more thoughts in a couple of days. Also, two of the authors are based at my department here at Edinburgh - maybe I should try and pay a little bit more attention to what's going on around me?


Weiss, A., Inoue-Murayama, M., King, J., Adams, M. & Matsuzawa, T. 2012. "All too human? Chimpanzee and orang-utan personalities are not anthropomorphic projections." Animal Behaviour (in press, available online)

Chimpanzee Politics

(by Joe)

Following on from Jonny's post yesterday, here's a quick review of Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. I spent most of yesterday afternoon sitting in the sun reading it, having been inspired by Jonny to go and read all I could about de Waal's theories. (Quick disclaimer: I haven't quite finished the book.)

Chimpanzee Politics is de Waal's account of the complex social interactions between the chimpanzees at Arnhem Zoo in Holland. His intention is to illustrate how, contrary to what many at the time thought (the book was published in 1982), chimpanzees possess a complicated and subtle 'society', one which could certainly be described as "political". Already de Waal is beginning to draw parallels between chimpanzee and human culture and behaviour, something that he continued to work on throughout the nineties and to the present day.

De Waal writes with an appealing, almost narrative style, making the book feel more like a biography than an academic treatise. In the introduction he gives a short overview of chimpanzees in general, and the Arnhem colony specifically, before discussing his ethological approach to studying them. This straddles the laboratory experiments of animal psychologists and the naturalistic observations made in the field, by patiently making minute, detailed records of the day-to-day life of the colony. Doing so allowed de Waal and his assistants to develop an instinctive grasp of the relationships between the chimpanzees, whilst backing up these observations with quantifiable data that they later processed with computers.

De Waal admits that his descriptions of the chimpanzees behaviour tend towards anthropomorphism, using language such as "kissed" and "embraced" where more careful commentators might talk of "affinitive behaviour". He recognises that there is a risk of projecting human emotions on to the chimpanzees, in a distinctly unscientific way, but argues that going too far in the other direction is equally mistaken, arising from a fear of identifying too closely with what we would rather dismiss as brutish animals. This is an interesting point, and one which I think requires some careful consideration. Certainly some of de Waal's reports feel suspiciously anecdotal, but at the same time I agree that it is important to acknowledge the remarkable similarities between chimpanzees and ourselves.

The bulk of the book consists of the power struggles that took place in the colony between 1976 and 1978. The original alpha male, Yeroen, was eventually overthrown by a coalition between two other males, Luit and Nickie. However soon after Nickie switched sides, overthrowing Luit with the aid of Yeroen. The way in which the apes form and break coalitions is fascinating, as are the subtle, intricate structures that result from these coalitions. Being alpha male is not as simple as just being the strongest chimpanzee in the troupe, you also need a degree of cunning and political acumen. The females play an important role in these struggles too, being able to defeat a male who's acting up by mobbing him en mass.These are not the passive harems that many depictions of apes seem to tend towards.

In fact, one of my favourite passages in the book describes how a posturing male will pick up a stone or stick to use as a weapon, only to find it being prised out of his hand by a calm female. If he picks up another, she will patiently take it away from him again. Females will defuse conflict in other ways as well, pulling males apart and grooming or embracing them. Even more amusingly, distressed males will seek comfort from them, running off for a quick hug or kiss in the middle of a confrontation.

It is these kinds of observations, delivered in a witty, stimulating style, that make this book so engaging. I would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in de Waal's theories (discussed by Jonny in the post I linked to in the opening paragraph),  to anyone who would just like to learn a bit more about chimps, and even to anyone just looking for a bit of light reading for the holiday.


de Waal, F. 1982. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. London: Unwin Paperbacks.

Rhesus-ons for Considering Primate Morality: Continuous Evolution and Self-awareness

(by Jonny)

What should we make of cases where rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days rather than receive food at the expense of electrocuting a fellow monkey? What do we make of a chimpanzee infant that consistently helps a human in reaching tasks without reward (Warneken and Tomasello, 2006)?
 

                                                                                                                                                                                   
Frans de Waal is famous for asking, “What is the difference about the way we act that makes us, and not any other species, moral beings?” (1996:11). What indeed. In “Primates and Philosophers” (2006), de Waal furthers his case for the continuous evolution of, and homologous relationship between, primate and human morality. After reading this great little title I am keen to begin penning some of my own thoughts on the subject of the origin and possibilities of morality in non-human animals.

“Can we consider other non-human animals ‘moral beings’?”; “Is human altruistic behaviour just a novel form of pre-existing capacities we share with our near relatives or an entirely unique capacity?” My own answers to such questions are inevitably motivated by several key assumptions: that what we regard as human moral behaviour is a natural development; that humans possess at least many of their social behaviours as the result of a continuous evolution from earlier social primates; that language in humans grants unique capacities for conceptualising, reasoning and self-awareness. Where do these assumptions lead me to in this debate?

The work of de Waal centres on the argument that we discover the foundations and aspects of our own morality in non-human primates and other animals. When we look at primates and discover their strategies for conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion, and food-sharing, we discover much of what is important about human moral behaviour. This seemingly moral behaviour can become quite advanced.

Importantly for de Waal, humans are not selfish creatures hiding behind a veneer of fabricated rules for mutual benefit. There was never a time when humans were not cooperative, other concerning social creatures. We are inherently social, “moral beings” whose complex moral lives are nevertheless based on more primitive social capacities. There are no non-human animals capable of weaving the same conceptual richness that forms the fabric of human social interactions. Nevertheless, this richness is in an evolutionary continuum with capacities possessed by ancestors that we share with our near relatives. And for de Waal this actually extends beyond what we share with primates to other parts of Kingdom Animalia. His thoughts are best captured in his own words,

"I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules…” (quoted in Angier, 2001).

The obvious objection is that despite the fact we share certain social capacities with our near relatives, this should not distract from the fact that Homo sapiens retain other unique capacities, and it is these capacities that are required for morality. Sensible suggestions for unique capacities will include language ability, capacity for self-awareness and the ability for some sort of reasoned deliberation, though the extent to which these features are self-supporting will make specific claims about each difficult.

When pointing out these (potentially) unique human capacities we should be careful not construct a straw ape. I don’t believe there are many defending the view that the above abilities are not important to human morality. Even if we don’t have the right to say that it alone grants us the right to be called moral, language nevertheless turns the issue into a whole new ball game. I don’t think anyone is claiming chimpanzees have the same rich moral concepts that language grants us.

What is at stake then, is whether there is some capacity not found in any other animal, which is necessary for what we call morality, despite whatever social behaviours we share with them.

Responding to de Waal, Korsgaard argues that what our relatives seems to lack is some cognitive self-consciousness regarding the causes of one's own actions, Korsgaard attacks the assumption that “the morality of an action is a matter of content of the intention with which it is done” (2006:107) instead suggesting that what makes us moral beings is our “exercise of self-government” (112). This self-government amounts to the ability to be consciously aware of the reasons in which you intend to act, not merely as the objects of that act, but as reasons! To be aware of the object of one’s intended act one must not only be aware of the object as e.g. a desirable thing. Rather one must further be aware that you do desire that object. Humans are aware that they have grounds for acting, not merely of the grounds for which they act. This reason granting ability (112-113) allows humans to not only form beliefs about the intentions based on evidence but to be aware of the evidence and its connection to other states. They can deliberate, reconsider and alter. This autonomy makes us moral. Importantly Korsgaard stresses this in an entirely natural development and on a continuous scale of evolved intentionality. This continuity however, does not stop the fact that what is unique to humans is what makes us moral.

I do not disagree with Korsgaard over humanity’s (probably) unique capacity for self-awareness, and the unique conceptions this grants us. I do not deny that humans are uniquely motivated by deliberating on what we “ought” to do, and this in turn plays an enormous role in our moral lives. What I have some doubts about is the requirement that we find this ability in an animal before we can talk about their moral capacities full stop.

Responding in “Primates and Philosophers” Peter Singer also argues that similarities aside, non-humans animals lack a crucial component for morality. What makes morality morality, what makes one a being capable of moral thinking, is the ability to universalise, the ability to take your considerations and impartially generalise them. Other animals consider and abide by rules concerning their kin and in-group but “It is only when we make these general, impartial judgements that we can really begin to speak of moral approval and disapproval” (Singer, 2006: 144). Singer rightly points out that only we humans have the reasoning capacity to think abstractly in this way.

I worry that both Korsgaard and Singer set the requirements for morality too high, or make the mistake of not allowing morality to be flexible and evolutionarily continuous enough. I think I am naturally sceptical of the value of strict necessary and sufficient conditions for definitions concerning complex cognitive phenomena. I worry further that Korsgaard and Singer are too influenced by formal Western philosophical traditions. Perhaps the whole debate is fixed within a particular cultural paradigm. Do all peoples have the same monolithic conception of “morality”?

Whilst we can see Korsgaard’s requirements for morality stem from the respectable Kantian tradition, as Ober and Macedo point out, it is not so clear that we believe “self-government” is required in what we take as everyday moral acts (2006: xviii). Imagine when I perceive someone inflicting an unnecessary harm on another, I perceive it as bad and consequently interfere; do I need to be aware of my perception of the harm inflicted as a cause? Perhaps we could say “not always”, but what matters is that we are capable of such reflection. But I’m not sure this requirement of higher reflection , important though it is, suddenly boosts us into the hitherto unexplored realm of the moral- “morality” refers to something far to ambiguous and complex for that. As for Singer, though again I see the importance universalizability plays in our formal moral conceptions, I worry that much of what we regard as moral in our lives doesn’t actually fit the bill. I will leave this point to another discussion however, as it requires much greater attention. For now it is worth asking ourselves how much of our “everyday morality” boils down to reciprocity, empathy, conflict aversion and relatively straightforward social rules?

I'm hesitant to use the cliché, but the debate might boil down to “semantics”. Singer seems to define morality as requiring impartial universalizability. At the same time de Waal says, “Moral systems are inherently biased towards the in-group” implying that morality, by definition, need not be impartial. If we can’t reasonably agree on what morality consists of to begin with, it is going to be hard to say when and where we find it. As Ober and Macedo say, it will become a case of comparing apples and oranges (xix).

Darwin believed “the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind”, but added that it was humanity’s unique “intelligence” that produced conscience, “the supreme judge and monitor” (1871, online). Though our social faculties are essentially no different in kind, our unique cognitive capacities produce a novel development.

Perhaps then it is pragmatic to distinguish between the “proto-moral” capacities we find in other species, and the “human-moral” capacities distinguished by something like what Korsgaard or Singer point out; as long as this does not detract from the fact that one has its origins, at least in part, in the capacity for the other. Elsewhere de Waal says, “Non-human primates may not be exactly moral beings, but they do show...key components or 'prerequisites' of morality recognizable in social animals...reciprocity, empathy, sympathy, and community concern” (2000:3).

And that's probably enough for one post! There's clearly a lot more to be said on the issues raised here, and I hope to return to develop my thoughts on them within the near future.


Angier, N (2001). "Confessions of a Lonely Atheist". The New York Times Magazine. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010114mag-atheism.html. Retrieved 11th March 2011

Flack, J.C,. de Waal, F (2000) “ ‘Any animal whatever'. Darwinian building blocks of morality in monkeys and apes”. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7, 1-2 pp. 1-29(29)

Korsgaard, C.M (2006) Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action in “Primates and Philosophers” Eds. Stephen Macedo, and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press: Princeton

Singer, P (2006) Morality, Reason and the Rights of Animals in “Primates and Philosophers” Eds. Stephen Macedo, and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press: Princeton

de Waal, F (1996) Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA

de Waal, F(2006) Morality Evolved: primate Social Instincts, Human morality, and the Rise and Fall of “Veneer Theory” in “Primates and Philosophers” Eds. Stephen Macedo, and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press: Princeton

Warneken, F. (2006). Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees Science, 311 (5765), 1301-1303 DOI: 10.1126/science.1121448