pdescioli | Evolutionary theories of morality, beginning with Darwin, have focused on explanations for altruism. More generally, these accounts have concentrated on conscience (self-regulatory mechanisms) to the neglect of condemnation (mechanisms for punishing others). 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. Weargue 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
2 comments:
You mean all that evolutionary psychology was just quack science? It makes sense. I remember how the new kid always got attention from the opposite sex. Or you notice how the ladies act when you're in a different city?
Of course there are folks who would very much like to pretend otherwise, http://www.ehbonline.org/ but if "falsifiable" is one of the non-negotiable tenets of anything we'd care to call scientific - then yeah - it's on a slightly less rigorous footing than evolutionary biology. As far as this article goes, it's so full of ham-fisted gibberish as to be flatly embarrassing.
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