Human nature is enigmatic. Are we cruel, selfish creatures or good merciful Samaritans? This book takes you on a journey into the complexities of human mind and kind, from altruism, sharing, and large-scale cooperation, to cheating, distrust, and warfare. What are the building blocks of morality and sociality? Featuring contributions from leading researchers, such as Christophe Boesch, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Azar Gat, Dennis Krebs, Ara Norenzayan, and Frans B. M. de Waal, this fascinating interdisciplinary reader draws (...) on evolutionary and comparative perspectives, and is essential reading for any students interested in the unique characteristics that define humanity and society. (shrink)

The behaviours Flack and de Waal describe as origins of human morality lack the most essential features of the human ethical competence; namely, application of the concepts good and bad to events, the capacities for guilt and empathy for another's state, and the ability to suppress actions that would compromise the self's virtue. These serious differences between apes and humans challenge the suggestion that primate behaviour lies on a continuum with human morality.

Consciousness-based approaches to non-human moral status maintain that consciousness is necessary for (some degree or level of) moral status. While these approaches are intuitive to many, in this paper I argue that the judgment that consciousness is necessary for moral status is not secure enough to guide policy regarding non-humans, that policies responsive to the moral status of non-humans should take seriously the possibility that psychological features independent of consciousness are sufficient for moral status. Further, I illustrate some practical (...) consequences of calling consciousness-based views into question. (shrink)

Recent developments, both in the cognitive sciences and in world events, bring special emphasis to the study of morality. The cognitive sciences, spanning neurology, psychology, and computational intelligence, offer substantial ad- vances in understanding the origins and purposes of morality. Meanwhile, world events urge the timely synthesis of these insights with traditional ac- counts that can be easily assimilated and practically employed to augment moral judgment, both to solve current problems and to direct future action. The object of the following (...) paper is to present such a synthesis in the form of a model of moral cognition, the ACTWith model of conscience. The purpose of the model is twofold. One, the ACTWith model is intended to shed light on personal moral dispositions, and to provide a tool for actual human moral agents in the refinement of their moral lives. As such, it relies on the power of personal introspection, bolstered by the careful study of moral exemplars available to all persons in all cultures in the form of literary or religious fig- ures, if not in the form of contemporary peers and especially leadership. Two, the ACTWith model is intended as a minimum architecture for fully func- tional artificial morality. As such, it is essentially amodal, implementation non-specific and is developed in the form of an information processing control system. There are given as few hard points in this system as necessary for moral function, and these are themselves taken from review of actual human cognitive processes, thereby intentionally capturing as closely as possible what is expected of moral action and reaction by human beings. Only in satisfying these untutored intuitions should an artificial agent ever be properly regarded as moral, at least in the general population of existing moral agents. Thus, the ACTWith model is intended as a guide both for individual moral develop- ment and for the development of artificial moral agents as future technology permits. (shrink)

Some people believe that the demands of morality coincide with the requirements of an enlightened self-interest. Others believe that morality is diametrically opposed to considerations of self-interest. This book argues that there is another position, intermediate between these extremes, which makes better sense of the totality of our moral thought and practice. Scheffler elaborates this position via an examination of morality's content, scope, authority, and deliberative role. Although conflicts between morality and self-interest do arise, according to this position, nevertheless morality (...) is fundamentally a reasonable and humane phenomenon. Moreover, the psychological bases of effective moral motivation have sources deep within the self, and morally motivated individuals try to shape their own interests so as to avoid conflict with morality. Since human practices and institutions help to determine the prevalence of these motives, and since in this and other ways they influence the degree to which conflicts between morality and self-interest actually occur, the extent of such conflict is not fixed or immutable, and is in part a social and political issue. (shrink)

A central theme of Samuel Scheffler’s impressive Human Morality is that “a considered view of the relation between morality and the individual” requires distinguishing frequently confused issues concerning morality’s content, scope, authority, and deliberative role, and appreciating interrelations among these. He suggests a nice example of the latter. Some are inclined to believe morality lacks the overriding authority others claim it to have because they assume that morality’s content is stringent. They may think, for instance, that morality gives no (...) weight to the agent’s interests and concerns but argue that, since it would be irrational so to weight one’s concerns and interests in rational deliberation, moral requirements lack overriding reason-giving force. But this assumes without defense a conception of morality that is controversial. If morality is not stringent but moderate, agents’ interests and concerns will be relevant as such to determining their moral obligations, and it will be less clear that the best reasons can ever dictate violating them. (shrink)

Boehm reasons that human morality began when several heads of households formed a coalition to limit the despotic bullying of an alpha male. The logic is clear and the argument is persuasive. The premises require that: dominant individuals behave like chimpanzees, bullying their subordinates, early humans somehow developed one-male units from a chimpanzee like society and, the power of a despot is limited by group consensus and political activities. Not all alpha males behave like chimpanzees; most primate societies show (...) little evidence of bullying. One-male units are formed by some monkeys but there is little evidence of such tendencies in chimpanzees and bonobos. Hamadryas males do not compete with familiar males for females or possessions regardless of their dominance relationships, but this inhibition is not based on group consensus or coalitions repressing alpha males. Boehm's argument is, nonetheless, possible and plausible but cannot be empirically tested. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by David Hume. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Debates about the implications of empirical research in the natural and social sciences for normative disciplines have recently gained new attention. With the widening scope of neuroscientific investigations into human mental activity, decision-making and agency, neuroethicists and neuroscientists have extensively claimed that results from neuroscientific research should be taken as normatively or even prescriptively relevant. In this chapter, I investigate what these claims could possibly amount to. I distinguish and discuss three readings of the thesis that neuroscientific evidence has (...) normative implications: an action-theoretic, an epistemological, and a metaphysical reading. I conclude that the action-theoretic reading has the most direct normative consequences, even though it is limited to the questions of whether some pre-established moral norms can be realized by individual agents. In contrast, in applying the other two readings, neuroscience can only be said to have normative implications in a very indirect way and only under the condition of making contested metaethical assumptions. All in all, the room for inferring concrete. (shrink)

Organizations are making massive investments in artificial intelligence, and recent demonstrations and achievements highlight the immense potential for AI to improve organizational and human welfare. Yet realizing the potential of AI necessitates a better understanding of the various ethical issues involved with deciding to use AI, training and maintaining it, and allowing it to make decisions that have moral consequences. People want organizations using AI and the AI systems themselves to behave ethically, but ethical behavior means different things to (...) different people, and many ethical dilemmas require trade-offs such that no course of action is universally considered ethical. How should organizations using AI—and the AI itself—process ethical dilemmas where humans disagree on the morally right course of action? Though a variety of ethical AI frameworks have been suggested, these approaches do not adequately address how people make ethical evaluations of AI systems or how to incorporate the fundamental disagreements people have regarding what is and is not ethical behavior. Drawing on moral foundations theory, we theorize that a person will perceive an organization’s use of AI, its data procedures, and the resulting AI decisions as ethical to the extent that those decisions resonate with the person’s moral foundations. Since people hold diverse moral foundations, this highlights the crucial need to consider individual moral differences at multiple levels of AI. We discuss several unresolved issues and suggest potential approaches for thinking about conflicts in moral judgments concerning AI. (shrink)

The determination of individual moral status is a central factor in the ethical evaluation of controversial practices such as elective abortion, human embryo-destructive research, and the care of the severely disabled and those in persistent vegetative states. A review of recent work on Kant reveals the need for a careful examination of the content of Kant ’s biological and psychological theories and their relation to his views about moral status. Such an examination, in conjunction with Kant ’s practical-metaphysical analysis (...) of the origins of freedom, reveals Kant ’s principled basis for his contention that all human beings possess moral status. (shrink)

In 55 B.C. Pompey staged a combat between humans and elephants; the elephants were slaughtered en masse. Moved by their piteous trumpetings, the audience protested—feeling, says Cicero, that there was a certain community, between elephants and themselves. As Sorabji notes, this recognition of belonging is inconsistent with the Stoic thesis that our moral affiliations embrace only the human kind. Cicero as letter-writer allows himself a qualm that his philosophical stance refuses.

도덕적 향상은 인간의 영원한 과제이다. 그런 만큼 최근에 과학적 방법에 의해 도덕적 향상의 방안이 모색되고 있는 것은 매우 고무적이다. 인간의 도덕성을 과학적으로 향상하려는 방안에는 생의학과 인공지능에 의한 두 가지 방법이 있다. 이 중에서 생의학에 의한 ‘도덕적 생명 향상’ 방안이 먼저 시도되었지만, 생의학에 의한 생명 향상은 인간의 심성에 인위적, 강제적으로 개입한다는 한계가 있다. 인위적 개입이 아무리 선한 의도에서 출발했더라도, 강제는 절차상으로 개인의 자율성과 정체성 확립을 위협하는 심각한 부작용을 초래한다. 이에 ‘인공지능’이 새로운 대안으로 부상했다. 이것이 ‘도덕적 인공지능 향상’이다.BR 방법적으로 생의학이 인간의 심성에 (...) 작용하는 것과 달리, 인공지능은 인간의 지적 판단(력)에 작용한다. 먼저 우리는 인공지능에 의한 도덕적 제어가 어떻게 가능한지 살펴볼 것이다(2장). 여기에도 분명 한계와 단점은 있다. 그러나 우리는 이러한 한계와 단점을 극복하고 인공지능이 우리의 도덕적 향상을 위해 기여할 수 있는 방안을 적극 모색할 것이다(3장). 그리고 인간의 영원한 과제인 도덕적 향상을 위해서는 인공지능 알고리즘의 (맞춤형) 설계가 필요해 보인다(4장). 이것은 어떤 의미에서 ‘새로운 종합’이다. 이 종합에서 해악의 창발적 생성에 능동적으로 대처할 수만 있다면, 이로써 새로운 도덕성 형성의 토대를 마련할 수 있는 길도 열릴 것으로 우리는 기대한다. (shrink)

The author's objective is to defend what he regards as a moderate or middle position on the relationship between the moral point of view and the point of view of the individual. Unlike those who hold that the two must always collide and those who hold that they must ultimately coincide, the author holds that there is a potential for congruence between them. His pursuit of this issue leads to a review of "morality's content, authority, scope, and deliberative role". The (...) rather complex argumentative structure of the work reflects in part the rich combinatorial possibilities of these factors, taken separately and together. (shrink)

Morals from Motives develops a virtue ethics inspired more by Hume and Hutcheson's moral sentimentalism than by recently-influential Aristotelianism. It argues that a reconfigured and expanded "morality of caring" can offer a general account of right and wrong action as well as social justice. Expanding the frontiers of ethics, it goes on to show how a motive-based "pure" virtue theory can also help us to understand the nature of human well-being and practical reason.

Empirical studies involve WEIRD (Western, European, industrialized, rich, democratic) but also un-nested (raised outside humanity's evolved nest) and underdeveloped participants. Assessing human moral potential needs to integrate a transdisciplinary approach to understanding species typicality and baselines, relevant evolutionary inheritances beyond genes, assessment of cultures and practices that foster (or not) virtue, and ecological morality. Human moral reason (nous) emerges from all of these.

Christians frequently resist evolutionary theory, believing it to be incompatible with the core values of their tradition. But what exactly are the tensions between evolution and religious faith in the area of human morality? Evolution and Ethics examines the burning questions of human morality from the standpoint of Christian thought and contemporary biology, asking where the two perspectives diverge and where they may complement one another. -/- Representing a significant dialogue between world-class scientists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume (...) explores the central features of biological and religious accounts of human morality, introducing the leading theories and locating the key points of contention. Central to these discussions are the questions of whether human actions are ever genuinely selfless, whether there is something in the moral life that transcends biological function, and whether one can sensibly speak of an overall purpose to the course of evolution. (shrink)

When philosophers consider what moral status human beings have, they tend to find themselves either supporting the idea that not all human beings are rightholders or adopting what Peter Singer calls a 'speciesist' position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species—in this case, human beings—over others without sufficient justification. In this paper, I develop what I call the 'genetic basis for moral agency' account of rightholding, and I propose that this account can allow all (...) human beings to be rightholders without being speciesist. While my aim is to set out this account clearly rather than to defend it, I explain how this account is different from a potentiality account and I argue that it is preferable to an actual moral agency account of human moral status. (shrink)

This original and compelling book argues that previous studies of John Stuart Mill's work have neglected his egalitarianism and thus seriously misunderstood his views. Morales demonstrates that Mill was fundamentally concerned with how the exercise of unjust or arbitrary power by some individuals over others sabotages the possibility of human well-being and social improvement. Mill therefore believed that 'perfect equality'--more than liberty--was the foundation of democracy and that democracy was a moral ideal for the organization of human life (...) in all of its dimensions. By reinterpreting Mill, Morales also challenges twentieth-century views of liberalism, and addresses its contemporary communitarian and feminist critics. (shrink)

Hanson claims that moral responsibility should be distributed among both the humans and artifacts comprising complex wholes that produce morally relevant outcomes in the world. I argue that this claim is not sufficiently supported. In particular, adopting a consequentialist understanding of morality does not by itself support the view that the existence of a causally necessary object in such a complex whole is sufficient for assigning moral responsibility to that object. Moreover, there are good reasons, both evolutionary and contemporary, for (...) not adopting this stance. (shrink)

This article provides an elaborate defense of the thesis that we have no reason to think that sin has any direct effects upon our moral cognition. After a few methodological comments and conceptual distinctions, the author treats certain biblical passages on humans' evil hearts, the function of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3, Paul's comments on the moral situation of the Gentiles in Romans 2, and Paul's ideas on the Gentiles' futility of (...) mind as found in Ephesians 4. The most that can be concluded from these passages is that sin has not damaged human moral cognitive faculties to such an extent that they function insufficiently to hold people morally responsible. The author also argues that it is a consequence of sin that humans have knowledge by acquaintance of sin, and that it is only by divine revelation that humans recognize certain morally reprehensible acts, beliefs, and emotions as sinful. Finally, it is briefly argued that we have good reason to think that sin has certain indirect effects upon our moral cognition. (shrink)

Darwin thought that the moral sense was among the most challenging aspects of human life to account for through evolutionary explanations. This article seeks to probe the question about human uniqueness primarily from a theological perspective by focusing in depth on one distinctive moral sentiment, gratitude, particularly in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. It uses that example as a case study about how to consider the validity of arguments for human uniqueness within the broader compass of the (...) cultural evolution of sociality and morality within the human sciences, including evolutionary anthropology. Further questions about the evolution of religion surface in this discussion since gratitude, from a theological perspective, necessarily includes gratitude to God as a fundamental aspect of religious faith and practice. (shrink)

Many would intuitively agree with the claim that human morality is complex. I will formalise this claim, give three strong reasons for believing in it, address objections and tentatively list consequences of the unusual complexity of human morality. I will argue that a proper account of human moral traits will have an unusually large degree of complexity. I will present as support for this claim the intricate causal history of moral traits, their propensity to paradoxical effects and (...) various epistemic difficulties. The complexity of human morality has bleak consequences for hopes of manipulating our moral traits using biomedical interventions, be it in the treatment of diseases or in the prospect of fixing our moral failings. (shrink)

Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate the success of one's own cognitive processes in various domains; for example, memory and perception. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a domain-general resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are domain specific. Here, we investigated this issue directly by examining the neural substrates engaged when metacognitive judgments were made by human participants of both sexes during perceptual and memory tasks matched for stimulus and performance characteristics. By comparing (...) patterns of fMRI activity while subjects evaluated their performance, we revealed both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive representations. Multivoxel activity patterns in anterior prefrontal cortex predicted levels of confidence in a domain-specific fashion, whereas domain-general signals predicting confidence and accuracy were found in a widespread network in the frontal and posterior midline. The demonstration of domain-specific metacognitive representations suggests the presence of a content-rich mechanism available to introspection and cognitive control. (shrink)

Topics discussed in this work are abortion, euthanasia, medical negligence and human experimentation.

This 1991 book is about the continuing influence of Hume's ideas on moral and political philosophy. In part, it is a critical exegesis of Hume's most impressive and challenging doctrines in Book III of the Treatise of Human Nature on such topics as morals, motivation, justice, and social institutions. However, the main thrust of the argument is to throw into relief the importance of that discussion for contemporary philosophy. While the author subjects most contemporary defences of Humean doctrines (...) to intense criticism, he also seeks to discover what versions of Hume's theories might still be defensible and viable. (shrink)

Kant and Confucius maintain that the art of becoming human is synonymous with the unending process of becoming moral. According to Kant, I must imagine a world in which the universality of my maxims were possible, while realizing that if such a world existed, then morality would disappear. Morality is an impossible possibility because it always meets resistance in our encounter with nature. According to Confucius, human beings become moral by integrating themselves into the already meaningful natural order (...) that is tian 天. Like Kant, he upholds the dignity of human beings. For Kant this dignity rests on the autonomy of each human being’s reason, while for Confucius it is dependent upon our interconnection with each other, demanding ongoing self-extension. Despite these differences, the two thinkers would concur that our efforts at humanization are unceasing and that we may never fully live up to our human potential. (shrink)

The prospect of replication of human beings through genetic manipulation has engendered one of the most controversial debates about reproduction in our society. Ideology is clearly influencing the direction of research and legislation on human cloning, which may present one of the greatest existential challenges to the meaning of creation. In this article, I argue that, in view of the possibility that human cloning and other emerging technologies could enhance physical and cognitive abilities, there is a need (...) for a different way of thinking about life, new technologies and creation. New scientific discoveries require a shift in the way psychology takes responsibility to help individuals and society. Today, psychology needs to follow the progress that humans are taking toward a transhuman stage of development as a transition to a later posthuman stage. (shrink)

This paper aims at understanding Sustainable Development Goals as normative ends to be achieved by normative means in the context of global ethics. It distinguishes the descriptive and the normative senses of sustainability and development and puts forward a case for exploring the role of human moral obligations as the normative means to attain the goals of sustainable development. It argues that it is only when basic human moral obligations and role-related obligations are fulfilled that human well-being (...) and that of the non-human elements of the eco-system can be achieved. Furthermore, it also explains how such a concept can be inclusive, diverse and integrative. (shrink)

The neurobiology and development of human morality in light of evolution -- More than genes : human inheritances and the moral sense -- The dynamic self : emotions and development -- Moral heritage 1 : engagement of the heart -- Moral heritage 2 : communal imagination -- Undercare and the stress response : early life gone wrong -- The morality that stress promotes : self protective ethics -- Shifting moral mindsets -- Culture and imagination: cooperation or competition? -- (...) Paths to moral wisdom -- Common-self wisdom: fostering a good life for self and others -- The road to human excellence and flourishing. (shrink)

Boehm's model conceptualizes a common ancestor to humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos at several million years B.P., followed by a model of prehistoric foragers at 25,000-50,000 B.P. based on ethnographic data from twentieth-century hunters and gatherers. By putting processes of complex communication into the picture, we can refine Boehm's model considerably by filling in significant scenarios for humans beginning at perhaps 2 million years ago. These include a suite of features that include constraints on sexual behaviour, a rudimentary division of labour, (...) the gendering of morality, socialized control over junior males, increased group size, increased home range size, the reduction of bullying behaviour, and a reverse dominance hierarchy that promotes egalitarianism among fully adult males. Boehm's model emphasizes the last two of these, but it is consistent with the others as well. Cultural or proto-cultural elaboration of beliefs and associated practices is the symbolic dimension of morality and is an important component of human evolution. Boehm's model is extremely important for outlining socio-political mechanisms and concomitants in the formation of adult male egalitarian groups, and, in the process, identifying a key element in the evolution of human morality. (shrink)

Morals and the Evolution of Man, a classical book, has been considered essential throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.