Dennis L. Krebs
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199778232
- eISBN:
- 9780199897261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778232.003.0031
- Subject:
- Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter presents an account of how the primitive moral sense possessed by early humans and other primates evolved into the complex sense of morality possessed by modern humans. Mental ...
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This chapter presents an account of how the primitive moral sense possessed by early humans and other primates evolved into the complex sense of morality possessed by modern humans. Mental mechanisms that endow people with a sense of morality evolved in ancestral environments as tools in strategic social interactions. Although people use these tools to advance their adaptive interests, the self-serving biases inherent in them are constrained in a variety of ways, including the reactions of others. Perspective-taking, which originally evolved to enable people to advance their interests in strategic social interactions by anticipating how others would respond to their behaviors, mediated the expansion and refinement of the human conscience. Research that has mapped the brain regions that are activated by moral problems has demonstrated that people may derive moral judgments from “old brain” and from “new brain” structures, and that these structures may interact in a variety of ways.Less
This chapter presents an account of how the primitive moral sense possessed by early humans and other primates evolved into the complex sense of morality possessed by modern humans. Mental mechanisms that endow people with a sense of morality evolved in ancestral environments as tools in strategic social interactions. Although people use these tools to advance their adaptive interests, the self-serving biases inherent in them are constrained in a variety of ways, including the reactions of others. Perspective-taking, which originally evolved to enable people to advance their interests in strategic social interactions by anticipating how others would respond to their behaviors, mediated the expansion and refinement of the human conscience. Research that has mapped the brain regions that are activated by moral problems has demonstrated that people may derive moral judgments from “old brain” and from “new brain” structures, and that these structures may interact in a variety of ways.
Dennis L. Krebs
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- April 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780197629482
- eISBN:
- 9780197629512
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197629482.003.0010
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter explains how evolutionary theory supplies a basis for expanding and refining psychological approaches to morality such as those espoused by social learning theorists, ...
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This chapter explains how evolutionary theory supplies a basis for expanding and refining psychological approaches to morality such as those espoused by social learning theorists, cognitive-developmental theorists, and dual-process theorists. Evolutionary theory offers an explanation for how the mental mechanisms featured in these theories, such as those that mediate social learning and rational and emotional forms of moral decision-making, originated and why they are designed in particular ways. Viewing the psychological mechanisms that give rise to moral judgments and moral behaviors as adaptations that helped early humans propagate their genes casts them in a light that helps explain why humans acquired them and why they change as children develop.Less
This chapter explains how evolutionary theory supplies a basis for expanding and refining psychological approaches to morality such as those espoused by social learning theorists, cognitive-developmental theorists, and dual-process theorists. Evolutionary theory offers an explanation for how the mental mechanisms featured in these theories, such as those that mediate social learning and rational and emotional forms of moral decision-making, originated and why they are designed in particular ways. Viewing the psychological mechanisms that give rise to moral judgments and moral behaviors as adaptations that helped early humans propagate their genes casts them in a light that helps explain why humans acquired them and why they change as children develop.
