Morality

Evolutionary approaches to human morality have undergone something of a renaissance in recent years. Instead of emphasizing only altruism and cooperation, recent theories have broadened in scope. In addition to reviewing this expansion, this chapter also shifts the focus from moral behavior to moral judgment. We look at the psychological details about how moral judgment works and what these details suggest about the underlying evolved functions. In particular, human moral judgments exist across cultures, though they vary in what behaviors are condemned, and give rise to the intuition that those who violate moral rules ought to be punished. In addition, moral judgments tend to be at least somewhat impartial and, perhaps most tellingly, nonconsequentialist, taking into account not only the intended consequences of behavior but also the specific actions performed. One possible explanation for these features is that moral judgments serve to coordinate bystanders to conflicts, allowing them to side against the same individual when conflicts arise. While much work remains to be done, recent proposals suggest that moral judgment might be more strategic and Machiavellian than evolutionary researchers previously supposed.