Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong [Hardcover]

The most dangerous question Charles Darwin implied [but didn't ask] was what Nature imposed on humans. It was bad enough for Victorians to be confronted with the idea of an ape-like ancestor. If this was so, what did it say about our sense of values? Whatever else Darwin challenged about our fixed notions of who we are, that one remains in central place. There have been several attempts recently to address the question. Marc Hauser's is not only the most recent, but perhaps the most thorough, of these efforts. In this gracefully written account, he takes us through his reasoning and the evidence supporting it.

Following his earlier "Wild Minds" on other animals, Hauser turns to what makes up human values and how they're achieved. To anyone understanding the process of natural selection, the idea of "morals" as the product of evolution should be a given. Unsatisfied with assumptions, Hauser collects a wealth of information in support of how we derive our values. He sets the data against some "standard" views of what is right and proper behaviour. Drawing on well-known thinkers, he synopsises their views into fabricated entities: the Kantian, Humean, and Rawlsian "creatures". Each represents a different approach in determining what is "fair" and just in the works of Immanuel Kant, David Hume and John Rawls [Hauser provides little cartoon figures as visual aids to help remember these. The publisher had the wit to keep these minimally sized.]. As might be expected, none of these stances are absolutes, and Hauser often confronts us with amalgamations of the positions. What's important isn't the melding itself, but why it has taken place. As humans, we can avoid absolutes and do so on a daily basis. There is, however, a mechanism that was built up over the millennia of our evolutionary track, providing the common foundation for these decisions and our ability to rationalise them.

"Morality", he argues derives from what humans consider "fair" in our interactions with each other. Making the judgement of what is "fair" is an example of how humans break rigid biological bonds which is, in large part, what distinguishes us from others in the animal kingdom. There are fundamentally common aspects to our sense of what is "moral", but there are also variants, generally culturally based. The commonalities we observe are related, in Hauser's view, to Noam Chomsky's "language module". Dubbing it a "moral organ", he's careful not to assign it specific location or even clear function, but it must be an aspect of how our brains consider the world and our place in it.

The pivotal element in his analysis is "The Trolley Test". This classic example pits the lives of five people against one. How are the five to be saved? Are you responsible for the one if you divert the trolley that takes her life? What optional versions provide further insights into what we consider valuable in our interpersonal relations? And, for this study, what is the underlying basis for developing the idea of "morals" at all? Hauser turns to studies of children at various ages, from close to birth through adolescence for explanations. Children perceive much more than we credit them for, due mostly to their lacking skills to communicate. It's clear that while children may often be selfish monsters, they also exhibit early a sense of empathy that extends beyond or by-passes parental input. Actions, here, definitely speak louder than words. They also show that any sense of "morals" cannot be a rigid structure. There must be flexibility and adaptability.

Hauser's proposal can only stir further discussion and investigation. That, indeed, is his stated purpose. While we are unable to reach back into our evolutionary past to record how the proposed "moral organ" developed and how much it determines our behaviour and judgements. Many aspects of our society will be influenced by this book. It should give parents some pause when they find their dictates and a child's response clashing. Lawmakers and judges should consider this book required reading, since it necessarily means abandonment of some fundamental assumptions in the legal system. Hauser's examples even reach into the realm of international affairs and diplomacy. What else could be the result of looking at the question of "morals" in a global framework? It's a compelling study, requiring close reading with an open mind. How many of us are equipped for the task? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Marc D. Hauser sums up a wealth of findings on our moral status quo collected by evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology and developmental psychology and he does this in a very readable manner. Then and now he also throws a sidelong glance on culturally determined varieties of morals. Altruistic impulses and behavior can be proved to have a far-reaching cross-cultural statistical homogeneity. On request we come up with moral judgments and decisions spontaneously following intuitions. Rational deliberation and justification limps behind - as far as individuals are able to provide it at all. Thus we are allowed to assume a universal moral grammar in analogy to linguistic universal grammar. From the fact that we are natural moral beings Hauser concludes that the "marriage between morality and religion is not only forced but unnecessary, crying out for a divorce." (p. XX) On the other hand he presents experiments which demonstrate that moral reactions and norms originating in bygone sociocultural conditions (as those of a nomadic or livestock herders society) keep influencing behaviour for generations after fundamental change in society has occurred. A warning for all euphorics of enlightenment and rapid political progress. But on the whole the book tilts a little bit to much to the optimistic side as far as moral naturalism is concerned. Hausers point of view is somewhat concentrated on the lab perspective. He describes the well-known harrowing Milgram experiments on authority. But he doesn't really take into account that aggression and violence can grasp whole societies under unfavourable conditions. A critical stadium of such a development passed there remains no adequate reward for peaceful behaviour and altruism. And all this is also part and consequence of our nature, our "moral minds". Hauser hardly touches the psychology of historic moral catastrophes. A comparable good book on the sociocultural status quo of our morals widely considering history would still have to be written by somebody who is able to take into account evolutionary psychology as well. This would provide a still broader and more realistic overview of our human "Is of the Ought". And beyond begins the task of philosophy (which no doubt religion is unable to complete): To which extent can empirically tested dispositions of our universal grammar be justified? How do we justify our choice among the various offers and claims of "ought"?

One of the central claims of nearly all religions is that one cannot be moral without the aid of the religions and some even claim that religions are even the sole source of morality in societies. Evolutionary biologist Marc D. Hauser tackles head on these assumptions in his fine book called "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right & Wrong".

Moral Minds - Marc D. Hauser

He basically answers in this book the puzzling question of if religions haven invented morality, why all societies all over the world do have so very similar basic rules on morality even if they have not been are connected.
He shows in 538 pages how dozens of recent field studies and laboratory studies and experiments all lead to a very similar conclusions. They seem to imply that we have some very basic genetically coded basic rules of morality that are observable already in very little children and are discernible in all different cultures all over the world.

Marc D. Hauser is saying that even if the practical deeds and things that are thought as moral and immoral vary greatly because of different state of cultural evolution in different cultures, there is an deep underlying moral machinery that classifies certain larger classes of actions as moral or immoral.
He calls it "the moral acquisition device" and points out that this system forms a building block on which the actual moral system of every society is in the end built.

His ideas have been to great deal influenced by the findings on Noam Chomsky on the basic common linguistic faculties of humans. Noam Chomsky has shown that there are some very basic ground rules that all languages use as building blocks that are genetically inherent in all human beings.
Even though the languages built on these basic rules differ wildly, they share some common characteristics that are universal for the whole of human kind.
In the same vein Marc D. Hauser does show that all humans share some very basic moral instincts that are the same in every culture, even the practical things that are deemed moral or immoral do vary from culture to culture and in the same culture in different times.

He shows that these moral instincts have a base in our evolutionary history, as most of the same faculties can be found also on in more advanced species in the animal kingdom. Humans have just developed these things further than any other species.
Marc D. Hauser teaches at the moment at the Psychology Department at Harvard University and this book is scientific work and as such not an easy read when he delves into the depths of the scientific data and evidence.

His style is however always fluent and one could undoubtedly could have built a much duller book of the same material. I can heartily recommend this book to anyone who is interested in why we humans are as we are.
His previous popular book called "Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think" analyzed the thought processes of animals.

I must end in a quotation that in my mind gathers together many of the basic issues in the book. This is from the Epilogue at page 456:

"Our biology and the biology of all species on earth sets up on range of possible behaviors. The range we observe is only a limited sampling of all possible behaviors. This is because our biology interacts with the environment, and environments change. But from the fact that environments change we are not licensed to assume that cultures will evolve in parallel, entirely unconstrained. If there is a universal moral grammar, the principles are fixed, but the potential range of moral systems is not."