So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another.
– Jamie Lannister, Game of Thrones. (Benioff & Weiss Reference Benioff, Weiss, Benioff and Weiss's2012). Tomasello provides a detailed account suggesting that the sense of obligation is a central human motivation. According to this account, the sense of obligation arises out of the need to cooperate in order to survive and thrive in the social world. We agree that obligations are indeed an important part of being human. However, we highlight the notion that mutualistic cooperation is just one of many potential triggers of social obligations – people have obligations to myriad individuals, groups, and moral principles even in situations where they do not directly or profitably cooperate with those individuals. A key question left unanswered by Tomasello's account, we argue, is how people navigate such obligations when they conflict.
Our social world often confronts us with obligations that contradict one another. One prominent case is allegiances to different groups. Tomasello theorizes that obligation is based on a “we” experience with one's group. However, most individuals form “we” relationships with several different groups and subgroups: people are parents, siblings, friends, bosses, subordinates, citizens, and members of the human race (Turner et al. Reference Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher and Wetherell1987). The obligations to all these groups often clash. For example, a man called to war may be torn between his duty to serve his country, and his direct responsibility for taking care of his family. People further feel a sense of obligation to their moral principles that can also conflict. People believe that it is important to avoid harm, but also that it is important to prevent others from dying – but what should one do when harming someone can lead to saving more lives (Greene Reference Greene2008)? Be a loyal friend, and also treat everyone equally and fairly – but what if helping your friends means showing favoritism (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Barakzai and Keysarin press; Waytz et al. Reference Waytz, Dungan and Young2013)? Be honest, and be kind – but what do you do when a friend who just got a terrible haircut asks: “Does my hair look good?” (Levine & Schweitzer Reference Levine and Schweitzer2014). Research on adults suggests that people are able to balance these competing obligations in complex ways.
There is now a growing body of research demonstrating that such conflicts of obligations emerge early on in human development. This research suggests that the ability to resolve these conflicts may be an important part of children's early normative understanding. By the age of 6, children feel tensions between reciprocity and fairness; feeling conflicts about whether they should like someone who gave them more than others or someone who was fair and gave everyone the same (Shaw et al. Reference Shaw, DeScioli and Olson2012). Relatedly, children understand both the obligation of efficiency (i.e., maximizing social welfare), and the obligation to be fair and maintain equity, and attempt to strike a balance between them (Choshen-Hillel et al., Reference Choshen-Hillel, Lin and Shawin press). Children are also able to navigate multiple concerns about avoiding harm and saving others when introduced with Trolley-like dilemmas (Levine et al. Reference Levine, Mikhail and Leslie2018). Further, children can balance concerns with honesty and benevolence, judging lies that are meant to benefit others as less immoral than selfish lies (Fu et al. Reference Fu, Heyman, Chen, Liu and Lee2015). Indeed, in some circumstances the cold truth might be seen as less kind and desirable than a polite lie. Taken together, these results reveal that navigating conflicting moral and social obligations is an important and basic part of existing and thriving in the social world.
Research reveals that there are many factors that determine which obligations people choose to follow. For example, one's goals will influence what obligations seem important: Fairness might be more important for being identified as a good leader whereas being loyal might be more important for being identified as a good friend (Everett et al. Reference Everett, Faber, Savulescu and Crockett2018). The social domain in question will also shape the obligations that seem important (Fiske Reference Fiske1992). When it comes to obligations toward notions of equality and merit, people may think that one should give rewards based on merit in domains such as pay for work, but prefer equality in domains such as voting – one vote per person. Cultures will also dramatically vary in the extent to which they emphasize moral values like honesty, fairness, kindness, and loyalty, leading to different balances (e.g., Fiske Reference Fiske1992; Miller & Bersoff Reference Miller and Bersoff1992). Indeed, factors such as culture or socioeconomic status may also influence children's decisions (Choshen-Hillel et al., Reference Choshen-Hillel, Lin and Shawin press; Rochat et al. Reference Rochat, Dias, Liping, Broesch, Passos-Ferreira, Winning and Berg2009). Finally, what might make matters even more complicated is that people's intuitions about conflicting obligations may change throughout the course of their development, with older children believing it is good to overcome moral conflict and younger children believing it is better not even to have moral conflict in the first place (Starmans & Bloom Reference Starmans and Bloom2016). Future work should explore how cultural inputs shape both the kinds of obligations that children have and how they balance conflicting obligations as well as how these obligations may shift throughout the course of development.
In summary, we concur that obligations are important, but this is just a starting point for understanding the rich tapestry of interlacing obligations that human beings must traverse. Thus, we applaud Tomasello for bringing these obligations to the forefront and for outlining the importance of mutualistic cooperation in triggering social obligations. However, we think it is also time to acknowledge the wide swath of obligations that all people must face and the difficulties caused by having to navigate between obligations that are as contradictory as they are compelling. We thus propose that a wider framework is needed to account for how children and adults balance their different alliances and social obligations.
So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another.
– Jamie Lannister, Game of Thrones. (Benioff & Weiss Reference Benioff, Weiss, Benioff and Weiss's2012).Tomasello provides a detailed account suggesting that the sense of obligation is a central human motivation. According to this account, the sense of obligation arises out of the need to cooperate in order to survive and thrive in the social world. We agree that obligations are indeed an important part of being human. However, we highlight the notion that mutualistic cooperation is just one of many potential triggers of social obligations – people have obligations to myriad individuals, groups, and moral principles even in situations where they do not directly or profitably cooperate with those individuals. A key question left unanswered by Tomasello's account, we argue, is how people navigate such obligations when they conflict.
Our social world often confronts us with obligations that contradict one another. One prominent case is allegiances to different groups. Tomasello theorizes that obligation is based on a “we” experience with one's group. However, most individuals form “we” relationships with several different groups and subgroups: people are parents, siblings, friends, bosses, subordinates, citizens, and members of the human race (Turner et al. Reference Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher and Wetherell1987). The obligations to all these groups often clash. For example, a man called to war may be torn between his duty to serve his country, and his direct responsibility for taking care of his family. People further feel a sense of obligation to their moral principles that can also conflict. People believe that it is important to avoid harm, but also that it is important to prevent others from dying – but what should one do when harming someone can lead to saving more lives (Greene Reference Greene2008)? Be a loyal friend, and also treat everyone equally and fairly – but what if helping your friends means showing favoritism (Shaw et al., Reference Shaw, Barakzai and Keysarin press; Waytz et al. Reference Waytz, Dungan and Young2013)? Be honest, and be kind – but what do you do when a friend who just got a terrible haircut asks: “Does my hair look good?” (Levine & Schweitzer Reference Levine and Schweitzer2014). Research on adults suggests that people are able to balance these competing obligations in complex ways.
There is now a growing body of research demonstrating that such conflicts of obligations emerge early on in human development. This research suggests that the ability to resolve these conflicts may be an important part of children's early normative understanding. By the age of 6, children feel tensions between reciprocity and fairness; feeling conflicts about whether they should like someone who gave them more than others or someone who was fair and gave everyone the same (Shaw et al. Reference Shaw, DeScioli and Olson2012). Relatedly, children understand both the obligation of efficiency (i.e., maximizing social welfare), and the obligation to be fair and maintain equity, and attempt to strike a balance between them (Choshen-Hillel et al., Reference Choshen-Hillel, Lin and Shawin press). Children are also able to navigate multiple concerns about avoiding harm and saving others when introduced with Trolley-like dilemmas (Levine et al. Reference Levine, Mikhail and Leslie2018). Further, children can balance concerns with honesty and benevolence, judging lies that are meant to benefit others as less immoral than selfish lies (Fu et al. Reference Fu, Heyman, Chen, Liu and Lee2015). Indeed, in some circumstances the cold truth might be seen as less kind and desirable than a polite lie. Taken together, these results reveal that navigating conflicting moral and social obligations is an important and basic part of existing and thriving in the social world.
Research reveals that there are many factors that determine which obligations people choose to follow. For example, one's goals will influence what obligations seem important: Fairness might be more important for being identified as a good leader whereas being loyal might be more important for being identified as a good friend (Everett et al. Reference Everett, Faber, Savulescu and Crockett2018). The social domain in question will also shape the obligations that seem important (Fiske Reference Fiske1992). When it comes to obligations toward notions of equality and merit, people may think that one should give rewards based on merit in domains such as pay for work, but prefer equality in domains such as voting – one vote per person. Cultures will also dramatically vary in the extent to which they emphasize moral values like honesty, fairness, kindness, and loyalty, leading to different balances (e.g., Fiske Reference Fiske1992; Miller & Bersoff Reference Miller and Bersoff1992). Indeed, factors such as culture or socioeconomic status may also influence children's decisions (Choshen-Hillel et al., Reference Choshen-Hillel, Lin and Shawin press; Rochat et al. Reference Rochat, Dias, Liping, Broesch, Passos-Ferreira, Winning and Berg2009). Finally, what might make matters even more complicated is that people's intuitions about conflicting obligations may change throughout the course of their development, with older children believing it is good to overcome moral conflict and younger children believing it is better not even to have moral conflict in the first place (Starmans & Bloom Reference Starmans and Bloom2016). Future work should explore how cultural inputs shape both the kinds of obligations that children have and how they balance conflicting obligations as well as how these obligations may shift throughout the course of development.
In summary, we concur that obligations are important, but this is just a starting point for understanding the rich tapestry of interlacing obligations that human beings must traverse. Thus, we applaud Tomasello for bringing these obligations to the forefront and for outlining the importance of mutualistic cooperation in triggering social obligations. However, we think it is also time to acknowledge the wide swath of obligations that all people must face and the difficulties caused by having to navigate between obligations that are as contradictory as they are compelling. We thus propose that a wider framework is needed to account for how children and adults balance their different alliances and social obligations.