Tomasello has a great talent for selecting crucially important topics and carefully exploring them with brilliant experimental work in collaboration with his group of talented colleagues. He proposes collaborative interaction as a social interactive medium in which obligation develops because others are recognized as equals, and so equally deserving, and this leads to mutual respect. The second step is to move beyond responsibility to one's particular collaborative partners and to extend obligation to one's social group, as internalized pressure from a collective “we.”
We support Tomasello's goal of explaining the developmental and evolutionary origins of the human sense of moral obligation within an interactive framework. Although his approach is social in the sense of focusing on individuals who interact, this already presupposes rather than explains the development of those individuals. A more thoroughly social approach from a process-relational perspective proposes that persons develop within interaction (Carpendale et al. Reference Carpendale, Hammond, Atwood, Lerner and Benson2013; Carpendale & Lewis Reference Carpendale and Lewis2004; Reference Carpendale and Lewis2006; Reference Carpendale and Lewis2015a; Reference Carpendale, Lewis, Liben and Müller2015b).
Instead of attempting to explain the emergence of a sense of obligation later in development, concern for others is already implicit in the typical human developmental system with its origins in mutual affection and caring. This is necessary to start the developmental process early in the infant's life, as seen in frequent dyadic exchanges and the emergence of intense attachments by 6 months of age. Humans develop as persons within relationships of mutual affection, and this transforms to mutual respect in the sense of treating those others with care. Morality is based on mutual affection (Piaget Reference Piaget1932/Reference Piaget1965). Treating others as someone, not something (Spaemann Reference Spaemann2006), is already embedded in the structure of communicative interaction that infants experience in development – the seeds for mutual respect (Carpendale Reference Carpendale, Dick and Müller2018; Habermas Reference Habermas1990).
It is because human infants are born relatively helpless that there is so much potential for their development. A strong positive emotional connection is a foundation for the human developmental system in which infants develop as persons, and learn to communicate, which makes thinking possible. Within their intense social emotional relationships, infants first learn to communicate through coordinating their interaction with others. Such communication is the basis of language and results in the development of human thinking. All of this requires the social-emotional cradle in which humans develop. Moral obligation is not the result of realizing that others are equals and therefore should be treated with respect. Instead, it is a natural outcome of mutual affection and understanding. This caring and concern for others is what later develops into a sense of obligation, first to those close and, later, extended to others.
There is a missing link in Tomasello's explanation. He suggests that, in collaborating with others, children see them as equal and so equally deserving. But this does not explain why they feel obliged to them. We don't add moral obligation later in development – it is already implicit in the human developmental system as a result of the nature of early relationships. Infants are treated as persons, as participants in interaction. It is the product of treating others as persons and responding to them in everyday activity. Our interpretation of the research showing that 3-year-olds feel obligation to those they interact with collaboratively is that children have experienced obligation within the communicative interaction they grow up in. Conversation is a special case of collaborative interaction in general, as Grice (Reference Grice, Cole and Morgan1975) suggested, which is extended to the research settings involving collaboration. In conversation, failing to respond to others is morally accountable (Turnbull Reference Turnbull2003). Some children may occasionally be prompted by caregivers to respond if they fail to do so on their own, but we suggest that this is unlikely to be the primary way that they learn about obligation in conversation. Instead children pick up on others’ expectations of a response within many daily interactions. Gradually, children begin to recognize the consequences for others’ feelings of not responding to them.
Tomasello's second step involves conformity, which he sees as a requirement for membership in a cultural group. He suggests that individuals feel social pressure as obligation, but we are not convinced that this can be a complete explanation for moral obligation. People sometimes feel a moral obligation to disobey the culture's (and our parents’) ways of doing things if they are believed to be wrong and need to be changed. Tomasello does not explain this. For him, children buy into cultural norms without evaluating them and uphold such norms because of what others will think about them. But this is just conformity. It does not get us to right and wrong. Individuals may disagree with and oppose such norms leading to change. Although conformity is a dimension of human social life, Tomasello's approach is incomplete and leads to moral relativism. It cannot explain how the Greta Thunbergs of every generation challenge the status quo so early in their development.
We suggest that the second step Tomasello proposes beyond individuals’ obligation to their collaborative partners is not just one step. Instead, it is a gradual process of including more perspectives on the moral issue in question, beginning with those in close relationships and extending to one's cultural group. But this can be further extended to other groups and to other animals.
Tomasello proposes taking a social approach to explaining the source of moral obligation, but there are three problems with his argument. First, there is still an implicit separation of emotions and cognition. Second, the process he describes begins with individuals who then cooperate and so feel social pressure as obligation, but we don't always feel obligation as onerous. Third, there is insufficient explanation of how, or why, obligation emerges so late in development. Mutual enjoyment in interaction makes human communication possible and then language and forms of thinking based on language. Caring and mutual affection are embedded in the structure of the human developmental system. These strong emotional bonds are the seed for mutual respect, which is already there in communication, and develops increasingly into moral obligation.
Tomasello has a great talent for selecting crucially important topics and carefully exploring them with brilliant experimental work in collaboration with his group of talented colleagues. He proposes collaborative interaction as a social interactive medium in which obligation develops because others are recognized as equals, and so equally deserving, and this leads to mutual respect. The second step is to move beyond responsibility to one's particular collaborative partners and to extend obligation to one's social group, as internalized pressure from a collective “we.”
We support Tomasello's goal of explaining the developmental and evolutionary origins of the human sense of moral obligation within an interactive framework. Although his approach is social in the sense of focusing on individuals who interact, this already presupposes rather than explains the development of those individuals. A more thoroughly social approach from a process-relational perspective proposes that persons develop within interaction (Carpendale et al. Reference Carpendale, Hammond, Atwood, Lerner and Benson2013; Carpendale & Lewis Reference Carpendale and Lewis2004; Reference Carpendale and Lewis2006; Reference Carpendale and Lewis2015a; Reference Carpendale, Lewis, Liben and Müller2015b).
Instead of attempting to explain the emergence of a sense of obligation later in development, concern for others is already implicit in the typical human developmental system with its origins in mutual affection and caring. This is necessary to start the developmental process early in the infant's life, as seen in frequent dyadic exchanges and the emergence of intense attachments by 6 months of age. Humans develop as persons within relationships of mutual affection, and this transforms to mutual respect in the sense of treating those others with care. Morality is based on mutual affection (Piaget Reference Piaget1932/Reference Piaget1965). Treating others as someone, not something (Spaemann Reference Spaemann2006), is already embedded in the structure of communicative interaction that infants experience in development – the seeds for mutual respect (Carpendale Reference Carpendale, Dick and Müller2018; Habermas Reference Habermas1990).
It is because human infants are born relatively helpless that there is so much potential for their development. A strong positive emotional connection is a foundation for the human developmental system in which infants develop as persons, and learn to communicate, which makes thinking possible. Within their intense social emotional relationships, infants first learn to communicate through coordinating their interaction with others. Such communication is the basis of language and results in the development of human thinking. All of this requires the social-emotional cradle in which humans develop. Moral obligation is not the result of realizing that others are equals and therefore should be treated with respect. Instead, it is a natural outcome of mutual affection and understanding. This caring and concern for others is what later develops into a sense of obligation, first to those close and, later, extended to others.
There is a missing link in Tomasello's explanation. He suggests that, in collaborating with others, children see them as equal and so equally deserving. But this does not explain why they feel obliged to them. We don't add moral obligation later in development – it is already implicit in the human developmental system as a result of the nature of early relationships. Infants are treated as persons, as participants in interaction. It is the product of treating others as persons and responding to them in everyday activity. Our interpretation of the research showing that 3-year-olds feel obligation to those they interact with collaboratively is that children have experienced obligation within the communicative interaction they grow up in. Conversation is a special case of collaborative interaction in general, as Grice (Reference Grice, Cole and Morgan1975) suggested, which is extended to the research settings involving collaboration. In conversation, failing to respond to others is morally accountable (Turnbull Reference Turnbull2003). Some children may occasionally be prompted by caregivers to respond if they fail to do so on their own, but we suggest that this is unlikely to be the primary way that they learn about obligation in conversation. Instead children pick up on others’ expectations of a response within many daily interactions. Gradually, children begin to recognize the consequences for others’ feelings of not responding to them.
Tomasello's second step involves conformity, which he sees as a requirement for membership in a cultural group. He suggests that individuals feel social pressure as obligation, but we are not convinced that this can be a complete explanation for moral obligation. People sometimes feel a moral obligation to disobey the culture's (and our parents’) ways of doing things if they are believed to be wrong and need to be changed. Tomasello does not explain this. For him, children buy into cultural norms without evaluating them and uphold such norms because of what others will think about them. But this is just conformity. It does not get us to right and wrong. Individuals may disagree with and oppose such norms leading to change. Although conformity is a dimension of human social life, Tomasello's approach is incomplete and leads to moral relativism. It cannot explain how the Greta Thunbergs of every generation challenge the status quo so early in their development.
We suggest that the second step Tomasello proposes beyond individuals’ obligation to their collaborative partners is not just one step. Instead, it is a gradual process of including more perspectives on the moral issue in question, beginning with those in close relationships and extending to one's cultural group. But this can be further extended to other groups and to other animals.
Tomasello proposes taking a social approach to explaining the source of moral obligation, but there are three problems with his argument. First, there is still an implicit separation of emotions and cognition. Second, the process he describes begins with individuals who then cooperate and so feel social pressure as obligation, but we don't always feel obligation as onerous. Third, there is insufficient explanation of how, or why, obligation emerges so late in development. Mutual enjoyment in interaction makes human communication possible and then language and forms of thinking based on language. Caring and mutual affection are embedded in the structure of the human developmental system. These strong emotional bonds are the seed for mutual respect, which is already there in communication, and develops increasingly into moral obligation.