Why do people experience moral demands as externally imposed? People feel obliged to adhere to central moral demands independent of one's own subjective preferences, and also impose these demands on others regardless of their preferences. To solve this puzzle, Stanford points at the functionality of moral externalization to select social interaction partners, to jointly solve common challenges in both familiar and unfamiliar circumstances. By experiencing morality as externalized, people require others to conform to those norms, allowing one to build cooperative networks that are prosocial yet protected from exploitation. In the present commentary, I propose that although there needs to be little dispute over the importance of human cooperation in explaining the evolution of morality, Stanford ignores a more parsimonious and plausible explanation for the process of moral externalization: People experience moral demands as externally imposed because, frequently, these demands actually are imposed by their immediate social environment, and they are obliged to follow them. Such conformity pressures stimulate intrinsic agreement with these moral demands. Human morality evolved in small tribes of ancient hunter-gatherers that offered little choice as to whom to cooperate with, making it adaptive for individuals to maximize their own adherence to the moral demands of their group by objectifying them.
Unlike ice-cream preferences or norms of convention, moral norms have a special status in protecting the common interests of social groups. Violations of moral norms typically are intentional, place the self-interest above the collective interest, and lead to outcomes that are detrimental to the group. These considerations converge with the five foundations of human morality (Graham et al. Reference Graham, Haidt and Nosek2009). Moral violations reduce the evolutionary fitness of fellow group members through harm, unfairness, disloyalty, disobedience, and possible contamination. To sustain high levels of cooperation, group members therefore have good reason to act in a condemning, punitive manner towards moral offenders. Such condemnation does not need to depend on the altruistic acts of a single punisher and can in fact be relatively cost-free for the community. Common responses to moral offenders include public ridicule, gossip, or coalitional punishment. But while the costs of such sanctions for the community are low, they often are high for the offender who might face social exclusion, reputation damage, and decreased access to resources or reproductive opportunities. It has been noted that ancestral humans evolved a moral conscience, which includes moral externalization, to protect them against these condemning responses by promoting intrinsic motivations to not only follow, but also actively enforce themselves, the moral demands of their group (Boehm Reference Boehm2012; DeScioli & Kurzban Reference DeScioli and Kurzban2009).
This explanation more parsimoniously captures the origins of moral externalization, given that it does not need to make one central yet problematic assumption in Stanford's line of reasoning, which is that group members are free to choose whomever to cooperate with. Such freedom might apply to contemporary large states, which offer virtually infinite interaction opportunities among citizens and an unprecedented flexibility in the possible cooperative networks that one does, or does not, wish to be part of. It is questionable, however, whether the ancient hunter-gatherer societies in which human morality evolved offered equal flexibility in selecting interaction partners or cooperation opportunities. These small-scale societies often faced threats that needed to be dealt with collectively, including extreme climate variations, droughts, famines, and wars. Such challenging circumstances require high levels of cooperation among all group members, and hence are likely to promote strong norms against exploitation and free-riding that apply unequivocally across the group. Individual members usually could not switch to a different tribe if they disagreed with the moral demands of their group. Instead, a more adaptive strategy for individual group members was to “go along to get along,” implying selection pressure to evolve a sense of morality that includes experiencing central moral demands as objective truths that need to be enforced.
This dynamic interplay where externally enforced norms shape moral judgments and actions is still visible in contemporary research within the social sciences. For instance, research on moral hypocrisy suggests that people often are more strongly motivated by appearing moral than by being moral. When given the opportunity, many research participants chose to flip a coin in order to fairly divide tasks between themselves and another person, yet rigged the coin flip to acquire the most positive outcome for themselves. Intriguingly, participants who rigged the coin flip considered themselves as more moral than participants who chose selfishly without flipping a coin, suggesting that only appearing to satisfy moral demands – to both oneself and others – is sufficient to positively shape moral self-perception (Batson et al. Reference Batson, Thompson, Seuferling, Whitney and Strongman1999). Relatedly, the actual or implied presence of others increases prosocial behavior, which underscores the role of reputation in human morality (Haley & Fessler Reference Haley and Fessler2005). These research examples illuminate that moral judgments and actions are highly susceptible to social evaluations, which is consistent with the idea that human morality is largely shaped by conformity pressures.
An important element of Stanford's theory is the notion that people build and maintain cooperative communities in which they are protected from exploitation. Establishing such cooperative communities indeed is a motivation of human beings where the difference between moral versus amoral preferences is particularly salient. Information that a person prefers vanilla over chocolate ice-cream implies nothing for the likelihood that this person will exploit other group members, but information that a person has a history of moral violations is highly diagnostic for the type of contributions this person will make to a group. But whereas in modern times the implications of these issues are highly flexible, and in line with Stanford's theory – we can avoid people with Nazi sympathies, but people with Nazi sympathies can form a cooperative network with other Nazis – in ancestral times it is questionable whether moral deviants could easily choose to form their own network. Given the costs of social exclusion, more likely is that they largely adjusted to the norms of the majority, and internalized crucial moral demands as their own. Moral demands truly are externally imposed.
Why do people experience moral demands as externally imposed? People feel obliged to adhere to central moral demands independent of one's own subjective preferences, and also impose these demands on others regardless of their preferences. To solve this puzzle, Stanford points at the functionality of moral externalization to select social interaction partners, to jointly solve common challenges in both familiar and unfamiliar circumstances. By experiencing morality as externalized, people require others to conform to those norms, allowing one to build cooperative networks that are prosocial yet protected from exploitation. In the present commentary, I propose that although there needs to be little dispute over the importance of human cooperation in explaining the evolution of morality, Stanford ignores a more parsimonious and plausible explanation for the process of moral externalization: People experience moral demands as externally imposed because, frequently, these demands actually are imposed by their immediate social environment, and they are obliged to follow them. Such conformity pressures stimulate intrinsic agreement with these moral demands. Human morality evolved in small tribes of ancient hunter-gatherers that offered little choice as to whom to cooperate with, making it adaptive for individuals to maximize their own adherence to the moral demands of their group by objectifying them.
Unlike ice-cream preferences or norms of convention, moral norms have a special status in protecting the common interests of social groups. Violations of moral norms typically are intentional, place the self-interest above the collective interest, and lead to outcomes that are detrimental to the group. These considerations converge with the five foundations of human morality (Graham et al. Reference Graham, Haidt and Nosek2009). Moral violations reduce the evolutionary fitness of fellow group members through harm, unfairness, disloyalty, disobedience, and possible contamination. To sustain high levels of cooperation, group members therefore have good reason to act in a condemning, punitive manner towards moral offenders. Such condemnation does not need to depend on the altruistic acts of a single punisher and can in fact be relatively cost-free for the community. Common responses to moral offenders include public ridicule, gossip, or coalitional punishment. But while the costs of such sanctions for the community are low, they often are high for the offender who might face social exclusion, reputation damage, and decreased access to resources or reproductive opportunities. It has been noted that ancestral humans evolved a moral conscience, which includes moral externalization, to protect them against these condemning responses by promoting intrinsic motivations to not only follow, but also actively enforce themselves, the moral demands of their group (Boehm Reference Boehm2012; DeScioli & Kurzban Reference DeScioli and Kurzban2009).
This explanation more parsimoniously captures the origins of moral externalization, given that it does not need to make one central yet problematic assumption in Stanford's line of reasoning, which is that group members are free to choose whomever to cooperate with. Such freedom might apply to contemporary large states, which offer virtually infinite interaction opportunities among citizens and an unprecedented flexibility in the possible cooperative networks that one does, or does not, wish to be part of. It is questionable, however, whether the ancient hunter-gatherer societies in which human morality evolved offered equal flexibility in selecting interaction partners or cooperation opportunities. These small-scale societies often faced threats that needed to be dealt with collectively, including extreme climate variations, droughts, famines, and wars. Such challenging circumstances require high levels of cooperation among all group members, and hence are likely to promote strong norms against exploitation and free-riding that apply unequivocally across the group. Individual members usually could not switch to a different tribe if they disagreed with the moral demands of their group. Instead, a more adaptive strategy for individual group members was to “go along to get along,” implying selection pressure to evolve a sense of morality that includes experiencing central moral demands as objective truths that need to be enforced.
This dynamic interplay where externally enforced norms shape moral judgments and actions is still visible in contemporary research within the social sciences. For instance, research on moral hypocrisy suggests that people often are more strongly motivated by appearing moral than by being moral. When given the opportunity, many research participants chose to flip a coin in order to fairly divide tasks between themselves and another person, yet rigged the coin flip to acquire the most positive outcome for themselves. Intriguingly, participants who rigged the coin flip considered themselves as more moral than participants who chose selfishly without flipping a coin, suggesting that only appearing to satisfy moral demands – to both oneself and others – is sufficient to positively shape moral self-perception (Batson et al. Reference Batson, Thompson, Seuferling, Whitney and Strongman1999). Relatedly, the actual or implied presence of others increases prosocial behavior, which underscores the role of reputation in human morality (Haley & Fessler Reference Haley and Fessler2005). These research examples illuminate that moral judgments and actions are highly susceptible to social evaluations, which is consistent with the idea that human morality is largely shaped by conformity pressures.
An important element of Stanford's theory is the notion that people build and maintain cooperative communities in which they are protected from exploitation. Establishing such cooperative communities indeed is a motivation of human beings where the difference between moral versus amoral preferences is particularly salient. Information that a person prefers vanilla over chocolate ice-cream implies nothing for the likelihood that this person will exploit other group members, but information that a person has a history of moral violations is highly diagnostic for the type of contributions this person will make to a group. But whereas in modern times the implications of these issues are highly flexible, and in line with Stanford's theory – we can avoid people with Nazi sympathies, but people with Nazi sympathies can form a cooperative network with other Nazis – in ancestral times it is questionable whether moral deviants could easily choose to form their own network. Given the costs of social exclusion, more likely is that they largely adjusted to the norms of the majority, and internalized crucial moral demands as their own. Moral demands truly are externally imposed.