Is morality hardwired?
by Jura Watchmaker, 14 May 2008
The application of science can, according to AC Grayling, create serious ethical dilemmas. Indeed it can, but scientific data can also confound the designs of ideologues and cultural critics. Take, for example, recent neurological research which disproves the assertions of commentators who plough a moral relativist furrow when trying to convince us of their political prejudices.
In his fortnightly New Scientist column, Grayling the philosopher (not the Guardian Comment is Free wind-up merchant) discusses the implications of research which shows that across our species mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the brain fire in sympathy with what the individual perceives in the activity and experiences of others. That is, irrespective of ethnicity, nationality, gender or whatever, we create in our minds a model of what others are experiencing.
The essential point, says Grayling, is that mirror neurons underwrite the ability to recognise what helps or distresses others, what they suffer and enjoy, what they need and what harms them. Morality is therefore hard-wired into our neural network:
“So even when customs differ, fundamental morality does not; and if two societies differ over what they consider to be moral, one of them must just be plain wrong.”
Some of us already hold a belief that this is a defining characteristic of humanity, but this in itself is a prejudice. Or rather was. What the data now show is that the basis for morality is shared by all humans, and there is a universality to our being that crosses ethnic and cultural divides.
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 13:49
I haven’t got a subscription to NS, but as I like to waffle on about this subject, there was an interesting paper in Nature last year on hardwiring of morality:
Koenigs, M. et al. (2007) Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements. Nature, 446, 908-911.
http://www.mit.edu/~lyoung/Site/Publications_files/Koenigs_Young_Nature.pdf
There’s also evidence for altruism in Chimpanzees, suggesting that some of this stuff was present in our last common ancestor:
Warneken, F. and Tomasello, M. (2006) Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311, 1301 - 1303.
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/pdf/Warn_Science.pdf
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 13:57
“Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements.”
Does this mean that if one were to bash Madeleine Bunting over the head with a heavy object (I’m speaking hypothetically, of course!), she might start talking and writing sense?
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 15:48
The essential point, says Grayling, is that mirror neurons underwrite the ability to recognise what helps or distresses others, what they suffer and enjoy, what they need and what harms them. Morality is therefore hard-wired into our neural network
Whilst I agree with this and I have no time for what Pinker deservedly criticises as the Standard Social Science Model, do be wary of going too far the other way and ending up with neuro-reductionism. Mirror neurons are important but they are just one component of the brain. Narcissists, sadists, and CiF commenters may treat the output of their mirror neurons somewhat differently.
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 16:08
While it is probably true (in the majority of cases) that humans are able to empathsise, I do not think this is the same as morality. For example, it is considered immoral in some societies to pimp for prostitutes, and yet, culturally, there are many who are prepared to do it. You can’t say ‘morality’ is hard wired, just that ‘fellow feeling’ is part of our neurological makeup. Incidentally, I read somewhere that autistic children lack the necessary mirroring neurons which is why they are unable to socialise and to learn. Primates learn through mimicry and thus the mirroring neurons are vitally important for learning.
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 16:57
I quite agree that reductionism of whatever form is something to be either avoided or used sparingly and critically. And I would guess that Grayling feels the same way. If we are no more than the sum of our neural interactions, then philosophers would all be out of a job.
The point Grayling is making is that nature plays a far more important role in human development and action than many ideologically-fixated and scientifically-ignorant “thinkers” are prepared to acknowledge. And neurological experiments which show that human thought processes are the same the world over puts paid to notions such as cultural relativism – the last refuge of the intellectual scoundrel. If this sounds “scientistic” then I make no apology.
And Sue, it is morality and not just altruism, as the Koenigs et al. paper linked to by SteveF makes clear. As for autism, this is discussed by Grayling in his New Scientist column. Socialisation, altruism, empathy and the ability to make sound moral judgements are all inter-linked.
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 18:01
Whilst I was getting hold of the Koenigs paper, I came across:
Young, L., Saxe, R. (2008). The neural basis of belief encoding and integration in moral judgment. NeuroImage, 40, 1912-1920.
which from first glance looks worth a read:
http://www.mit.edu/~lyoung/Site/Publications_files/Young%26Saxe2008.pdf
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 22:23
“Is morality hardwired?”
No.
Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 22:26
The mind obviously models the the activity and experience of others. If this wasn’t the case we wouldn’t be able to conceptualise otherness. The stuff about morality etc is not implicit in this observation.
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 3:22
So, Grayling’s argument is that scientific research which provides biological evidence for what relativsts have been saying for nigh on a century, actually proves them wrong? I guess you *can* take post-modernism too far. Either this is the CiF wind-up merchant Grayling, or he understands neither relativism nor neuroscience.
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 9:38
JW- Sorry, I mis-directed what I was saying there. What you have written certainly doesn’t sound like scientism.
Gregg - Relativists have been saying there is universally hardwired morality for nigh on a century???
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 12:27
So does the statement “mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the brain fire in sympathy with what the individual perceives in the activity and experiences of others” imply that a torturer sympathises with their torturee during the torture?
Does a rapist sympathise with his victim?
Is there really truth in the old adage about corporal punishment “this will hurt me more than it will hurt you”?
How would anyone answer those questions?
I’m assuming that experiments have to involve some sort of brain scan. Given that there are severe ethical, and practical, limitations to giving someone an fMRI (or similar) scan whilst they torture someone else (or engage in other violent behaviour directed toward other people) you cannot say that “mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the brain fire in sympathy with what the individual perceives in the activity and experiences of others” in all circumstances and at all times.
At best is it not just a trait of the sort of people who volunteer as subjects in psychology/neuroscience experiments?
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 12:32
They’d be sociopaths though would they not? Violent criminals and bloggertarians–that sort of personality type.
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 13:04
Relativists have been saying there is universally hardwired morality for nigh on a century???
They have been saying that human thought processes are the same the world over, for nigh on a century - and therefore, divergent moral judgements are the product of specific cultural, social, historical or individual circumstances. That’s the foundation of relativism: that all human beings think the same way.
I have to work now, but I’ll happily get stuck into this over the weekend if you really want.
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 13:25
If some pharmaceutical that triggered mirror neurons was developed would that “cure” sociopathology?
I agree with Jura that “Socialisation, altruism, empathy and the ability to make sound moral judgements are all inter-linked”. As other commenters have said, morality depends on how people interpret their mirror neurons (given that they fire for everyone).
Isn’t there a difficulty, especially in pyschology and related areas, of finding a result across a population, generalising it to a universal and then defining anyone who it does not apply to as abnormal? Witness N Korean re-education camps. Witness Soviet re-education camps - anyone who disapproves of this paradise-on-earth must be mentally ill, in need of treatment in the finest psychiatric hospitals in the world, sorry, in our promised land.
As the Milgram experiment showed many people have a capacity to torture, given the wrong circumstances.
How do you assess situational sociopathology in an fMRI scanner? You can probably assess reactions to representations of sociopathological behaviour but you cannot, ethically, get hold of brain scans of perpetrators of those acts at the time of the violent act.
Brain scans of sociopaths engaged in sociopathic acts are off the radar of ethical science.
And at this point I feel I’m entering dangerous water …
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 17:33
Might want to check out
http://obscenedesserts.blogspot.com/2008/05/brain-buddha-and-ever-baffling-david.html
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 18:23
Gregg - I’m used to harder core relativists for whom “thought” is simply a socially constructed category. I’d be pleasantly surprised by relativists who just argue that we all have the same neurons but we make different sense of their output. And so I am.
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 18:44
From Obscene Desserts I liked the phrase “[he believes] the credit won through making a few comments that are not completely bonkers will carry him through to the end of the paragraph.”
Sometimes think it applies to my adhoc writing style!
Thursday 15 May 2008 at 21:14
That will learn me to be snidey…