Fessler, D.M.T., Barrett, H.C., Kanovsky, M. et al. (10 more authors) (2015) Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282 (1813). p. 20150907. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | moral judgement; moral parochialism; morality |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL (AHRC) 119413 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Aug 2016 14:00 |
Last Modified: | 03 Nov 2016 05:11 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.0907 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society, The |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2015.0907 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:89121 |