Preston Abstract

Talk Title:
How evolution and development of the nervous system prepared us for morality.

Abstract:
Theories about morality usually focus on high-level, cognitive phenomena that are restricted to humans, and localized in the more recently-evolved prefrontal cortices. In evolutionary terms, phenotypes rarely emerge de novo, but instead evolve gradually, taking advantage of existing mechanisms and the variability therein to increase reproductive success. I argue that morality is one of multiple "markers of mind" (Premack, 1978), such as empathy and tool use, that originated in basic "perception-action" mechanisms that are shared across vertebrate group-living species. For example, mammal, fish, and bird species exhibit contagious distress behaviors, such as alarm, where the distress or movement of one individual causes the same reaction in surrounding animals. These basic behaviors rely on a feature of nervous-system organization whereby emotions perceived in others are mapped onto one's own emotion circuits, creating matching representational states, and sometimes, matching overt actions (as in alarm and mimicry) (Preston and de Waal, 2002). All moral behavior relies on this basic perception-action arrangement of the nervous system. We treat others as we would like to be treated, because to do otherwise not only violates necessary social customs, but also causes aversive feelings in ourselves, which is adaptive in group-living situations. Of course, high-level forms of moral processes exist (e.g. simulation and rule-based decisions), but these processes rely phylogenetically and ontogenetically on perception-action processes.

References:
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 515-526.

 
Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), 1-71.
http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/prestonresearch/BBS_PrestondeWaal.pdf