Where does morality come from? The modern consensus on this question lies close to the position laid out by by the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He thought moral reason to be “the slave of the passions.” Hume’s view is supported by studies that suggest that our judgments of good and evil are influenced by emotional reactions such as empathy and disgust. And it fits nicely with the discovery that a rudimentary moral sense is universal and emerges early. Babies as young as six months judge individuals on the way that they treat others and even one-year olds engage in spontaneous altruism.
All this leaves little room for rational deliberation in shaping moral outlook. Indeed, many psychologists think that the reasoned arguments we make about why we have certain beliefs are mostly post-hoc justifications for gut reactions. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, although we like to think of ourselves as judges, reasoning through cases accordingly to deeply held principles, in reality we are more like lawyers, making arguments for positions that have already been established. This implies we have little conscious control over our sense of right and wrong.
I predict that this theory of morality will be proved wrong in its wholesale rejection of reason. Emotional responses alone cannot explain one of the most interesting aspects of human nature: that morals evolve. the extent of the average person’s sympathies has grown substantially and continues to do so. Contemporary readers of “Nature,” for example, have different beliefs about the rights of women, racial minorities and homosexuals compared with readers in the late 1800s, and different intuitions about the morality of practices such as slavery, child labour and the abuse of animals for public entertainment. Rational deliberation and debate have played a large part in this development.
Paul Bloom article discussing emotions such as empathy and disgust might be at the root of morality, but psychologist should also study the roles of deliberation and debate in how our opinions shift over time.