Moral failure and the evolution of appearing moral

Abstract

ABSTRACT Standard adaptationist accounts of our moral psychology are motivated largely by our moral successes—empathy, altruism, cooperation, and so on. But a growing body of social psychology research indicates that our moral successes are, if anything, exceeded by our moral failures. One influential reason for such failure, according to the findings, is that compliance with moral norms—when it occurs—is motivated not by an intrinsic interest inbeingmoral, but by an interest in appearing moral. I argue, first, that such research represents a dilemma for standard adaptationist accounts. On the one hand, if the standard account asserts that moral judgment evolved to regulate behavior by ensuring moral compliance even when tempted by egoistic gain, then we should observe regular moral compliance even when tempted by egoistic gain. But this is precisely what the data do not show. On the other hand, if the standard account asserts that moral judgment evolved simply to make moral compliance moral likely, then this puts the standard account in direct competition with other, more modest, accounts, ones that limit evolution’s role to what I call social compliance.