Explaining Open-Ended Normativity: Morality as an Exaptation
摘要
So far, the main aim of this work has been to show that psychological moral change beyond tribalism, parochialism and shortsightedness has occurred extensively across societies, especially in recent history. Empirical evidence indicates that, under certain ecological circumstances, even people’s motivations—and not only their beliefs (a major concern expressed, e.g., by Persson and Savulescu 2017)—have shifted towards greater levels of moral inclusivity, impersonal prosociality, farsightedness, and emancipation. Although there is no reason to believe that this process will necessarily continue, some of these changes are ongoing, and there seem to be no compelling reasons to believe that humanity (who?, where?) has reached a definitive and genetically specified limit to moral inclusiveness, emancipation, and cooperation1. The plausibility of the hard-wiring thesis appears significantly diminished.