Easily Grossed Out? You Might Be A Conservative!

Easily Grossed Out? You Might Be A Conservative! (6/5/09)

Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? Do crawly insects make you cringe or dead bodies make you blanch?

If so, chances are you're more conservative -- politically, and especially in your attitudes toward gays and lesbians -- than your less-squeamish counterparts, according to two Cornell studies.

The results, said study leader David Pizarro, Cornell assistant professor of psychology, raise questions about the role of disgust -- an emotion that likely evolved in humans to keep them safe from potentially hazardous or disease-carrying environments -- in contemporary judgments of morality and purity.

This press release doesn't explain how the link between conservatism and feelings of disgust is based, at least in part, on theories of an academic in Virginia named Jonathan Haidt.

I've written about this guy before: Moral neuropolitics and ideology. His pet theory is that morality in general arises out of several human characteristics that can be explained by evolutionary psychology (EP). While it is true that EP can be taken too far in "explaining" human nature, I think it also has a lot of validity and if used carefully it can give real scientific explanations for some things.

The problem I have with Haidt's theories is not because of EP. Rather it's because he singles out three evolved traits that he believes influence conservative theories of morality yet are generally disregarded in liberal theories. One of these traits is a serious concern about "purity" – which sort of means an aversion to "disgusting" things, without an attempt to provide reasonable justification for the feeling in specific situations (such as homosexuality).

Haidt thinks this suggests liberal theories of morality are inadequate. I think that he's wrong. It does not seem to me that just because a trait evolved in humans (when social and physical conditions were vastly different from those of the present) it follows that such traits should be important influences on morality under current conditions.

Further, not only are these inherited traits unreliable guides for moral theories, but they are insufficient to provide good foundations for moral principles that are important in modern conditions – such as concern for the welfare of the environment, aversion to warfare, and the need for limitations on exploitative behavior of elites. However, all this is a discussion for another time.

Returning to the research described at the top, it's reassuring that the investigators shared my concerns about the role of "purity" in moral judgment:

Liberals and conservatives disagree about whether disgust has a valid place in making moral judgments, Pizarro noted. Conservatives have argued that there is inherent wisdom in repugnance; that feeling disgusted about something -- gay sex between consenting adults, for example -- is cause enough to judge it wrong or immoral, even lacking a concrete reason. Liberals tend to disagree, and are more likely to base judgments on whether an action or a thing causes actual harm. ...

The research speaks to a need for caution when forming moral judgments, Pizarro added. "Disgust really is about protecting yourself from disease; it didn't really evolve for the purpose of human morality," he said. "It clearly has become central to morality, but because of its origins in contamination and avoidance, we should be wary about its influences."

Further reading:

Conservatives Are More Easily Disgusted (6/4/09) – LiveScience.com

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Moral neuropolitics and ideology

An interesting paper was recently brought to my attention. It's all worth reading, but I want to focus on one specific passage, because I think it spotlights a very important question, and provides a springboard for discussion of a number of significant issues in political psychology.

This is the paper:

We Empathize, Therefore We Are: Toward a Moral Neuropolitics

It's by Gary Olson, who is currently Chair of the Political Science Department at Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA.

Olson begins by pointing out the important human characteristic of being able to empathize with the experienced injustice and suffering of others. Citing the empathy felt by people who viewed art depicting victims of the transatlantic slave trade, Olson connects this with recent neuroscience having to do with mirror neurons:

The abolitionist's most potent weapon was the dissemination of drawings of the slave ship Brooks. Rediker asserts that these images were "to be among the most effective propaganda any social movement has ever created" (p. 308).

Based on recent findings from neuroscience we can plausibly deduce that the mirror neurons of the viewer were engaged by these images of others suffering. The appeal was to the public's awakened sense of compassion and revulsion toward graphic depictions of the wholesale violence, barbarity, and torture routinely practiced on these Atlantic voyages. Rediker notes that the images would instantaneously "make the viewer identify and sympathize with the 'injured Africans' on the lower deck of the ship . . ." while also producing a sense of moral outrage (p. 315, Olson, 2008).

In our own day, the nonprofit Edge Foundation recently asked some of the world's most eminent scientists, "What are you optimistic about? Why?" In response, the prominent neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni cited the proliferating experimental work into the neural mechanisms that reveal how humans are "wired for empathy." This is the aforementioned discovery of the mirror neuron system or MNS. The work shows that the same affective brain circuits are automatically mobilized upon feeling one's own pain and the pain of others.

Iacoboni's optimism is grounded in his belief that with the popularization of scientific insights, these findings in neuroscience will seep into public awareness and " . . . this explicit level of understanding of our empathic nature will at some point dissolve the massive belief systems that dominate our societies and that threaten to destroy us" (Iacoboni, 2007, p. 14).

Given that background, the crucial passage in Olson's paper seems to me to be this:

That said, one of the most vexing problems that remains to be explained is why so little progress has been made in extending this empathic orientation to distant lives, to those outside certain in-group moral circles. That is, given a world rife with overt and structural violence, one is forced to explain why our deep-seated moral intuition doesn't produce a more ameliorating effect, a more peaceful world. Iacoboni suggests this disjuncture is explained by massive belief systems, including political and religious ones, operating on the reflective and deliberate level. As de Waal reminds us, evolutionarily, empathy is the original starting point out of which sprang culture and language. But over time, the culture filters and influences how empathy evolves and is expressed (de Waal, 2007, p. 50). These belief systems tend to override the automatic, pre-reflective, neurobiological traits that should bring people together.

Right off the bat, of course, we have a problem. As I've just been writing about (here, here), there may be serious scientific difficulties with the whole concept of a "mirror neuron system" in humans.

Olson says "we can plausibly deduce that the mirror neurons of the viewer were engaged by these images of others suffering." He does mention fairly recent (2007-8) studies that seemed to indicate the existence of mirror neurons in humans, but the skeptical opinions of neuroscientists like Gregory Hickok, whose very recent paper I wrote about, suggest that this whole issue is still up in the air.

But perhaps the issue of mirror neurons isn't all that important. While it can be questioned whether humans have mirror neurons, and whether such mirror neurons (if they do exist) actually account for empathy in humans, surely it would be hard to dispute the existence of empathy in humans.

Or would it? One does have to question how often empathy, even if it exists, plays a dominant role in humans affairs. Sometimes it does, as the ending of the transatlantic slave trade and the final ending of slavery in the U. S. attest. On the other hand, different forms of slavery still persist in the world, as well as all manner of other ills, such as crime, genocide, war, territorial occupations, and economic exploitation.

Nevertheless, let's leave that whole question aside. Human empathy does exist in many circumstances (even if we don't have an adequate neurobiological explanation of it), yet even so, there seem to be social and cultural forces that all too often are able to override empathy. Olson evidently agrees with Iacoboni in identifying the responsible factor as "massive belief systems, including political and religious ones, operating on the reflective and deliberate level."

Let's refer to those political and religious belief systems as "ideology".

The key question, then, is how to explain the substantial power that ideology has over human social behavior – not just behavior that is culturally conditioned, but even behavior that has evolutionary, biological roots, such as the empathy that derives (perhaps) from mirror neurons. That is, we have to explain how "belief systems tend to override the automatic, pre-reflective, neurobiological traits that should bring people together."

It seems to me that this is a rather important open question that political science ought to be addressing.

Because we are dealing with phenomena that can override neurobiological traits, I think we have to look at explanations that also refer to neurobiology. It just makes the most sense to consider the problem as a whole at that level.

How is it that ideology has such a compelling influence over people? What is it that ideology has to offer? How does it fit with underlying psychological factors?

We need some frame of reference to consider these issues. For the sake of concreteness, I'm going to proceed here using a circle of ideas championed by Jonathan Haidt as a convenient reference frame.

What Haidt has proposed is a "moral foundations theory" that claims to identify five "fundamental moral values" that are held by a large number of people, to greater or lesser extents, in a wide variety of cultures around the world (and in history). I think his list is incomplete as a comprehensive foundation for "morality" in general, and there are valid questions about whether some aspects of the "values" he describes even merit consideration as part of a fundamental set. Nevertheless, each of the "values" does have its devoted adherents, and so ipso facto plays a role in social behavior in those cultures where the "value" is recognized.

Here, according to Wikipedia, are the five "fundamental moral values":

1. Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)
   
2. Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.
   
3. Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)
   
4. Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)
   
5. Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.

Further references (listed at the end of this article): [1], [2], [3], [4].

I'm not ready to make an overall evaluation of Haidt's ideas, but let's look at them and see where they might lead.

On the basis of cross-cultural research Haidt came up with these five distinguishable biological bases of morality. If nothing else, they should be factors that would give significant force and impact to ideologies that are leveraged from them.

The first two factors are (quoting from [1]) "(i) harm, care, and altruism (people are vulnerable and often need protection) or (ii) fairness, reciprocity, and justice (people have rights to certain resources or kinds of treatment)."

Haidt sees these as having evolutionary origins in kin selection and the mechanism of reciprocal altruism.

I think they could have other evolutionary origins as well. In addition, I find it a little difficult to distinguish these two factors. Both encode an obvious "golden rule" sort of morality. However that may be, it seems that mirror neurons, or something equivalent, might play a role in the neurobiology of these factors, which both relate to "empathy".

So another important question we can ask is: what are the evolutionary origins of mirror neurons (or equivalents)? Since other primates, and indeed other animals (e. g. dogs), seem to have something functionally like mirror neurons, and also notions of fairness and justice that resemble human notions, we probably need to look back further in time than the origins of hominids.

It seems to me that something like mirror neurons should be useful equipment for a member of any species that engages in intra-species combat, which is probably a large percentage of species. That certainly doesn't mean many species necessarily have mirror neurons. But, at least, the evolution of mirror neurons certainly could be a useful adaptation for many species. So something like mirror neurons could well be a primary evolutionary development, not a mere side effect of something else. And if empathy, altruism, etc. have roots in such a mechanism, they too are at least useful side effects of evolution, even if they were not directly adaptive in themselves. (Though there are plenty of reasons to think they are adaptive in themselves, especially if you believe in group selection.)

But perhaps the more interesting aspect of Haidt's ideas comprises the three other factors he regards as basic to many human moral codes.

Quoting again from [1], "In addition to the harm and fairness foundations, there are also widespread intuitions about ingroup-outgroup dynamics and the importance of loyalty; there are intuitions about authority and the importance of respect and obedience; and there are intuitions about bodily and spiritual purity and the importance of living in a sanctified rather than a carnal way."

Let's look at these separately. First up is group loyalty, preference for the ingroup, and fear/aversion towards the outgroup. This is pretty clearly, at least in part, a kin selection sort of thing.

There is also another clever evolutionary argument for this factor. It's spelled out by Choi and Bowles in [5]. They call the idea "parochial altruism". The authors present computer simulation evidence for their idea. It has the interesing property of being able to explain the otherwise paradoxical fact that humans are a fairly warlike species, in spite of countervailing empathetic tendencies. I wrote about it here at some length. See also [6].

There are, of course, other evolutionary arguments for group loyalty, such as basic considerations of group selection – successful groups should tend to be cohesive and behave something like kin groups, even in the absence of near kinship. And this would be especially true in time of resource scarcity (which probably was not infrequent).

Among the neurobiological bases of group loyalty would be any neural capabilities that enable the detection of cheating and disloyalty. These need not be discrete neural systems or brain modules. They might be just general capabilities that enable individuals to remember the past behavior of others and reason about it in such a way as to recognize signs of loyalty or disloyalty to the group. Capability for cheater detection might be a general learning ability, like the ability to learn language. Individuals need not be born being good cheater detectors. They just need to be able to learn how to be good at it.

I'm not aware of neurobiological research into cheater detection mechanisms, or other mechanisms that could support group loyalty. Studies of loyalty and cheater detection and conditions for extending trust to others should also connect up easily with the importance of "patriotism" and "solidarity" in various ideologies. This would seem to be a great area for future research.

The bottom line here is that there are very good reasons to expect ingroup/outgroup dynamics to have neurobiological underpinnings, and that these factors would strongly influence ideology. ("Deutschland uber alles." "Defend the fatherland." Etc.)

Turning to the next factor Haidt mentions: authority and the importance of respect and obedience. The psychological power of authority is quite well established. Including the Milgram experiment, which provides a glaring example of how social psychology can override any innate sense of empathy for others. Zimbardo's prison experiment is also relevant.

Respect for and obedience to authority pretty clearly have evolutionary roots in any social species that has a hierarchically organized social life – which is many species, even insects. (Some very recent research shows that even ants will attack other ants that don't follow the rules.)

Interestingly, though, degree of respect for authority varies a lot in humans. (But then, so to does a propensity to cheat.) Political scientists have known for a long time of Theodor Adorno's concept of an "authoritarian personality".

Again, respect for and obedience to authority are key features of many powerful ideologies – features that easily override empathy-based respect for peers.

This is another area that calls for much more neurobiological research. What characteristics of our neurobiology equip us to recognize and defer to authority? Is is just fear based on the consequences of disobedience to actors with substantial social/physical power? Are obedient personalities just a result of a kind of "Stockholm syndrome"?

Haidt's last factor is "intuitions about bodily and spiritual purity." This is, to my mind, the murkiest of the factors. Clearly, humans have evolved good instincts for avoiding contaminated or corrupt food, or other gathering places of pathogenic things. Exactly how that bootstraps into elaborate ideologies featuring supernatural beings is a whole bigger question.

I think there are quite a few additional factors that go into the social psychology of religion and its ideologies, including group loyalty and obedience to authority. And research into such factors seems to be pretty active these days, though not primarily into neurobiological factors. This is a large area of research all by itself. So I don't have clear ideas about how important "purity" is as a factor, by itself, that influences ideology.

Pascal Boyer has an interesting recent essay in Nature ([7]). He writes, "So is religion an adaptation or a by-product of our evolution? Perhaps one day we will find compelling evidence that a capacity for religious thoughts, rather than 'religion' in the modern form of socio-political institutions, contributed to fitness in ancestral times. For the time being, the data support a more modest conclusion: religious thoughts seem to be an emergent property of our standard cognitive capacities."

As an aside, this suggests that what we may find is that political behavior in general, and specific ideologies, are also emergent properties of our standard cognitive capacities. And that's a disquieting thought. Our cognitive capacities were shaped in a time when humans were far fewer in number, and had much less ability to cause large-scale problems for themselves and the rest of the world. Our inherited cognitive traits may result in less sanguine outcomes today than they did in the past. In particular, religion as a common sort of ideology, and Haidt's other moral predispositions, may be less beneficial for humans now than they may have been in the past.

One token of this may be seen in moral principles that do not seem to have deep roots in evolution and neurobiology. For example: aversion to war, faithful attention to truthfulness and honesty in dealing with others, sensitivity to and aversion towards manipulative behavior on the part of social elites, and respect and concern for the natural environment. Such principles don't even appear in Haidt's scheme.

Alternative reference frame: fear and emotions in general

All that said, Haidt's ideas are not the only way to approach the question of neurobiological bases of ideology. Another distinct approach involving neurobiology would center on the importance of the emotion of fear. There is, of course, a voluminous amount of research on the underpinnings of fear and its opposite (trust), as mediated by anatomical features like the amygdala and the limbic system in general.

I've just summarized a number of previous comments on this topic here. Since we're concerned with ideology in this note, it seems especially worth observing the similarities between beliefs about government and about religion, in particular the significant role that fear plays in both (see here).

Fear obviously plays a role in practical politics. How it interacts with organized ideologies is less clear. Certainly, fear of death or great harm is enough to motivate ideologies that feature institutions of authority that "protect" the populace. In any case, fear in some form or other is a strong motivator, another factor that can easily override an individual's healthier empathetic instincts.

Alternative reference frame: personality theory

Yet another direction of possible research involves trying to relate specific personality traits to ideological preferences. Perhaps the best supported of such findings could provide clues as to underlying mechanisms that link psychological tendencies to ideological features.

However, I'm skeptical. Personality traits, in fact, have been defined empirically by looking at the way people tend to use labels to describe other people. The most widely accepted type scheme, the "Big Five", is based on studies of language usage, in which factor analysis is employed to group certain behaviors using labels given to people who exhibit those behaviors. So it's entirely driven by data of a particular type, rather than theory.

That raises two problems. Firstly, there is little logical relationship between either the traits or the behavioral characteristics associated with them and specific ideologies. This is in contrast with Haidt's morality types that do connect reasonably well with ideologies. While empirical correlations between personality traits and ideologies have been found, they usually aren't very strong.

The second problem is that there's little apparent connection between personality traits and neurobiology. Perhaps that will change as more laboratory work is done that investigates the underpinnings of emotions and behavior, but I don't have the sense that clarity is close at hand.

The net result is that personality traits aren't an obvious way to make connections with either ideology or neurobiology.

Conclusion

All in all, it certainly looks like there's a huge need for research to explore how neurobiology interacts with social behavior, politics, and ideology. Understanding the potential role of something like mirror neurons is certainly important. But I think there's a whole lot more we need to understand, especially concerning the darker sides of human nature.

References and further reading:

[1] The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology – 5/18/07 Science review article by Jonathan Haidt

[2] The Roots of Morality – 5/9/08 Science News Focus article by Greg Miller

[3] Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes? – 9/18/07 New York Times article by Nicholas Wade

[4] The Moral Instinct – 1/13/08 New York Times Magazine article by Steven Pinker

[5] The Coevolution of Parochial Altruism and War – 10/26/07 research paper in Science by Jung-Kyoo Choi and Samuel Bowles

[6] The Sharp End of Altruism – 10/26/07 Perspectives article in Science by Holly Arrow

[7] Being human: Religion: Bound to believe? – 10/23/08 essay in Nature by Pascal Boyer

Tags: political science, political psychology, ideology

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Altruism and economics

Another shocker: even economists may have to take into account that altruistic behavior, not just selfish behavior, can be rational, while selfishness can be suboptimal. Gordon Gekko, the Republican Party, and the Chicago School of Economics may not agree, but:

The Economics Of Nice Folks (6/19/08)

A basic tenet of economics is that people always behave selfishly, or as the 18th century philosopher economist David Hume put it, "every man ought to be supposed to be a knave."

You may recall that David Hume was recently mentioned here, concerning a related aspect of ethical theory.

But what if some people aren't always knaves?

Sam Bowles argues in Science June 20 that economics will get it wrong then, sometimes badly so. He points to new experimental evidence that people do often act against their own personal self-interest in favor of the common good, and they do so in predictable, understandable ways. Poorly-designed economic institutions fail to take advantage of intrinsic moral behavior and often undermine it. ...

These examples show that economists ignore human altruism at their peril. Standard economic theory assumes that incentives that appeal to self-interest won't affect any natural altruism that may exist, but that assumption is clearly wrong. Bowles discusses the research to date that helps to explain when and why that assumption breaks down.

The thesis here may be more clearly expressed in the abstract of the research review in question:

Policies Designed for Self-Interested Citizens May Undermine "The Moral Sentiments": Evidence from Economic Experiments (6/20/08)

High-performance organizations and economies work on the basis not only of material interests but also of Adam Smith's "moral sentiments." Well-designed laws and public policies can harness self-interest for the common good. However, incentives that appeal to self-interest may fail when they undermine the moral values that lead people to act altruistically or in other public-spirited ways. Behavioral experiments reviewed here suggest that economic incentives may be counterproductive when they signal that selfishness is an appropriate response; constitute a learning environment through which over time people come to adopt more self-interested motivations; compromise the individual's sense of self-determination and thereby degrade intrinsic motivations; or convey a message of distrust, disrespect, and unfair intent. Many of these unintended effects of incentives occur because people act not only to acquire economic goods and services but also to constitute themselves as dignified, autonomous, and moral individuals.

You may also recall that Sam Bowles showed up in this, from last November, concerning a more distantly related aspect of evolutionary ethical theory.

Tags: economics, altruism

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Moral choice: fairness, utility, and the insula

We continue to learn more about the neuropsychological basis of moral thinking and moral emotions in humans:

Justice In The Brain: Equity And Efficiency Are Encoded Differently (5/8/08)

Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.

The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute of Technology, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of people making a series of tough decisions about how to allocate donations to children in a Ugandan orphanage.

There are two main issues regarding moral decision making here.

The first involves two separate principles often used in analyzing moral/ethical problems related to the distribution of goods within a group of people. (The group might be children in a family or different classes of people in a society, among many possibilities.) On one hand, it is generally regarded as "good" to maximize "equity" in moral decisions, so that some individuals are not favored over others without significant justification. (I prefer the term "fairness" for this.)

On the other hand, it is also regarded as "good" to maximize "efficiency", so that the greatest total amount of benefit accrues to a group as a whole. (I prefer the term "utility" for this.)

But these principles can come into conflict, and the research discussed here investigates a contrived, but sharp, example. Philosophers of ethics call such dilemmas the problem of "distributive justice".

The second issue concerns the style of thinking that a decision maker faced with this kind of dilemma does use, and also, perhaps, what style the decision maker "should" use. On one hand, the decider might try to systematically and logically apply some standard set of rules that are considered appropriate for the situation. But on the other hand, the decider might rely more on emotional factors that indicate what "feels right", the "gut feeling", about what seems "right" in a concrete situation.

Philosophers often describe these two alternatives as "cognitivist" vs. "sentimentalist". The former is sometimes associated with the philosopher Immanuel Kant, and the latter with David Hume.

What emerges from the research is (not surprisingly) that individual decision makers differ in the degree that they favor "equity" vs. "efficiency", and also whether they tend to rely more on logic or emotion to make their decisions.

More interestingly, most people normally process considerations of both equity and efficiency in order to reach a decision, but different parts of the brain are used for the two. Likewise, in making the decision, distinct parts of the brain which normally handle emotional or logical processing can become involved in processing the equity/efficiency trade-off.

One way to think of this is that there are separate calculations of both equity and efficiency that are made for each available choice. And then the result of those calculations are fed to separate subsystems to weigh the alternatives.

The different moral and ethical decisions that different people will arrive at can be attributed to individual differences as to how the various stages of the decision process are handled. For instance, an individual may favor equity over efficiency, and tend to use emotion rather than logic to reach the decision.

Here's what the study found:

In these trails, subjects overwhelmingly chose to preserve equity at the expense of efficiency, Hsu said. "They were all quite inequity averse." The findings support other studies that show that most people are fairly intolerant of inequity.

The animation, in conjunction with the fMRI, allowed the researchers to view activity in the brain at critical moments in the decision-making process. After analyzing the data, they found that different brain regions -- the insula, putamen and caudate -- were activated differently, and at different points in the process, Hsu said.

Activation of the insula varied from trial to trial in relation to changes in equity, while activity in the putamen corresponded to changes in efficiency, he said.

In contrast, the caudate appeared to integrate both equity and efficiency once a decision was made.

The role of the insula (or, more formally, insular cortex) is especially interesting, since this brain region has been associated with quite a few other types of social-emotional mental processing. We'll come back to that in a moment. But here are the conclusions of the researchers:

The involvement of the insula appears to support the notion that emotion plays a role in a person's attitude towards inequity, Hsu said.

The insula is known to play a key role in the awareness of bodily states and emotions. Studies have shown that it is activated in people experiencing hunger or drug-related cravings, and in those feeling intense emotions such as anger, fear, disgust or happiness. Other research has implicated the insula in mediating fairness. ...

Together, the results "show how the brain encodes two considerations central to the distributive justice calculus and shed light on the cognitivist/sentimentalist debate regarding the psychological underpinnings of distributive justice," the authors wrote.

Here's how another report about this research summed it up:

Your Brain on Ethics (5/8/08)

The fMRI scans contain hints of how these two factors might be encoded by the brain. The insula, a brain region linked to processing emotion, became more active when subjects considered more inequitable distributions of meals; it was also more active in subjects whose choices suggested a greater-than-average aversion to inequity. Activity in another region, the putamen, seemed to track the common good, rising in proportion to the total number of meals that could be donated in a given case.

Now let's have a quick overview of the insula. Turns out that it's involved in a lot more than just moral decision-making. Here's a general article from a bit over a year ago:

A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects (2/6/07)

According to neuroscientists who study it, the insula is a long-neglected brain region that has emerged as crucial to understanding what it feels like to be human.

They say it is the wellspring of social emotions, things like lust and disgust, pride and humiliation, guilt and atonement. It helps give rise to moral intuition, empathy and the capacity to respond emotionally to music. ...

If it does everything, what exactly is it that it does?

For example, the insula “lights up” in brain scans when people crave drugs, feel pain, anticipate pain, empathize with others, listen to jokes, see disgust on someone’s face, are shunned in a social settings, listen to music, decide not to buy an item, see someone cheat and decide to punish them, and determine degrees of preference while eating chocolate.

Damage to the insula can lead to apathy, loss of libido and an inability to tell fresh food from rotten. ...

Of course, like every important brain structure, the insula — there are actually two, one on each side of the brain — does not act alone. It is part of multiple circuits.

The insula itself is a sort of receiving zone that reads the physiological state of the entire body and then generates subjective feelings that can bring about actions, like eating, that keep the body in a state of internal balance. Information from the insula is relayed to other brain structures that appear to be involved in decision making, especially the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices.

Stay tuned. We'll be discussing the insula quite a bit more here, I think.

Further reading:

The Right and the Good: Distributive Justice and Neural Encoding of Equity and Efficiency – Original research report published 5/8/08 at Science Express (sub. rqd. for full access)

Which Orphans Do You Want to Starve? – Blog article by Sharon Begley at Newsweek

How Fairness Is Wired In The Brain – 5/28/08 press release about the research dealing with fairness and the insula

Tags: morality, fairness, utility, neuroscience, neurobiology, insula, insular cortex

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What Pinker said

The Stupidity of Dignity

To understand the source of this topsy-turvy value system, one has to look more deeply at the currents that underlie the Council. Although the Dignity report presents itself as a scholarly deliberation of universal moral concerns, it springs from a movement to impose a radical political agenda, fed by fervent religious impulses, onto American biomedicine.

The report's oddness begins with its list of contributors. Two (Adam Schulman and Daniel Davis) are Council staffers, and wrote superb introductory pieces. Of the remaining 21, four (Leon R. Kass, David Gelernter, Robert George, and Robert Kraynak) are vociferous advocates of a central role for religion in morality and public life, and another eleven work for Christian institutions (all but two of the institutions Catholic). Of course, institutional affiliation does not entail partiality, but, with three-quarters of the invited contributors having religious entanglements, one gets a sense that the fix is in. A deeper look confirms it.

Here's Pinker citing an especially choice quote from Leon Kass, the high-guru of right-wing "bioethics"

Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom. There is a "mortal danger," he writes, in the notion "that a person has a right over his body, a right that allows him to do whatever he wants to do with it." He is troubled by cosmetic surgery, by gender reassignment, and by women who postpone motherhood or choose to remain single in their twenties. Sometimes his fixation on dignity takes him right off the deep end:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone--a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. ... Eating on the street--even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat--displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. ... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.

And here is my own take on Kass, from almost three years ago.

This new 555-page report that Pinker writes about is just one more salvo in the right-wing war on science. Fortunately, their war is going about as well for them as their war in Iraq. And even more fortunately, the dimwits behind this nonsense seem to be on track to lose big at the polls this fall.

Tags: bioethics, human dignity, Steven Pinker

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Cheating

It's certainly appropriate – as well as hilarious – to draw the analogy between humans and slime molds. Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel Clemens, and H. L. Mencken would approve. But there's serious truth in it:

Some cheaters can keep it in their genes

A new study examining social behaviour suggests certain individuals are genetically programmed to cheat and often will do- providing they can get away with it.

The researchers looked at slime moulds - microscopic single-cell organisms or amoebae that are forced to cooperate with one another when food is in short supply. Studying slime moulds at the cellular level provides the scientists with a unique insight into the genes that may also influence human behaviour.

The international team, including biologists from The University of Manchester, found that some amoebae have the ability to use cheating tactics to give them a better chance of survival. The research - published in the journal Nature - not only demonstrates that cheating is a natural phenomenon governed by our genes but that it may be widespread among social creatures.

This is familiar territory. I wrote about it here, where the subject (among other things) was the evolutionary origins of altruism and cooperation. One needs to read that (or be familiar with the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology on the origins of morality and ethics) in order to see how the following speculations fit in.

Apparently, in many social species, there is a tendency for populations to evolve with an equilibrium mixture of cheaters and non-cheaters ("altruists"). Although cooperation increases the probability of group survival, some individuals in any group can gain an advantage by cheating, so they will tend to persist in groups as time goes on. But they can't become too numerous without harming the group's survival. So eventually some equilibrium is reached.

In the simulation of intergroup warfare I discussed in my earlier post, it was the warfare which worked against survival, so that under such conditions, there were pressures against a large equilibrium fraction of cheaters. These pressures were manifested in such things as religion and moral/ethical codes of behavior, together with formalized punishment of cheaters.

But warfare isn't the only factor that can put pressure on group survival. Simply living in a hostile or marginal environment can do it. This seems to be what happens with slime molds. Individuals can be, well, individualists until there is an existential threat.

One wonders whether this isn't what happened to the Neanderthals. Their environment was harsh. They must have migrated to that environment during favorable conditions (otherwise, why stay?), but eventually conditions got worse. If they were not able to evolve (biologically and/or socially) fast enough to reduce the percentage of cheaters, it's reasonable to suppose all would die. Modern humans living around the same time in similar environments – and who survived – perhaps were able to evolve faster. Or else they had already better capabilities for intragroup cooperation to deter cheating. Things like abilities in their brains for cheater detection, a "theory of mind", and ethical reasoning.

Other considerations suggest that worsening environmental conditions leads to more intergroup warfare (if population density is high enough, so that there is competition for resources, not merely strugle to survive, as on an island without competing groups). Such warfare would also promote cooperation and intragroup altruism over cheating.

What kind of cooperation is helpful in the non-warfare scenario? Sharing of resources (food, shelter, tools, clothing, etc.) Also communal support for raising orphaned children. Groups that had such customs and low proportions of cheaters would be more likely to survive at all.

Incidentally, one of the principal investigators (Chris Thompson) in the slime mold study, seems to know his subject pretty well. Here's another item about his slime mold research.

Tags: morality, slime molds, evolutionary psychology

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Religion and war

People bitch a lot about violence featured in movies and TV, but ignore a worse problem – how the sort of real (not make-believe) violence known as war is often associated with religion.

Now there may be a better theoretical understanding of how and why this association between religion and war may exist. Two articles in the October 26, 2007 issue of Science discuss evolutionary simulations which show that war drives the joint evolution of altruism and hostility to outsiders. Based on (but going beyond) this work, we will see how religion may be associated with warfare.

The first "perspectives" article gives an overview:

The Sharp End of Altruism

Which would you prefer: a society of selfish but tolerant freetraders, or a warrior society in which people help one another but are hostile to outsiders? If you value both altruism and tolerance, neither seems ideal. Societies of tolerant altruists, however, are exceedingly rare in the simulation presented by Choi and Bowles on page 636 of this issue. Instead, altruism flourishes only in the company of outgroup hostility (parochialism), with war as both the engine of this coevolutionary process and its legacy. For a compatriot, the parochial altruist who risks his life is a shining knight, whereas the outsider encounters the sharp end of this altruism.

The second article is a technical presentation of the research itself, which was the work of Jung-Kyoo Choi and Samuel Bowles:

The Coevolution of Parochial Altruism and War

Altruism—benefiting fellow group members at a cost to oneself—and parochialism—hostility toward individuals not of one's own ethnic, racial, or other group—are common human behaviors. The intersection of the two—which we term "parochial altruism"—is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective because altruistic or parochial behavior reduces one's payoffs by comparison to what one would gain by eschewing these behaviors. But parochial altruism could have evolved if parochialism promoted intergroup hostilities and the combination of altruism and parochialism contributed to success in these conflicts. Our game-theoretic analysis and agent-based simulations show that under conditions likely to have been experienced by late Pleistocene and early Holocene humans, neither parochialism nor altruism would have been viable singly, but by promoting group conflict, they could have evolved jointly.

Unfortunately, both articles require a subscription for access.

Curiously, there appears to have been almost no reporting on this research in the usual places that report on scientific research for a general audience. (Wonder why that is....) And this is even though the Santa Fe Institute, with which one of the researchers (Bowles) is associated, did put out this press release:

The coevolution of parochial altruism and war

In "The Coevolution of Parochial Altruism and War" appearing in the October 26 issue of Science, SFI researcher Samuel Bowles and colleague Jung-Kyoo Choi of Kyungpook National University in South Korea suggest that the altruistic and warlike aspects of human nature may have a common origin.

Altruism – benefiting fellow group members at a cost to oneself – and parochialism – hostility toward individuals not of one's own ethnic, racial, or other group – are common to human nature, but we don't immediately think of them as working together hand in hand. In fact the unexpected combination of these two behaviors may have enabled the survival of each trait according to Bowles and Choi.

They show that the two behaviors – which they term "parochial altruism" – may have in fact coevolved. On the face of it joining parochialism to altruism is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective because both behaviors reduce one's payoffs by comparison to what one would gain by avoiding them. Aggression consumes resources and risks death; altruism, particularly toward those with whom we have no direct relationship, has the effect of helping other genes advance at our expense. But parochial altruism could have evolved if parochialism promoted intergroup hostilities and the combination of altruism and parochialism contributed to the success of these conflicts.

Using game theoretic analysis and agent-based simulations Bowles and Choi show that under conditions likely to have been experienced by late Pleistocene and early Holocene humans neither parochialsim nor altruism would have been viable singly, but by promoting group conflict, they could have evolved jointly.

"But even if a parochial form of altruism may be our legacy," said Bowles, "it need not be our fate." He pointed to the many examples of contemporary altruism extending beyond group boundaries, and the fact that hostility toward outsiders is often redirected or eliminated entirely in a matter of years.

Now, none of this actually mentions religion. Choi and Bowles don't discuss it. So where does religion come into it? We'll get to that shortly. But first, let's review a bit about how altruism and cooperation in human cultures are thought to have evolved.

At first, it could seem that altruism and cooperation are unlikely to have evolved in humans at all, because they seem to be traits of an individual that are of more benefit to others than to the individual who happens to possess them.

However, there is a long history of evolutionary studies that have suggested how tendencies toward altruism and cooperation could have evolved in human groups. For example, starting in 1964 William D. Hamilton argued that altruism toward blood relatives helped to favor shared genes that fostered such altruism. This was termed "kin altruism".

Additional scientific consideration of the evolution of morality, altruism, and cooperation took off in the 1970s, in the work of people like Robert Trivers and Robert Axelrod. Using game theoretic arguments and simulations they showed how another type of altruism – "reciprocal altruism" – could arise in populations where individuals interacted frequently and could learn which others had earned a reputation for dependability in their dealings with other group members.

Many, many others have written on the subject since then, such as Edward O. Wilson (e. g. Consilience, published in 1998), and Steven Pinker (How the Mind Works, published in 1997). A very good history of the subject up until 1996 can be found in Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue.

On the other hand, in spite of arguments advanced showing the benefits to individuals of practicing altruism within a single tribe or cultural group, the fact remains that separate, unrelated groups could easily come into conflict over access to resources (e. g. water, game, other food sources, etc.), especially in times of scarcity due to overpopulation, unfavorable climate, etc. The result would be warfare.

Many people have also studied how evolutionary tendencies have contributed to aggression and warlike behavior between competing human groups. It seems that separate groups that have relatively low genetic similarity to each other and must compete for scarce resources have a notable tendency to come into conflict with each other, and to solve their problems of overpopulation or resource scarcity by killing as many members of the other group as possible. A good exposition of such ideas can be found in this article by Keith Henson: Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War.

It seems very reasonable to see such considerations as the source of the very human tendency to exhibit distrust and even hostility towards other humans who are noticeably "different", especially in physical characteristics, but also when there are simply cultural differences in taste, belief systems, etc.

Furthermore, when conflict between groups does occur and takes the form of open warfare, there is a distinct advantage for groups that have a high percentage of individuals who behave altruistically and cooperatively with each other. If you accept the (somewhat controversial) notion of evolutionary "group selection", this fact provides yet another evolutionary argument for the development of a third type of altruism – parochial altruism – within groups – because groups with the higher percentage of members who cooperate with each other will tend to prevail.

However, there is another side to this story. Individuals will not entirely lose a tendency to gain personal advantage through selfish behavior (such as hoarding food). Altruism can be disadvantageous for an individual if it goes too far, so there is some evolutionary pressure against it also. In an environment where scarcity of resources is not a large problem, individuals can serve their own interests by being open to interaction with members of other groups – especially for commerce and trading of "excess" goods. Individuals who are selfishly willing to trade their goods with members of other groups for the best exchange they can achieve will tend to do better for themselves since they are willing to "sell" to the highest bidder, regardless of group membership.

This, then, is the setting on which Choi and Bowles based their simulation. They considered two kinds of traits an individual could have. One related to altruism (A) vs. selfishness (N, for "not altruistic"). The other related to tolerance (T) vs. hostility (P, for "parochial") towards member of other groups. Any given individual could have one of four possible combinations (AT, AP, NT, NP). They started with groups having members with differing proportions of each possible combination.

Absent intergroup conflict, NT individuals (the most tolerant but selfish) tend to be most successful, and AP the least successful. But when intergroup conflicts occur, groups with the most AP types do better than groups with the most NT types. The simulations proceeded over thousands of generations, and a variety of parameters, all believed to be consistent with what is known about late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer human tribes, were tested.

The net result was that groups with many NT or AP individuals can both be successful, depending on how much warfare occurs (which depends on environmental conditions). But in most cases, groups with high proportions of NP or AT individuals lose out under any conditions. So one conclusion is that in order to have a lot of altruism within a group, you have to expect a lot of parochial intergroup hostility. Conversely, in order to have groups with a lot of tolerance towards other groups, you should expect less altruism and cooperation within the group. Choi and Bowles maintain that the same results tend to arise from a wide variety of different initial conditions.

True, this is "only" a simulation study. And it rests on the assumption that altruism and parochialism (or their opposites) are heritable traits (which alternatively might be transmitted culturally rather than genetically). But it seems to give results that accord well with what we know of human history. And that's where religion enters the picture. (Choi and Bowles do not discuss religion, so what follows is based on their findings, but also the contributions of others.)

In evolutionary terms, why is it that religion is so widespread in human societies? There are a variety of plausible explanations. One is that religion provides the rationale for moral and ethical principles that promote intergroup cooperation and altruism. The argument made by supporters of this idea – such as David Sloan Wilson in his book Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society – is that societies and cultures with strong religion-based ethical and moral principles have a competitive advantage over other groups.

However, what the Choi-Bowles simulation suggests is that this advantage is realized only when groups often engage in conflict and war. For otherwise, there is an advantage for groups with lots of tolerance towards other groups, and lots of free-traders working for their own self-interest.

So, ironically, religion may have developed as a result of intergroup warfare, as a social artifact that helps justify intragroup altruism that actually was selected for because of the warfare. And at the same time, religion would also incorporate a justification for the intergroup hostility and aggression that arose from the same evolutionary process.

In other words, evolutionary pressures tend to bring about an association of religion and warfare. Note that this is not saying religion "causes" war. Indeed, evolutionary theory suggests that overpopulation and resource limits usually tend to be what "causes" war. But when such conditions prevail, it isn't too surprising to find a close association between religion and war. Just recall the slogan some religious believers are so fond of: "There are no atheists in foxholes." (In other words, most of the cannon fodder found in foxholes and military cemeteries is (or was) religious believers.)

Of course, most religions aren't pro-war full time. Many religious believers oppose war because of their faith. Nevertheless, most religions have their holy warriors, such as Mujahideen and Crusaders. (Military equipment of predominantly Christian nations is sometimes named a Crusader.) Most religions have their own versions of Onward Christian Soldiers. And most religions celebrate war in other ways.

But is there scientific evidence of a relation between religion and war? Yes. Consider this:

When God Sanctions Violence, Believers Act More Aggressively

Reading violent scriptures increases aggressive behavior, especially among believers, a new study finds. The study by University of Michigan social psychologist Brad Bushman and colleagues helps to illuminate one of the ways that violence and behavior are linked.

"To justify their actions, violent people often claim that God has sanctioned their behavior," said Bushman, faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research and lead author of the article published in the March 2007 issue of Psychological Science. "Christian extremists, Jewish reactionaries and Islamic fundamentalists all can cite scriptures that seem to encourage or at least support aggression against unbelievers."

To be sure, this is hardly a new observation. Mark Twain, as well as many others before him, had already nailed it.

Update (11/13/07): I see that I missed one of the U. S. military's pricey toys proposed artillery systems (which was canceled in 2002) that used the "Crusader" moniker – the Crusader 155mm Self-Propelled Howiter. See here or here. Onward, Christian soldiers, indeed.

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