Assessor Teaching and the Evolution of Human Morality
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Assessor Teaching and the Evolution of Human Morality Laureano Castro1 · Miguel Ángel Castro‑Nogueira2 · Morris Villarroel3 · Miguel Ángel Toro3 Received: 13 January 2020 / Accepted: 28 August 2020 © Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research 2020
Abstract We consider the evolutionary scheme of morality proposed by Tomasello to defend the idea that the ability to orient the learning of offspring using signs of approval/disapproval could be a decisive and necessary step in the evolution of human morality. Those basic forms of intentional evaluative feedback, something we have called assessor teaching, allow parents to transmit their accumulated experience to their children, both about the behaviors that should be learned as well as how they should be copied. The rationale underlying this process is as follows: if a behavior is approved, then it is good; if it is disapproved, then it is bad. The evaluative guidance on how to behave most probably spread among peers in situations of mutual benefit, such as cooperative child rearing. We argue that our hominin ancestors provided with this capacity for asses‑ sor teaching were ideally positioned to develop the two specifically human levels of morality proposed by Tomasello: the morality of fairness and the morality of justice. Assessor teaching could have facilitated the genesis of rudimentary codes of behavior tied with the need to agree about how to behave to succeed in joint cooperative activities. Moreover, learning through assessor teaching provides a plausible explanation for the origin of the objectivist and prescriptive dimensions of human morality. First, we emphasize that individuals feel that they evaluate the behavior of others objectively to guide their learning, and, second, we underline the imperative intention that any moral manifestation possesses. Keywords Cultural learning · Folk moral objectivism · Mutual benefit · Prescriptivism
Evolution and Morality The term morality encompasses a wide set of phenomena and human behavioral traits that influence social interac‑ tions, especially cooperative ones. We can summarize those phenomena and traits into five main ideas. First, moral behavior involves feelings of empathy and concern * Laureano Castro [email protected] Miguel Ángel Castro‑Nogueira [email protected] Morris Villarroel [email protected] Miguel Ángel Toro [email protected] 1
Centro Asociado de Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain
2
IES Pablo Picasso, Consejería de Educación de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
3
Departamento de Producción Agraria, ETSIAAB-UPM Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
for relatives and conspecifics which makes us want to help and cooperate with them (Hume [1740]1978; Darwin [1871]1981; De Waal 1996, 2012). Second, moral individu‑ als are indignant towards or disgusted by others who fail to cooperate honestly or are not fair (Hume [1740]1978; Tooby and Cosmides 1992; De Waal 2006). Third, moral indivi
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