Moral language regulation.

Smith, David S.

Abstract

In "The Descent of Man", Charles Darwin identified a moral sense as the cornerstone of what it is to be human. He suggested that, to a social species, the evolution of an ethical brain was essential. This is because no interdependent tribe could succeed if immoral acts, like murder, were to become commonplace. Although the author goes on to claim differences in morality between humans and other animals are a matter of degrees, crucially he suggests only the former can regret actions. Moreover, only they can categorize them in terms of rightness or wrongness. Methods of policing have been observed in other species such as chimpanzees. Yet it seems only humans are able to construct formal moral frameworks, like legal systems, to regulate aspects of life that are not directly linked to reproductive fitness (e.g., obscenity, blasphemy, and copyright legislation). This exception to the general rule within nature suggests that moral systems are a recent adaptation. Another trait considered distinctly human is the capacity for language. Other animals harbor elaborate communication systems enabling them to alert peers to environmental features, and in some instances, there is even evidence of them attaching distinct sounds to particular targets. For example, vervet monkeys have been found to produce acoustically different alarm calls in the presence of different predators (Seafarth et al. 1980). Yet human language is thought to be remarkable because of its flexibility, i.e., the ability to combine symbols into understandable structures (Hauser et al. 2002). Humans appear to have been uniquely endowed with the recursive computational mechanisms required to create infinite combinations from a finite set of elements. It is this combinatorial property that has led to the emergence of these two capacities to be considered in parallel.

Citation

SMITH, D.S. 2016. Moral language regulation. In Shackelford, T. and Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds.). Encyclopedia of evolutionary psychological science. Cham: Springer [online], pages 1-4. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3312-1

• Acceptance Date: Dec 1, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Dec 30, 2016
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2016
• Deposit Date: Nov 23, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 25, 2024
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 1-4
• Book Title: Encyclopedia of evolutionary psychological science
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3312-1
• Keywords: Altruism; Evolution of morality; Rule of law; Language; Morality
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1631782
• Additional Information: In addition to this chapter, David Smith also authored the following chapter: SMITH, D. “Nativism.”, pages 1-4. ( https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3355-1 )