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HUMAN PHENOTYPIC MORALITY AND THE BIOLOGICAL BASES FOR KNOWING GOOD Margaret Boone Rappaport and Christopher Corbally

ABSTRACT Committed to the use of modern scientific findings in neuroscience, cognitive science, information science, and palaeoanthropology to understand human phenotypic morality, the speakers rely on these disciplines to explicate the origins of moral and (and to an extent) religious capacity in the genus Homo. They first review models used by others in (1) analyses of living primates and attempts to identify precursors of morality in their sociability, and (2) research on living humans who cannot “know good” or make moral decisions because of brain dysfunction. Serious deficiencies in these approaches are analyzed, first, in a review of neuroscientist Sam Harris, who rejects cultural relativism when evaluating morality, emphasizing that consciousness is the only true moral context and science has access to states of conscious “well being.” The authors turn to the evolutionary origins of morality by using neuroscience, cognitive science, and information science to propose a model of human phenotypic morality, and then they discuss its Human Lineage Specific characteristics.

Keywords: cognitive science, genomic science, Human Lineage Specific (HLS), information

science, morality, neuroscience, paleoanthropology, primates, psychopathology, Social Brain

Network

Biosketches Dr. Margaret Boone Rappaport, née Margaret S. Boone, is a cultural anthropologist who works as a futurist, lecturer, and science fiction writer in Tucson, Arizona. She earned her doctorate at the Ohio State University in 1977. Her dissertation was on the adjustment of Cuban refugee women and families. For fifteen years she lectured in Sociology and Anthropology at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, and testified twice to Congress on infant mortality. She is a past chair of the Ethics Committee, American Anthropological Association. She has authored Computer Applications for Anthropologists, Capital Cubans: Refugee Adaptation in Washington, Capital Crime: Black Infant Mortality in America, along with first authorship of many articles, including in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science.

As President, Policy Research Methods, Incorporated, Falls Church, Virginia, she was a contractor to federal and state agencies for over twenty years. Recently, she co-founded The Human Sentience Project, which does research on and offers speaking services in science and religion topics.

Dr. Rappaport is also a prize-winning short story and poetry writer.

Rev. Dr. Christopher Corbally is a Jesuit astronomer for the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, Arizona, for which he has served as vice-director, and liaison to its headquarters at Castle Gandolfo, Italy. He is associate professor at the Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, and ministers to a wide variety of Catholics, including Native Americans. He is a past president of IRAS, was co-organizer for their conference on “Life in the Universe,” and is the other co-founder of the Human Sentience Project. Chris is looking forward to singing in the IRAS choir again.

Recommended Reading

Ayala, Francisco J. 2010. The Difference of Being Human: Morality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(Suppl. 2): 9015-22.

Colagè, Ivan. 2015. The Human Being Shaping and Transcending Itself: Written Language, Brain, and Culture. Zygon 50(4): 1002-1021.

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Coolidge, Frederick. L., and Thomas Wynn. 2009. The Rise of Homo sapiens; The Evolution of Modern Thinking. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

De Waal, Frans. 2009. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gazzaniga, Michael S. 2006. The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas. New York: Harper.

Harris, Sam. 2011. The Moral Landscape; How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York: Free Press.

O’Bleness, Majesta, Veronica Searles, Ajit Varki, Pascal Gagneux, and James M. Sikela. 2012. Evolution of Genetic and Genomic Features Unique to the Human Lineage. Nature Reviews Genetics 13(12): 853-66.

Opie, Kit, and Camilla Power. 2011. Grandmothering and Female Coalitions; A Basis for Matrilineal Priority? In: Early Human Kinship; From Sex to Social Reproduction. Nicholas J. Allen, Hilary Callan, Robin Dunbar, and Wendy James, Eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 168-86.

Rappaport, Margaret Boone, and Christopher Corbally. 2015. Matrix Thinking: An Adaptation at the Foundation of Human Science, Religion, and Art. Zygon; Journal of Religion and Science 50(1): 84-112. March.

Stringer, Chris. 2012. Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth. New York: Times Books.

Human Phenotypic Morality and the Biological Bases for Knowing Good

Margaret Boone Rappaport1 and Christopher Corbally, SJ2

CULTURE AND SOCIETY: THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR UNDERSTANDING MORALITY

The first true primates appeared in the early Cenozoic Era, around 55 million years ago, although

some scholars peg the time earlier, around 66 mya (Larsen 2014, 253-60). When they emerged,

primates had good vision (later, stereoscopic vision), a reduced sense of smell, were tree-

dwelling, agile, and smart. Humans, who came much later, retain all these characteristics, and

while they are no longer arboreal, they still have the shoulder girdle that proves they descend

from apes who swung from limb to limb. Primate adaptations include dietary flexibility,

significant parental investment of time and energy, and a variety of resulting specialized

socialization patterns and forms of social organization. And, some have culture.

Primate sociability is widely seen as improving survival through the group’s avoidance of

predators, and providing more ready access to mates for reproduction. These advantages

probably began to accrue in the evolution of the earliest monkeys. In the past 55 million years, or

more, primates have developed many different types of social organization, communication

1 Margaret Boone Rappaport, (née Margaret S. Boone), is an anthropologist and Co-Founder of

The Human Sentience Project, 400 E. Deer’s Rest Pl., Tucson, AZ 85704, USA; e-mail:

msbrappaport@aol.com. 2 Christopher J. Corbally, SJ, is an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and Department of

Astronomy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA; e-mail:

Corbally@vaticanobservatory.org.

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patterns, foraging and feeding, and some have learned to hunt. Primate social patterns involve

relatively frequent and intense social interaction and high affectivity, and the wide distribution of

these traits testifies to their antiquity. It is important to remember that when we speak of

sociability, we are referring to observable behavior: numbers and types of individual primates

that interact in specific ways that can be described, charted, and compared. We also infer from

their behavior something about their emotional states from indications of demeanor and gesture,

but we typically do not infer what they are thinking.

While sociability forms an important foundation from which to investigate the emergence of a

capacity like morality in later hominins, it should be remembered that a great deal happened

between the evolution of monkeys and hominins like us. The great apes and lesser apes

(together, hominoids) emerged about 28 million years ago, and today’s living great apes include

the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus), gorillas, and orangutans. The lesser apes

include the gibbon. The capacity for culture probably flowered sometime after the emergence of

the great apes, but to date, we have seen it primarily in the highest great apes (chimpanzees) and

humans (both living and extinct forms). Because behavior patterns that could be called “cultural”

(“sweet potato washing”) have been observed in the Rhesus macaques, it is possible that some

(perhaps not all) biological foundations of a capacity for culture existed before the great apes.

Or, the macaques may have developed some facet of culture in an example of parallel evolution.

In general, monkeys to not evidence culture, although they are socially organized.

It is important to distinguish sociability from cultural capacity, although that can be a difficult

task, and many writers of late have taken to using the term “sociocultural” to cover them both.

However, society and culture are very different, and we assume that the biological bases for

them are very different, as well, down to the neurological components and genomic segments.

As we have seen, sociability emerged in the primates 55 mya, but culture in primates emerged

only sometime after the great apes.

“Culture” refers to specific patterns of belief (mentation) that may have no relation to improved

survivability, on the surface. Culturally based practices can be quite arbitrary and non-utilitarian,

as the chimpanzees who decorate their ears with blades of grass (Main 2014), or hippies of the

1960s who took to wearing bell bottom trousers. Furthermore, cultural patterns are just that:

Entire and inclusive systems of arrangements that can permeate every aspect of mental and

material life, from the divisions of dwellings in a village to the patterns of tattoos on women’s

thighs – as Lévi-Strauss demonstrated so well in Tristes Tropiques (1955). Cultural patterns are

displayed internally in the “way one thinks” and externally on cultural artifacts, and they vary

substantially from social group to social group. While individual cultural elements may not

enhance survivability, the sharing of a specific pattern of beliefs solidifies a sense of group

belonging far more steadfastly than emotions expressed in social interaction of monkeys or apes.

In a very real sense, people with the same culture “see the world” in the same way. It is difficult

to imagine that anything could be more deeply held than primate sociability, but primate culture

is. This, by itself, suggests that it evolved and flowered much later than sociability. Human

culture is a relatively new Human Lineage Specific capacity, and it is far deeper than among

chimpanzees.

Irrespective of its level of sophistication, culture has been demonstrated most clearly in

chimpanzee behavior, and in the material, archaeological finds of Homo erectus, Homo

heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens idaltu, archaic Eurasian versions of Homo (including Homo

neanderthalensis and the Denisovans), and in later versions of Homo sapiens migrating out of

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Africa 50-60,000 years ago, who became us, Homo sapiens sapiens. A common ancestor to the

higher primates must have had some, rudimentary, biologically based capacity for culture.

Our main point is that primate sociability may well have emerged millions of years before the

capacity for culture evolved. Most living primates are far more “social” than they are “cultural,”

with the exception of humans, for whom culture has grown and dominated social life to such an

extent, that it can now act reflexively and change our biology (Colagè 2015; Rappaport &

Corbally in press). To those who use the term “sociocultural,” this can be a shock. Primates were

intensely social before a capacity for culture was cemented sometime after the great apes

evolved, shortly (in evolutionary terms) before the chimpanzees split off from our line perhaps 6-

7 million years ago. That makes the differential between sociability and culture as much as 48

million years! We were social long before we were cultural beings.

UTILITY AND NON-UTILITY OF SOCIABILITY AS A FOUNDATION FOR MORALITY

We raise the wide gulf between the emergence of society and culture to emphasize that analyzing

primate sociability as a way of looking for precursors of moral thinking may not be the most

logical course. Our view is that morality is a capacity that arose around the time of Homo

erectus, after he controlled fire at 1 mya (Rappaport & Corbally in press). We hold that morality

is younger still than cultural capacity, and much younger than ancient primate sociability. One of

morality’s most salient features – the development of reading, and therefore the potentiation of a

reflective, moral person (Colagè 2015) – arose only 6,000 years ago. Next to sociability at 55

mya, that is but the blink of an eye.

To summarize, primate sociability emerged around 55 mya, perhaps earlier; primate cultural

capacity was present from around 6-7 mya; and hominin morality emerged, we have proposed, at

the time of Homo erectus, around 1 mya. Searching for a primary foundation of morality and

“knowing good” in sociability may not therefore be the most obvious and fruitful investigative

path. If models are necessary, then the model of culture, and of both fire use and stone tool

construction, would be greatly preferable when searching for evolutionary origins of morality.

Indeed, we place both the control of fire, and hand axe construction and use, in our cognitively

based morality model (Rappaport & Corbally in press).

The questions now are: Can the sociability of great apes help us understand the emergence of the

human capacity for morality more than the monkeys do, or at all? Does ape sociability lay a

foundation for “knowing good” in hominins? This is the starting point for much work in the

evolutionary study of morality’s emergence among hominins. Indicators of precursors to moral

thinking and behavior have been widely sought. Similarities have ostensibly been found in both

the social behavior and the social neuroscience of the great apes and their smarter cousins,

extinct and living hominins. Modern humans, once they have achieved full adult cognition,

usually have some capacity for “knowing good,” but do the other primates have this capacity?

Probably most of them do not. Do culture-bearers (after around 6-7 mya) have a capacity for

morality and “knowing good”? Probably most early apes did not, but the later apes might have,

because culture emerged relatively recently in comparison to sociability. We don’t know, but if

modern apes represent them, then we conclude, probably not. Do any culture-bearers other than

living humans “know good”? That remains an open question – ethological (as possibly in the

study of dolphins), sociological, philosophical, and theological, but primarily, archaeological.

At this point we should mention the enormous problem of intuiting the behavior and cognition of

both other living primate species and extinct species who leave palaeo-anthropological evidence

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for us to analyze. Indeed humans have this particular problem with respect to their well loved

pets, Canis lupus familiaris, which have been purposefully bred for perhaps a million years, after

Homo erectus learned to control fire. Our view is that the very long treks involved in Homo

erectus’ colonization of the Old World outside of Africa required the control of fire, use of well

made hand axes, and partial domestication of the dog. Since that time, canines have been bred to

react in ways that satisfy their masters, including sad looks, presumed emotions, wagging tails,

and attentiveness. We see the absence of these qualities in Canis lupus, the wolf. They show

little inclination to please their human owners. This analogy is especially important when we

begin to infer feelings and cognitive states of animals as close to humans as the great apes. No

one can watch a video of a grieving chimpanzee, and not be moved. Still, we must ask ourselves

what we are seeing and what we are reading into their behavior. In modern cognitive science,

laboratory tests provide a wealth of information on human cognition, but among our close

primate relatives, cognitive testing is much more difficult and requires creative experimental

designs.

COGNITIVE INDICATORS FOR MORALITY AND KNOWING GOOD

Given this background, let us examine two recent formulations that try to find morality’s origins

in (1) primates who are less advanced that we are, and (2) studies of human subjects who cannot

think morally because of brain trauma and lesions. The assumption in these approaches is that

morality relies on some pre-existing biology. However, as we shall discuss, given the vast

amount of genomic material available for adaptation on the Human Lineage, and the line’s

inherent plasticity, we are not, at this time, convinced that a specific great-ape precursor to

morality existed in the past or that it exists today. We are not convinced of the presumed

“indicators” of morality in living great apes. There was plenty of time and a plethora of adaptive

biology on which natural selection could work, so the proposal that something crucial for

morality’s emergence must have existed before the Human Lineage, we feel needs very careful

re-examination and much more research.

We propose that morality is a Human Lineage Specific trait that should find a place in Varki and

Altheide’s “Table 1. Some phenotypic traits of humans for comparison with those of great apes”

(2005, 1747). On that table, there are headings for physical, physiological, and developmental

characteristics, as well as Behavior, Cognitive Capacity, Communication, Social Organization,

and Culture. Terms that might indicate morality, moral thinking, or moral culture find no place

on this list. The closest concept is “Social conventions” under “Social Organization.” From a

certain perspective, these two biologists’ list of human phenotypic traits may reflect the

prevailing, somewhat false assumption that morality is an aspect of sociability, but if it is, then

why is it not present in social categories of this list? We feel morality is indeed implemented

using social organization and social mores but, that morality exists at a higher and more complex

level that we have called, “suprasocial.” If morality were a fundamental part of ape sociability,

then why do we not see its probable emergence until well after the origination of the genus

Homo? We believe that for morality to emerge, hominins required a certain nurturant but

adjudicative group cultural context that we have elsewhere termed, the “Human Hearth”

(Rappaport & Corbally, in press).

We have defined the components of morality that we are looking for, in terms of human

biologically-based cognitive capacities: (1) an ability to work mentally along a timeline, (2) a

cognitive explanation-maker (and so, the generation of explanations about how things work); and

(3) an arbiter or evaluator, to sift mentally among options and make decisions (Rappaport &

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Corbally, in press). Harvard biologist Marc Hauser, in Moral Minds, provides support for the

concept of a decision-making cognitive component for morality when he writes

moral judgments are mediated by an unconscious process, a hidden moral grammar that

evaluates the causes and consequences of our own and others’ actions. This account shifts the

burden of evidence from a philosophy of morality to a science of morality (2007, 2).

A neurological arbiter, or evaluating component as a basis for morality finds some support even

in recent research on genomics that identifies particular Human Lineage Specific traits tied to

specific genome segments for “decision-making.” We will turn to selected HLS genes below.

We have located all of these cognitive requirements potentially in the biology and lifeway of an

early member of our species, Homo erectus.

(1) A timeline is well indicated by planned, multi-stage construction of Homo erectus hand axes.

(2) An explanation-maker is found clearly in the modern human Left Hemisphere Interpreter

(LHI), which churns out explanations (Gazzaniga 2006); an emergent form of the LHI is

proposed for Homo erectus, who had a much larger brain and a higher neocortex ratio than the

australopithecines who came before (Aiello & Dunbar 1993). (3) An evaluator and decision

maker, based on additional work by Gazzaniga and colleagues, for both modern humans and, we

propose, Homo erectus, which implicates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala,

and anterior cingulate cortex, all of which are involved together in mediating some affective

executive functions and are thought to play a role in decision-making and evaluation (Gazzaniga

et al. 2013). Note that decision-making has a social, and probably an emotional component, as

we have hypothesized elsewhere (Rappaport & Corbally 2016). Finally, it is noteworthy that

neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga holds a holistic view of the human brain that appreciates its

complexity and the discrete quality of its components. He finds this entirely in line with the

principles of biological evolution when he writes the following.

When we realize that specialized brain circuits arose through natural selection we understand

that the brain is not a unified neural net that supports a general problem-solving device. If we

accept this, we can concentrate on the possibility that smaller, more manageable circuits produce

awareness of a species’ capacities… holding fast to the notion of a unified neural net forces us to

try to understand human conscious experience by figuring out the interactions of billions of

neurons. That task is hopeless (1999 online Dana Foundation blog).

Before we explain how Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and archaic Homo sapiens may

have had morality and an ability to “know good,” and why we think they all did, let us look at

less satisfying models that go far back to sociability for analogs to moral capacity. This research

is groundbreaking in terms of seating empathy, nurturance, and the recognition of faces in well

defined brain components. The question remains whether it demonstrates morality, either its

presence or absence.

SOCIAL BRAIN NETWORK IN MODELS OF MORALITY AND KNOWING GOOD

The Social Brain Network (SBN) is a well verified structure, composed of clearly identified

brain components, including: (1) mirror neurons in the inferior frontal cortex, (2) motor cortex,

(3) insula (4) superior temporal sulcus, (5) amygdala, (6) fusiform face area in the ventral

temporal lobe, (7) anterior cingulate cortex, and (8) prefrontal cortex (Grossman & Johnson

2007; Shoemaker 2012). Studies of brain lesions involving these components lead to the

conclusion that the SBN is somehow involved in the feelings of empathy, compassion, and love,

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as well as altruism and a sense of fairness with others, because lesions create an absence of these

feelings and their resulting behaviors (Shoemaker 2012; Shoemaker n.d.)

We agree that the human tendency to have these feelings is a laudable accomplishment for the

human species. It reflects a long evolutionary history of 55 million years of social living in

troops, and finally human bands and skyscrapers. We agree that the SBN is intimately involved

in human emotional interaction, and that positive emotions such as those listed are central to a

great deal of what we call “social behavior.” Indeed, if we are searching for morality amongst the

research results on sociability, then Christianity’s “Golden Rule” would find a fine basis in this

foundation of feelings and dispositions. Fairness, especially, would find a solid basis in the Old

Testament and the ancient texts of other religions. It is not that the feelings implicated in the

operation of the SBN have nothing to do with the way we treat others. They simply may not be

the equivalent of morality, or even part of its foundation, which finds better underpinnings in

cognitive and genomic science.

For a species that clearly has moral capacity, such as Homo sapiens sapiens, the investigation of

the SBN’s functions are important, especially in documenting the absence of social feelings and

dispositions in humans with brain lesions in components of the SBN. This work continues to be a

fine contribution to neuroscience and medicine. There may be treatments someday that can

ameliorate the absence of a fully functioning SBN.

However, we wonder if the emotions and behaviors tested in developing the SBN model are

sufficient to hold up against other species, living or extinct. Are the qualities described

sufficiently precise to test in other species, and with positive results, to imply that a species

therefore has a basis for moral capacity? This appears to us to be going too far. Important aspects

of morality are missing from the Social Brain Network and its associated emotions and

dispositions. Together, expressing sympathy, exhibiting altruism (whatever that is), recognizing

faces, and providing nurturance do not add up to morality. Shoemaker (n.d.), in adding one more

feature to the list, may indeed cross over into features that we propose are well used by moral

capacity. That feature is “envisioning outcomes of possible behaviors.” That one feature implies

a timeline, without which morality makes no sense, now or in the past. Morality sifts information

on past behaviors, evaluates them, and projects possible consequences into the future. This is

close to, but not exactly, what Shoemaker describes, as the evaluation component is missing.

PRIMATE FIELD STUDIES AND THE PROBLEM OF USING FEELINGS AS A

FOUNDATION OF MORALITY AND KNOWING GOOD

The inference of feelings and social dispositions from chimpanzee behavior is beautifully

documented in Frans de Waal’s volume of field studies (2006). As we have noted above, social

dispositions, social organizations, and social life have been common to the primates for 55

million years and they are highly adaptive, so these findings are no surprise. The problem comes

in interpreting chimpanzee social behavior as human social behavior. They are quite different

between the two species of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus), and we would

expect social behavior to be even more different between these species and humans, as the latter

are in a separate genus and emerged in a radically different lifeway (bipedal scavenging of meat,

and gathering foodstuffs). In the genus Pan we find our close cousins, but they are not us.

Philosophers comment on de Waal’s conclusions that a basis for morality could be found in the

behavior and assumed feelings of chimpanzees. Kitcher describes the logic behind locating the

roots of morality in the sentiments and sociability of the chimpanzee:

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…you argue that chimpanzees have capacities for sympathy, and conclude that they have the

core of the psychology required for morality… Hume, Smith, and their contemporary

champions sort out the ways in which sympathy figures in moral psychology and moral

behavior; the primatologists demonstrate the sympathetic tendencies at work in primate

social life; the evolutionary theorists show how tendencies of this type might have evolved

(Kitcher 2006, 125).

Kitcher then hones his complaint about such a logical process by focusing on so-called

“altruism” – an enormous but indistinct target concept on which volumes have been written. In

the following, the logic of primate studies in a search for morality’s roots becomes clearer.

De Waal wants to recognize nonhuman primates as having dispositions that are not simply

egotistic, and it’s useful to think of ‘psychological altruism’ as a catchall term for covering these.

As I understand it, psychological altruism is a complex notion that involves the adjustment of

desires, intentions, and emotions in light of perceptions of the needs and wishes of others. De

Waal rightly distinguishes the psychological notion from the biological conception of altruism,

defined in terms of the promotion of others’ reproductive success at reproductive cost to oneself;

as he points out, the interesting notion is one that only applies in the context of intentional

behavior… (Kitcher 2006, 126).

With his mention of “intentional behavior,” he finds a wedge that may distinguish chimpanzee

altruism from human behavior that includes a broad understanding of the repercussions of one’s

behavior toward others and toward oneself. The reader wonders: Do chimpanzees have this type

of cognitive grip on their own selves and their own status?

Kitcher goes on to define a typology of altruism and even “altruism profiles,” he claims, “as a

way of exposing how complex the notion of psychological altruism is and how untenable is the

idea that, once we know that nonhuman animals have capacities of psychological altruism, we

can infer that they have the building blocks of morality, too” (2006, 129 emphasis added). In

other words, one doesn’t imply the other, and in this, we agree with him.

In later comments, Kitcher focuses upon the social life of chimpanzees, but finds their social

groups inadequate in meeting the requirements that a basic textbook on sociology or social

psychology might provide. It is not surprising that chimpanzee social groups do not reveal, for

Kitcher, a human-like moral capacity; chimpanzees are too rigid and too uncooperative, in spite

of extensive documentation of cooperation (“long bouts of grooming”) by de Waal (2006, 135)

and many others. These conclusions reveal important lessons for humans, because it is humans

who have moral responsibility for chimpanzees and all other species caught in global climate

change. On the other hand, chimpanzee “societies” are not planning a secure future for humans.

Our view is that morality is more than the sum of the individual emotions and interpersonal

dispositions assigned to the SBN, and therefore, they may not form the best yardsticks to test for

morality in other species. Humans who do not feel sympathy toward others can nevertheless act

toward them very morally. Human morality is a matter of will, not emotion, and humans are

fortunate that this is so.

This distinction between morality and “the emotions that seem to indicate morality” is very

useful, and again points toward the later evolutionary emergence of a biologically based capacity

that separates humans even from their closest cousins, the chimpanzees.

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Add to these conceptual difficulties the problems of testing these qualities in species who cannot

report orally on their internal states, and we find that evidence is weak for what we would call

morality or “knowing good” in modern chimpanzees. Morality is something much more than the

results of SBN research imply. We ask: What does “much more” mean?

WHAT MORE ARE WE LOOKING FOR IN MORALITY?

If the SBN does not reveal human phenotypic morality’s full scope, what exactly are we looking

for? One can glimpse a partial answer to this question in a table in Shoemaker’s most recent

formulation (n.d.) that describes morality as a set of factors and then asks if the SBN allows

chimps to do these: (1) express empathy, (2) express altruism, (3) recognize faces, (4) provide

nurturance, and (5) envision outcomes of possible behaviors. We agree that chimpanzees can do

all of these, except for the last. We are not asking whether chimpanzees have been trained or not

trained, which would determine behavior that suggests the envisioning of consequences. We do

not believe that the higher apes have a sufficient grip on a timeline and their own place on it, to

envision the outcomes of their actions. We believe that chimpanzees may remember “not to do”

a particular behavior because of conditioning, but we do not believe they step back and envision

what might happen to themselves and others, and what the consequences or the implications

would be for their social group. This is a step that we believe chimpanzees have not made.

Harvard philosopher Korsgaard (2006) writes,

Morality is not just a set of obstructions to the pursuit of our interests. Moral standards define

ways of relating to people that most of us, most of the time, find natural and welcome…The idea

of self-interest seems simply out of place when thinking about nonhuman action…Nonhuman

animals are not self-interested. It seems more likely that they…act on the instinct or desire or

emotion that comes uppermost…that is a different matter than calculating what is in your best

interests and being motivated by a conception of your long-term good (101-3).

Let us take a look at the characteristics of human phenotypic morality in Table A., which has

been updated since its initial formulation (Rappaport & Corbally, in press). Instead of beginning

with sociability, which we now know we have shared with other primates for at least 55 million

years, we begin with the cognitive requirements for today’s humans to do “moral thinking,” even

if it occurs non-verbally and in private. The tradition of thought experiments and solitary moral

questioning is well founded among philosophers since ancient times. Morality does not require

sociability, although it can be implemented in a social context. Even in private, and even when

arbitrating a moral question with ourselves only, we must be able to satisfy a certain minimum

set of criteria. We will provide a brief review here of the first two of our essential characteristics

of human phenotypic morality, because they stand in such stark contrast to the output of

investigations of the SBN and field research studies on non-human primates.

The first characteristic in Table A is a stance or an attitude, not so much a pre-disposition, but a

vantage point. It is an imaginary vantage point, but one that serves quite well to accomplish some

of the tasks of human phenotypic morality. We call this, “A mental step both back and up.” It is

important to list this first, because human morality cannot usually be applied in the fog of daily

interaction. It requires a distance, and this distance is usually symbolic with respect to someone

receiving moral judgment, even ourselves. An elder or sage or expert steps back and assumes a

higher perspective. The judge does this. The priest does this. Parents, at one of those critical

family discussions at a cleared dinner table, do this. Distance is created between the to-and-fro of

normal decision-making and the moral context, which requires something different. While

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children rough-housing on a playground can decide, “That wasn’t fair!” the moral context

requires a more quiet, circumspect, and often symbolically formal assessment.

The second characteristic in Table A is a cognitive requirement that calls for moral application to

be along a timeline. We will note later that this timeline is the same as the cosmic timeline. And

yet, of what importance is time to human phenotypic morality? It is one of the dimensions along

which evaluation of behavior occurs (the other being a valence of good to bad). Elders or sages

or experts look back at previous, similar instances and draw conclusions that affect the future

consequences of an application of morality. They consider the history of the person receiving

moral judgment, and the history of others who have behaved similarly. The temporal context,

like the vantage point, is very broad, almost always culture-wide, and in some cases, humanity-

wide (as trials for war crimes).

Later, we will return to the remaining characteristics in Table A, when we review the cognitive

underpinnings of morality. Lastly, we go beyond the topic of “phenotypic morality” and search

for signs of progress that a genotypic basis for morality is becoming clearer with recent research.

CAN WE LEARN ABOUT “GOOD” FROM NARCISSISTS, MACHIAVELLIANS, AND

PSYCHOPATHS?

Shoemaker’s work on the Social Brain Network lies partially within a large body of literature on

humans who cannot seem to “know good” – to think morally – or, they choose not to do so. Our

fascination with these unfortunate individuals is understandable. Like voyeurs, we view

ourselves but with “something missing,” and we count ourselves lucky. Determining the quality

of that “something else” has given rise to a fascinating branch of neuroscience focused on human

deficits, rather than human gifts. The medical treatment of some of these individuals raises

questions about the roots of morality in specific brain structures, as well as issues of free will,

social conformity, and lifestyle options for people with no moral compass. They do exist.

Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist-turned-philosopher, has for decades researched “split-brain”

individuals whose left and right brain hemispheres cannot communicate, usually because of an

accident or lesion (1999; 2006). He also raises fascinating questions about free will and brain

function, for example: “When we become consciously aware of making a decision, the brain has

already made it happen. This raises the question, Are we out of the loop?” Gazzaniga answers

with insightful comments about humans as “responsible agents,” suggesting that no matter how

much brain science we learn, people are still morally responsible for the actions they take. They

retain decision-making authority of their own lives. This is welcome reassurance from someone

who knows so deeply about the workings of the human brain and mind. Gazzaniga’s research has

also given rise to knowledge of a Left Hemisphere Interpreter, which we have found so essential

in our model of morality’s evolution. Other research points toward an arbiter or decision-making

mechanism in a discrete set of brain components (Gazzaniga et al. 2013). That satisfies yet

another cognitive requirement for morality in our model.

Other authors have begun from a different perspective, analyzing patients who display behavior

that initially appears to be defective in some aspect of moral thinking. The logic behind this large

body of work appears to be to find and identify what makes humans morally defective, so they

can be taught or assisted, or perhaps forced, to become morally whole. For example, in Laurence

Tancredi’s Hardwired Behavior; What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality (2005), the author

considers a variety of serial killers and other violent offenders, pedophiles, sex addicts, gluttons,

financial frauds, gamblers, and infidels. Their moral failure is assumed directly from their

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behavior, and Tancredi (a psychiatrist-lawyer) ascribes their moral lapses to everything from

nutrition to drugs, genetic abnormalities, traumatic brain injuries, hormones, and neural

transmitters. In summary, much of what lies at the foundation of his clients’ bad behavior is

brain-biology-gone-bad. However fascinating these cases may be, it is never quite clear how all

these details can be used to help achieve a person who knows moral “good” – although the

implication remains that this material can do so.

Other students of poor moral judgment are more finely attuned to the ultimate utility of their

work, especially the investigators of deficiencies in empathy as a supposed aspect of morality.

Indeed, some authors claim that lack of empathy is the “most telling narcissistic trait” (Kreger

2012), but does this make it a foundational feature of morality? Narcissism appears throughout

this vast literature on the roots of moral failure, with the presumed goal of fixing it, medicating

it, or training the unempathetic. The autism epidemic has been especially powerful in calling

attention to the need to train some children to be empathetic. The movement to aid the sufferers

of child abuse has led to efforts to help parents with spouses who abuse others, especially

emotionally. They argue that the lives and welfare of children depend on it, and this is certainly

true. However, is someone who is unempathetic necessarily immoral? One could argue that this

is somehow true, and it seems right, but does morality fundamentally depend upon empathy,

even if they often go together? Certainly the implications of both lack of empathy and moral

deficiency go deeply into modern, as well as ancient lives of all on the Human Lineage.

YOU KNOW IT WHEN YOU SEE IT

We shall now delve into the meaning of “knowing good” from the perspective of a very different

type of neuroscientist-turned-philosopher, Sam Harris, and his views on our ability to evaluate

moral systems based upon a quality of “well-being.” It is clear that he believes moral systems

should promote human well-being (cf Harris 2011), and in this we surely agree.

In a TED presentation, Harris states his overall goal is to “understand morality in universal,

scientific terms.” To summarize his logic very briefly, morality is by definition a feature of

conscious beings, and as such, they can report openly about their own well-being. Furthermore,

cognitive and neurological testing is able to connect states of well-being to quantifiable measures

of the world around them. He then makes a leap that not all of us will wish to follow. He finds

that, given these facts, moral systems should be amenable to evaluation. He proposes the

following: “Many people seem to think that because moral facts relate entirely to our experience

(and are, therefore, ontologically ‘subjective’), all talk of morality must be ‘subjective’ in the

epistemological sense (i.e. biased, merely personal, etc.). This is simply untrue” (Harris 2010,

HuffPost online blog).

Harris proposes that there are avenues toward scientific testing of “knowing good,” and he

supports moral systems that maximize the well-being of conscious creatures. He states that

“…well-being (and states of consciousness altogether) must lawfully relate to states of the brain

and to states of the world” (Harris 2010).

Harris rejects much of cultural relativism, at least with respect to human morality, and we find

his argument compelling. There is a sameness to all human moral systems, even when some

features are abhorrent, and we find a basis for this sameness in the possible emergence of

morality early in the genus Homo, in the species Homo erectus (Rappaport & Corbally in press).

We propose that moral systems seem the same because of their antiquity at about 1 mya. This

does not take moral systems back to the adaptations of monkeys as social species at 55 mya.

12

Irrespective of the timing for the emergence of morality, our view also is that “cultural

relativism” can be carried too far when the well-being of conscious creatures is at stake. Below,

we provide an anecdote offered by Harris, where a moral system is steadfastly supported in the

face of its atrocities. It is up to the reader whether to reject or accept cultural relativism in light of

the facts of the story. He begins by noting that, “As it turns out, to denigrate the Taliban at a

scientific meeting is to court controversy…” The “she” in the following account is a female with

a doctoral degree from an ivy league school.

She: What makes you think that science will ever be able to say that forcing women to wear

burqas is wrong?

Me: Because I think that right and wrong are a matter of increasing or decreasing well-being—

and it is obvious that forcing half the population to live in cloth bags, and beating or killing them

if they refuse, is not a good strategy for maximizing human well-being.

She: But that’s only your opinion.

Me: Okay... Let’s make it even simpler. What if we found a culture that ritually blinded every

third child by literally plucking out his or her eyes at birth, would you then agree that we had

found a culture that was needlessly diminishing human well-being?

She: It would depend on why they were doing it.

Me (slowly returning my eyebrows from the back of my head): Let’s say they were doing it on

the basis of religious superstition. In their scripture, God says, “Every third must walk in

darkness.”

She: Then you could never say that they were wrong.

Harris further reports that, “…our conversation ended with my blindly enacting two,

neurological clichés: my jaw quite literally dropped open, and I spun on my heels before walking

away” (Harris 2010, HuffPost online blog).

In titling this section, “You know it when you see it,” we suggest that there is some level of both

humaneness and practicality to the task of “knowing good.” We are not espousing a related

sentiment, “If it feels good, do it.” However, we would contend that “if it feels bad” then its

congruence with the long-term goal of human well-being may have cognitive and evolutionary

grounds to be challenged.

HUMAN PHENOTYPIC MORALITY: A MODEL FOR INVESTIGATION

In this final section on phenotypic morality and “knowing good,” we shall return to Table A,

whose characteristics, taken together, constitute a testable model for moral operation. We recall

that our first two characteristics of phenotypic morality, above, were: (1) A mental step both

back and up, (a vantage point), and (2) Working along a timeline (comparing past instances,

understanding their importance for the present, and projecting their implications for the future).

In the next three characteristics in Table A, it becomes apparent why we call this list “The Gray

Table.” Morality, especially for a species that is still evolving and still gaining new capacities,

like reading 6,000 years ago, or genetic protection against diabetes, which is still spreading in the

post-agricultural human population (Cochran & Harpending 2009), morality is anything but a set

of black-and-white injunctions or a clear-cut, cognitively based process. The characteristic of

using “A valence from good to bad” is either so obvious or so opaque, few authors have

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questioned it. Still, where did this continuum first come from? We hazard a guess that, if

morality arose in Homo erectus, the “good” end of the continuum had to have been survival, and

those things that supported life, itself. We will leave our exploration there, since the topic of

morality’s valence is the focus of another paper now in preparation.

The next characteristic – “A regretfully dispassionate reasoning” – involves a dilemma between

moral reasoning that is emotionless or dispassionate, and therefore fair, objective, and “at arm’s

length,” while at the same time, it evokes sadness. We see this in the attitude of a judge

sometimes, who regrets his need to rule on a case, at all, and may regret the transgressor’s

actions, finding them “sad.” An elder’s or an expert’s implementation of morality can be a

responsibility that an individual regrets having, especially if human suffering on all sides cannot

be avoided. Ruling on moral lapses is often not an enjoyable task, from any perspective, although

it may be necessary on grounds of social justice, equity, humaneness, and a need for retribution,

redress, or recompense.

“Tentativeness in a mental balancing act” betrays a similar, inherent contradiction. The arrival at

a decision of how to implement a moral finding and arrange for redress involves a sometimes

complex, mental balancing act, and therefore a tentativeness, or uncertainty. Values are weighed

against each other, punishments are considered, and conclusions are drawn that are sometimes

very difficult to articulate. Therefore, moral reasoning and “knowing good” or “finding good”

often involve hesitancy or tentativeness.

“A sad rejection of wantonness” follows the themes, above. “Wantonness” is one of a set of

terms used by philosophers, both classic and modern, repeatedly in an effort to distinguish

between human moral awareness and the insouciance of other animals – a recklessness that

flows from the absence of a clear hold on one’s human moral responsibilities along a timeline

and within a context of human society (Kitcher 2006; Korsgaard 2006; Frankfurt 1971).

“A capacity for empathy with someone receiving moral judgment” is a feeling, but a specific one

– empathy with an individual who may be feeling the weight of a moral decision. We find

empathy, in general, emerging from work on the Social Brain Network. In focusing on empathy

for an individual being judged, we see the possibility of a broader understanding of the

consequences of moral decision-making. “Receiving moral judgment” refers to the actual

implementation of a moral decision. This is the “action” portion of morality, and it can vary from

a quiet prayer to the death penalty, to nothing. If a punishment or redress is implemented, this

can elicit a response in an elder or expert that involves “mirror neurons,” where the individual

making a moral judgment experiences the pain of the individual receiving the moral judgment.

This feeling surely does not always attend judgment, but with the possibility of understanding

another’s suffering, the potential arises of a better understanding the basis for the moral decision

– on the part of both the judge and the judged. Like other characteristics we have noted above,

there can be a sadness that attends this type of empathy.

All of the above features together result in moral responsibility and moral thinking being

“Experienced as a burden” – our final characteristic. The sensation of a burden joins sadness,

regret, uncertainty, and tentativeness for the individual who comes to a moral decision.

The characteristics in Table A form a good foundation for human moral capacity. We have

explored a variety of ways in which “knowing good” can be seen as an essential part of moral

consciousness. Morality from only a negative perspective is not enough. The foundations of

morality that we have discussed are biological, evolutionary, cognitive, neurological, and we will

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add genomic to phenotypic in the next section. To fully understand human phenotypic morality,

we need to explore its operation from the level of genes to the specific components in the brain

that allow humans to think morally. This will be an enormously complex task over the following

decades, even centuries. Then, before we conclude, we will address yet one more basis for

knowing good: the cosmic.

GENOMIC BASES FOR MORALITY: HUMAN LANGUAGE AND DECISION-MAKING

We would be remiss if we did not mention a new and emerging way to understand human

morality and “knowing good,” which is not found at the phenotypic level, but at the genomic

level. Since the sequencing of the human and chimpanzee genomes early in this century, a

number of genes have been discovered that are Human Lineage Specific. At least one of these

genes is known to affect human decision-making, a critically important function for moral

thought. There are probably more that have an effect on morality, since some of these newly

discovered genes have been shown to act in the brain. Proof must await future research. For the

time being, we have one example of a regulator gene connected to decision-making.

The miR-941 gene emerged in the human lineage, and it is found only in the human genome,

where it appeared after the human and chimpanzee lines split. The gene arose from “junk DNA,”

rather than as a modification of an existing gene, which is unusual. “miR-941 emerged fully

functional out of non-coding genetic material…in a startlingly brief interval of evolutionary

time” (ScienceDaily 2012).

The microRNAs (miRNAs) are short segments of RNA that do not code for proteins, but are

involved in the regulation of the transcription of genetic information. Genes that affect

transcription are “one of the powerful potential mechanisms of human expression evolution

[sic]” (Hu et al. 2012; Khaitovich et al. 2006), because, if successful, they can be involved with

hundreds of genes. If they malfunction, a great deal can go wrong. The human-specific effects of

miR-941 regulation are detectable in the brain, and are thought to be partly responsible for

human higher-brain functions. The gene miR941 is especially active in two parts of the brain that

govern language skills and decision-making.

Martin S. Taylor at the Edinburgh University, one of the team studying miR-941 (Hu et al.

2012), concludes the following: “As a species, humans are wonderfully inventive – we are

socially and technologically evolving all the time. But this research shows that we are innovating

at a genetic level too.” (in ScienceDaily 2012).

KNOWING GOOD IN A COSMIC CONTEXT

Most recently, the movement called “Big History” and the field of astrobiology, itself, have both

emphasized the different levels of organization in the cosmos. Different schemes offer different

levels, but all of them include a separation between life and more basic levels defined by

chemistry and physics. To round out our review of “knowing good,” we shall react to Michael

Heller’s Keynote Address at the latest meeting of the European Society for the Study of Science

and Theology, in Łódź. We caution the reader who is looking for an entirely scientific

perspective to look further, because a theological perspective is mixed into a view primarily

based on astrophysics and biology.

According to the presentation, the primary continuum along which “good” and “evil” exist is one

of entropy, most commonly seen as a measure of molecular disorder. More organization is

15

“good” and more disorganization is not good. Therefore, forces that promote organization, such

as living systems, are seen as good. They operate to forestall entropy.

Physics begins with the Big Bang and the all-important timeline or “arrow of time.” This

timeline plays an essential role in our own model of phenotypic morality because moral decision-

making cannot occur except along a timeline, the same timeline defined by the beginning of the

universe. We are delighted to find that one of the salient features of our model of human

phenotypic morality is dependent upon and indeed derives from, an element of information

necessarily present at the beginning of the cosmos – the arrow of time. That arrow is dictated

by an increase in entropy of the whole universe. One could conclude that “morality again is

cosmic!” We will leave it to the reader to interpret the various explanations of this assertion. One

interpretation given during the address was that disorganization implies “irrational,” and so,

following many philosophers who have gone before, morality can be seen ultimately as

rationality. We agree with this and believe this view leads to a pragmatic approach to morality,

like Sam Harris’ perspective. Good and evil are discernible, just as order and disorder are.

Using a more theological lens for an understanding of knowing good, we propose that knowing

good, in order to be real knowing, has to be of something that is comprehensible and that exists.

Does this "good that is known" exist? According to Michael Heller, following Plato, it does,

because "The good...bestows existence on all things." Having the good is equivalent to having

existence, which is exactly the thinking of Thomas Aquinas: "Good and being are

interchangeable." When we know good, we "go cosmic" and affirm the existence of the universe

– including ourselves.

Table A. Phenotypic Morality in Humans

• A mental step both back and up

• Working along a timeline

• A valence from good to bad

• A regretfully dispassionate reasoning

• Tentativeness in a mental balancing act

• Sad rejection of “wantonness”

• Capacity for empathy with someone

receiving moral judgment

• Experienced as a burden

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