Human morality may rest on a general normativizing capacity, not a dedicated fairness module.

Evidence

The upshot of all this is not that pursuing an evolutionary explanation of fairness norms is futile. It is, rather, that an exclusive focus on mutualism may lead to an overly narrow account of the evolution of human morality. Clearly humans have evolved the capacity to create and follow fairness norms. But we have little evidence that this capacity is a distinctive module in the sense of evolutionary psychology – a set of mechanisms that calls for a separate, dedicated evolutionary explanation. Humans may have evolved a much more general capacity to normativize behaviour – that is, to create and follow social norms. The content of such norms probably varies across epochs and cultures, and partly co-varies with the underlying socio-economic structure. From a mutualistic perspective, the social and moral systems that different groups of homo sapiens have endorsed at different points in time range from the very fair to the extremely unfair. (Baumard et al. conveniently limit their survey to small groups of hunter-gatherers and to large contemporary societies imbued with democratic ethos. Elevating mutualism to the evolved ethos of homo sapiens, however, ignores ten millennia of very non-mutualistic, un-fair morality and politics.) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 449

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reading purpose: undermines the ‘Big God’/mutualism framing the reader is applying to Father Rodrigues — the author argues anti-mutualistic morality is the historical norm, not the exception.

Related

• Morality is an evolved sense of fairness, not a late intellectual achievement (similarity 0.85)
• Fairness-based morality is uniquely human despite similar selective conditions in animals. (similarity 0.85)
• Moral fairness may itself have been shaped by natural selection. (similarity 0.84)
• Morality evolved as a propensity for fair cost-benefit sharing among cooperators. (similarity 0.84)
• Fairness regulates rather than generates the moralized expression of evolved dispositions (similarity 0.83)
• Morality is about fair cooperation, not maximizing welfare. (similarity 0.82)
• Hierarchy norms derive from an evolved sense of hierarchy, not fairness. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral obligations require overriding force that natural selection doesn’t explain (similarity 0.82)
• Deriving fairness from bargaining power threatens to reduce moral norms to mere bargaining. (similarity 0.82)
• Some cultures may lack a distinct moral domain (similarity 0.82)
• Moral psychology broadened fairness-only models to include purity, hierarchy, and coalition domains. (similarity 0.81)
• Harm prohibitions are as central to morality as fairness (similarity 0.81)
• Human fairness means overriding merit to aid the needy. (similarity 0.81)
• Morality serves a self-directed ego function of constructing moral identity. (similarity 0.81)
• Mutualistic cost-benefit logic may explain transcendent moral sentiment. (similarity 0.80)