People feel moral obligations they never actually agreed to.
Evidence
According to the target article, humans possess inordinately stable intuitions about the existence of a tacit contract that commits them to behave morally – for example, to help those in need and desire punishment for those in guilt. Paradoxically, people also know that there exists (within the sphere and limits of their biofunctional cognition) no moral contract that they have signed or to which they have agreed by choice or otherwise. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 460
Categorization
- XREF: This is the ‘missing contract’ formulation of the puzzle at the heart of the reader’s reading purpose — the mystery of why uncoerced moral behavior exists at all, which connects to Norenzayan’s Big God mechanism and the fumi-e logic in the analytical integration. — connects to: Received moral imperatives often mask what we actually care about. — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 64; Interests crystallize into perceived moral commitments through psychological supervenience.; Human moral behavior may originate in mere conformity to convention, not genuine morality. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 541 (+3 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The juxtaposition — stable intuitions of a contract that provably was never signed — captures a genuinely deep paradox about the phenomenology of moral obligation that resists one-sentence summary.
Related
- Humans need legends to bear responsibility for un-chosen deeds (similarity 0.87)
- Human moral behavior may originate in mere conformity to convention, not genuine morality. (similarity 0.82)
- Moral obligations require overriding force that natural selection doesn’t explain (similarity 0.81)
- Morality resembles a self-enforcing contract between present and future selves. (similarity 0.80)
- The appearance of social contract arises from evolved mutualistic obligation, not real agreement. (similarity 0.80)
- Postulating an innate moral preference fails to explain the missing-contract puzzle mechanistically. (similarity 0.80)
- Received moral imperatives often mask what we actually care about. (similarity 0.79)
- Morality serves a self-directed ego function of constructing moral identity. (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Interests crystallize into perceived moral commitments through psychological supervenience.
#expands(0.80) - Received moral imperatives often mask what we actually care about.
#qualifies(0.75) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 64 - Human moral behavior may originate in mere conformity to convention, not genuine morality.
#complicates(0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 541