ArticlePublisher preview available

Humans, the Norm-Breakers

Authors:
Kristin Andrews
Kristin Andrews
Kristin Andrews
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Learn more
Content available from Biology & Philosophy
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Biology & Philosophy (2023) 38:35
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-023-09918-w
Introduction
What is it to be a better ape? This is the question Victor Kumar and Richmond Camp-
bell ask in their book on the evolution of the moral mind, an ambitious story that
starts with the common ancestor of the modern apes—humans, chimpanzees, bono-
bos, gorillas, and orangutans. Of all of us, it’s the humans who remain in the running
for being a better ape, because we’re the ones who have all the necessary ingredients:
the binding emotions of sympathy and loyalty which we share with our nonhuman
cousins, but also the collaborative emotions of trust and respect and the reactive emo-
tions of guilt and resentment. Importantly, only humans are thought to have norms,
and to be biologically prepared to learn norms. For Kumar and Campbell, the co-
evolution of emotions and norms is what set humans on this path so we can become
a better ape.
The story they tell is artfully woven from major theories in psychology and anthro-
pology, and those of us who have pre-existing opinions about these theories have
points where we can quibble regarding the nature of the emotions–whether only
humans imitate, what norms of fairness amount to, or whether any other species
are generalists who can survive in a wide range of habitats. Rather than focusing on
these, I want to turn to an exciting hypothesis Kumar and Campbell propose about
the evolution and function of norms. While it is most common to think that norms
helped our ancestors solve the collective action problems that emerged when larger
groups of individuals started living together, Kumar and Campbell suggest a dier-
ent, though complementary, function for norms. They propose that norms provide a
more precise and exible means for coordinating behavior in quickly changing soci-
eties. On their view, it isn’t the size of community that is the most signicant variable,
but rather the speed at which culture evolves.
Published online: 29 August 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023
Humans, the Norm-Breakers
KristinAndrews1
Kristin Andrews
andrewsk@yorku.ca
1 York University, Toronto, Canada
1 3
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
A pluralistic framework for the psychology of norms
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2022
  • BIOL PHILOS
Social norms are commonly understood as rules that dictate which behaviors are appropriate, permissible, or obligatory in different situations for members of a given community. Many researchers have sought to explain the ubiquity of social norms in human life in terms of the psychological mechanisms underlying their acquisition, conformity, and enforcement. Existing theories of the psychology of social norms appeal to a variety of constructs, from prediction-error minimization, to reinforcement learning, to shared intentionality, to domain-specific adaptations for norm acquisition. In this paper, we propose a novel methodological and conceptual framework for the cognitive science of social norms that we call normative pluralism. We begin with an analysis of the (sometimes mixed) explanatory aims of the cognitive science of social norms. From this analysis, we derive a recommendation for a reformed conception of its explanandum: a minimally psychological construct that we call normative regularities. Our central empirical proposal is that the psychological underpinnings of social norms are most likely realized by a heterogeneous set of cognitive, motivational, and ecological mechanisms that vary between norms and between individuals, rather than by a single type of process or distinctive norm system. This pluralistic approach, we suggest, offers a methodologically sound point of departure for a fruitful and rigorous science of social norms.
View
Toolmaking and the evolution of normative cognition
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2021
  • BIOL PHILOS
We are all guided by thousands of norms, but how did our capacity for normative cognition evolve? I propose there is a deep but neglected link between normative cognition and practical skill. In modern humans, complex motor skills and craft skills, such as toolmaking, are guided by internally represented norms of correct performance. Moreover, it is plausible that core components of human normative cognition evolved as a solution to the distinctive problems of transmitting complex motor skills and craft skills, especially skills related to toolmaking, through social learning. If this is correct, the expansion of the normative domain beyond technique to encompass more abstract norms of fairness, reciprocity, ritual and kinship involved the elaboration of a basic platform for the guidance of skilled action by technical norms. This article motivates and defends this “skill hypothesis” for the origin of normative cognition and sets out various ways in which it could be empirically tested.
View
Chimpanzee normativity: evidence and objections
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2020
  • BIOL PHILOS
This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical literature is that psychological capacities for social norms evolved uniquely in the human lineage, after our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. After reviewing some of the existing evidence for normative capacity in chimpanzees, I defend the thesis of chimpanzee normativity against three key theoretical objections that have been presented in the literature, each of which have played a part in motivating the dominant sceptical position. I argue that, while we still have much to learn about the nature and extent of the normative capacities of other animals, there is strong prima facie evidence for social norms and normative evaluation in chimpanzees and the main theoretical objections to chimpanzee normativity are not at all compelling.
View
How animals collaborate: Underlying proximate mechanisms
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2020
Collaboration or social interactions in which two or more individuals coordinate their behavior to produce outcomes from which both individuals benefit are common in nature. Individuals from many species hunt together, defend their territory, and form coalitions in intragroup competition. However, we still know very little about the proximate mechanisms underlying these behaviors. Recent theories of human cognitive evolution have emphasized the role collaboration may have played in the selection of socio‐cognitive skills. It has been argued that the capacity to form shared goals and joint intentions with others, is what allows humans to collaborate so flexibly and efficiently. Although there is no evidence that nonhuman animals are capable of shared intentionality, there is conceivably a wide range of proximate mechanisms that support forms of, potentially flexible, collaboration in other species. We review the experimental literature with the aim of evaluating what we know about how other species achieve collaboration; with a particular focus on chimpanzees. We structure the review with a new categorization of collaborative behavior that focuses on whether individuals intentionally coordinate actions with others. We conclude that for a wider comparative perspective we need more data from other species but the findings so far suggest that chimpanzees, and possibly other great apes, are capable of understanding the causal role of a partner in collaboration. This article is categorized under: • Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition • Psychology > Comparative Psychology Abstract A range of underlying mechanisms contribute to collaboration across the animal kingdom.
View
Restorative Justice & Responsive Regulation
Book
  • Oct 2023
Braithwaite’s argument against punitive justice systems and for restorative justice systems establishes that there are good theoretical and empirical grounds for anticipating that well designed restorative justice processes will restore victims, offenders, and communities better than existing criminal justice practices. Counterintuitively, he also shows that a restorative justice system may deter, incapacitate, and rehabilitate more effectively than a punitive system. This is particularly true when the restorative justice system is embedded in a responsive regulatory framework that opts for deterrence only after restoration repeatedly fails, and incapacitation only after escalated deterrence fails. Braithwaite’s empirical research demonstrates that active deterrence under the dynamic regulatory pyramid that is a hallmark of the restorative justice system he supports, is far more effective than the passive deterrence that is notable in the stricter "sentencing grid" of current criminal justice systems.
View
The Skilful Origins of Human Normative Cognition
Article
  • Jun 2021
I briefly present and motivate a ‘skill hypothesis’ regarding the evolution of human normative cognition. On this hypothesis, the capacity to internally represent action-guiding norms evolved as a solution to the distinctive problems of standardizing, learning and teaching complex motor skills and craft skills, especially skills related to toolmaking. We have an evolved cognitive architecture for internalizing norms of technique, which was then co-opted for a rich array of social functions. There was a gradual expansion of the normative domain, with ritual playing an important role in bridging the gap between concrete, enacted norms and general, abstract norms, such as kinship norms. I conclude by stating nine predictions arising from the skill hypothesis.
View
The burgeoning reach of animal culture
Article
  • Apr 2021
We are not alone Before the mid-20th century, it was generally assumed that culture, behavior learned from others, was specific to humans. However, starting with identification in a few species, evidence that animals can learn and transmit behaviors has accumulated at an ever-increasing pace. Today, there is no doubt that culture is widespread among animal species, both vertebrates and invertebrates, marine and terrestrial. Whiten reviews evidence for animal culture and elaborates on the wide array of forms that such culture takes. Recognizing that other species have complex and varied culture has implications for conservation and welfare and for understanding the evolution of this essential component of animal societies, including our own. Science , this issue p. eabe6514
View
Costly culture: differences in nut-cracking efficiency between wild chimpanzee groups
Article
  • Mar 2018
Cultural diversity among social groups has recently been documented in multiple animal species. Investigations of the origin and spread of diverse behaviour at group level in wild-ranging animals have added valuable information on social learning mechanisms under natural conditions. Behavioural diversity has been especially informative in the case of dispersal, where the transfer of individuals between groups leads to a sudden exposure to unfamiliar behaviour. Little is known, however, about the underlying costs and benefits of cultural transmission in animals and humans alike, as efficiency of cultural variants is often difficult to measure. The chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, of the Taï National Park in Ivory Coast are known to exhibit a number of cultural differences between social groups, including hammer selection for nut cracking. This provides the unique opportunity to quantify the efficiency of cultural variants. We compared foraging speed and number of hits applied during nut-cracking events between three neighbouring chimpanzee groups. Our results showed significant differences in nut-cracking efficiency, caused by hammer material selection and differences in the applied power of impact per nut. Persistent behavioural coherence within the respective groups implies that immigrants adjust their behaviour to local nut-cracking techniques, even when individual foraging success might be compromised. This suggests that the benefit of belonging to a social group might outweigh the benefits of maximizing individual foraging efficiency. The differences in nut-cracking efficiency between chimpanzee groups add to the ever-growing body of cultural variants in wild chimpanzees and expand our knowledge of the importance of group belonging and conformity in wild chimpanzees.
View
Kinship intensity and the use of mental states in moral judgment across societies
Article
  • Jul 2020
  • EVOL HUM BEHAV
Decades of research conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic (WEIRD) societies have led many scholars to conclude that the use of mental states in moral judgment is a human cognitive universal, perhaps an adaptive strategy for selecting optimal social partners from a large pool of candidates. However, recent work from a more diverse array of societies suggests there may be important variation in how much people rely on mental states, with people in some societies judging accidental harms just as harshly as intentional ones. To explain this variation, we develop and test a novel cultural evolutionary theory proposing that the intensity of kin-based institutions will favor less attention to mental states when judging moral violations. First, to better illuminate the historical distribution of the use of intentions in moral judgment, we code and analyze anthropological observations from the Human Area Relations Files. This analysis shows that notions of strict liability—wherein the role for mental states is reduced—were common across diverse societies around the globe. Then, by expanding an existing vignette-based experimental dataset containing observations from 321 people in a diverse sample of 10 societies, we show that the intensity of a society's kin-based institutions can explain a substantial portion of the population-level variation in people's reliance on intentions in three different kinds of moral judgments. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that people's use of mental states has coevolved culturally to fit their local kin-based institutions. We suggest that although reliance on mental states has likely been a feature of moral judgment in human communities over historical and evolutionary time, the relational fluidity and weak kin ties of today's WEIRD societies position these populations' psychology at the extreme end of the global and historical spectrum.
View
Naïve Normativity: The Social Foundation of Moral Cognition
Article
  • Jan 2020
To answer tantalizing questions such as whether animals are moral or how morality evolved, I propose starting with a somewhat less fraught question: do animals have normative cognition? Recent psychological research suggests that normative thinking, or ought-thought, begins early in human development. Recent philosophical research suggests that folk psychology is grounded in normative thought. Recent primatology research finds evidence of sophisticated cultural and social learning capacities in great apes. Drawing on these three literatures, I argue that the human variety of social cognition and moral cognition encompass the same cognitive capacities and that the nonhuman great apes may also be normative beings. To make this argument, I develop an account of animal social norms that shares key properties with Cristina Bicchieri's account of social norms but which lowers the cognitive requirements for having a social norm. I propose a set of four early developing prerequisites implicated in social cognition that make up what I call naïve normativity: (1) the ability to identify agents, (2) sensitivity to in-group/out-group differences, (3) the capacity for social learning of group traditions, and (4) responsiveness to appropriateness. I review the ape cognition literature and present preliminary empirical evidence supporting the existence of social norms and naïve normativity in great apes. While there is more empirical work to be done, I hope to have offered a framework for studying normativity in other species, and I conclude that we should be open to the possibility that normative cognition is yet another ancient cognitive endowment that is not human-unique.
View