Origin of Ethics - How man was morally
From the 12-part series: "The Limits of the Allowed" (1)
Babies want to satisfy their own needs as innocently as unrestrained. How then will moral beings, who distinguish between good and evil, think of the welfare of others, and have feelings of guilt? For a long time it was thought that the way to go there could only go through punishment and obedience: learn what is allowed! Meanwhile, psychologists believe that babies have a sense of morality. From an evolutionary biology point of view, morality arose because the early people realized that they were dependent on each other. But how far does this insight reach, how strong is the moral sense? Is it only for relatives, friends and their own group - or for strangers? How universal can moral values be?
Philosopher and philosopher have been bothering about it for centuries. In biology, one looks for the roots of morality in evolution. And developmental psychology tries to find out whether morality is innate or just a product of education and social pressure. To this end, one has constructed thought-making games, dilemmas, difficult to solve moral conflicts.
In the "Heinz Dilemma", the four to seven-year-olds often said that Heinz was not allowed to steal because he would otherwise be punished.
The "Heinz Dilemma"
One example is the "Heinz Dilemma": The wife of Heinz is seriously ill, maybe she will die soon. There is an expensive drug that could help her. But the health insurance companies do not pay it and Heinz does not have enough money. Can he steal money to help his sick wife?
The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg used such tests in the 1970s and 1980s to find out how morality evolves. In the beginning, he argued in his influential theory, that there was no moral system but the fear of punishment and obedience to authorities. Young children, Kohlberg said, were only following rules because they were afraid of sanctions.
In the Heinz dilemma, the four- to seven-year-olds often said that Heinz was not allowed to steal because he would otherwise be punished. Critics, however, argue against Kohlberg's approach that his view of morality was much too narrow. The Münsteran philosopher Kurt Bayertz, for example, thinks that early moral attitudes can not be tested only by over-pointed moral conflicts. For moral education is rarely something that happens separately.
The moral competence of children is impressive, but also contradictory
Babies want to help
Studies show that babies experience social experiences through their facial expressions, gestures and sounds. How does the other respond to me? How can I bring others to specific actions? Babies and toddlers also show signs of compassion. They cry, for example, when others cry. Or comfort them. They also help.
This is essential prerequisites for morality, says Monika Keller, psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Educational Research in Berlin. Babies who feel compassion and help are already orientated towards others.
Monika Keller concludes from her test results: The moral competence of children is impressive, but also contradictory. From the beginning they have a moral sense and a moral knowledge about good and evil. But in many of them it has not yet become an inner personal need to evaluate the world morally urgently and act accordingly. They are torn between moral rule and personal interests. Not infrequently, they only revert to moral rules because they are afraid of being caught.
The morality of hunters
Moral is a complicated matter. Contrary to the pioneer of the moral theory of evolution Lawrence Kohlberg, people seem to have a sense of morality from an early age. But not everyone is acting morally. To this extent Kohlberg was right when he underlined the importance of sanctions. Can the history of evolution explain in more detail how such a fragile as morality could possibly arise and how far its influence reaches?
Evolutionary biology is largely in agreement that a moral awareness has been created in the hunter-gathering companies about twenty to a hundred thousand years ago, some of which date back even further. In these manageable societies the group members went hunting together, gathered plants and shared the yield.
Morality is not an end in itself, Darwinian, but serves the propagation success in a group. Man is not morally and cooperatively, on the basis of general rational considerations, but the interest in survival of his genes drives him. However, the human being can still make a difference to others even if they are not directly related to them.
To this day, scientists are arguing about the extent to which a morality can develop which also includes strangers
Morality against strangers
Then the principle of reciprocity works: Like me, so I do to you. If someone can expect another to help him after he has helped him, he increases his chances of survival. On this basis a common trust and a common group moral can also develop among unrelated people.
To this day, scientists are arguing about the extent to which a morality can develop which also includes strangers. We do not know them, do not know whether we can trust them and whether they accept the culture of our own group. How universally can moral norms and values work, which originally developed within manageable communities?
The psychologist Michael Tomasello, like many of his colleagues, is convinced that morality does not originate from noble ethical considerations. For the director of the Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the main task was to increase the reciprocal use of hunt and collecting societies in a very pragmatic manner.
Handle so that you understand others and incorporate their perspectives and interests into your actions
Moral as a brain exercise
Michael Tomasello, however, also believes that the experiences of mutual aid had far-reaching consequences. For they led people to develop new spiritual abilities. They learned about getting better and more into each other and reading their thoughts. People began to see more and more from the perspective of others.
According to Michael Tomasello, a spiritual scaffolding was created to accept general moral norms: Handle so that you understand others and incorporate their perspectives and interests into your actions. This brought a survival advantage for the group in hunting and collecting. From this, moral norms and values developed for interpersonal intercourse.
These underpinned this survival advantage by defining positive group behavior. The larger and more complex the societies became, the more these commandments were formulated and the more generally their validity became. Taboos, sanctions, institutions such as the right restricted immoral acts. And the great religions designed moral systems with a universal claim.
Studies show that in the brain puberty processes are taking place which are indispensable for the moral development
More brain in puberty
What is common to these principles is that they force the individual to involve others' welfare. We strongly that is then implemented in reality is, as is known, another question. In everyday life, moral demands reach limits, compromise. This will sooner or later also adolescents.
Studies show that in the brain puberty processes are taking place which are indispensable for the moral development. Just before puberty, the brain builds up additional gray mass. An excess of nerve connections is produced. The neuroscientist Peter Uhlhaas, working at the University of Glasgow, found out that these new nervous connections still cooperate quite uncoordinated among puberty.
The excess and disordered nervous mass also allows the puberty to make new experiences with themselves and their environment. These experiences are then anchored in new nerve connections. The brain thus appears to be the prerequisite for what psychology defines as the main attraction of puberty: solve yourself from the world of your parents and create your own cosmos.
Autonomy: The ability to free itself from the pressure of the environment and to withstand the contradiction between norms and reality. Only that makes people a truly reflective moral person. This leads to the fact that morality does not freeze and the limits of what is permitted do not crush human beings. Puberty is an important building block to achieve this moral autonomy.
SWR2 Knowledge. By Martin Hubert. Internet connection: Ulrike Barwanietz & Ralf Kölbel
Stand: April 30, 2015, 2:20 pm
