Moral psychology Syllabus

Nicolas Baumard

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a
proximate how question or as an ultimate why question. The how question,
which is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments
and interactions, has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists.
The why question, which is about the fitness consequences that explain why
humans have morality, has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the
context of the evolution of cooperation. The goal of the course is to articulate
proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality by reviewing both
evolutionary and cognitive approach to morality.

1. Morality: Automatic and unconscious

Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist
approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814834.
Hauser, M., Cushman, F., Young, L., & Jin, R. (2007). A dissociation between moral
judgments and justifications. Mind & Language, 22(1), 121.
Greene, J., Sommerville, R., Nystrom, L., Darley, J., & Cohen, J. (2001). An fMRI
investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537),
21058.

2. Morality: Universal
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., McElreath, R., et
al. (2005). Economic man in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral
experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Science, 28(6),
795815; discussion 81555.
Pyysiinen, I., & Hauser, M. (2010). The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or
by-product? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(3), 104109.
Robinson, P., & Kurzban, R. (2006). Concordance and conflict in intuitions of
justice. Minn. L. Rev., 91, 1829.

3. Morality: Human specific

Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Varieties of altruism in children and
chimpanzees. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(9), 397402.

Hamann, K., Warneken, F., Greenberg, J. R., & Tomasello, M. (2011). Collaboration
encourages equal sharing in children but not in chimpanzees. Nature, 476(7360),
328331.
Brosnan, S. F., & De Waal, F. B. (2003). Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature,
425(6955), 297-299.
de Waal, F. (1996) Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and
Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

4. Morality: Innate
Pellizoni, S., Siegal, M., & Surian, L. (2009). The contact principle and utilitarian
moral judgements in young children. Dev Sci.
Schmidt, M., & Sommerville, J. (2011). Fairness Expectations and Altruistic
Sharing in 15-Month-Old Human Infants. PLoS ONE, 6(10).
Baumard, N., Mascaro, O., & Chevallier, C. (2011). Preschoolers are able to take
merit into account when distributing goods. Developmental Psychology.
Sloane, S., Baillargeon, R., & Premack, D. (2012). Do infants have a sense of
fairness? Psychological Science, 23(2), 196204.
Geraci, A., & Surian, L. (2011). The developmental roots of fairness: Infants
reactions to equal and unequal distributions of resources. Developmental
Science.

5. The evolutionary bases of morality

Trivers, R. (1971). Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology,
46, 3557 Focus on the last section of humans.
Kaplan, H. S., Hooper, P. L., & Gurven, M. (2009). The evolutionary and ecological
roots of human social organization. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1533), 3289 3299.
Fessler, D., & Haley, K. (2003). The strategy of affect: Emotions in human
cooperation. Dans P. Hammerstein (d.), Genetic and Cultural Evolution of
Cooperation (p. 8394). Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Freie Universitt.
Ridley, M. (1996). The origins of virtue. London; New York, N.Y., USA: Viking.

6. The cognitive bases of morality: The dual-system theory

Cushman, F., Young, L., & Greene, J. (2010). Our multi-system moral psychology:
Towards a consensus view. In O. U. P. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral
Psychology.
Sunstein, C. (2005). Moral heuristics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 531573.
Baron, J. (1994). Nonconsequentialist decisions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
17, 142.
Carlsmith, K., Darley, J., & Robinson, P. (2002). Why Do We Punish? Deterrence
and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 83(2), 284299.
Kahneman, D., Schkade, D., & Sunstein, C. (1998). Shared Outrage and Erratic
Awards: The Psychology of Punitive Damages. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty,
16(1), 49 86.

8. The cognitive bases of morality: The theory of virtue

Haidt, J., Koller, S., & Dias, M. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong
to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 613628.
Haidt, J., & Joseph, C. (2007). The moral mind: How 5 sets of innate intuitions
guide the development of many culture-specific virtues, and perhaps even
modules. The Innate Mind, 3.
Haidt, J. (2009). Morality. Dans S. Fiske & D. Gilbert (d.), The Handbook of Social
Psychology, 5th Edition.

9. The cognitive bases of morality: The theory of fairness

Baumard, N., Andr, J. B., & Sperber, D. (2013). A mutualistic approach to
morality, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36 (1).
Baumard, N. & Sperber, D. (in press) Evolutionary and Cognitive Issues in the
Anthropology of Morality , in Fassin, D. (Ed.), Companion to Moral Anthropology,
Wiley-Blackwell
Kurzban, R., Dukes, A., & Weeden, J. (2010). Sex, drugs and moral goals:
reproductive strategies and views about recreational drugs. Proceedings of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277(1699), 3501.