This new perspective owes much to the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He has been at the forefront of research into moral decision-making, which is grounded in evolutionary theory. Because people have been living in groups for hundreds of thousands of years, it really isn’t surprising that prosocial or “moral” behaviors are often the result of intuition or snap judgments that are later explained by recourse to reason. Humans are the most prosocial of primates and it would be surprising if this ability were not highly developed.

In recent years Haidt has extended these basic insights to politics and other domains (such as religion), where the terrain is much more uneven and confounded by modern culture. The ideas, in other words, have been extended and applied in ways that are questionable. In this recent article on Haidt from The Chronicle, the overextension is apparent.

After being asked how people came together to build cooperative societies beyond kinship, Haidt asserts that “morality” was the key:

A big part of Haidt’s moral narrative is faith. He lays out the case that religion is an evolutionary adaptation for binding people into groups and enabling those units to better compete against other groups. Through faith, humans developed the “psychology of sacredness,” the notion that “some people, objects, days, words, values, and ideas are special, set apart, untouchable, and pure.” If people revere the same sacred objects, he writes, they can trust one another and cooperate toward larger goals. But morality also blinds them to arguments from beyond their group.

If we take ethnohistoric hunter-gatherers for our model of how people formed larger and more cohesive groups in the ancient past, Haidt’s “morality” answer is patently wrong. These groups were held together by kinship ties first and by extended or fictive kinship second. Their “religions” (i.e., shamanisms) weren’t grounded in morals and weren’t much concerned with morals. While such groups had moral norms and ethical rules, these weren’t twined with supernaturalism and had an independent, non-spiritual basis.

Large communities held together by religion-faith-morals are a recent development in human history, no more than a few thousand years old. The kind of community that Haidt describes is a post-Neolithic formation that has its origins in the Axial Age. So does the idea that religion is a matter of “faith.” These are not ancient or evolutionary ideas. Moralizing gods and religions are relative newcomers to the supernatural world.

Haidt’s mistake here is a common one: observe modern or relatively recent cultural formations and then uncritically project them back into the ancestral or evolutionary past. This mistake has other consequences, which are evident in what Haidt calls “innate” or evolutionary moral foundations:  “care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation.” These “innate” concerns sound suspiciously modern; I suspect at least a few are products of post-Neolithic and Western societies.

Todd Schorr's "Hunter Gatherer"

I’ve spent several years immersed in the ethnohistoric hunter-gatherer record and can’t recall much or any concern with liberty-oppression. This is the kind of concern that arises when you have centralized authority and government, which were absent for most of human history. Nor can I recall much concern for authority-subversion. Again, these kinds of concerns are related to centralized authority and government which didn’t exist in our hunting-gathering past. While hunting-gathering societies are concerned with ritual purity, translating this as sanctity-degradation has a distinctly Axial feel to it. Degradation, in particular, smacks of the Christian fall from grace.

Haidt’s “foundational morals” aren’t innate or universal. The list is provincial, limited in both time and space. Had Haidt tested his list against history or made cross-cultural comparisons, this would have been evident.

As Philip Kitcher reminds us, people can be ethical and moral without religion. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. Most primates, humans included, are intensely social. It’s impossible to be social without simultaneously behaving in ways that are considered “moral” or “ethical.” This aside, there is little to no evidence that religious people in modern societies are more ethical-moral than non-religious people. Moreover, there is little to no evidence that Axial or “ethical” religions have made people or societies more ethical-moral than previous peoples. Our hunting and gathering ancestors were no more or less ethical-moral than “modern” people who have lived in settled societies during the past 10,000 years.

If Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks knew anything about evolutionary ethics and the ethnohistoric record, he wouldn’t be writing silly articles arguing that modern religions are the existential glue that hold societies together. This sort of argument is typical of apologists who believe that history and civilization essentially began with the movement toward angry gods and moralistic religions.

Elsewhere, Juliane von Mittelstaedt reports on ultra-orthodox Jewish women in Israel who cover themselves from head to toe in up to 27 layers of clothes. It is part of a larger story on the fractures these fundamentalists are creating within Israeli society, which is something that caught my attention previously in Ultra-Orthodox Slackers.

Several aspects of the Mittelstaedt story intrigue. First, it appears that most of the women wearing all these clothes have suffered serious abuse; the covering up thus seems linked to shame. Second, ultra-orthodox Jewish men in Israel routinely harangue female soldiers. This is unreal, coming from losers who are exempt from military service. This is a good time to compare and contrast.

Someone in the story astutely observes that if some of these zealots didn’t have religion as cover for their obvious madness, they would probably be institutionalized. While witnessing the antics and ideas of American evangelicals, I’ve had occasion to observe the same sort of thing.

In this mordant piece on the future of funerary, Max Rivlin-Nadler begins with the premise that the industry is in crisis because Americans are becoming more secular and fewer people are willing to pay for the bells and whistles of religious funerals. As evidence of increasing secularism, he notes that some 25% of Americans no longer claim affiliation with a church. As Rodney Stark has been saying forever, just because people don’t go to church or identify with organized religion, this doesn’t mean they are becoming secular. Most are not atheists or non-believers; they simply have alternative “spiritual” beliefs and don’t identify with institutional religion. When funeral directors realize this and begin offering non-traditional “spiritual” funerals, they will be able to tap what Rivlin-Nadlin characterizes as the “secular” market.

These ostensibly disparate movements had much in common. Suffering and death are central concerns. Given these concerns, it is not surprising that all devise methods for transcending suffering and death. Such transcendence, whether in this world or life or the next, becomes an ethical matter and moral issue.

Why did these related ideas appear in several places in such short order? Because these traditions arose in widely disparate places and originated among people who were not in contact with one another, we know it was not a matter of cultural diffusion or idea migration. There are several competing (and complementary) hypotheses, most of which revolve around change, dislocation, and anomie.

The few thousands of years preceding the Axial Age were an especially turbulent time in human history; warfare, urbanization, disease, and famine were operating full-tilt and on a scale never before seen. People everywhere were at a loss and legitimacy was in short supply. Under such conditions, it would be surprising if something like the Axial movements did not appear. During times of immense and protracted crisis, intellectuals will often generate new and paradigm shifting ideas.

But before such breakthroughs can occur, the ground must be prepared. Although Axial movements were innovative, they did not simply appear sua sponte. To the extent they were reformist or reactionary, they were backward looking and dependent on the past for comparative appeal. In “Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: The Central Concerns,” renowned ancient historian Thorkild Jacobsen summarizes that past by dividing it into three thematic and millennial epochs:

Fourth Millennium BCE — Famine

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

The fear at the very roots of existence that long ago, down through the fourth millennium, gave to the religious response in Mesopotamia its major direction would seem to have been a simple one: fear of starvation. Early Mesopotamian economy was unquestionably a remarkable achievement, able for the first time to provide sufficient food so that large numbers of humans could congregate in cities. But it was also a precarious and uncertain economy, for it was based on artificial irrigation, the most touchy and tricky basis imaginable, nervously reacting to vagaries of nature and man alike.

And the character of their religion as we know it bears this out. The powers to whom they turned were powers in and behind their primary economics on which life depended: fishing, herding, agriculture, as even the briefest look at the character of the chief gods of their cities will show. [T]heir cults were to insure the presence of these essential powers for fertility, produce, and food.

Third Millenium BCE — War

“Preserve Us From Evil”

As the settled areas of the country grew and joined, the protection that had been afforded by relative isolation was no longer there and fear of enemy attack, death or slavery, became a part of life ever present in the depth of consciousness. The intensity of the danger and of the fear it engendered can be gauged by the great city-walls that arose around the towns in this period and the staggering amount of labor that must have gone into them.

For a shield against danger men looked to the now vitally important institutions of collective security, the great leagues and their officers, and particularly to the new institution of kingship as it took form and grew under the pressures of these years. The new concept opening up, as it did, a possibility of approach to the element of majesty in the divine, was early applied to the gods and it profoundly influenced the religious outlook. The gods, seen as kings and rulers, were no longer powers in nature only, they became powers in human affairs — in history.

Second Millennium BCE — Guilt

“Forgive Us Our Trespasses”

[W]ith the beginning second millennium the personal fortunes of the individual worshiper, his fears of personal misfortune, anxieties in illness and suffering, begin to be voiced adding a personal dimension to the relation with the divine. [Because of famine and war, it appears this personal] god has abandoned the worshiper and lost interest in him. He realizes that the blame lies with himself-pleading, however, that no man is perfect and asks to be shown his faults, his transgressions, that he may confess them before his god and be forgiven. And the god is moved by his contrition and takes him back into favor.

There is here the beginnings of a searching of the heart: the insight gained in the preceding millennium that the divine stands for, and upholds, a moral law is now bearing fruit in a realization of individual human responsibility, but also of innate human inability to live up to that responsibility. [T]he question of man’s acceptability before his god — the problem of the righteous sufferer — led on to realization of man’s finiteness and the altogether finite character of his insights and his moral judgments.

During the first millennium BCE Mesopotamian religions stagnated, perhaps because for thousands of years they had always been concerned with that which was immanent or present in this world. If the divine was present in the world, few (other than the rich and powerful) seemed to be feeling it. It was time for something new. The stage was thus set for Axial transcendence.

References:

Strathern, Alan (2009). Karen Armstrong’s Axial Age: Origins and Ethics The Heythrop Journal, 50 (2), 293-299 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2265.2009.00413.x

Jacobsen, Thorkild (1963). Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: The Central Concerns Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 107 (6), 473-484

This is all very interesting and it surely says something about the way guilt-oriented religions work. Of course not all religions revolve around the notion of guilt, and its Abrahamic concomitant: sin. Because the study participants were Australian and 65% of Australians are Christians of one variety or another, most have been taught that guilt and pain are connected. The study, therefore, may have done nothing more than measure the internalization and efficacy of such teachings.

There is a chance, however, that the study measured something more fundamental. Before considering what this might be, let’s consider two famous paintings, the first by Francisco de Goya (“A Procession of Flagellants”) and second by George Catlin (“The Cutting Scene: Mandan Ceremony”):

Here we have two very different groups — medieval Christians on the one hand and historic Mandans on the other — engaged in activities that appear to be similar and rooted in ritualized pain. The similarities, however, end here. The Mandan ritual has nothing to do with guilt, immorality, atonement, penitence, or sin. Mandans who skewered their chests and suspended themselves were seeking power and visions — through pain they could contact the spirit world and negotiate with it.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that this practice, which is historically ancient and known to have been practiced by hunter-gatherers around the world, was transformed by later traditions and that Christian and Islamic penitence — of the flagellating kind, taps into these ideas. It seems also that shame, which in pre-state societies is the primary method of social control, was eventually transformed into the twinned ideas of guilt and sin. The latter, of course, are also techniques of control.

What could be wrong with a large-scale movement that emphasizes meditation, morality, and mingling? Apparently quite a lot, if a recent “Photo Essay” over at Foreign Policy is any indication. The essay’s title contains all kinds of code words calculated to set off alarm bells: Close Encounters of the Buddhist Kind: An Exclusive Look Inside a Booming Multibillion-Dollar, Evangelical, Global Thai Cult.

It obviously took a bit of hard work to insert all the allusions, because this has just about everything. Far out and crazy, akin to UFO beliefs and Heaven’s Gate or Scientology (“Close Encounters”)? Check. Secretive and shadowy, but we have the Enquiring scoop (“An Exclusive Look Inside”)? Check. A dubious spiritual profiteering scheme (“Booming Multi-billion Dollar”)? Check. Enthusiastic, zealous, and irrational (“Evangelical”)? Check. Expansive, dangerous, and conspiratorial (“Global”)? Check. And the inevitable kicker, bringing to mind Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Reverend Moon: it’s a “cult.”

As if these clumsy connotations were not enough, the caption “essayist” (Ron Gluckman) absurdly trots out the Nazi analogies, complete with “scare quotes”:

Picture this: millions of followers gathering around a central shrine that looks like a giant UFO in elaborately choreographed Nuremberg-style rallies; missionary outposts in 31 countries from Germany to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; an evangelist vision that seeks to promote a “world morality restoration project”; and a V-Star program that encourages hundreds of thousands of children to improve “positive moral behavior.” Although the Bangkok-based Dhammakaya movement dons saffron robes, not brown shirts, its flamboyant ceremonies have become increasingly bold displays of power for this cult-like Buddhist group that was founded in the 1970s, ironically, as a reform movement opposed to the excesses of organized religion in Thailand.

Take cover! These mass-meditating Buddhists are poised for world domination! If Dhammakaya practitioners were carrying Mausers instead of flowers and clamoring for more meditation Lebensraum, the connection would be complete. Or not.

The photos in this feature are arresting and beautiful (excellent work by photographer Luke Duggleby), but caption “essayist” Gluckman tells us virtually nothing about Dhammakaya. It amounts to a hatchet job, which may or may not be deserved. One thing is for certain: Gluckman has not provided us with any information by which to judge the issue. His non-stop train of pejorative cliches and negative connotations speaks to an agenda. Instead of providing us with analysis, we are given only Gluckman’s judgments.

Whatever else it might be, Dhammakaya appears to be a dream come true for cultural anthropologists looking for a field site or subject. If anyone is aware of ethnographic work that situates this movement in a meaningful or informative way, please let us know. In the meantime, we can all channel our inner Leni Riefenstahl while contemplating scenes from the main temple complex:

Though Habermas is best known for his work on communication, rationalization, and emancipation, he has long been interested in religion.  His writing on religion is the subject of two forthcoming books to be published by the Social Science Research Council, Habermas and Religion and The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere.  One of the editors, Eduardo Mendieta, provides some background:

The centrality of religion to social theory in general and philosophy in particular explains why Jürgen Habermas has dealt with it, in both substantive and creative ways, in all of his work. For Habermas, religion has been a continuous concern precisely because it is related to both the emergence of reason and the development of a public space of reason-giving.

Religious ideas, according to Habermas, are never mere irrational speculation. Rather, they possess a form, a grammar or syntax, that unleashes rational insights, even arguments; they contain, not just specific semantic contents about God, but also a particular structure that catalyzes rational argumentation. [In Habermas' later work] religion is treated, not as a germinal for philosophical concepts, but instead as the source of the social order.

Although Habermas has obviously taken his cues from Weber (rationalization), Freud (cultural formation), and especially Durkheim (social order), his philosophy allows him to analyze religion more extensively than these ancestors.  Habermas’ most incisive insights flow from his recognition that we live in a post-metaphysical philosophical world that has had little or no effect on the still-metaphysical religious world.

For all his brilliance, Habermas misses the mark when he claims that the moral order is essentially a religious order:

The thrust of Habermas’s argumentation in [his magnum opus] The Theory of Communicative Action is to show that religion is the source of the normative binding power of ethical and moral commandments.

This may be true of certain cultures of relatively recent origin, but it does not seem to true of Paleolithic societies or those which are not Western.  When primates behave in ways that are recognizably moral or ethical, anchoring these ideas in humanly constructed religions seems far fetched.

Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago.

We do not need to assume this — we know it.  I have often made the point that in most societies which are not Western and Christian (that is local and recent), ethical and moral behaviors are not linked to religion.  The normative codes that one can find in all hunting and gathering groups are not dependent on, or linked to, ideas about gods or the supernatural.  And this is not limited to hunters and gatherers.

Just last night I was reading Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, in which he correctly observes:

For modern people intimately familiar with any of the major contemporary Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), it may be hard to imagine, but books played virtually no role in the polytheistic religions of the ancient Western world.  These religions were almost exclusively concerned with honoring the gods through ritual acts of sacrifice.

There were no doctrines to be learned…and no ethical principles to be followed, as laid out in books. This is not to say that adherents of of the various polytheistic religions had no beliefs about their gods or that they had no ethics, but beliefs and ethics — strange as this sounds to modern ears — played almost no role in religion per se.

Of course these polytheistic societies had ethical codes and standards concerning right conduct — it was just that these codes and standards were not linked to religion.  Such a linkage appears first in human history with monotheistic religions of the books.

Given these historical facts, I find the following statement by de Waal — who argues in favor of an evolved moral sensibility that can be glimpsed in chimpanzees and other primates — puzzling:

It is impossible to know what morality would look like without religion. It would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause.

It is not impossible to know what morality would look like without the modern concept of organized and systematic “religion.”  Anyone who reads an ethnohistory of North American Indians can see morality existing apart from religion.  Many such cultures did in fact exist.

Indeed, the majority of human societies or cultures have had what we consider “morals” without any linkage to “religions.”  This correction aside, de Waal’s many additional points are well taken.

As Nicholas Wade now reports, it appears that the case against Professor Hauser is not what it seemed and has encountered difficulties.  My sense of the situation, as an attorney, is there clearly was a rush to judgment and a shocking lack of process that has resulted in a Kafkaesque experience for Professor Hauser.  It obviously has taken a financial and emotional toll on him.  Harvard certainly has done him no favors.

The most disturbing aspect of the story is that Hauser’s defenders contend his critics were “scholars known to be virulently opposed to his research program.”  This sort of thing, if true, is completely unacceptable.  You can be opposed to someone’s research program without engaging in vicious attacks or making allegations that can ruin lives and careers.

This leaves me wondering who this critics are and what might be their motivations.  It would be one thing if such critics are opposed to Hauser’s research into morality and his argument that moral behavior is naturally evolved, no religion necessary.  This is of course a hot button issue that can crank up the temperature in any room.

But it is quite another thing if the criticism is aimed at Hauser’s primate cognition research — honestly, the stakes in such studies are not that high, and the findings — no matter which way they come out, are not going to unsettle anyone’s world view.  If Hauser’s critics are “virulently opposed” to this aspect of his research, the motivations are surely personal and petty.

The bottom line at this point is that it appears that none of Hauser’s research into morals has been touched by the investigation.  This is good news.

Wherever there is animal life, predators are stalking, chasing, capturing, killing, and devouring their prey. Agonized suffering and violent death are ubiquitous and continuous. This hidden carnage provided one ground for the philosophical pessimism of Schopenhauer, who contended that “one simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain…is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured.”

The continuous, incalculable suffering of animals is also an important though largely neglected element in the traditional theological “problem of evil” ─ the problem of reconciling the existence of evil with the existence of a benevolent, omnipotent god. The suffering of animals is particularly challenging because it is not amenable to the familiar palliative explanations of human suffering.

Animals are assumed not to have free will and thus to be unable either to choose evil or deserve to suffer it. Neither are they assumed to have immortal souls; hence there can be no expectation that they will be compensated for their suffering in a celestial afterlife. Nor do they appear to be conspicuously elevated or ennobled by the final suffering they endure in a predator’s jaws.

Theologians have had enough trouble explaining to their human flocks why a loving god permits them to suffer; but their labors will not be over even if they are finally able to justify the ways of God to man. For God must answer to animals as well.

It is a long piece, and towards the end McMahan wonders whether we have an ethical obligation to exterminate all predators.  One need not be an ecologist to realize what a bad idea this is.