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Cited by 240Psychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentEvolutionary Psychology and Human BehaviorEvolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation

Morality: An Evolutionary Account

Krebs, Dennis L.·2008·Perspectives on Psychological Science
DOI 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00072.x
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Abstract

Refinements in Darwin's theory of the origin of a moral sense create a framework equipped to organize and integrate contemporary theory and research on morality. Morality originated in deferential, cooperative, and altruistic “social instincts,” or decision-making strategies, that enabled early humans to maximize their gains from social living and resolve their conflicts of interest in adaptive ways. Moral judgments, moral norms, and conscience originated from strategic interactions among members of groups who experienced confluences and conflicts of interest. Moral argumentation buttressed by moral reasoning is equipped to generate universal and impartial moral standards. Moral beliefs and standards are products of automatic and controlled information-processing and decision-making mechanisms. To understand how people make moral decisions, we must understand how early evolved mechanisms in the old brain and recently evolved mechanisms in the new brain are activated and how they interact. Understanding what a sense of morality is for helps us understand what it is.

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  • This caveat might have contributed to the similar results in the meta-analyses on moral cognition and on ToM (rather than on empathy), given that emotion processing is thought to play a paramount role in real-world moral cognition.

    “This caveat might have contributed to the similar results in the meta-analyses on moral cognition and on ToM (rather than on empathy), given that emotion processing is thought to play a paramount role in real-world moral cognition (Krebs 2008; Tangney et al. 2007; Haidt 2001).”

    From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Krebs 2008

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Authors
Krebs, D. L.
Affiliations
Simon Fraser University (CA)
Corresponding author
Krebs, Dennis L.
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2008-05
Volume
3
Issue
3
Pages
149-172
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
DOI
10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00072.x
OpenAlex
W2132071493
Cited by
240
References
233
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 49 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 31
FWCI
6.74
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
Keywords
moral sense, evolution of morality, social instinct, cooperation, altruism, moral judgment, moral norms, conscience, moral reasoning, moral argument, ethical decision-making, automatic and controlled processing, conflicts of interest

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