IGL and Center for Cognitive Studies Host "Morality and the Mind" Symposium

This October, as one of its 25th anniversary events, the Institute for Global Leadership hosted a symposium on “Morality and the Mind: Cognitive Science and Politics” in collaboration with the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts.

Over the past decade, cognitive scientists have begun to address morality as an aspect of human cognition.  Is morality an inborn capacity?  How much can it be influenced by culture?  How much of it can be traced to our primate heritage? 

Emerging results point to important questions for justice systems, economics, and diplomacy, such as:  How should we define the notion of responsibility?  How well do legal systems track moral intuitions?  How much should they?  When do economic incentives crowd out generous moral motives?  How does one recognize and work around differences in moral systems, in politics and in diplomacy?  What constraints does human nature impose on possible moral systems? 

There has been little serious reflection on how these findings impact on policy; policy-makers are rarely aware that there is a cognitive science of morality. 

This two-day symposium created an opportunity for leading cognitive scientists and policy makers to explore potential avenues of interaction.

The conference was organized with the cognitive scientists giving presentations on a range of related topics and the policy makers providing commentary.

Presentations included:

Morality in the context of human social cognition

Ray Jackendoff, Tufts University

The Definition of Morality: Why it matters ... and why it might not exist

Stephen Stich, Rutgers University

Just Babies

Paul Bloom, Yale University

Are Monkeys Moral?

Laurie Santos, Yale University

What Can Evolution Teach Us About Morality?

Robert Boyd, University of California, Los Angeles

Morally constrained behavior: Where from, and who decides?

Marcel Kinsbourne, Tufts University and The New School

The sophisticated legislator’s dilemma: Optimal taxes and subsidies when incentives affect preferences

Samuel Bowles, Santa Fe Institute and University of Siena

‘Any Animal Whatever’: Harmful Battery and its Elements as Building Blocks of Human and Nonhuman Moral Cognition

John Mikhail, Georgetown Law School

Commentaries were provided by:

Jack Blum, Tax Justice Network

Leon Fuerth, The George Washington University

Pervez Hoodbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad

William Martel, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Gwyn Prins, London School of Economics

Michael Vlahos, United States War College

For speaker abstracts and full bios, please click here.

In a sample of informal remarks after the symposium, Pervez Hoodbhoy said, “Samuel Bowles gives fascinating examples of how fines, punishments, rewards, and incentives may actually produce effects directly opposite to those which they were intended to produce: British blood donations went down when the government announced payment for them; parents actually left their children for longer hours at a Haifa daycare when a fine was announced for late pickups; and the resolve of Jewish and Palestinian youth for unilateral control of Jerusalem hardened instead of softened when a proposal was made to buy peace with money. Moral values, and perceptions of self-dignity, can trump the selfish urge.

“I recall that my cognitive psychologist friend, Scott Atran, who interviewed failed Palestinian suicide bombers, saying similar things. He says that they are driven by sacred values which differ from material or instrumental values by incorporating moral beliefs that may drive actions independently, or all out of proportion, from prospects for worldly success. Indeed, across the world people believe that devotion to essential or core values – such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor and justice – are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. These are privileged values in the sense that they are entirely unconnected with material well-being. This is well beyond the realm of simple utilitarianism.”

The Morality and the Mind Symposium was a collaborative effort between the Synaptics Scholar Program of the Institute for Global Leadership and the Center for Cognitive Studies with the generous sponsorship of The Merrin Family Fund and The Office of the Provost.