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Recently, a handful of researchers met and decided on some basic principles for a science of morality. Their statement is a good representation of what is wrong with dominant psychological views of morality.Too narrow, too focused on lab studies and on "judgment" (evaluation of others).
Morality is so much more. We know enough now to have a science of moral development (where, I keep saying, we are failing terribly). And we know about the complexities of everyday morality--real-life virtue--and how many skills and capacities it requires.
What do we know?
MORALITY DEVELOPS!
Like any dynamic system, initial conditions for human development are critical for later functioning. What do we know about early life effects on moral development?
Moral Personality. Caregiving quality (e.g., intersubjectivity, mutual co-regulation) shapes personality factors related to moral functioning, such as openness (Greenspan & Shanker, 2004). Children with warm, responsive parents develop more agreeable and prosocial personalities and show earlier conscience development (e.g., Kochanska, 2002). Moral exemplar research indicates that adults who habitually take moral action for others have higher scores on agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness (Colby & Damon, 1991; Walker & Frimer, 2009).
Self-Control. Like personality, self-control is epigenetic. The nervous system is dependent on experience for its development, particularly postnatally through attachment relationships with caregivers. The caregiver functions as an "external psychobiological regulator," transforming "external into internal regulation" (Schore, 2001, p. 202). Warm, responsive care is critical for children's self-regulation development. Those with poor self-regulation skills are necessarily more self-focused (Karr-Morse & Wiley, 1997).
The responsive-parenting characteristics mentioned above are part of a larger set that characterized early life experience for 99% of human genus history (breastfeeding for 2-5 years, nearly constant touch, prompt response to fusses and cries, multiple adult alloparents, extensive free play with multiple aged mates; Hewlett & Lamb, 2005). (More detail here.) Even though they are related to the moral character of societies (Prescott, 1996) and individuals (Narvaez, 2008), these characteristics are diminishing in the USA (Narvaez, Panksepp, Score & Gleason, 2010).
Why should we be concerned? Because the characteristics that Darwin (1871) identified as part of the human moral sense also are deteriorating. For example, empathy and moral reasoning among college students are decreasing whereas egocentrism is up (Konrath, O'Brien, & Hsing, in press; Thoma & Bebeau, 2008; Twenge & Campbell, 2009).
REAL-LIFE MORALITY IS DIFFERENT FROM LAB STUDIES
The "consensus" also lacks the scope of what real-life morality entails, for example, moral sensitivity and practical reasoning (Aristotle, 1988; Mencius, 2003), habituated empathy (Dewey in Boydston, 1986), moral identity (Blasi, 1994), skills for particular action or "effectivities" (Shaw, Turvey, & Mace, 1982), and the ongoing cultivation of virtue by the actions one practices and the environments one chooses, both of which shape intuitions and preferences (Hogarth, 2001). Studying moral exemplarity and virtue development can help fill in the gaps.
Too much of psychological science is focused on the naïve or underdeveloped (college students without experience in a domain). Because brain development beyond the college years and into middle age influences moral functioning, mature adults should be studied in depth before generalizations are made about human nature. Executive functions take until the mid 20s or later to fully form (Luna et al., 2001) and myelinization of the prefrontal cortex occurs in middle age (Sowell et al., 2003).
Studies of morality should include mature adults in their areas of expertise. Expertise in a domain is a combination of practical reasoning, intuition and many perceptual and self-monitoring capacities (Narvaez, 2010a, 2010b). In fact, reasoning is much more important than credited, in part because research is not focused on all the ways that humans use reasoning. Even in young children, practical reasoning or reasoning for action is a constant activity.
WEIRD SCIENCE
Westerners don't much know about virtue anymore. In comparison to our ancestors who lived virtuously or perished, Westerners can live viciously without immediate consequence. In fact, Americans are encouraged to live viciously: Consume all the resources you want or can. Nurture your greed. Control nature and control others. Stand on your own. Be self-interested because that is normal (contrary to every non-Western view). All these attitudes lead to great destruction of relationships and the natural world-which is not virtuous and not adaptive!
A consensus based on WEIRD data (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies who represent 12% of the world's population; Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan, 2010) by a handful of white male North Americans is no consensus at all.
Here is the "consensus" statement.
References
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Thoma, S.J., & Bebeau, M. (2008). Moral Judgment competency is declining over time: Evidence from 20 years of Defining Issues Test data. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, New York.
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