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SUMMARY:What is the nature of human morality? - Prof Michael Tomasello (Le
 ipzig) & Prof Shaun Nichols (Arizona)
DTSTART:20150312T170000Z
DTEND:20150312T183000Z
UID:TALK58377@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Gabriela Pavarini
DESCRIPTION:The event includes presentations by the speakers\, discussion 
 and Q&A. It will be followed by a wine reception in the atrium.\n\nProf Sh
 aun Nichols is happy to meet researchers for an informal chat during the d
 ay. If you would like to meet him individually\, please sign up to a time 
 slot here: https://doodle.com/gkwmt9dfs88emis9. Meetings take place in the
  atrium at CRASSH. \n\nAbstracts\n\nProf Tomasello:\nHuman morality is a f
 orm of cooperation\, specifically\, the form that has emerged as humans ha
 ve adapted to new and species-unique forms of social interaction and organ
 isation. Because Homo sapiens is an ultra-cooperative species\, and presum
 ably the only moral one\, we assume that human morality comprises the key 
 set of species-unique proximate mechanisms - psychological processes of co
 gnition\, social interaction\, and self-regulation - that enable human ind
 ividuals to survive and thrive in their especially cooperative social arra
 ngements. Given these assumptions\, the attempt is: (i) to specify in as m
 uch detail as possible\, based mainly on experimental research\, how the c
 ooperation of humans differs from that of their nearest primate relatives\
 ; and (ii) to construct a plausible evolutionary scenario - comprising two
  steps\, one based in concrete collaborative activities and the other in l
 arger-scale processes of culture - for how such uniquely human cooperation
  gave rise to human morality. A key at both steps will be humans' ability 
 to engage with others in acts of shared intentionality involving a plural 
 agent 'we'.\n\nProf Nichols:\nPhilosophical observation and psychological 
 studies indicate that people draw subtle distinctions in the normative dom
 ain.  But it remains unclear exactly what gives rise to such distinctions.
  On one prominent approach\, emotion systems trigger non-utilitarian judgm
 ents. The main alternative\, inspired by Chomskyan linguistics\, suggests 
 that moral distinctions derive from an innate moral grammar. We develop a 
 rational learning account. We argue that the “size principle”\, which 
 is implicated in word learning (Xu & Tenenbaum 2007)\, can also explain ho
 w children would use scant and equivocal evidence to interpret candidate r
 ules as applying more narrowly than utilitarian rules.\n\nAbout the speake
 rs:\n\nProfessor Michael Tomasello studies the origins of our capacity for
  social cognition\, cooperation and communication from a developmental and
  evolutionary perspective. He is co-director of the Max Planck Institute f
 or Evolutionary Anthropology\, co-director of the Wolfgang Kohler Primate 
 Research Centre\, and author of seven books (including\, most recently\, W
 hy We Cooperate and A Natural History of Human Thinking) and over 100 arti
 cles\, including publications in Science and Nature. Prof Tomasello’s cu
 rrent interest is on shared intentionality – the capacity to coordinate 
 our actions to cooperate towards some common goal. He has proposed that th
 is capacity\, and the cognitive architecture underlying it\, may be the cr
 ucial feature of human cognition that renders us unique among species.\n\n
 Shaun Nichols is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. A
  pioneer of the emerging discipline of ‘experimental philosophy’\, Pro
 f Nichols is interested in the psychological processes underlying our ever
 yday moral intuitions\, moral reasoning and moral decision-making – and 
 in how understanding these processes can shed light on classic and contemp
 orary questions in morality and ethics. More specifically\, his research h
 as brought an empirically-informed lens to bear on a range of philosophica
 l questions including free will\, moral responsibility and blameworthiness
 \, and notions of self and personal identity. He is author of three edited
  volumes and two books (Sentimental Rules and Mindreading)\, and has been 
 published in such prestigious journals as Mind and Language and the Journa
 l of Philosophy.\n \nWe look forward to seeing you soon\,\n\nMoral Psychol
 ogy Research Group\n\nThis event is part of a series of biweekly interdisc
 iplinary debates in moral psychology (http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programm
 es/moral-psychology). Sign up to be notified of future events here: http:/
 /talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/50108\, and subscribe to our mailing list here
 : https://lists.cam.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ucam-moralpsy-public.
LOCATION:Room SG1 (Ground Floor)\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road
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