The Domesticated Brain (24 page)

Haidt believes that some moral values are not learned but rather are based on intuitions about what is right or wrong – maybe the same good and bad reasoning that has been observed in infants. We have a gut reaction that is emotional, often in the absence of having any good reason to explain our feelings. In what has become a very famous thought experiment known as the
trolley problem
, adults seem to reach different moral judgements based on gut reactions.
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In this problem we are told that there are five engineers working on a railway track as a runaway carriage (trolley) approaches
them. If the trolley is not stopped, then all five will die in the collision. However, there is a junction with a switch that will divert the trolley on to another branch of the track where there is only one engineer working. What should they do? Do nothing and let the trolley plough into five workers, or intervene to push the switch to divert the trolley on to the track so it ends up killing only one worker. Most people think that the right thing to do is to divert the train. In fact, not only is it the right thing to do, it would be morally wrong not to flip the switch. We may feel for the individual but we know that it is right to save the group.

Now consider a different version of the trolley scenario. In the
footbridge problem
, you are standing on a footbridge over a railway track. Again there are five workers on the track with a runaway engine threatening to kill them all. However, you can prevent their deaths if you push a fat man who is sitting on the edge of the bridge on to the track. This will lead to his death but block the track and save the five engineers. Even though the outcomes are exactly the same in terms of the number of lives saved, very few adults think that they could take this action of pushing the man. For some reason it does not seem quite right.

This dilemma in decision-making reveals that most of us are moral intuitionists – basing our judgements about what is right or wrong on our gut feelings. Most of us would not push that man because it is too emotionally traumatizing to consider. If we did not have to physically push the man but rather he was standing on a trapdoor over the track, then individuals are more willing to release a switch to
let him fall and block the trolley – same outcome, but less involvement.

This effect of emotional detachment explains why it is easier to kill others, the less contact and the further distance we can place between ourselves and victims – a concern that has been raised in current technological warfare where operatives use machines to wage attacks on the enemy. Gone are the days when soldiers had to be trained to overcome their emotional repulsion at using a bayonet to disembowel the enemy, when we can push a button and let a remote drone do the job thousands of miles away.

When we think about good or bad, we are employing different reasoning systems in the brain. One is fast and intuitive, whereas the other is slow and reflective. Even so, both systems can come into play when we act quickly and then justify our actions. Social neuroscientist Joshua Greene has shown that when adults are placed in a brain scanner and presented with the footbridge problem,
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emotional circuitry involving the posterior cingulated cortex, the MPFC and the amygdala is activated, indicating that they are feeling the situation. In contrast, the trolley problem, where you flip the switch rather than push the man, preferentially activates the reasoning areas of the PFC and inferior parietal lobes that perform calculations. This is where reason is the driving mechanism when deciding what to do.

In the same way that we are more likely to help an identifiable victim, we are less likely to harm someone we also identify with. We are more likely to sacrifice a stranger off the bridge than a relative, but more willing to sacrifice
someone we hate than a stranger. It also explains why individuals are more willing to sacrifice their own lives in the footbridge problem if they perceive themselves as strongly related or fused to the same social group as the five workers.
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They are now brothers-in-arms.

Why is it the case that morality is sometimes driven by our emotions rather than reason? Greene argues that we evolved to make rapid decisions that are based on feelings and gut reactions. In threatening situations we need to act quickly without thinking, which is why people often do things to save others that in the cold light of day they would not imagine themselves doing. Even though we might be about to use the slower system of reason to decide that it would be justifiable to push the fat man off the bridge, it would still feel wrong. We would feel guilty.
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To lie is to be human

Guilt is a powerful motivator to conform. We feel guilty when we have done something that we regard as wrong. But how do we know what is right and wrong? As infants, we may have an intuitive sense of what is right or wrong when it comes to evaluating those who help or hinder, but other rules have to be learned over childhood. We have to learn the various rules by which the rest of those around us abide as part of our domestication. Some of these are moral laws (those that protect the rights of others, such as avoiding violence) whereas others are social rules (conventions that enshrine social values, such as dress codes). Somewhere
around three to four years of age, children seem to become increasingly aware of the consequences of rule breaking, which they internalize as a sense of guilt.
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When it comes to the law, most young children below seven or eight years of age operate like Judge Dredd, the futuristic law enforcer who makes no exceptions to the rules. They focus on the absolute outcome and judge an accidental act that causes more damage (knocking over fifteen cups) as more naughty than an intentional act that causes less damage (trying to steal a cup and dropping it). When young children learn that something is wrong, they are black and white in their reasoning and see no exceptions. They think that it is wrong for a husband to steal a new drug from a pharmacist who is selling it at an extortionate price, even if he does so to save his dying wife.
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With age and experiences, children become more sophisticated in evaluating each situation. One common moral dilemma is whether to tell the truth or not. Initially, children learn that it is wrong to tell fibs, but around eleven years of age they understand that sometimes it is necessary and morally right to deceive. It’s not that younger children cannot understand deception. After all, they can pass the theory of mind tasks at four years that require understanding deception. Rather they are more rule-bound.

Nobody likes to be lied to and yet just about everybody lies. A lie is a deliberate attempt to generate a false belief to manipulate situations. We can either withhold important information or implant false information through deception so as to control the thoughts and behaviours of others. If
someone says they do not lie, then (a) they don’t know what a lie is, (b) they don’t have anyone to lie to, or (c) they’re lying.

Diary studies kept for a week reveal that fewer than one in ten of us say that they did not lie at all during this period.
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Many think that lying means making things up, but it also includes not fully disclosing all the information when it is relevant. Of course, sometimes there is a good reason to lie. If a murderer turns up at our house asking where their intended victim is hiding, then clearly we should lie if we know the answer. This would be a justified lie because it would be morally wrong to disclose the whereabouts of the victim. We cannot and should not always tell the truth.

To lie is to be human and even if it were possible not to lie, then it would not be preferable. How often do we lie to prevent hurting someone’s feelings? Not only would it be excruciatingly embarrassing if we always told the truth, but eventually relationships would break down and social cohesion would grind to a halt. Sheldon Cooper, the savant physicist in
The Big Bang Theory
comedy, is constantly struggling with this aspect of normal human social interaction. If you always told the truth, you would lose friends and partners fast. We need to lie in order to keep the peace.

In fact, most lies are not directed at making others feel better about themselves because we are twice as likely to tell lies that affect what others think about us.
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People tell lies to enhance their self-esteem, to get others to like them or to gain respect. They also lie to avoid punishment. Such lying is done to conceal our true feelings, motives, plans and actions
because we believe that others will judge us more negatively if we reveal the truth.

The trouble with lying is being found out. Very often, it is not so much the act but rather the deception and loss of trust that is the most distressing aspect of lying. To avoid exposure as a cheat, lying is a powerful incentive and so there is a constant battle to deceive others and detect those who deceive us. Domestication is supposed to teach us how to get along with each other but sometimes that requires learning how to deceive to avoid being rejected or punished.

Would I lie to me?

One way to avoid being detected is to convince ourselves that we are in fact telling the truth. This is our capacity for self-deception.
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The sociobiologist Robert Trivers argues that we have developed the capacity for self-deception so that we may deceive others more easily by not emitting cues that reveal that we are lying.
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When people are forced to maintain the truth and a lie simultaneously, this places demand on their executive functions to ensure that they tell a consistent story that does not contradict itself. Depending on the extent of the lie, the deceiver is likely to become entangled in a web of deceit. By deceiving ourselves we can better deceive others.

Self-deception has many advantages and opportunities. Self-deception enables us to help convince others that we are better than we really are.
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We like others to be confident, especially when we feel vulnerable, and that confidence in us, in turn, perpetuates the initial lie to ourselves. From lovers
to leaders, we prefer those who exude confidence and are more willing to believe what they say and follow their recommendations. By enhancing our self-image through deception, we are increasing our perceived illusion of control, which in turn reduces uncertainty in our choices and improves performance. Also, the more that we engage in self-deception, the more we come to believe our own stories. This is because of the reconstructed nature of recall and the problem of false memories. Participants forced to make up fictitious stories about a short movie they had watched eventually came to believe their own lies after two months. They could no longer tell the difference between the truth and the fiction that they had created. In short, self-deception becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The path to self-deception is an easy one to take. Most of us already believe that we are above average on all the important social traits of beauty, wit and intelligence. We are more likely to take the credit when things turn out right. Eight out of ten of us assume that everything is going to turn out better for us. Divorce rates in the West are currently at 40 per cent, which means that two out of every five couples will split, but not surprisingly, when asked, no newly-wed couples think that they will separate in the future.
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Even divorce lawyers, who should know better, think they are not likely to get divorced. People literally see themselves in a more positive light.

It has often been assumed that we engage in self-deception as a defence mechanism to protect ourselves from harsh reality. That’s why many of us avoid going to the doctor’s to take a diagnostic test or wait longer in the hope of good
news. Trivers thinks otherwise. He believes self-deception is an offence mechanism that facilitates our manipulation of others. When we self-deceive, we are generating a positive spin to impress others. Moreover, self-deception has one final twist, in that we are more likely to forgive and not punish others when they show all the signs that they are not aware that they are deluded. We can almost forgive someone who has fallen into their own trap of self-deception. It is as if they are not responsible for their actions.

Saying sorry

Another important component of domestication is knowing when to apologize. When we say sorry, we are telling the victim that we regret our actions but, most importantly, that we value who they are. If we did not care, we would not say sorry. This is one reason why we are more likely to forgive someone when they apologize, but should we believe them? After all, it is easy enough to say sorry if you think that it will get you off the hook. When we deceive we are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt, but if our scam is revealed then the retribution is much more severe.
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Apologies can backfire when we discover the act was intended to harm the injured party. Then the perpetrator is obviously trying to dupe the victim, which is why we cannot easily forgive someone who apologizes after deliberately trying to take advantage.

False apologies generally work because it is in our nature to believe what we are told. We are a species that relies on information and advice from others and so it makes sense to trust them. ‘She told me that she thinks you are really
attractive’ or ‘I would not eat that if I were you!’ are just two sorts of statements that could change the course of our lives. If you did not believe what you were told, then you would not survive very long. It is in our interest to trust others.