Moral parochialism and contextual contingency

Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement.

Of interest (and contra those who would predict Westerners would be the outliers):

The seven societies sampled vary in the degree to which moral judgements are parochial and contingent on the pronouncements of authorities. At one extreme, Ukrainian villagers evince strong reductions in judgements of moral wrongness as a function of temporal distance, spatial distance and authority consent. At the other extreme, Yasawan villagers display much smaller changes in judgement, and do so only in response to temporal and spatial distance. Interestingly, although Western liberal democracies often rhetorically espouse universalist moral positions, urban Californians occupied the middle of the spectrum in this regard. In the future, it will be important to explore which social, psychological or historical factors influence the degree of moral parochialism exhibited in a given society.