What can Evolutionary Psychology
tell us about sin?
Paul Moes, Psychology Department Calvin
College.
Friday, February 18, 2011
What can Evolutionary Psychology
tell us about sin?
• Summary: Not much!
• Why?
– Presumes reductive physicalism
• “As members of a species, we are programmed, as it
were, or powerfully disposed, to engage in our own
genetic self-interest and advantage.”
– A Calvinist theology could handle this, but
– Psychological science supports a
“top-down” role for mental phenomenon
• Thesis: People are sinful, not “bodies”
– But if we assume embodiment – need ideas
What is Evolutionary Psychology?
• Stresses behavioral > structural changes
• Addresses group or “tribal” traits
– Example: Why do people laugh?
Examples:
• Video
What is Evolutionary Psychology?
• Stresses behavioral > structural changes
• Addresses group or “tribal” traits
– Example: Why do people laugh?
– Designed for:
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Communicate a “non-warning”
Signal play vs. aggression
Signal reward (“approach”)
Promote social cooperation – better survival
Evolutionary Psychology and Sex
• Gender differences; mate selection
• Examples:
– Females invest energy into child birth/care.
– Men are hunter-gatherers
– Men seek females that are “fit”
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Physically attractive (healthy)
Nurturing
Receptive to the male (signals) and
Do NOT look like males! (why?)
Evidence …
• Surveys / behaviors
– Men’s list:
• Physical Attractiveness (feminine faces, “average”)
• “Nice personality”
• Good sense of humor (receptive)
– Females laugh more during ovulation
• Desire “sexual fidelity”
• Commit more infidelity themselves
– Women’s list
• Intelligent / “Mature” / Strong / “High Status”
• Good sense of humor (intelligent)
• Masculine / “Good Looking” (symmetrical)
– desire more masculine faces during ovulation
• Desire “emotional / social fidelity”
• Less likely to be sexually unfaithful
What’s useful about EP?
• Shows that
– behavioral traits have biological value
– behavior is purposeful / functional
– many behaviors are unconsciously “driven”
• Has lots of inferential “evidence”
Criticisms & Critiques of EP
• Post-hoc explanations
– No observational evidence / contradictory
– Adjusts to “predict” new outcomes
– Can’t eliminate competing explanations
• Creates excuses / increases stereotypes
• Denies (minimizes) cultural, social,
familial, religious, personal, willful action
• Account for sin?
• Can an ape sin?
An Alternative Model:
A Non-Reductive Physicalist Approach
• What is Non-reductive physicalism?
• Humans = fully embodied (physical),
yet willful agents (non-reductive)
– Responsible, accountable
– YET, with limited agency (5%)
• “Supervenience” = higher level process
can down-regulate lower level
• Consider the ant colony
NRP view of human nature:
• “Soulishness” defined relationally,
requires…
– Emotions
– Memory
– Language (symbolic representation)
– Theory of Mind
• Does NOT preclude EP, but goes beyond
Alasdair MacIntyre’s view:
• Moral Responsibility is “the ability to
evaluate that which moves one to act
in light of a concept of the good.”
• Consider Romans 7: 7b “For I would not have
have known what sin was except if the
law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’”
• So sinfulness requires consciousness
Darwin: “Instincts and Conscience”
• “The highest possible stage in moral
culture is when we recognize that we
ought to control our thoughts, and ‘not
even in the inmost thought to think again
the sins that made the past so pleasant
to us.’”
• “Whilst the mother-bird is feeding, or
brooding over her nestlings, the maternal
instinct is probably stronger than the
migratory [instinct]… at the moment when
her young ones are not in sight, she takes
flight and deserts them. …what an agony of
remorse the bird would feel, if from being
endowed with great mental activity, she could
not prevent the image constantly passing
through her mind…”
Alasdair MacIntyre continued:
• Requisite cognitive traits for moral action
– Symbolic sense of self.
– Sense of the narrative unity of life.
– The ability to run behavioral scenarios and
predict the outcome.
– The ability to evaluate predicted outcomes
in light of goals.
– The ability to evaluate the goals themselves
in light of abstract concepts.
– The ability to ACT in light of the above.
MIT and Harvard Research on Theory of Mind
and Prospective-taking
How do these qualities arise?
A modified Intelligent Design view
• Heather Looy:
Relational qualities “designed” by God
• Process is not as relevant – but the
endpoint (of qualities) was “determined”
• Evidence
– Marriage works best with mutuality
– Healthy people defined relationally
Getting back to SIN
• Definition (C. Plantinga) = Breaking of
Shalom (relationships)
• Sin results from
– a distorted abstract sense of the good
– placing self above God,
– placing self above others.
• Sidebar: The role of “Theory of Mind”
• Therefore sin & righteousness arise in
the MIND not in our genetics
What about original sin????
• Don’t know – but possibilities:
– Sudden (supernatural) alternation of mental
functions [“..Their eyes were opened…”]
– Gradual alteration of mental functions
(self distortion)
– Cultural alteration of mental functions
(external distortion)
– Simply a “curse” placed on humans, placing
us out of relation with God
Sin and Behavior
• Sin/Righteousness goes beyond mind
– Becomes automated
– Becomes physical – further alters choices
– Becomes social/cultural –
further alters choices (group supervenience)
Final thoughts on EP
explanation for Sin
• Could explain evil – but this takes all
human behavior into a deterministic
fatalistic, reductionist realm.
• Reduces “salvation” to a restoration
of brain, physiological, genetic function
• Sin is only understood if we understand
our psychological nature as well as our
embodied nature.
Thank You!
Questions?