The eCrozier

Much scholarly work has been written in the last few years delving into the source of human morality. Those who come at the issue from an evolutionary stance seek to explain morality as a result of natural selection. To wit: Good morality grows over time because our forbearers learned that cooperating with one another created safer, more thriving communities. Of course, that raises the obvious question: Why do we still have so much violence and war? Joshua Greene in his book, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, answers that question by arguing humans evolved in tribal groups, so our morality evolved in a way that naturally distrusts people outside one’s tribe. This was less problematic when tribes lived far apart and weren’t connected by modern technology, but now tribes are geographically and technologically close, thus conflict increases. His proposed remedy is a shared global morality that would settle arguments among competing moral tribes. But as Alisdair MacIntyre argued years ago (1988) in his book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, whose morality gets chosen? Greene, as one could expect, offers his own, a version of classic utilitarianism.

The problem is as Walt Kelly’s Pogo the Possum said in the Okefenokee Swamp: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” What evolutionary psychologists have proffered makes sense. We tend to have a high opinion of our own tribe’s virtue while having a much lower opinion of another tribe’s virtues. We then each amplify our resentments toward one another based on our tribal opinions. It seems we (that is, our brains) don’t clearly recognize our own sins all the while having 20/20 vision on the sins of other tribes. Once one tribe is convinced that another tribe’s values, practices, etc. are sinful and that other tribe actually has contempt for one’s own practices and values, then conflict is pretty much assured. For example, we can look at the long-standing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Both actually share similar values, one being retributive justice, namely, that if attacked, you’re justified if you retaliate. So they do, again and again. It becomes a playground argument of who first started the fight. Since they share the tribal value of retributive justice, they have to amplify the sins of the other tribe to retain the moral high ground. Their tribal brains just work that way, if one accepts Greene’s hypothesis (also true for the Republican and the Democratic tribes).

While I find all this fascinating, in some ways it doesn’t matter whether we evolved into this particular form of tribal morality or, as I believe, God has revealed to us morality. Either way, we have to deal with this brutal tribalism, both in the world and among our most nigh neighbors. Jesus knew all this. That’s why his teaching on forgiveness and loving one’s enemies is so vitally relevant today. But it’s also, if Greene and others are to be believed, not how our brains have evolved to work. It’s counter-intuitive to our brains to forgive and love our enemies. That probably explains why it’s such hard work for us and why such love and forgiveness aren’t regularly practiced virtues by many Christians. Yet, it’s the only way Jesus has given his disciples for living in this world. So even if one doesn’t accept the truth of the Gospel, it seems that following Jesus is the only way we can further evolve our brains so that tribalism won’t destroy what God has so beautifully created. Start with the tribe next door.

+Scott