Dr Oliver Scott Curry is Research Director for Kindlab, at kindness.org, and a Research Affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, at the University of Oxford. Oliver investigates the causes and consequences of kindness, and the nature, content and structure of human morality. Address: Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology
University of Oxford
64 Banbury Road
Oxford, OX2 6PN
Do appeals to moral values increase compliance with COVID-19 public health measures? According to... more Do appeals to moral values increase compliance with COVID-19 public health measures? According to the theory of ‘Morality as cooperation’, morality consists of a collection of cooperative principles that help us get along, work together and promote the common good. We experimentally investigated whether messages that appeal to these moral principles increase pandemic-related public health behaviour. We investigated: (a) Are moral messages more effective than non-moral messages? (b) Are some moral messages more effective than others? c) Is the effectiveness of moral messages dependant on the corresponding moral values of the individual? (d) Do these effects hold across cultures? Participants (recruited from the USA and India) were presented with one of ten messages, asked questions about their intentions to follow the restrictions, were asked to donate to a charity fighting COVID-19, and completed the Morality-as-Cooperation Relevance Questionnaire. We found that: (a) Moral messages ...
What is the effect of disgust on bioethical judgements? Some research finds that state and trait ... more What is the effect of disgust on bioethical judgements? Some research finds that state and trait disgust lead to more negative moral judgements, although many studies have failed to replicate these findings. Here we investigate the effects of disgust on moral judgements regarding a range of ethically-controversial biomedical technologies. Participants (N=600): first, viewed either disgusting, frightening or neutral pictures; second, rated the moral acceptability of a range of biomedical technologies, and; third, completed the “pathogen disgust” and “sexual disgust” sub-scales of the Three Domain Disgust Scale. We find a small negative effect of state disgust (but not fear) on the acceptability of ‘existing’ biotechnology (but not ‘future’, ‘agricultural’, or ‘termination biotechnologies). And we find significant negative relationships between trait disgust and moral acceptability of biotechnologies in general. These findings are consistent with the possibility that disgust amplifies...
Is morality a combinatorial system in which a small number of simple moral ‘elements’ combine to ... more Is morality a combinatorial system in which a small number of simple moral ‘elements’ combine to form a large number of complex moral ‘molecules’? According to the theory of morality-as-cooperation, morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. As evolutionary game theory has shown, there are many types of cooperation; hence, the theory explains many types of morality, including: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, heroism, deference, fairness and property rights. As with any set of discrete items, these seven ‘elements’ can, in principle, be combined in multiple ways. But are they in practice? In this paper, we show that they are. For each combination of two elements, we hypothesise candidate moral molecules; and we successfully locate examples of them in the professional and popular literature. These molecules include: fraternity, blood revenge, family pride, filial piety, gavelkind, primogenitur...
Do appeals to moral values increase compliance with COVID-19 public health measures? According to... more Do appeals to moral values increase compliance with COVID-19 public health measures? According to the theory of ‘Morality as cooperation’, morality consists of a collection of cooperative principles that help us get along, work together and promote the common good. We experimentally investigated whether messages that appeal to these moral principles increase pandemic-related public health behaviour. We investigated: (a) Are moral messages more effective than non-moral messages? (b) Are some moral messages more effective than others? c) Is the effectiveness of moral messages dependant on the corresponding moral values of the individual? (d) Do these effects hold across cultures? Participants (recruited from the USA and India) were presented with one of ten messages, asked questions about their intentions to follow the restrictions, were asked to donate to a charity fighting COVID-19, and completed the Morality-as-Cooperation Relevance Questionnaire. We found that: (a) Moral messages ...
What is the effect of disgust on bioethical judgements? Some research finds that state and trait ... more What is the effect of disgust on bioethical judgements? Some research finds that state and trait disgust lead to more negative moral judgements, although many studies have failed to replicate these findings. Here we investigate the effects of disgust on moral judgements regarding a range of ethically-controversial biomedical technologies. Participants (N=600): first, viewed either disgusting, frightening or neutral pictures; second, rated the moral acceptability of a range of biomedical technologies, and; third, completed the “pathogen disgust” and “sexual disgust” sub-scales of the Three Domain Disgust Scale. We find a small negative effect of state disgust (but not fear) on the acceptability of ‘existing’ biotechnology (but not ‘future’, ‘agricultural’, or ‘termination biotechnologies). And we find significant negative relationships between trait disgust and moral acceptability of biotechnologies in general. These findings are consistent with the possibility that disgust amplifies...
Is morality a combinatorial system in which a small number of simple moral ‘elements’ combine to ... more Is morality a combinatorial system in which a small number of simple moral ‘elements’ combine to form a large number of complex moral ‘molecules’? According to the theory of morality-as-cooperation, morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. As evolutionary game theory has shown, there are many types of cooperation; hence, the theory explains many types of morality, including: family values, group loyalty, reciprocity, heroism, deference, fairness and property rights. As with any set of discrete items, these seven ‘elements’ can, in principle, be combined in multiple ways. But are they in practice? In this paper, we show that they are. For each combination of two elements, we hypothesise candidate moral molecules; and we successfully locate examples of them in the professional and popular literature. These molecules include: fraternity, blood revenge, family pride, filial piety, gavelkind, primogenitur...
A review of: Buller, D. J. (2005). Adapting Minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent que... more A review of: Buller, D. J. (2005). Adapting Minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Bradford Book/MIT Press.
What are moral values and where do they come from? David Hume argued that moral values were the p... more What are moral values and where do they come from? David Hume argued that moral values were the product of a range of passions, inherent to human nature, that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, psychology and neuroscience suggest that Hume was right to suppose that humans have such passions. This dissertation reviews these developments, and considers their implications for moral philosophy. I first explain what Darwinian adaptations are, and how they generate behaviour. I then explain that, contrary to the Hobbesian caricature of life in the state of nature, evolutionary theory leads us to expect that organisms will be social, cooperative and even altruistic under certain circumstances. I introduce four main types of cooperation – kin altruism, coordination to mutual advantage, reciprocity and conflict resolution – and provide examples of ‘adaptations for cooperation’ from nonhuman species. I then review the evidence for equivalent adaptations for cooperation in humans. Next, I show how this Humean-Darwinian account of the moral sentiments can be used to make sense of traditional positions in meta-ethics; how it provides a rich deductive framework in which to locate and make sense of a wide variety of apparently contradictory positions in traditional normative ethics; and how it clearly demarcates the problems of applied ethics. I defend this version of ethical naturalism against the charge that it commits ‘the naturalistic fallacy’. I conclude that evolutionary theory provides the best account yet of the origins and status of moral values, and that moral philosophy should be thought of as a branch of natural history.
Evolutionary psychology is the search for adaptations in the human mind. Evolutionary theory sugg... more Evolutionary psychology is the search for adaptations in the human mind. Evolutionary theory suggests that organisms are bundles of adaptations, which can be thought of as phenotypic strategies designed by natural selection to propel genes into future generations. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, evolutionary psychologists try to match the adaptive problems that were present during human evolutionary history with the adaptive 'design features' apparent in our psychologies. As well as basic adaptations for 'feeding, fighting and fleeing', evolutionary theory predicts that humans will have sexually-dimorphic adaptations for mating and parenting, and a range of adaptations for cooperation. Some adaptations, such as 'theory of mind', seem to have been the key to innovations such as language, culture, and morality. However, critics allege that evolutionary psychologists overestimate the role of specially-designed adaptations, and that their methods are anyway inadequate to discover them. This course of tutorials will review the theoretical and empirical basis of evolutionary psychology, with a view to arriving at a considered judgement of its contribution to explaining human thought and behaviour.
For anyone who thought 1966 was famous only for England's victory in the World Cup, it may come a... more For anyone who thought 1966 was famous only for England's victory in the World Cup, it may come as some surprise that the year also marked a major turning point in the history of ideas. The publication of Adaptation and Natural Selection finally killed off group-selection and set the foundations for three decades of progress in the evolutionary sciences. Considered by many to be one of Darwin's representatives on earth, George C Williams talked to the evolutionist about monkey morals, Stone Age slackers and his new book.
David Buss's 1995 book The Evolution of Desire put Darwin's theory of sexual selection to the hum... more David Buss's 1995 book The Evolution of Desire put Darwin's theory of sexual selection to the human test, and proved conclusively that there's more to sex than gender. the evolutionist spoke to him about the impact of his work, the alternative view of the swinging sixties, and the future of the evolutionary enterprise.
Richard Dawkins has been the acknowledged leader of the evolutionary pack since the publication o... more Richard Dawkins has been the acknowledged leader of the evolutionary pack since the publication of The Selfish Gene in 1976. the evolutionist spoke to him about the difficulties he has faced in getting the evolutionary message across, his views on evolutionary psychology, and how selfish humans really are.
Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct provided the first and most comprehensive account of a majo... more Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct provided the first and most comprehensive account of a major area of human psychology as an adaptation designed by natural selection. He then took on the rest of the brain in his book How the Mind Works. the evolutionist caught up with him to ask him about the grey matter we all call home, the eternal problems of consciousness, and those things that shall ever remain beyond our understanding.
John Maynard Smith FRS is one of the most respected evolutionary biologists this century. He is p... more John Maynard Smith FRS is one of the most respected evolutionary biologists this century. He is perhaps best known for his application of game theory to biology -- presented in his 1982 book Evolution and the Theory of Games -- which introduced such notions as the 'evolutionarily stable strategy', and paved the way for a more rigourous scientific analysis of interactions among living things. the evolutionist talked to him about his new book, The Origins of Life: From the birth of life to the origin of language, discussing such perrenial questions as: What is life? What was the first sexual act? and Did the egg really come before the chicken?
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