Your essay on these issues is pretty wide ranging, so I will only pick a few items to critique, lest my comments become longer than your original ruminations. First, let me state in my words what I think the thesis is that you were defending. It appears that the most concise summary of your thesis is the first sentence of the last paragraph:

“Morality must be a universal trait, a naturally emergent phenomenon that predisposes organisms to cooperate towards the common good.”

It strikes me that there are really two ideas working here: the idea that cooperative action can be beneficial for all concerned, and thus “emerges” in the behavior of many organisms, even some that appear not to have any sense of “self” at all. The second idea, that I take to be a separate issue, is the justification of cooperative action on the basis of a moral code, so that one would be able to call it “altruistic”.

I have no trouble with the idea that cooperation is displayed by many if not all plants and animals, else how did evolution ever produce multi-cellular organisms. It also manifests at the behavioral level (hunting packs, social insects, etc.). So examples of cooperative activities are abundant, and the case really has already been made. The explanation for such cooperative aggregations and groups has also been made in terms of the “selfish gene” and self-preservation. So we don’t have to hypothesize some emergent property outside Darwinian mechanics to understand how group cohesion and apparent cooperation can emerge.

I don’t think I can concur, however, with calling such activities “moral” or “altruistic” outside the human context. You ask the question in your first paragraph: “…can morality only be experienced by organisms on a higher plane of existence…?” My response is “yes” immediately, because of the conventional understanding of what “morality” means. “Moral” acts are behaviors that are consistent with a socially accepted set of standards. What the society is, of course, will determine what types of actions/behavior is considered moral. For example, here is clearly a discontinuity between the behavior approved by Islamic Fundamentalism (e.g. killing any non-Muslims (infidels) you can) and that of Humanism. But both sets of morals would claim to be legitimate: one derived from the Koran, the other from the insights of the Enlightenment.

But that is beside the point, the key issue is that a moral act is behavior that is consistent with some society’s moral code; i.e., the act would be approved of by others living by the same code. Aristotle asserts that a moral act must contain the factor of choice. I cannot be said to have acted morally unless I had a free choice to act consistently with a set of standards, or not. John Dewey is also a protagonist of the position that reason and foresight are essential to moral acts. In Dewey, I have to understand the implications of my actions (for myself and others) and to weigh the contribution the act makes to my ultimate goals before I can choose, and thus can be said to have acted “morally”.

We can discuss the many moral codes that have been proposed and are being employed by people around the world today, but I think it is inconsistent with general usage of the term to try to extend “morality” to non-human creatures. “Cooperation” clearly (on the evidence) applies to “lower” organisms and creatures, but “morality” does not, because they (animals) don’t understand the ideas of “choice”, “consequences”, and what it means to have a moral code.

“Altruism” is a potential action (behavior) that is construed to benefit others (individuals or a group), while either being detrimental to the individual performing the act, or at the least not aiding the individual. I will argue here (following Aristotle) that altruism only manifests itself if the individual has a choice about the action, and understands the choice. Altruistic acts are like other moral acts: only people are capable of them because only people are capable of understanding choices and the implications of those choices. If we see animals doing things that (in humans) appear to be altruistic, then we need to go back to selfish gene theory and try an explanation of the behavior that starts out assuming the organism seeks to improve the survival of its genetic endowment. Nothing wrong with that (we all try to take care of our kids), but I believe it is inappropriate to ascribe “altruistic” motives when the conditions (outlined above) of human moral acts are not evident.

It appears that you cut off your discussion of the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) before really making the point you were trying to illustrate. The single trial PD really has no escape unless something outside the game can impact player decisions. For instance, if the two players are members of the same gang, and they know that they will be killed by the other members if they “rat out” their fellow suspect, then they both are motivated to clam up and thus escape the worst case payoff, which is actually outside the game (death). They thus inadvertently both play “trust”, and escape the worst case payoff inside the game, and also thereby escape the dilemma within the game. But if the game is strictly constrained to the payoff matrix and the strategies available to each player, without exterior influences on “trustworthyness”, there is no escape. Each thug “rats out” the other, and both get the max sentence.

The point you are driving for, I think, is better illustrated by the Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma (IPD), where the game is played repeatedly, and alternative strategies can be explored by each player. Computer simulations of repeated play have allowed exploration of the long-term implications of different strategies (e.g., randomly jumping from “betray” to “trust”, consistent playing “trust”, etc.). The consistently winning long-term strategy is “tit for tat” (Axelrod: “The Evolution of Cooperation”). In this strategy, I play “trust” as long as you do. But if you play “betray”, then on the next cycle of the game, I switch to “betray”, and you get your just dues. One cycle late, but as soon as both players realize that justice is immediate and inevitable, the games settle down and everyone enjoys “tit for tat”. Defectors are punished almost immediately.

So can one argue that the IPD illustrates how higher level “morality” (doing what helps others) can emerge from a game where I am really acting totally selfishly? I get paid back almost immediately for doing good (i.e., playing “trust”), and also get punished almost immediately for playing “betray”. I don’t really care what happens to you, but I want to improve my chances of success in this constrained punish/reward situation, so I play a strategy that improves your situation and thereby also demonstrate my “altruism” (?). My decisions on how to play IPD certainly constitute “moral acts” in terms of the Aristotle/Dewey criterion proposed earlier: I have choices and I understand the consequences. But do selfish acts on my part that inadvertently help the other player constitute “altruism”?

Axelrod (and others) has exhaustively explored the implications of these results, but the part that always bothered me was the need for both immediate (almost) and assured punishment of the defaulting player. Apparent altruism emerges in the IPD because rewards and punishment are tightly controlled and administered quickly. In both classical and instrumental learning, one of the things we observe is that the more rewards (punishments) are separated in time from the act being conditioned, the weaker the learning association. Ultimately, action and reward (punishment) can be separated so far in time that there is no conditioning effect: the organism doesn’t realize that the reward was even associated with something it did long ago.

So, in trying to generalize from IPD to argue that cooperation and “altruism” can emerge on their own, if the reward/punishment structure is correctly organized, we do have to also argue that the reward/punishment timing must be sufficiently tight. And that is the reason PD or IPD rarely seems to work as a useful model in the larger society. Except in constrained situations, rewards and punishment are too disconnected from actions.

An obvious case where it does work is team sports. Only the team wins games, not individuals, so acting to make it possible for my teammate to be a star, can result in immediate team success, which rewards me. However, I’m not really being altruistic, I really want to share in the glory, and can only do so if the team is successful. It also works in military situations: my chances of survival are improved if I help my fellows to do their job and survive. Loners don’t make it. You have to have help to survive on the battlefield. So there is immediate reciprocity. But once again , the motivation at the core is selfish: I want to survive, and know my prospects are improved if we all survive together.

I think there are deep issues here that are not yet fully resolved. Dawkins would argue that virtually all apparently altruistic behavior can be ascribed to selfish acts intended to promote the survival of my genome into future generations. Much of this explanatory framework is at work in evolutionary psychology, and seems compelling. Unfortunately it leads one to conclude that “altruism” is a fiction and an unnecessary explanatory concept. We can understand all apparently “altruistic” behavior as strictly elaborations of evolutionary strategies of our selfish genes (?). Maybe so.

Take care,

DHQ