Species typicality

May implicitly adopts the common view that current psychological research assesses species-typical moral functioning, at least to a reliable degree. To his credit, May briefly mentions the WEIRDness (Western, European, industrialized, rich, democratic; Henrich et al. Reference Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan2010) of the persons populating most data sets. These samples are also the source for most theories and conclusions drawn about human nature. He does not take these facts to their conclusions – that the nature of human nature cannot be established from such samples. A broader scope is needed to establish species typicality. The rest of my critique focuses on several aspects regarding the need for setting transdisciplinary-informed baselines when discussing human psychology and morality.

Baselines for morality

May provides no real empirical baseline for typical moral functioning of the human species apart from experiments in (mostly) social psychology. Although WEIRDness is important to realize, there are two additional features of most research participants that should influence the interpretations of these psychological studies. The first is a critique that others have raised – that participants in psychological experiments are mostly undergraduate sophomores (around age 19), which is especially important to note when studying morality. Undergraduates typically are not yet adults in their executive functions (e.g., foresight, empathy) or practical wisdom (Arain et al. Reference Arain, Haque, Johal, Mathur, Nel, Rais, Sandhu and Sharma2013). So we should not expect to be able to assess typical adult moral functioning in this age group, for reasons of life experience and cognitive development (Rest et al. Reference Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau and Thoma1999).

But there is a less widely known reason to question empirical research results as representative of humanity. Most if not all participants have likely been raised outside of humanity's species-typical developmental system – outside our evolved nest (what we can call “un-nested”). Why does this matter? Humans are more immature than any other ape at birth (presenting like fetuses until 18 months of age; Trevathan Reference Trevathan2011) and have a several decade long maturational schedule. Early experience especially bears on neurobiological development, influencing health and well-being for life (Shonkoff & Phillips Reference Shonkoff and Phillips2000) but also sociality and morality (Narvaez Reference Narvaez2014). The human nest in early life – whose long term importance is corroborated by developmental and neuroscientific studies (e.g., for reviews see Narvaez et al. Reference Narvaez, Panksepp, Schore and Gleason2013b; Schore Reference Schore2003a; Reference Schore2003b) – includes soothing perinatal experiences (no separation of baby and mother or painful procedures), nearly constant (positive) touch, several years of infant-initiated breastfeeding, responsiveness that keeps the child optimally aroused, self-directed free social play in the natural world, positive social climate, and a community of responsive caregivers and support (Hewlett & Lamb Reference Hewlett and Lamb2005). Humans who grow up in our ancestral environment (mobile small-band hunter gatherers, the type of society that represents 95–99% of human existence; Lee & Daly Reference Lee and Daly2005) are raised within the evolved nest and demonstrate greater sociality (e.g., greater self-control and cooperation) (e.g., Ingold Reference Ingold, Lee and Daly2005; Narvaez Reference Narvaez and Fry2013). A violation of a child's “blueprint for normality” (Winnicott et al. Reference Winnicott, Winnicott, Shepherd and Davis1989, p. 264) or lack of experience-expected care (Greenough & Black Reference Greenough, Black, Gunnar and Nelson1992) during sensitive periods (Knudsen Reference Knudsen2004) –that is, a degraded nest – undermines neurobiological development, arresting or impeding social development (Schore Reference Schore2003a), pushing a child's trajectory toward relational disconnection and lifelong stress reactivity (Lupien et al. Reference Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar and Heim2009). Thus, is it vital to take into account humanity's species evolutionary history and not attend only to contemporary culture, practices, and behavior.

Evolutionary inheritances

Although May cites some evolutionary theory, there are critical aspects missed that bear on morality. Humanity's evolutionary inheritances beyond genes are multiple (Jablonka & Lamb Reference Jablonka and Lamb2005; Oyama et al. Reference Oyama, Griffiths and Gray2001) and include not only basic needs and the evolved nest that fulfills them, but also self-organization around experience because of a highly dynamic, socially constructed human nature (Overton Reference Overton2013). The plasticity and epigenetic malleability of human brains and body systems, especially early in life, is a characteristic not shared with chimpanzees (Gómez-Robles et al. Reference Gómez-Robles, Hopkins, Schapiro and Sherwood2015). Further, Charles Darwin (Reference Darwin1871) in The Descent of Man noted humanity's inheritance of the moral sense (social pleasure, empathy, concern for the opinion of others, habit control), which he found universal among preindustrialized societies. However, rather than being innate as Darwin implied, the moral sense appears to require postnatal experience that aligns with the evolved nest (Narvaez Reference Narvaez and Joyce2017; Reference Narvaez, Graham and Gray2018b), as data from our lab is suggesting (e.g., Narvaez Reference Narvaez2016a; Reference Narvaez2018a; Narvaez et al. Reference Narvaez, Gleason, Wang, Brooks, Lefever and Cheng2013a; Reference Narvaez, Wang and Cheng2016). Darwin found the moral sense less apparent in his British male compatriots (whose childhoods are far from supportive; Turnbull Reference Turnbull1984), perhaps in part because boys have less built in resilience and take longer to mature, and thereby are more greatly affected by early life experience (Schore Reference Schore2017). Postnatal early life shapes capacities critical for moral functioning such as self-control, empathy and cooperation (e.g., Kochanska Reference Kochanska2002; Thompson Reference Thompson2012). The evolved nest extends beyond the mother and close caregivers to the community and culture.

Culture and practice of virtue

May makes no mention of a culture's influence on moral development and does not evaluate contexts for development. The lack of attending to the cultural level is a common problem within psychology too where psychopathologies have been normalized and societal members are instead helped to adjust to societal impositions of individual isolation, impersonalism, and disconnection, among other dehumanizing things outside of our species-normal experience (Kidner Reference Kidner2001; Narvaez Reference Narvaez2016b; Narvaez & Witherington Reference Narvaez and Witherington2018). In contrast, non-industrialized societies would consider U.S. culture to be quite harmful to the development of virtuous behavior because of a degraded evolved nest and missing practices (described later). Undermining human development and disrupting relationships in the ways described earlier foster relational and emotional disconnection, sources of danger for everyone because they lead to harm of others (Lee Reference Lee1979; Ross Reference Ross2006).

Among native American communities, virtue development is a lifelong practice. Although a person's ability to get caught up in ego or misguided behavior is assumed in virtually all societies, among traditional native American communities, humans are raised to be on a path of continued self-improvement (Deloria Reference Deloria2006; Four Arrows 2016). In these societies, the evolved nest extends across the life span because human beings can become imbalanced outside of supportive relationships and require ongoing attention to relational harmony and balance. Community life in traditional societies entails rituals, practices, and stories that keep members focused on humility and proper relationships with others. Morality is about living in the right way and acting in the right manner in every circumstance. Moral slippage can occur when an individual's ego inflates or her responsibilities to the community are forgotten. As these societies are aware, a person's mindset can be shifted away from (or toward) relational trust and connection, making it critical to keep the self in an appropriate mindset (gratitude, humility) and aware of relational connection to all entities (WindEagle & RainbowHawk 2003). A harmful behavior reverberates across the social fabric undermining trust, and so healing circles for expressing and mending harm are part of a process of restorative justice common in native American communities (Ross Reference Ross2006). Consequently, justice has to do with repairing relationships – restoring respectful and caring connection – toward self, others, community, landscape, and the unseen spiritual world. In contrast, societies like the United States assume disconnectedness as part of a capitalistic human life and set up institutions and practices that, perhaps mindlessly, undermine connection (e.g., person-to-person, person to community, person to natural landscape) (Kidner Reference Kidner2001).

Ecological morality

May makes no mention of ecological morality – moral mindedness toward other-than-humans. The morality he describes seems to have no grounding in living on and with the earth. In contrast, for most societies across history, treating the local landscape with humble respect was part of the moral life (Descola Reference Descola and Lloyd2013; Merchant Reference Merchant2003; Nelson Reference Nelson2008). Indigenous or native science (Cajete Reference Cajete2000) is holistic, understanding that everything is connected (as, for example, Western physics and biology have noted at the quantum level and in terms of shared DNA), even into the future (seven generations), with a responsibility to promote flourishing of the landscape, not just of human individuals or communities. Indigenous societies are highly attached to and respectful of the landscape (Narvaez et al. Reference Narvaez, Four Arrows, Halton, Collier and Enderle2019). In contrast, un-nestedness and disconnection are characteristic of industrialized, capitalistic societies, leaving their members detached from one another, as well as from the natural world (Polanyi Reference Polanyi2001), driving the many ecological and social crises that threaten biodiversity and life on the planet (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] Reference Pachauri and Meyer2014; Kolbert Reference Kolbert2014; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Should not this be part of the conversation about morality, especially in a discussion of rationalism? It is highly irrational in any way you slice it to be destroying planetary ecological systems and futures for the sake of money and power. One would hope that researchers and philosophers would enlarge their purview to include how individuals and communities live their lives within ecological systems on a day to day basis.

Finally, moral evaluation is not the same as moral decision making or virtuous behavior. Armchair, detached observance and judgment of the world do not have much to do with morality in the flesh. In this regard, May seems to miss a key notion from our historical past, the distinction between reason (Greek nous/noos) and rationality (Greek logos/dianoia). The former is shaped by experience and involves one's whole being (e.g., embodied cognition, including intuition) and was considered the prior and superior faculty to the latter. This form of reason is “evolutionary […] makes use of forms of perceptual and motor inference present in “lower” animals…mostly unconscious….largely metaphorical and imaginative…not dispassionate, but emotionally engaged” (Lakoff & Johnson Reference Lakoff and Johnson1999, pp. 4–5). In contrast, logos refers to the more explicitly rule-focused, utilitarian, mechanical, detached, internally consistent type of knowledge, which unfortunately characterizes most moral psychological experiments. Perhaps the many human weaknesses or failings in moral functioning observed in experiments are tapping into a lack of appropriate cognitive, emotional and social experience to build embodied personal knowledge (nous), leaving individuals (including research experimenters) to rely on semantic knowledge (logos). The focus on logos instead of nous fits with the Western world's shift to a “left-brain” focus on static objects instead of on the shifting patterns of connection among living dynamic entities (McGilchrist Reference McGilchrist2009; Muller Reference Muller2018), a focus characteristic of those with brain damage, not representative of human potential. David Kidner's (2001) question for psychology comes to mind as a question for philosophy too: “why should the social sciences be based on the one power which separates humans from […] other organisms”? Why not, instead base it on the many powers that relate us to other organisms” (p. 59, italics in original)? Indeed, why should philosophy dig itself into the same hole, especially when it appears that detached thinking has been instrumental in creating the ecological crises faced today?

In conclusion, a wider examination of human behavior across time and societies is needed when discussing human moral potential. Few people are well educated or well developed in virtuous morality in industrialized societies like the United States for the reasons mentioned, making humanity appear to be innately morally flawed. Individuals and culture vary in their opportunities and support for virtue development, demonstrating that a focus only on the individual is inadequate. Cross-generational effects on development and cultural factors matter greatly. Perhaps in a follow-up book May can take up a broader scope and include more of the factors that contribute to humanity's moral potential, focusing then on “optimistic reasonableness.”