Friday, February 18, 2011

1. What can Evolutionary Psychology tell us about sin?Paul Moes, Psychology Department Calvin College. Friday, February 18, 2011

2. 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

3. What is Evolutionary Psychology? • Stresses behavioral > structural changes • Addresses group or “tribal” traits • Example: Why do people laugh?

4. Examples: • Video

5. What is Evolutionary Psychology? • Stresses behavioral > structural changes • Addresses group or “tribal” traits • Example: Why do people laugh? • Designed for: • Communicate a “non-warning” • Signal play vs. aggression • Signal reward (“approach”) • Promote social cooperation – better survival

6. EvolutionaryPsychology and Sex • Gender differences; mate selection • Examples: • Females invest energy into child birth/care. • Men are hunter-gatherers • Men seek females that are “fit” • Physically attractive (healthy) • Nurturing • Receptive to the male (signals) and • Do NOT look like males! (why?)

7. 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

8. 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”

9. 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?

11. 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

12. NRP view of human nature: • “Soulishness” defined relationally, requires… • Emotions • Memory • Language (symbolic representation) • Theory of Mind • Does NOT preclude EP, but goes beyond

13. Alasdair MacIntyre’s view: • Moral Responsibility is “the ability to evaluate that which moves one to actin light of a concept of the good.” • Consider Romans 7: 7b “For I would not havehave known what sin was except if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’” • So sinfulness requires consciousness

14. Darwin: “Instincts and Conscience” • “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that weought to control our thoughts, and ‘not even in the inmost thought to think again the sins that made the past so pleasant to us.’”

15. “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…”

16. 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 andpredict the outcome. • The ability to evaluate predicted outcomesin light of goals. • The ability to evaluate the goals themselvesin light of abstract concepts. • The ability to ACT in light of the above.

17. MIT and Harvard Research on Theory of Mind and Prospective-taking

18. How do these qualities arise?A modified Intelligent Design view • Heather Looy: Relational qualities “designed” by God • Process is not as relevant – but theendpoint (of qualities) was “determined” • Evidence • Marriage works best with mutuality • Healthy people defined relationally

19. 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

20. 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, placingus out of relation with God

21. Sin and Behavior • Sin/Righteousness goes beyond mind • Becomes automated • Becomes physical – further alters choices • Becomes social/cultural – further alters choices (group supervenience)

22. Final thoughts on EP explanation for Sin • Could explain evil – but this takes allhuman behavior into a deterministicfatalistic, reductionist realm. • Reduces “salvation” to a restoration of brain, physiological, genetic function • Sin is only understood if we understandour psychological nature as well as ourembodied nature.

23. Thank You!Questions?