8. Morality
When thinking about the foundations of morality, biblical scholars usually
inquire about moral principles formulated and discussed by ancient authors as
well as behavioral rules and preferences that they prescribed, promoted, or
followed. Cognitive, evolutionary, and behavioral studies, in contrast, search
for the origins of moral behavior in domains such as neurobiology, social
cognition, group behavior, and moral emotions. Instead of starting from the
analysis of explicitly formulated principles and norms, scholars in thesefields
ask how cooperative behavior and its underlying psychological traits emerged
in the context of everyday challenges and necessities of life in early human
groups. On this account, the roots of morality reach back to times when
explicitly formulated moral principles hardly even existed. Thus morality is
not an artifact created by theologians and philosophers but an aspect of
human cognition and behavior.
Although there is no generally accepted definition of the concept of mor-
ality, most philosophical and theological discussions revolve around codes or
norms of conduct (e.g., Stock, 2000; Gert, 2015; FitzPatrick, 2016). The more
common-sense idea of morality as“good behavior”can be understood in this
context as behavior that is in line with the moral code. How tofind codes and
norms of conduct is, however, far from being uncontroversial. For example,
while in consequentialist ethics actions should be judged by their outcomes,
deontological ethics (in a broad sense) focuses on obligations and prohibitions
that guide actions (Copp, 2006; Alexander & Moore, 2015). How far moral
codes and norms can be considered universal is another important question.
Further, morality might or might not be concerned with behaviors that are not
(evidently) influencing other people’s well-being, such as behaviors connected
to“purity”or“sanctity”(Haidt, 2012).
For the purposes of this chapter, I will distinguish three possible foci in the
discussion of morality: moral action, moral motivation, and moral judgment.
When we turn to empirical and evolutionary research on morality, wefind
that one or more of these foci are often selected without particular justifica-
tion. For example, the“trolley problem”(Figure 8.1) or the“bridge problem”
are usually framed as problems of judgment (Foot, 1967; Thomson, 1976,