believe that these rates were higher among the Jews (Harris, 1989, pp. 328–30;
Hezser, 2001, pp. 23, 35). Starting with the nineteenth century, widespread
public education and affordable printed books made the stories of religious
and national heroes available to the masses in many developed countries. For
most ancient Christians, in contrast, the moral example of the greatfigures of
the past was known from recitations, homilies, and oral tradition.
8.6 CONCLUSIONAt the beginning of this chapter, we defined moral behavior as behavior that is in
line with socially accepted codes of behavior. First we looked at empathy as a
source of altruistic behavior. We have seen that empathy might or might not lead
to altruism. Moral behavior usually requires higher cognitive functions (such as
perspective taking) rather than only emotional empathy. The discussion of
empathy in the context of historical memory and textual transmission involves
additional layers of mentalizing. Second, we looked at evolutionary explanations
of morality and found that a range of evolved cognitive traits can motivate pro-
social behavior. We reviewed arguments for and against religion as a foundation
of human cooperation and argued for the dependence of religious ideas on
evolved moral intuitions. Third, we examined exploitation as an example of social
interaction that is not altruistic but still considered as moral in many contexts.
Finally, we considered how biases of cultural transmission influence morality. We
found that in antiquity the role of literature to promote moral examples was more
limited and dependent on socioeconomic status than in modernity.
Our (selective) survey showed that moral behavior cannot be explained with
reference to innate pro-sociality or adaptive psychological traits alone. In fact, the
evolved motivations of morality consist of a mix of at least three kinds of traits:
adaptive and altruistic (such as empathy or guilt), adaptive and exploitative (such
as instrumental aggression or deception), and culturally transmitted but poten-
tially non-adaptive (such as low fertility in the modern West). Examples from
biblical literature revealed that the morality of biblical authors and audiences was
motivated by a variety of factors across the spectrum. At times modern readers
willfind that the moral concepts of antiquity are at odds with their own moral
common sense; nevertheless, such moral concepts often make sense in terms of
evolved human motivations.^11 In sum, a critical reading of the textual evidence in
light of evolutionary and cognitive research of evolved patterns of social behavior
can help us make sense of the moral universe of biblical literature.
(^11) Let us note that although few would defend the moral character of slavery in the modern
West, the capitalist exploitation of entire populations (in the name of free markets and compe-
tition) is easily justifiable for the modern public.
186 Cognitive Science and the New Testament