Norms are, to a rough approximation, rules or principles that specify patterns of action that are required or deemed to be permissible or impermissible (Sripada and Stich 2005).
They operate at multiple levels of action; functioning in individual, interpersonal, group, as well as broader cultural/social contexts. As we saw in chapter 1, moral norms are important for our adaptive success. They are adaptive for both individuals and groups because they provide important solutions to cooperation and coordination problems.
Not all norms (moral or otherwise) are adaptive. As Boyd and Richerson point out, many clearly are not (“the adaptive value of ritually handling rattlesnakes is hard to fathom”
(2004:168)) but, (generally) the normative capacities of agents are. Being able to identify and follow norms, and being part of a group that enforces norms, is typically fitness enhancing (Bowles and Gintis 2003). Moral norms are also part of our extended moral cognition.7
I propose that one explanatorily fruitful way to view norms is as a form of public artefact: they are adaptive action-guiding information stores about social behaviour. They provide agents with the resource to successfully navigate their social worlds and for groups to negotiate cooperation and coordination problems. The information that they provide is portable, readily accessible, and reliable. And, much like the case of extended
7. Kim Sterelny (2004) is sceptical of the extended mind thesis on the basis that external cognitive resources are corruptible by other agents because they “operate in a common and contested space”. If this is a problem for external cognitive resources (although see Clark (2008) in response), it is not clear that it is so in the moral case. Although morality operates in a contested space involving negotiation, debate and norm violation, it also works to dampen many of their effects. In the case of moral cognitive extension there are specific mechanisms that maintain the integrity of the external normative structure. Indeed much of the point of moral cognising is to retain the integrity and regularity of normative structure and associated behaviour. Norm conformity is supported by, for example, sanction and punishment as well as meta-punishment norms enforcing norms of enforcement. These are driven by a raft of motivational mechanisms such as moralistic emotions (Bowles and Gintis 2003; Boyd and Richerson 2004). These mechanisms provide what Ehrlich and Levin (2005) call “cultural stickiness”, which helps to maintain normative integrity and reliability by retarding normative change, and strengthening conformist transmission and minimise temptation to defect.
Norms and normativity are, by definition, sources of regularity. Therefore it is doubtful that norms acting as external cognitive resources are subject to the same corruptibility and outright contestability that other external resources might be.
memory earlier, they come about via constructive processes involving the interactions of multiple agents.
Viewing moral norms in this way, we can see that they are extensions of moral cognitive systems. Firstly, they provide us with a ready information store of how one ought to act in the social world. Moral norms guide our moral behaviours and the judgements that we make about others. Throughout development we learn to use moral norms as information stores which we can readily and reliably access.
Secondly, moral norms provide information about how we should expect others to act. If I learn that my social group does not do X, then I have reliable (although by no means infallible) information that members of my social group will not do X. Moral norms provide agents with expectations about the behaviours of group members. In many cases, I do not need to track all other agents in my social groups as there is good reason to think that because they are from my social group they are subject to many of the same normative constraints that I am. Social-wide moral norms are a low cost coordination device which we can exploit as information stores about the behaviours of others.
Thirdly, moral norms are part of our extended cognitive apparatus because we rely on them to circumscribe the moral behaviour of other agents in one’s social group by proxy, thereby reducing the cognitive load required of continuous moral vigilance. One of the roles of moral cognition is to proscribe and thus constrain other agents’ behaviours.
Moral norms do not simply provide us with information about how other agents will act, they partially determine the behaviour of those agents. They are action guiding in addition to being descriptive. As such, moral norms are part of our moral cognitive system, operating to track, manipulate and constrain other agents as if a non-extended agent were to do so themselves. One way I can ensure you would not steal money that I have left in my room is by staying in the room with you to watch your every move. The other method is by knowing that you subscribe to the patterns of behaviour that prohibit stealing money. In the latter case, we are offloading much of our moral cognitive work to our environments by exploiting the normative structure of our society. I know that the local shop owner is unlikely to short-change me because I can reliably assume that he is constrained by the norms of our society, irrespective of whether or not his compliance to those norms is moralistic (i.e., he thinks it is morally wrong to short change people) or
interested (i.e., he does not want to get caught). This monitoring and self-guidance by other norm bound agents reduces the brainbound requirements for continuous individual moral vigilance. The idea is that we are closely coupled to the social-wide patterns of moral behaviour, so that we exploit the normative regularities and structures of our moral worlds (cf. mother-infant dyads presented earlier). Moral norms operate as part of our extended moral cognitive system by doing cognitive work, namely maintaining moral vigilance and constraining other’s behaviours.
5.5.1 Supports as Constituents
There may be some scepticism as to whether we can legitimately include physically external, society-wide moral norms as part of our moral cognitive system. This is part of a larger issue about what resources are, and under what conditions ought we consider resources, a legitimate part of our extended cognitive system; without constraints on what is to be considered legitimate parts of cognition, the extended mind faces accusations of triviality. In response to these issues, as well as an attempt to bypass the inherent boundary bias created by the physical boundaries of organisms, Clark and Chalmers propose the Parity Principle:
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process. (1998:8)
Here the focus is on the functional nature of the “system” rather than the physical boundaries of the organism itself (see also Clark 2008). As I have explained above, moral norms are physically external resources which track and control the behaviours of other agents. Were we to perform the functionally equivalent tasks in our head, we would rightly consider them part of our cognitive processes. Moral norms satisfy the parity principle.
Additionally, Clark and Chalmers (1998; Clark 2008) offer a four-point ‘rough guide’ to inclusion into one’s cognitive system. We have good reason to include moral norms as part of one’s extended moral mind as they satisfy each criterion:
1. That the resource be reliably available and typically invoked.
People readily adhere to moral norms. Knowledge of that fact, and the norms which they abide by, is readily available to members of the community. As we have seen in chapter 1, the point of much of morality is to maintain reliable and predictable behaviours of group members that generate the benefits of cooperative interaction. In addition to guiding our own behaviours, we use moral normative structures as reliable and predictable constraints on the behaviours of others.
2. That any information thus retrieved be more-or-less automatically endorsed. It should not usually be subject to critical scrutiny (unlike the opinions of other people, for example). It should be deemed about as trustworthy as something retrieved clearly from biological memory.
People unconsciously abide by moral norms and typically do not question the vast majority of their society’s moral norms. Furthermore, most moral norms are treated as objective fact rather than matters of opinion. Moral norms reliably describe and predict people’s behaviours. Although moral debate occurs, it is only over a rather small sample of moral norms.
3. That information contained in the resource should be easily accessible as and when required.
Social-wide patterns of moral behaviour in one’s group are readily observable in social interactions. Their adherence is predictable and their violations identifiable. The normative structure of our moral world is accessible and stable, such that we can use it as and when it is required.
4. That the information … has been consciously endorsed at some point in the past, and indeed is there as a consequence of this endorsement.
The vast majority of our moral norms will be learned through conscious experience/witnessing their violation (including in stories and folklore) and their consequences. People feel strongly about the moral norms of their community and
endorse them – as shown by people’s adherence to, and objection to the violation of, moral norms. Of the vast array of moral norms we abide by, disagreement and violations are rare. Moral norms exist and are successful because of this endorsement.
In sum, moral norms satisfy Clark and Chalmers’ criteria for cognitive inclusion and as such are part of our cognitive systems.
I have been arguing that we integrate many aspects of our moral environments into our moral cognitive processing. They become constituent parts of moral cognition. The important point throughout this discussion is that moral cognitive states are not merely the products of our moral environments; they are partly constituted by those environments.