From supernatural punishment to big gods to puritanical religions: clarifying explanatory targets in the rise of moralizing religions

Fitouchi, Léo; André, Jean‐Baptiste; Baumard, Nicolas

doi:10.1080/2153599x.2022.2065352

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…Yet whether such breaches are enough to be a serious concern depends entirely on the research question and on the empirical setting at hand (for a discussion, see Keele, 2015;Morgan & Winship, 2015). For instance, in our big gods example, different degrees or types of moralising religions might exist (Fitouchi et al, 2023). As such, the treatment 'big gods' might fail consistency if researchers are interested in a specific facet of moralising religions.…”

Section: From Pills To Culture: the Consistency Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities

Lonati,

Lalive,

Efferson

2024

Evolut. Hum. Sci.

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Causal inference lies at the core of many scientific endeavours. Yet, answering causal questions is challenging, especially when studying culture as a causal force. Against this backdrop, this paper reviews research designs and statistical tools that can be used—together with strong theory and knowledge about the context of study—to identify the causal impact of culture on outcomes of interest. We especially discuss how overlooked strategies in cultural evolutionary studies can allow one to approximate an ideal experiment wherein culture is randomly assigned to individuals or entire groups (instrumental variables, regression discontinuity design, and epidemiological approach). In doing so, we also review the potential outcome framework as a tool to engage in causal reasoning in the cultural evolutionary field.

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Section: From Pills To Culture: the Consistency Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities

Lonati,

Lalive,

Efferson

2024

Evolut. Hum. Sci.

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“…This relates to Buchtel's fascinating data on the centrality of a "cultivated" character in Chinese lay concepts of morality. The core of puritanical morality is that people have a moral duty to cultivate character traits that will help them behave more cooperatively in the future (Fitouchi, André, & Baumard, 2022a;Fitouchi, André, Baumard, & Nettle, 2022b).…”

Section: R33 Strategic Moralizing Only Exists Because Moral Judgments...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Fitouchi

André²,

Baumard³

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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Why do many human societies morally condemn apparently victimless and pleasurable behaviors, such as lust, gluttony, drinking, drugs, gambling, or even music and dance? Why do they morally praise temperance, chastity, sobriety, decency, and piety? While this puritanical morality often appears as an exception to the cooperative function of moral cognition, we propose that it stems, like other moral concerns, from moral judgements targeting cooperative challenges. Specifically, we propose that it consists of preemptive moralizations of behaviors perceived as risk factors for uncooperative self-control failures, impeding people's ability to resist the short-term temptations naturally conflicting with cooperative motivations.

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Purity is still a problem

DiMaggio,

Gray,

Kachanoff

2023

Behav Brain Sci

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Our recent review demonstrates that “purity” is a messy construct with at least nine popular scientific understandings. Cultural beliefs about self-control help unify some of these understandings, but much messiness remains. The harm-centric theory of dyadic morality suggests that purity violations can be comprehensively understood as abstract harms, acts perceived by some people (and not others) to indirectly cause suffering.

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From supernatural punishment to big gods to puritanical religions: clarifying explanatory targets in the rise of moralizing religions

Cited by 12 publications

References 34 publications

Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities

Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Purity is still a problem

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