War as a moral imperative (not just practical politics by other means)

Abstract

We present findings from one survey and five experiments carried out in the USA, Nigeria and the Middle East showing that judgements about the use of deadly intergroup violence are strikingly insensitive to quantitative indicators of success, or to perceptions of their efficacy. By demonstrating that judgements about the use of war are bounded by rules of deontological reasoning and parochial commitment, these findings may have implications for understanding the trajectory of violent political conflicts. Further, these findings are compatible with theorizing that links the evolution of within-group altruism to intergroup violence.

Asymmetries in Altruistic Behavior during Violent Intergroup Conflict

“…Many previous studies have used economic experiments to measure altruism in situations of intergroup conflict (e.g., Ginges and Atran, 2011;Gneezy and Fessler, 2011;Halevy et al, 2012;Koopmans and Rebers, 2009;Rebers and Koopmans, 2012). These studies face the problem of interpreting subjects' behavior in economic experiments (Burton-Chellew and West, 2013;Kümmerli, Burton-Chellew, Ross-Gillespie, and West, 2010).…”

“…Many of these new studies have focused on mathematical modeling of the evolutionary dynamics of violent intergroup conflict (Bowles, 2009;Choi and Bowles, 2007;Konrad and Morath, 2012;Lehmann and Feldman, 2008;Smirnov, Arrow, Kennett, and Orbell, 2007), frequently in order to explain how human altruism towards the in-group, i.e., a readiness to incur fitness costs to the benefit of others, could have evolved. In addition, recent field and laboratory studies have gathered instructive new evidence (Fry and Söderberg, 2013;Ginges and …”

Morality in intergroup conflict

“…For example, individuals' support of war depends on their perceptions of the righteousness of armed violence, rather than the strategic efficacy of warfare [2]. In addition, people react with moral outrage when offered payment for self-sacrificial behavior during intergroup conflict, or when asked to consider tradeoffs between sacred and non-sacred issues in intergroup negotiation [3].…”

For Cause and Comrade: Devoted Actors and Willingness to Fight

“…Empirical studies in multiple cultures and hotspots across the world indicate that sincere attachment to sacred values entails: 1) commitment to a rule-bound logic of moral appropriateness to do what is morally right no 45 matter the likely risks or rewards, rather than following a utilitarian calculus of costs and consequences (Atran, 2003;Bennis, Medin, & Bartles, 2010;Ginges & Atran, 2011), 2) immunity to material tradeoffs, coupled with a "backfire effect," where offers of incentives or disincentives to give up SVs heighten refusal to compromise or negotiate (Ginges et al, 2007, Dehghani, et al, 2010, 3) resistance to social influence and exit strategies (Atran & Henrich, 2012;Sheikh, Ginges, & Atran, 2013), which leads to unyielding social solidarity, and binds genetic strangers to voluntarily sacrifice for one another, 4) insensitivity to spatial and temporal discounting, where considerations of distant places and people, and even far past and future events, associated with SVs significantly outweigh concerns with here and now (Atran, 2010;Sheikh, et al, 2013), 5) brain-imaging patterns consistent with processing obligatory rules rather than weighing costs and benefits, and with processing perceived violations of such rules as emotionally agitating and resistant to social influence (Berns, et al, 2012;Pincus, LaViers, Prietula, & Berns, 2014). Understanding the way SVs influence decision-making, leading to deontic judgments and choices in disregard for material interests, is necessary but not sufficient to explain how they may influence extreme and costly behaviors.…”