{"schema":"https://ver.cy/schemas/card/1.0.0","id":"vr.tr.evolution-of-morality","code":"thing-q5418655","url":"https://ver.cy/models/thing/q5418655/","name":"evolution of morality","alternateNames":[],"kind":"thing","status":"published","version":"0.1.0-research.1","language":"en","classifiers":{"family":"Thing Registry","category":"Activities and processes","entryKind":"thing","plane":"ACT","domain":["ACT.ACT"],"industry":[],"navPath":"","tags":[],"facets":{}},"whatItIs":"Evolution of morality is the emergence and transformation of capacities, motivations, judgments and norms concerning right and wrong through biological and cultural processes, with disagreement over which features constitute morality and how their evolution should be explained.","purpose":"Enable an agent to distinguish, compare and assess explanations of how moral capacities, norms and practices emerge, persist and change without treating evolutionary success as moral justification.","scope":{"in":["Competing definitions of morality and the capacities or practices each explanation seeks to explain","Proposed biological origins of capacities implicated in moral judgment and conduct","Cultural transmission, transformation and institutional stabilisation of moral norms","Interactions among inherited dispositions, development, social learning and institutions","Evidence and operationalisations used to distinguish evolutionary explanations","Boundaries between evolutionary explanation, historical change and claims of moral progress"],"out":["Normative theories determining which actions or principles are morally right","General evolutionary mechanisms apart from their application to morality","Individual moral development without a specified connection to population-level evolution","Complete histories of particular religions, legal systems or ethical traditions","Cooperation or animal social behaviour without an explicit account of its relationship to morality","Evolutionary explanations of cognition unrelated to moral capacities or practices"],"boundaries":[]},"distinguishingFeatures":["An instance identifies a moral target, such as obligation judgments or norm enforcement, rather than treating every beneficial social behaviour as morality.","An evolutionary explanation specifies a process connecting variation and persistence or change across populations or transmission cycles; a chronology alone does not suffice.","The account distinguishes evolution of capacities for moral judgment from changes in the content of particular moral norms.","Biological inheritance, cultural transmission and individual learning are identified separately wherever the explanation invokes them.","Claims about adaptive advantage or historical spread remain distinguishable from claims that a norm is justified or represents moral progress."],"structure":{"bundles":[{"id":"moral-targets-and-boundaries","name":"Moral targets and boundaries","description":"Identify what an explanation counts as morality and which aspect of morality it seeks to explain.","layers":[{"id":"definitions-and-schools","name":"Definitions and schools","description":"Represent competing definitions with their proponents and criteria for inclusion.","findings":[{"id":"attributed-morality-definition","name":"Attributed morality definition","description":"Record whether an account centres cooperation, obligation, evaluative judgment, emotions or another criterion, identifying who adopts that definition.","questions":[{"text":"What does this account require for a capacity or practice to count as moral, and which researchers or traditions endorse that requirement?","id":"attributed-morality-definition-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Would conventional rule following, strategic cooperation or harm avoidance count under this definition, and why?","id":"attributed-morality-definition-q02","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"capacity-and-content","name":"Capacity and content","description":"Separate the emergence of moral capacities from the evolution of particular norms and practices.","findings":[{"id":"specified-explanandum","name":"Specified explanandum","description":"Record whether the account explains a capacity to make moral judgments, a motivation to act, or the distribution of a particular moral rule.","questions":[{"text":"Is the target the capacity to experience obligation, the motivation to comply, or the content of a particular obligation?","id":"specified-explanandum-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What observation would show that the account explains its stated target rather than only a neighbouring phenomenon such as compliance?","id":"specified-explanandum-q02","kind":"measurement"}]}]}]},{"id":"biological-evolutionary-explanations","name":"Biological evolutionary explanations","description":"Represent hypotheses connecting biological evolution to capacities implicated in morality.","layers":[{"id":"traits-and-evolutionary-routes","name":"Traits and evolutionary routes","description":"Specify the proposed biological target and distinguish selection accounts from alternative origins.","findings":[{"id":"trait-origin-hypothesis","name":"Trait origin hypothesis","description":"Record the proposed capacity, inheritance assumptions and whether its moral role is explained as an adaptation, co-option, by-product or unresolved outcome.","questions":[{"text":"Which capacity is proposed to have evolved biologically, and what connects variation in that capacity to inheritance and reproductive consequences?","id":"trait-origin-hypothesis-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What evidence distinguishes selection for this capacity's proposed moral function from co-option, constraint or a by-product explanation?","id":"trait-origin-hypothesis-q02","kind":"measurement"}]}]},{"id":"social-selection-conditions","name":"Social selection conditions","description":"Specify the social conditions under which a proposed mechanism could support a morality-related trait.","findings":[{"id":"mechanism-and-payoff-conditions","name":"Mechanism and payoff conditions","description":"Record assumptions about relatedness, repeated interaction, partner choice, reputation and group structure wherever an account depends on them.","questions":[{"text":"Which social conditions make the proposed trait advantageous, and whose costs and benefits are being counted?","id":"mechanism-and-payoff-conditions-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What evidence supports those conditions in the relevant population rather than merely showing that the mechanism works in a formal model?","id":"mechanism-and-payoff-conditions-q02","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]},{"id":"cultural-change-and-institutions","name":"Cultural change and institutions","description":"Represent how moral norms are transmitted, modified, enforced and displaced.","layers":[{"id":"norm-transmission","name":"Norm transmission","description":"Identify the moral content transmitted and the pathways through which it persists or changes.","findings":[{"id":"transmission-and-transformation","name":"Transmission and transformation","description":"Record who learns from whom, what is retained or reconstructed, and whether spread is attributed to learning biases, persuasion, coercion or other processes.","questions":[{"text":"What moral rule or practice is transmitted, and how are continuity and substantive change recognised across generations or groups?","id":"transmission-and-transformation-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which observations distinguish conformity or prestige-based adoption from coercion, independent invention or reasoned revision?","id":"transmission-and-transformation-q02","kind":"measurement"}]}]},{"id":"enforcement-and-norm-distribution","name":"Enforcement and norm distribution","description":"Connect norm persistence and variation to sanctions, authority and institutional arrangements.","findings":[{"id":"institutional-maintenance-and-change","name":"Institutional maintenance and change","description":"Record how formal and informal enforcement affects public compliance, private endorsement and opportunities for norm revision.","questions":[{"text":"Who rewards, punishes or authorises the norm, and how do the costs and benefits differ across affected groups?","id":"institutional-maintenance-and-change-q01","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"How does the evidence distinguish sincere moral endorsement from compliance produced by surveillance, dependence or threat?","id":"institutional-maintenance-and-change-q02","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"What change in enforcement or authority would help test the proposed explanation of the norm's persistence?","id":"institutional-maintenance-and-change-q03","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"development-and-comparative-evidence","name":"Development and comparative evidence","description":"Assess how developmental, cross-cultural and cross-species evidence bears on evolutionary accounts.","layers":[{"id":"developmental-and-cultural-interaction","name":"Developmental and cultural interaction","description":"Separate individual acquisition from population-level change while representing proposed interactions.","findings":[{"id":"acquisition-and-inheritance-links","name":"Acquisition and inheritance links","description":"Record how an account connects developmental predispositions, learning environments and cultural feedback to its evolutionary claims.","questions":[{"text":"Which observations concern learning within a lifetime, and which support change across biological generations or cultural transmission cycles?","id":"acquisition-and-inheritance-links-q01","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"What evidence would distinguish an early-developing predisposition from an effect of early experience or their interaction?","id":"acquisition-and-inheritance-links-q02","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"If gene-culture interaction is proposed, what feedback pathway and evidence are specified for each direction of influence?","id":"acquisition-and-inheritance-links-q03","kind":"provenance"}]}]},{"id":"comparative-operationalisation","name":"Comparative operationalisation","description":"Assess whether comparisons measure sufficiently similar phenomena across settings or species.","findings":[{"id":"comparable-moral-indicators","name":"Comparable moral indicators","description":"Record what helping, punishment, inequity responses or obligation judgments indicate under each study's definition and design.","questions":[{"text":"Does the task measure behaviour, motivation, norm understanding or explicit judgment, and is that interpretation comparable across the sampled populations or species?","id":"comparable-moral-indicators-q01","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"What alternative explanations, such as reward expectation, learned association or task misunderstanding, remain compatible with the result?","id":"comparable-moral-indicators-q02","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"What additional evidence would justify treating a cross-species similarity as shared ancestry rather than convergence or superficial resemblance?","id":"comparable-moral-indicators-q03","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]},{"id":"explanatory-assessment-and-normative-limits","name":"Explanatory assessment and normative limits","description":"Evaluate causal support and make explicit any philosophical conclusions drawn from evolutionary accounts.","layers":[{"id":"competing-explanations","name":"Competing explanations","description":"Compare accounts through assumptions, discriminating predictions and unresolved evidence.","findings":[{"id":"discriminating-evidence","name":"Discriminating evidence","description":"Record which observations support one mechanism over alternatives and where multiple mechanisms remain compatible with the evidence.","questions":[{"text":"Which prediction differs between the proposed explanation and its strongest specified alternative?","id":"discriminating-evidence-q01","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"Which sources provide direct observations, reconstructions or model results, and what inferential gap separates each from the claimed historical process?","id":"discriminating-evidence-q02","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"What feasible observation or analysis would most reduce uncertainty between the competing explanations?","id":"discriminating-evidence-q03","kind":"action"}]}]},{"id":"origins-justification-and-progress","name":"Origins, justification and progress","description":"Separate evolutionary explanation from arguments about moral truth, authority and improvement.","findings":[{"id":"explicit-normative-bridge","name":"Explicit normative bridge","description":"Record additional premises whenever an account uses evolutionary origins to justify, undermine or rank moral beliefs.","questions":[{"text":"Does the argument infer moral validity, unreliability or progress from an evolutionary history, and what additional premises support that inference?","id":"explicit-normative-bridge-q01","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"If a change is called moral progress, which evaluative standard is used and who endorses or disputes it?","id":"explicit-normative-bridge-q02","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which conclusions should an agent withhold if the evolutionary explanation is supported but the proposed normative bridge remains disputed?","id":"explicit-normative-bridge-q03","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"evidence-and-external-alignment","name":"Evidence and external alignment","description":"What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.","layers":[{"id":"reported-evidence","name":"Reported evidence","description":"Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.","findings":[{"id":"evidence-confidence-notes","name":"Check these first","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these check these first hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-confidence-notes-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-kinds","name":"Kinds and varieties","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-kinds-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-real-world-use","name":"Real-world use","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-real-world-use-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-measurements","name":"Typical measurements","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-measurements-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards","name":"Failure modes and hazards","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-regional-variation","name":"Regional variation","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-regional-variation-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-neighbours","name":"Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart","description":"Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of evolution of morality this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-neighbours-q01","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]}]},"agentConduct":{"may":["Summarize scientific and philosophical accounts of how morality evolved, noting where they disagree.","Distinguish descriptive claims about evolution from claims about what is right."],"mustNot":["Use evolutionary accounts to argue that some peoples or groups are morally inferior.","Present a contested hypothesis as settled science.","Claim that because a behaviour evolved it is therefore justified."],"requiresHuman":["Using claims about evolved morality to shape policy that affects particular groups."]},"ethics":{"considerations":["Evolutionary arguments have been misused to justify racism, sexism and cruelty.","Explaining morality should not be confused with excusing harm."],"affectedParties":["Groups targeted by pseudo-science","Students and readers"]},"owners":{"steward":"Nobody owns the field; researchers in biology, psychology and philosophy keep its record.","roles":[],"masterSystems":[]},"relations":[{"target":"Q7562091","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"}],"interaction":{"identity":{"applicability":"required","items":["Vercy registry: vr.tr.evolution-of-morality","Wikidata: Q5418655 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5418655)"]},"properties":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":["Explanatory target: Moral capacity; emotion; judgment; motivation; behaviour; norm; enforcement practice; institution","Definition of morality: Explicit attributed definition, inclusion criteria and contested cases","Evolutionary channel: Biological; cultural; gene-culture interaction; unresolved","Proposed explanatory mechanism: Kin selection; reciprocity; partner choice; reputation; between-group competition; social learning; drift; constraint; by-product; other explicitly specified mechanism","Population and temporal coverage: Account linked to specified populations, species, historical intervals and transmission cycles","Moral operationalisation: Study-specific indicators and units, such as judgment ratings, helping frequency, punishment rate or norm prevalence","Evidential standing: Proposed; formally modelled; empirically examined; contested; unresolved, with supporting and contrary evidence","Normative inference: None; moral progress claim; justification claim; evolutionary debunking claim; other explicit inference"]},"recognition":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"capabilities":{"applicability":"required","items":["Classify an explanation by its moral target, definition, evolutionary channel and proposed mechanism.","Compare competing accounts using shared outcomes and explicitly different predictions.","Check whether behavioural measurements support claims about moral judgment, motivation or obligation.","Trace a proposed norm change through transmission pathways, enforcement practices and institutional conditions.","Identify missing evidence and propose observations that would discriminate among explanations.","Flag unsupported transitions from evolutionary origins or persistence to moral authority, inevitability or progress."]},"hazards":{"applicability":"required","items":["Treating evolutionary advantage as moral justification can legitimize harmful conduct without an ethical argument.","Presenting speculative evolutionary explanations as established facts can reinforce stereotypes and obscure cultural variation.","Confusing explanations of behavior with excuses for behavior can undermine accountability."]},"interfaces":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"context":{"applicability":"required","items":["The evolution of morality is studied in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy to explain the emergence of moral capacities and social norms.","It provides a framework for comparing biological and cultural explanations of cooperation, punishment and judgments about right and wrong."]}},"sources":[{"title":"Wikidata item Q5418655: evolution of morality","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5418655","note":"identity and sense of the item"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Evolution of morality","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality","note":"general description of the item"}],"openQuestions":["Which definitions of morality permit useful comparison across human cultures and other species without equating morality with all cooperation or excluding relevant nonverbal capacities?","For each proposed moral capacity, what evidence can distinguish adaptation for a moral function from co-option, developmental constraint or by-product explanations?","How can research estimate the relative contributions and interactions of biological inheritance, cultural transmission, institutions and individual reasoning to a particular moral change?","Which historical evidence can distinguish a norm's spread through beneficial social effects from spread through coercion, demographic change or unequal power?","Under which additional philosophical premises, if any, should evolutionary explanations alter confidence in moral judgments or assessments of moral progress?"],"resources":{"spec":"/models/things/publications/thing-q5418655/spec.json"},"provenance":{"origin":"thing registry research (pass 2)","builtFrom":["models/things/publications/thing-q5418655/spec.json"],"providers":["Codex"],"researchStatus":"unreviewed","generatedAt":"2026-09-12T09:34:50Z","builder":"tools/build_cards.py@1.0.0"},"completeness":{"sections":{"classifiers":"filled","whatItIs":"filled","purpose":"filled","distinguishingFeatures":"filled","structure":"filled","agentConduct":"filled","ethics":"filled","owners":"filled","relations":"filled","interaction.identity":"filled","interaction.properties":"not-applicable","interaction.recognition":"not-applicable","interaction.capabilities":"filled","interaction.hazards":"filled","interaction.interfaces":"not-applicable","interaction.context":"filled","sources":"filled"},"notes":{"_gate":"Published through the thing publication gate 1.0 on 2026-10-07T10:10:31+00:00: completeness 1.00; sense: Wikidata description; 2 live sources; review by codex: pass","interaction.properties":"Plane ACT: no invented physical properties.","interaction.interfaces":"No formal standard, law or official classification specifically governs this explanatory concept.","interaction.recognition":"The evolution of morality is an abstract explanatory subject without directly perceptible identifying features."},"score":1.0}}