The Moral Instinct

Martin Bryant

The Moral Instinct.

What an awful title.

In recent years, Hollywood has attached to the word "instinct" an image of the most violent and prurient aspects of humanity. From "Fatal Instinct" and "Basic Instinct" to last year's simply "Instinct", films have explored the least humane aspects of our character.

The other word has no better an image for this audience. "Morality" has come to describe a prescriptive code forcefully imposed by religious zealots. A set of "shoulds" grounded in a peer group pressure among adults that is no less destructive than seemingly opposed peer group pressures among youth that can promote drinking, other drug use, and teen pregnancy.

I'd like to ask you to set these meanings aside, however, and peer with me at the combined meaning. The idea that we have an innate goodness. What Jefferson described when he said: "the moral sense, or conscience,  as much a part of man as his leg or his arm."

In my work, I've been able to travel all around the world from Korea to Saudi Arabia, and from British Columbia and New Brunswick to South America. I'm certainly not unique in my impression that the great similarity among people is more striking than their differences. In fact, one way in which they are most similar is in their "core" morality. Trustworthiness and honesty, fidelity and care, reverence for life, protection of youth and old age, industry, even compassion and respect for individuals and the environment are more widely applied than they are neglected.

On the whole, the vast majority of humans, in every culture around the globe, nurture their families, participate in life in some useful way, respect their communities, appreciate their natural environment, seek and become friends. Even in cultures that become somewhat barbaric, over time, the gentler human nature reasserts itself.

"Human nature", the implication is that humans behave by nature, by instinct. That is what I speak of today. Do people have an innate goodness?, an instinct for "true" morality? Remember that even carnivorous mammals protect, sometimes even raise the young of other species. These fierce hunters show tender nurturing care for their young and can sacrifice themselves in loyalty, not only to their pack and family, but sometimes, in the case of dogs, to their human friends.

In 1998, Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist published a book, Consilience, a brief best seller, rare for a book on philosophy of science. In Consilience, Wilson suggests that biological science offers a model useful for the behavioral sciences, a sort of "unified theory" for the sciences. Noting that earlier applications of natural selection into the social sciences, wrapped in terms like "survival of the fittest", were met with howls of protest due to the inhumanity and sacrilege of the ideas, Wilson very carefully eases out onto the social ice of suggesting, once more, that not only human biology, but human nature is the result of Darwinian evolution.

This doesn't take too much thinking to agree to. By example, consider the incest taboo. This behavior, reinforcing both genetic diversity and parental nurturing, is so globally universal that it cannot be the result of teaching, it is obviously instinct. Aberrations are rather rare.  This may lead us to ask, how deep and wide does instinct go? How much of our actions are determined, at least in part by instinct?

Long before I read Wilson's book I had my own theory about our guiding instincts. For the human species, "survival of the fittest", has not meant that "only the strong survive". The primary traits that have brought the human species from out of their fruit trees to walk on the moon are the ability to work as a tribe together, to belong, and a powerful adaptability to a dynamic environment, to change. I believe these two traits remain powerful instincts for each of us today.

Belonging is a powerful force for humanity. As the great astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan has said "The inclination to cooperate has been painfully extracted through the evolutionary process. Those that did not cooperate, that did not work with one another, died. Cooperation is encoded in the survivor's genes. It's their nature to cooperate. It's a key to their survival."  A man alone in the jungle is nice meal for something bigger and stronger. The tribe working together has mastered almost everything in their environment.

Our instinct to belong is powerful, sometimes even destructive. We see it's force today in peer pressure. Peer pressure that caused the horrors of Nazi Germany and peer exclusion that may have participated in the horrors at Columbine High School. If the instinct is weak in some individuals, we often describe it as a flaw, calling that person a "loner". An appellation frequently applied to mass murderers, for example.

Balancing the impulse to belong, like the yin and yang, is the instinct to change. This is no less important to our survival. In 1787, Stanhope Smith, the first President of Princeton described "adaptability" as the most beneficial attribute of man: " The human constitution is the most delicate of all animal systems: but it is also the most pliant, and capable of accommodating itself to the greatest variety of situations. "  Man's adaptability to temperature, in particular indicated to Smith that man was the only species capable of inhabiting, and therefore settling the entire globe.

An individual that is overbalanced to the dynamic urge can be seen as "out of control", a description I might apply to our own culture. On the other hand, if one denies their change instinct, we call them "stuck in a rut" or "backward".

These traits are sometimes reinforcing, but often conflicting. The peer groups and rebellions of youth, the progressive and conservative political parties, the masculine and feminine can all be seen in this context. When instincts seem to conflict, when our impulses are ambiguous, or when we choosing from strong emotion or reason, we wind our path among this nettle of human nature. Of course, if we understand natural selection, over a long period of time, each of these decisions contributes to the instinct. These decisions are part of the process.

It might change your perception of whether to watch the same old show on TV tonight if you realize that that decision is part of an eons long process of evolutionary selection.

To return to Dr. Wilson, in Conciliance, he tactfully edges out onto the thinner ice and suggests that natural selection extends to our religion. Rather than seeing these ideas in opposition, Wilson reasons that we have evolved an "urge to awe" or "faith impulse". Wilson believes this instinct to be among our most powerful innate motivations. As our great Unitarian titan, Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Men will worship something". I believe this too, is easy to agree with.

Recently in the airport, I spied an issue of Newsweek, with the cover story “God and the Brain”.  The story focused on the developing discipline of neurotheology, scientists who study the interaction of brain function and spirituality.  These scientists are using modern tools to study Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns in the practices of their faiths “so consistent across cultures, across time, and across faiths” says Wheaton College psychologist David Wulff, “so as to suggest a common core that is likely a reflection of the structures and processes of the human brain”.  

In prayer, meditation, and moments of spiritual awe, it seems it may be not so much what parts of the brain become active, as which parts become inactive – including much of what brain scientists call the orientation/ associative area.  Maybe this is why “mystery” is so “confusing”.

UUs who have for some time said “No one with half a brain would believe that!”, may have been more correct than they thought, major areas of the brain are “shut down” in moments of faith.  But, of course this does not present a complete picture, we do not fully understand what less well researched parts of the human intelligence may come into play.  Arrogance of knowledge may be among the most frequent sins of UUs.

Near Ontario, neuropsychologist Michael Persinger claims to have found the brain's center for the "faith impulse". He has taken hundreds of subjects and using precise electrical stimulation, stimulates this "awe center" in the brain. He records many subjects have a spiritual experience and often claim to see or talk to God. Of course any well seated instinct probably would have a "seat" in the biological brain, so I find this not too surprising.

Just because an experience has a neural center, it does not mean the experience exists “only” in the brain – that is a figment of brain activity with no independent reality.  Think of what happens when you eat an apple.  The visual parts of the brain “see” the red or yellow or green apple – a pleasing site.  the sensory sectors feel first the firm peel and then soft meat of the apple on the teeth, tongue and lips; the olfactory center will get missives from whiffs of apple; the taste center is of course, finally similarly excited.  Memories of apple pies past may be invoked, perhaps favorite restaurants or even Grandma’s kitchen – but as Dr. Andrew Newburg of Pennsylvania University says “It’s no safer to say that spiritual urges and sensations are caused by brain activity than it is to say that the neurological changes through which we experience the pleasure of eating an apple cause the apple to exist.  – there is no way to determine whether the neurological changes associated with spiritual experience mean that the brain is causing those experiences..  or is instead perceiving a spiritual reality. “

We might be reminded of our UU arrogance again if we are too quick to answer the question – is religion something we wholly create, or is it an interpretation of what we perceive in the more suble reality?

In looking at neurotheology, Robert Forman of Hunter College says “We may learn more about the brain than we will about God. – there is a good deal to learn about both.”

The most fascinating thing about seeing faith as a naturally selected "instinct" is that it does not change a thing in our ponderings about religion. Does it really matter that we know of this development through evolution as to whether we practice it? We now believe that the incest taboo is instinct and therefore somewhat "involuntary" - though we might, we do not really rationally choose this behavior - does this mean we should reject it and rebel against this healthy instinct?

If we do not believe in a transcendental power, we might ask ourselves: "the faith impulse has been selected over the millennia because it encourages a feeling of belonging and humility among humans that has proven successful in their survival and prosperity. Do we really need these qualities less now than we did 5,000 or 10,000 years ago?" Isn't our crowded planet, with technological power that can despoil our great nest, more of a reason to practice belonging and humility, now more than ever?

If we believe in a transcendental power, we can ask: "is there anything in the natural selection of the faith impulse that denies the existence of God?" I think we could probably say that every believer in an identifiable spiritual power in this room has reconciled themselves to evolution and it's "active" role in biological creation. How is this different? Couldn't we say that this rather validates a transcendental power as those who had this enhanced perception of reality, however imperfect, were more successful than those who could not perceive divinity in their lives?"

If the application of natural selection to our behavior and recent studies in neurotheology contribute so little to our greatest questions, then what have we learned?  We have learned that we are innately, selected to be "good", or at least cooperative and creative.  Our ability to choose when our choices seem ambiguous, even contradictory, even to defy our instincts for strong emotion or reason, provides us with a path to change our nature, perhaps even all of human nature over generations. That this “instinct” is not completely abstract, but has a physiological home in the brain and is accompanied by millennia-old spiritual experience brain response patterns. 

According to Walt Whitman's God: "I give nothing as duties, what others give as duties, I give as living impulses"..

We have faith. And maybe that provides us with a better understanding of why we are here. It may or may not help us understand why we are here in this life at this moment, but it certainly can help us understand why we are here on Sunday morning.