Being Nice Is Not a Building Block of Morality

Ever since Aristotle, moral philosophers, including David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edward Westermarck, have argued that there are two distinct layers to human morality: (1) moral emotions or sentiments and (2) the capacity for moral judgment and reasoning. We tend to focus on this first layer when we compare humans with other animals because it is closer to direct behavioural expression, hence easier to measure. Investigating the extent to which primates are capable of moral judgement and reasoning is a much more challenging task, and as Call discusses, the lack of data in this area constrains what conclusions can be drawn. This explains why we have been reluctant to claim that any animals other than ourselves are moral beings even though some of our commentators seem to think we did. Regardless of this limitation, moral sentiments are a necessary starting point for investigations of the origins of morality. These sentiments are the very building blocks of morality in that they reflect the tendencies and capacities (for example, the capacities for empathy and perspective taking) without which human morality as we know it would be unthinkable. The moral sentiments, and their underlying capacities, however, are not necessarily objects of morality. For example, we would, with Westermarck (1912), classify the tendency for retribution as a prerequisite for a rule-based, just society — hence as a critical building block of morality — whereas we may, at the same time, morally disapprove of many of its expressions. Furthermore, and as Railton points out, many important building blocks of morality, such as deliberation and learned adjustment, are ‘all essential to morality without themselves being “dedicated” to moral tasks’. Distinguishing between the behaviours that we judge and the capacities that make these behaviours and judgments possible seems to be a major source of confusion for