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Sexual Selection for Moral Virtues Name /jlb_qrb822_3060012/820202/Mp_97 03/07/2007 04:48PM Plate # 0 pg 97 # 1 Volume 82, No. 2 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY June 2007 SEXUAL SELECTION FOR MORAL VIRTUES Geoffrey F. Miller Psychology Department, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 USA e-mail: [email protected] keywords agreeableness, alternative mating strategies, altruism, assortative mating, behavior genetics, commitment, conscientiousness, costly signaling theory, equilibrium selection, emotion, empathy, ethics, evolutionary psychology, fitness indicators, genetic correlations, good genes, good parents, good partners, human courtship, kin selection, kindness, individual differences, intelligence, mate choice, mental health, moral virtues, mutation load, mutual choice, person perception, personality, reciprocal altruism, sexual fidelity, sexual selection, social cognition, virtue ethics “Human good turns out to be the activity of the soul exhibiting excellence.” Aristotle (350 BC) abstract Moral evolution theories have emphasized kinship, reciprocity, group selection, and equilibrium selection. Yet, moral virtues are also sexually attractive. Darwin suggested that sexual attractiveness may explain many aspects of human morality. This paper updates his argument by integrating recent research on mate choice, person perception, individual differences, costly signaling, and virtue ethics. Many human virtues may have evolved in both sexes through mutual mate choice to advertise good genetic quality, parenting abilities, and/or partner traits. Such virtues may include kindness, fidelity, magnanimity, and heroism, as well as quasi-moral traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, mental health, and intelligence. This theory leads to many testable predictions about the phenotypic features, genetic bases, and social-cognitive responses to human moral virtues. Introduction tility, and longevity (Langlois et al. 2000; Fink MONG HUMANS, attractive bodies may and Penton-Voak 2002). This paper explores A elicit short-term desire, but attractive the possibility that some human moral traits moral traits can inspire long-term love. Is this evolved through sexual selection to serve an a coincidence, or are there some functional analogous display function. The most roman- similarities between sexual ornaments and tically attractive mental traits (i.e., kindness, moral virtues? Many sexually attractive physi- bravery, honesty, integrity, and fidelity) often cal traits evolved to reveal phenotypic condi- have a moral dimension. tion and genetic quality, including health, fer- Recent empirical research suggests that The Quarterly Review of Biology, June 2007, Vol. 82, No. 2 Copyright ᭧ 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0033-5770/2007/8202-0002$15.00 97 Name /jlb_qrb822_3060012/820202/Mp_98 03/07/2007 04:48PM Plate # 0 pg 98 # 2 98 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY Volume 82 many moral traits are sexually attractive, and (Henrich and Boyd 2001; Fehr and Fisch- may serve as mental fitness indicators: they bacher 2004); are judged as reliably revealing good mental • group selection (Sober and Wilson 1998); health, brain efficiency, genetic quality, and and capacity for sustaining cooperative sexual re- • equilibrium selection among alternative lationships as well as investing in children evolutionary strategies (Boyd and Rich- (e.g., Gurven et al. 2000; Hawkes and Bliege erson 1990; Alvard and Nolin 2002). Bird 2002; Alvard and Gillespie 2004). Thus, Each of these moral evolution models has the moral virtues that we consider sexually at- led to valuable insights and progressive re- tractive are not culturally or evolutionarily ar- search traditions. Some are better at explain- bitrary. Rather, they evolved to advertise indi- ing moral virtues such as love of children, sib- vidual fitness (including genetic quality as well lings, and parents, and righteous anger at as parenting and relationship-coordination cheaters and promise-breakers. This morality- abilities) in hard-to-fake ways that can be un- through-mate-choice model also has distinc- derstood through a combination of sexual se- tive strengths and weaknesses that can ex- lection theory (Kokko et al. 2002; Andersson plain some moral virtues—especially those and Simmons 2006) and costly signaling the- that show high sexual attractiveness, assorta- ory (Gintis et al. 2001; McAndrew 2002). tive mating, phenotypic and genetic variance, (“Fitness” here means adaptive design for re- heritability, condition-dependent costs, con- productive success, or the statistical propen- spicuous display in courtship settings, and sity to survive and reproduce successfully; it young adult age peaks in display.Yet, for each may not equal achieved reproductive success of the traditional mechanisms above, sexual under evolutionarily novel conditions, espe- selection should anticipate, sharpen, and am- cially given contraception.) plify the social selection pressures to produce The hypothesis is that sexual selection a more extreme, costly, prosocial version of shaped some of our distinctively human the moral virtue than social selection could moral virtues as reliable fitness indicators. achieve alone. The reason is that nonsexual Precursors of many human virtues, such as forms of social selection can shape morality empathy, fairness, and peacemaking, have only insofar as they confer fairly concrete sur- been discovered in other great apes (Preston vival benefits (e.g., shared food, protection and de Waal 2002; Brosnan and de Waal from predators) on the morally virtuous. 2003). My claim is not that sexual selection Mate choice can shape morality much more created our moral virtues from scratch in our powerfully and broadly because it demands species alone; rather, sexual selection ampli- only that moral behaviors carry some signal- fied our standard social-primate virtues into ing value about a potential mate’s good genes uniquely elaborated human forms. and/or parent/partner abilities. In general, This mate choice model is intended to sexual selection can “supercharge” other evo- complement, not replace, other models of lutionary processes by adding positive feed- human moral evolution. Besides sexual selec- back dynamics that tend to trigger evolution- tion, various forms of social selection proba- ary innovation and speciation (Miller and bly shaped human morality, including: Todd 1995; Crespi 2004). If a moral virtue be- comes useful in kinship, reciprocity, or group • kin selection (Hamilton 1964); prosperity, our ancestors probably did not ig- • reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971; Ridley nore it when choosing mates. 1996; Sugiyama et al. 2002); Some moral virtues may be attractive as sig- • discriminative parental solicitude (Triv- nals (e.g., heroism as a signal of compe- ers 1974; Mock and Parker 1997); tence), whereas others may seem attractive as • commitment mechanisms (Frank 1988; traits in their own right (e.g., fairness as an Nesse 2001); intrinsically valuable trait in a long-term sex- • risk-sharing mechanisms (Boone 1998; ual relationship). This distinction requires Sugiyama and Sugiyama 2003); caution, however, because there is almost al- • social norm and punishment mechanisms ways scope for misrepresenting one’s traits Name /jlb_qrb822_3060012/820202/Mp_99 03/07/2007 04:48PM Plate # 0 pg 99 # 3 June 2007 SEXUAL SELECTION FOR MORAL VIRTUES 99 during courtship. A potential mate may act behavior genetics, and moral philosophy. It agreeable and easygoing during courtship, goes beyond my book, The Mating Mind then become irritable and cantankerous af- (Miller 2000a), by emphasizing relevant em- ter a couple years. In this case, courtship- pirical and theoretical work since 2000. For agreeableness was valued as a signal of likely example, it connects recent person percep- future relationship-agreeableness, but it proved tion research with person-level approaches to unreliable. Sexual commitment often brings moral philosophy, especially virtue ethics moral disappointment. The costly signaling (Flanagan 1991; Stohr and Wellman 2002) perspective is helpful in identifying such and naturalistic approaches to understanding pitfalls—not only situations where one trait is moral intuitions (e.g., Nesse 2001; Dennett unreliably correlated with another, but also 2003). situations where the present value of a trait is I do not assume that the “virtues” histori- unreliably correlated with its future value. cally identified by philosophers will equal the From this viewpoint, all moral virtues dis- moral adaptations that can be identified in played during sexual courtship are poten- humans using standard adaptationist criteria tially fallible signals of other traits or future of special design (e.g., Andrews et al. 2002). traits, so their reliability and stability must be Nor do I assume that the idealistic reasons for analyzed in a costly signaling framework. advocating certain virtues in normative ethics To propose that human moral virtues will have anything to do with the selection evolved through mate choice is not to suggest pressures that may have actually shaped those that human morality is sexually motivated at virtues phylogenetically. So why mention vir- the level of individual behavior. Evolutionary tue ethics at all? First, virtue ethics provides a functions do not equal proximate motivations useful counterbalance to the traditional con- (Radcliffe Richards 2000; Pinker 2002). Even sequentialist (utilitarian, payoff-based) ethics if the evolutionary payoffs for moral behavior that have influenced previous
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