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Abstract

This paper argues that the evolution of human language is a prerequisite to the evolution of human morality. Human moral systems are not possible without fully complex language. Though protolanguage can extend moral systems, the design features of human language greatly extend human moral ability. Specifically, this paper focuses on how recursion, linguistic creativity, naming ability, displacement, and compositionality extend moral systems. The argument descriptively defines altruism as self-sacrificial behavior for others and morality as how a group classifies right and wrong behavior. No comment is made on how altruism squares with the replicatory selfishness of genes, or on the controversy of group selection. However, along with Dawkins (Dawkins, 1976), the author concurs that humans can use linguistically based concepts to help constrain genetic selfishness and promote degrees of altruism and morality. Though drawing on previous research, the ideas presented here are novel to the extent that they demonstrate how the design features of language support and extend human altruism and morality.

@inproceedings{poulshock06evolang,
  author={Joseph Poulshock},
  title={The evolution of language as a precursor to the evolution of morality},
  year={2006},
  pages={275-282},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/poulshock06evolang.html}
}

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