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The most recent episode of the pop science podcast Radiolab featured an interesting discussion with Harvard professor Josh Greene on moral decision-making. Prof Greene explained some brain science (excuse my jargon) behind a problem that was earlier featured on Development Drums with Peter Singer. The problem is that most people are willing to jump into a lake and save a drowning girl even if they are wearing a $1000 suit. To do otherwise seems morally wrong. However, most people do not feel morally compelled to give $1000 to charities that do the same thing in an impersonal way.

Prof Greene ties this problem into how we evolved to process information. Tens of thousands of years of evolution have fine tuned us to respond to problems that are personal in nature. We have a part of our brain that deals with abstract concepts, even abstract threats like climate change or nuclear proliferation, but it doesn’t drive us to action as much as the oh-my-god-the-house-is-on-fire part. Greene’s argument is that it is possible that humans will culturally evolve to be better at processing and acting on abstract threats. This isn’t purely wishful thinking. This kind of change is likely happening now.

One example of our cultural evolution toward better abstraction is that over the last 100 years we have scored higher and higher on IQ tests (this finding also demolishes the idea that IQ is genetic, see here). We did not increase our scores because we actually became smarter. Rather, our culture demands far more abstraction from us than it did 100 years ago and we adapted how we use our brain. Our new ways of thinking privilege abstraction and so we score higher on tests that examine abstraction.

The crucial question is whether our enhanced ability to understand abstraction translates into action. The rising IQ scores show that we are becoming better at processing abstract information, they don’t show that we are becoming more motivated to tackle abstract problems.

If you are still reading, then you will want to listen to both podcasts.