Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Michael Shermer interviews Michael Tomasello about his book Becoming Human, focusing on how human morality, cooperation, and reasoning develop in childhood and differ from great apes. Tomasello argues that humans are adapted for shared intentionality—forming a “we”—and that morality grows from cooperation, fairness, and perspective-taking, while also grappling with relativism, justice, evil, and modern political dilemmas.
Main Topics: Developmental psychology and ontogeny (Priority: 5/5): Tomasello explains that his trilogy moves from evolutionary origins of thinking and morality to how those capacities emerge in children, emphasizing ontogeny as the developmental manifestation of adaptation. Great apes vs. human cognition (Priority: 5/5): The conversation compares chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans with children, using experiments to probe tool use, social cognition, fairness, and theory of mind without relying on verbal report. Shared intentionality and the social “we” (Priority: 5/5): Tomasello presents shared intentionality as the key human adaptation: people coordinate around common goals, knowledge, and values, enabling culture, cooperation, and norm-following. Origins and structure of morality (Priority: 5/5): They discuss fairness, sympathy, compassion, guilt, and norm enforcement, with Tomasello arguing morality begins in social interdependence and basic concern for others, then becomes culturally elaborated. Group selection, culture, and cooperation (Priority: 4/5): The discussion contrasts genetic group selection with cultural group selection, and argues that human groups compete through norms and institutions that encourage cooperation and conformity. Politics, justice, and cultural relativism (Priority: 4/5): The hosts explore immigration, democracy, moral intervention, Rawls, capitalism, and the tension between universal moral principles and respect for different cultural values. Evil, punishment, and restorative justice (Priority: 4/5): Tomasello and Shermer debate whether evil is a meaningful category, whether offenders are better understood through psychology or neuroscience, and whether punishment should aim at retribution or restoration.
Key Arguments: Human adaptations must appear in development; therefore, studying children reveals what evolution produced in humans. Chimpanzees show sophisticated behavior, but their social reasoning appears more limited than human children’s, especially in perspective-taking, fairness, and false-belief understanding. Fairness in apes is often not true fairness toward others but anger at being personally shortchanged; human fairness requires impartial comparison among individuals. Humans form a moral system around shared norms and “we over me,” which supports guilt, respect, and cooperative obligations. Cultural group selection is more plausible than genetic group selection because cultural groups can assimilate outsiders and spread norms without needing strict genetic isolation. Human cooperation evolved in small, transparent groups and now struggles to scale to anonymous, large modern societies, making free-riding and inequality persistent problems. Moral judgments are often genuine conflicts among values rather than simple rule-following, so no single ethical theory can resolve every case. Many acts called evil are better understood as distorted attempts at justice, self-protection, or retaliation, though some offenders may also have neurological impairments. Children become moral through peer interaction and reciprocal experience, not merely adult instruction; peers force them to reason about fairness and perspective. Political and cultural intervention should be cautious: some practices are genuinely harmful, but many cultural differences deserve respect rather than outside imposition.
Data Points: Book trilogy count: 3 books - Tomasello describes Becoming Human as the third book in a trilogy on human cognition, morality, and development. Prior books in trilogy: A Natural History of Human Thinking; A Natural History of Human Morality - Named as the first two books that precede Becoming Human. Max Planck Institute tenure: 1998–2018 - Tomasello served as co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. National Academy election: 2017 - He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Great ape species mentioned: 4 - Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are identified as the great apes studied. Human vs ape brain size: ~3 times larger - Tomasello notes the human brain is roughly three times larger than other great apes' brains. Great ape brain development at age 2: ~90–95% adult size - Used to contrast rapid ape maturation with slower human development. Human brain development at age 2: ~50% adult size - Illustrates prolonged human developmental plasticity. Human brain development near maturity: ~90% by age 8 - Supports the argument that humans are adapted for extended learning in cultural environments. False-belief understanding age: about 4 years old - Children begin to distinguish belief from reality around this age. Psychopath prevalence: 1–3% - Shermer cites a rough estimate while discussing why evolution did not eliminate psychopaths. Audio edition length: 14 hours - Shermer says he listened to the unabridged audiobook of Becoming Human. Agricultural transition timing: ~8,000 years ago - Mentioned in discussing how cooperation scaled from small groups to larger stratified societies. Earlier human evolutionary window: ~6 million years - Used when discussing divergence from the last common ancestor with chimpanzees and gorillas. Charity/support mechanism: skeptic.com/slash donate - Opening appeal for support of the Skeptic Society and Skeptic Magazine.
Pivotal Quotes: "we humans are adapted for interacting with others and communicating, cooperating, and learning from others." — Michael Tomasello: Explaining the core evolutionary premise behind human cognition and culture. "what human morality really is one way of thinking about it is we over me." — Michael Tomasello: Summarizing his account of morality as group-based, cooperative normativity. "the basic, most basic, moral aspects toward another individual is a sense of equality." — Michael Tomasello: Describing the foundational role of impartiality and equal deservingness in moral judgment.
Implications: Listeners get a scientific framework for why humans cooperate, judge fairness, and struggle with modern social life. The discussion suggests moral progress depends on better institutions, peer learning, and humility about cultural difference.