ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how nonverbal communication might have supported the emergence of moral sentiments. It presents examples where there are a lot of sociobiologists present to examine indirect ways in which the participants might have gained some advantage. The chapter argues that the kinds of sentiments that motivate behaviors like these—moral sentiments—could indeed have arisen under the ruthless sort of self-interested pressures of the natural selection mechanism. It shows that people who are motivated by moral sentiments of the sort we commonly recognize in people are much better equipped than ordinary selfish people to solve an important class of problems that we encounter in the material environment. The chapter explains those class of problems and gives some examples, and introduces the role of nonverbal communication. It argues that people are motivated to behave morally not because they have rationally calculated that it is in their material interest to do that, but because they are emotionally predisposed to do so.
