83 JOURNAL OF RITUAL SADIES 27 (2) 2013 Moral Elevation and Traditions: Aneestral Encouragement of Altruism through Ritual and Myth Craig T. Palmer, University of Missouri Ryan o. Begley, University of Missouri Kathryn Coe, Indiana University Lyle Steadman, Arizona State University Abstract Social psychologists have consistently found that humans exposed to acts or depictions of selflessness or altruism tend to engage in similar behavior of their own. This tendency has been recently labeled moral elevation, and evolu- tionary theorists are only beginning to consider hypotheses about why it might have been favored by natural selection. Moral elevation is a puzzle for evolutionary explanations of altruism based on kin selection or reciprocal altruism, as the altruism it produces among the morally elevated it does not appear directed exclusively toward close kin or likely reciprocators, and can even be directed toward complete strangers. As such, the various forms of group selection dis- cussed in current evolutionary literature are taken by their proponents as means of explaining such behavior. However, the confusion surrounding these different forms of group selection warrants the consideration of alternative evolu- tionary explanations. As such an alternative, we propose that moral elevation was favored by natural selection because it increased foe ability of parents to influence their offspring to behave altruistically toward one another, and then to teach their own offspring foe same lessons down through the generations, whereby such behavior became traditional. This explanation therefore extends the argument that parent-offspring conflict led to selection favoring parents who manipulated their offspring to engage in increased levels of altruism toward siblings to include ancestral manipulation of distant descendants through living descendants to behave more altruistically toward co-descendants. We support this ancestral encouragement of altruism explanation wifo ethnographic evidence of the widespread existence of traditional practices, such as ritual sacrifice, filial piety, ancestor worship, taboos, sacred stories and/or mythology celebrating courageous deeds of ancestral culture-heroes that appear to promote moral elevation. 1. Introduction “[t]he basic question is why individuals are encouraged, usually by ancestors, to refrain from doing things that would promote their survival and personal well-being” (Steadman and Palmer 2008: 152), and to instead do things detrimental to their “self-interest” (Irons 2001: 293). Sac- rifice is clearly related to altruism, because even when tra- ditional ritualistic sacrifices do not identifiably benefit other individuals, they still demonstrate to those individuals a willingness to engage in selfless behavior, and thus com- municate foe likelihood of being altruistic and sacrificing for others in foe future. In extreme cases, foe ritualistic sacrifice may involve such material loss, pain, or depriva- tion that it communicates a willingness to die for others in war (see Steadman and Palmer 2008: 159). “Sacrifice,” Strathern and Stewart claimed in 2008, is not only“one of the central acts in religious rituals” (2008: xiii), it, “is one of the classic topics in social anthropol- ogy as well as religious and ritual studies and continues to be of vital importance in foe world today as we read about it in foe news on a daily basis, for example, the bat- ties in Iraq, conflicts in the Middle-East, and contexts found through foe world.” (2008: x ؛i) Although participants in traditional ritualistic sacrifices and offerings often claim their performance is to influence some supernatural force or being to provide some form of fixture reward, identifiabtyy these activities involve foe self- less giving of something of potential use or value to an in- dividual (see Firth 1972). Thus, when explaining sacrifice