Moral Origins

This is the natural and cultural history of the evolution of our sense of ethics, by a leading anthropologist of human morality. Conventional wisdom holds that human morality is based on two things: kindness to kin and the ability to remember and reciprocate the behavior of others. In "Moral Origins [...]
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This is the natural and cultural history of the evolution of our sense of ethics, by a leading anthropologist of human morality. Conventional wisdom holds that human morality is based on two things: kindness to kin and the ability to remember and reciprocate the behavior of others. In "Moral Origins", anthropologist Christopher Boehm tells a different story. Boehm argues that morality is a means for individuals to avoid punishment at the hands of the group. Beginning with the earliest hominid communities, transgressors were punished, and often killed, because of the threat they posed to others. Those who survived were simply more likely to be nice, as were their descendants. Boehm calls this "social selection", and the result was the first stirrings of our moral sense. Rigorously researched and expertly argued, "Moral Origins" offers a new evolutionary paradigm of human generosity and cooperation.