EAN: 9780674986824

A NATURAL HISTORY OF HUMAN MORALITY - MICHAEL T...

A Natural History of Human Morality offers the most detailed account to date of the evolution
of human moral psychology. Based on extensive experimental data comparing great apes and human
children  Michael Tomasello reconstructs how early humans gradually became an ultra-cooperative
and  eventually  a moral species. There were two key evolutionary steps  each founded on a new
way that individuals could act together as a plural agent we. The first step occurred as
ecological challenges forced early humans to forage together collaboratively or die. To
coordinate these collaborative activities  humans evolved cognitive skills of joint
intentionality  ensuring that both partners knew together the normative standards governing
each role. To reduce risk  individuals could make an explicit joint commitment that we forage
together and share the spoils together as equally deserving partners  based on shared senses of
trust  respect  and responsibility. The second step occurred as human populations grew and the
division of labor became more complex. Distinct cultural groups emerged that demanded from
members loyalty  conformity  and cultural identity. In becoming members of a new cultural we 
modern humans evolved cognitive skills of collective intentionality  resulting in culturally
created and objectified norms of right and wrong that everyone in the group saw as legitimate
morals for anyone who would be one of us. As a result of this two-stage process  contemporary
humans possess both a second-personal morality for face-to-face engagement with individuals and
a group-minded objective morality that obliges them to the moral community as a whole.

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