Sublime

ape leaders developed the tendency to help the poor, the needy, and the fatherless millions of years before the Bible instructed ancient Israelites that they should not “mistreat any widow or fatherless child”

Paul Pettitt is currently exploring ‘primate thanatology’ – looking for roots and resonance of human behaviour through ethnographic study that embraces other animals’ behaviours. Among chimpanzees, mothers have been seen carrying dead infants around with them; individuals may visit, smell, touch, hit – and sometimes devour – a corpse. There are so

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But in the very next paragraph, Darwin raised the free rider problem, which is still the main objection raised against group selection: But it may be asked, how within the limits of the same tribe did a large number of members first become endowed with these social and moral qualities, and how was the standard of excellence raised? It is extremely

Homo heidelbergensis is therefore our best candidate for Rubicon crosser.64 These people had cumulative culture, teamwork, and a division of labor. They must have had shared intentionality, including at least some rudimentary moral matrix that helped them work together and then share the fruits of their labor.

IF SOMEONE ASKED ME why Stoicism works, I would not tell a story about Zeus (or God). Instead, I would talk about evolutionary theory, according to which we humans came to exist as the result of an interesting series of biological accidents. I would then start talking about evolutionary psychology, according to which we humans, besides gaining a ce

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Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari