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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy
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The Origins of Fairness - How Evolution Explains Our Moral Nature (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,475
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The Origins of Fairness - How Evolution Explains Our Moral Nature (Hardcover)
Series: Foundations of Human Interaction
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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In order to describe the logic of morality, "contractualist "
philosophers have studied how individuals behave when they choose
to follow their moral intuitions. These individuals,
contractualists note, often act as if they have bargained and thus
reached an agreement with others about how to distribute the
benefits and burdens of mutual cooperation. Using this observation,
such philosophers argue that the purpose of morality is to maximize
the benefits of human interaction. The resulting "contract "
analogy is both insightful and puzzling. On one hand, it captures
the pattern of moral intuitions, thus answering questions about
human cooperation: why do humans cooperate? Why should the
distribution of benefits be proportionate to each person's
contribution? Why should the punishment be proportionate to the
crime? Why should the rights be proportionate to the duties? On the
other hand, the analogy provides a mere as-if explanation for human
cooperation, saying that cooperation is "as if " people have passed
a contract-but since they didn't, why should it be so? To
evolutionary thinkers, the puzzle of the missing contract is
immediately reminiscent of the puzzle of the missing "designer " of
life-forms, a puzzle that Darwin's theory of natural selection
essentially resolved. Evolutionary and contractualist theory
originally intersected at the work of philosophers John Rawls and
David Gauthier, who argued that moral judgments are based on a
sense of fairness that has been naturally selected. In this book,
Nicolas Baumard further explores the theory that morality was
originally an adaptation to the biological market of cooperation,
an arena in which individuals competed to be selected for
cooperative interactions. In this environment, Baumard suggests,
the best strategy was to treat others with impartiality and to
share the costs and benefits of cooperation in a fair way, so that
those who offered less than others were left out of cooperation
while those who offered more were exploited by their partners. It
is with this evolutionary approach that Baumard ultimately accounts
for the specific structure of human morality.
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