How Humans Became Moral Beings

Christopher Boehm suggests that morality (self control) evolved as a response to our ancestors depending on big game hunting. In order to fairly divide a big kill, alpha male tendencies had to be suppressed for the hunting group to survive.


What I have done is to look at all of the possible hunter-gatherer societies that have been studied. I simply got rid of all of those that could have never existed in the Pleistocene... Then, I project the patterns of shared behavior back into the period when humans were culturally modern.


My hypothesis is that when they started large game hunting, they had to start really punishing alpha males and holding them down. That set up a selection pressurein the sense that, if you couldn’t control your alpha tendencies, you were going to get killed or run out of the group...

Therefore, self-control became an important feature for individuals who were reproductively successful. And self-control translates into conscience. [emphasis mine]

Views: 51



Update Your Membership :




Nexus on Social Media:



Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service