Despite wide acceptance that the attributes of living creatures have appeared through a cumulative evolutionary process guided chiefly by natural selection, many human activities have seemed analytically inaccessible through such an approach. Prominent evolutionary biologists, for example, have described morality as contrary to the direction of biological evolution, and moral philosophers rarely regard evolution as relevant to their discussions. -/- The Biology of Moral Systems adopts the position that moral questions arise out of conflicts of interest, and that moral systems (...) are ways of using confluences of interest at lower levels of social organiation to deal with conflicts of interest at higher levels. Moral systems are described as systems of indirect reciprocity: humans gain and lose socially and reproductively not only by direct transactions, but also by the reputations they gain from the everyday flow of social interactions. -/- The author develops a general theory of human interests, using senescence and effort theory from biology, to help analye the patterning of human lifetimes. He argues that the ultimate interests of humans are reproductive, and that the concept of morality has arisen within groups because of its contribution to unity in the context, ultimately, of success in intergroup competition. He contends that morality is not easily relatable to universals, and he carries this argument into a discussion of what he calls the greatest of all moral problems, the nuclear arms race. (shrink)

A recent scientifically and historically grounded theory on human genetic and cultural evolution suggests why the religious elements of culture became the primary source of both peaceful cooperation within societal ingroups and at the same time of destructive wars with outgroups. It also describes the role of religion in the evolution of ape‐men into humans. The theory indicates why human societal life is not long viable without the underpinning of a healthy, noncoercive, religious faith; why sound religious faith is weak (...) now; and why we may hope both for better morals and for worldwide cooperation in peace. (shrink)

Following in general a history of religions analysis, the paper argues that myth lays a basis for morality in that it sets forth a picture of “how things really are” (the is), to which humans seek to conform their actions (morality, the ought). A parallel argument locates the capacity for morality and values orientation in the process of evolution itself. A hypothesis is formulated concerning the function of myth in the emergence of Homo sapiens, namely, to motivate the action required (...) if creatures so culturally formed as humans were to survive. The Christian love command (understood as altruism) is interpreted as an example of the general hypothesis. (shrink)

The structuring and transformation of myth is presented as a function of a number of brain “operators.” Each operator is understood to represent specifically evolved neural tissue primarily of the neocortex of the brain. Mythmaking as well as other cognitive processes is seen as a behavior arising from the evolution and integration of certain parts of the brain. Human ceremonial ritual is likewise understood as the culmination of a long phylogenetic evolutionary process, and a neural model is presented to explain (...) its properties. Finally, the mechanism by which ritual is used to resolve the antinomies of myth structure is explored. (shrink)

An abridged version of the 1937 an-thropological study of the Azande of the southern Sudan, the theoretical insights of which have proven increasingly influential among both anthropologists and others.