Victor Kumar - A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made us Human

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kumar, Victor, 1980 author. | Campbell, Richmond, author.

Title: A better ape : The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How It Made Us Human /

Victor Kumar, Richmond Campbell.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021045016 (print) | LCCN 2021045017 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780197600122 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197600146 (epub) |

ISBN 9780197600153 | ISBN 9780197600139

Subjects: LCSH: Ethics, Evolutionary. | Human evolution. |

Behavior evolution. | Human behavior.

Classification: LCC BJ1311 .K86 2022 (print) | LCC BJ1311 (ebook) |

DDC 171/.7dc23/eng/20211221

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045016

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045017

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197600122.001.0001

For our children and our childrens children

There is grandeur in this view of life . . .

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

In the beginning, strands of organic material floated on the face of the deep. A cellular fortress, once found, offered protection from the lawless, ravaging forces in the wilderness beyond, yet granted entry to those heathens who could be converted to the earliest doctrines of procreation. Life was fruitful and increased in number. The waters teemed.

Half of lifes history passed with only simple cells to bear witness. Then, two billion years ago, some cells began to engulf others. Cells within cells were delegated such tasks as storing designs and producing energy. It would take another half a billion years for complex cells to join forces en masseto assemble a new superorganism.

Eventually, multi-cellular life became multi-functional. A division of labor was contracted between cell groups, leading to the evolution of plants, fungi, worms, and fish, less than a billion years ago. Within a few hundred million years of their first appearance, all of these organisms gained the wherewithal to leave the ocean and colonize the once-empty land.

Starting only thirty or forty million years ago, some animals took another step by establishing social collectives, banding together into troops, packs, and pods. They protected one another, shared food, and raised offspring together. Cooperation gave rise to elephants and wolves, dolphins and whales, monkeys and apes.

Finally, on a single branch of the tree of life, within just one small family of social primates, a new kind of ultra-cooperative animal evolved. During the last few moments of lifes immense history, nature created humankind.

And was it good?

Too soon to tell.

* * *

The Earth in its bounty brings forth an overabundance of life. In the struggle for existence, the laws of natural selection favor individuals who happen to possess superior abilities to survive and reproduce. In general, nature does not look after organisms that do not look after themselves, much less those that sacrifice their own interests for the sake of rivals.

Yet, during major evolutionary transitions in the history of life, individuals joined forces, the parts enlisted in the service of the whole.