The Rise of a Normative Species

Part I of the volume takes up an unsettling thesis advanced by F. A. Hayek: that our evolved, tribal, and egalitarian sentiments are in deep conflict with the impartiality and inclusiveness of the Open Society. Hayek, it argues, was correct that the core of human morality arose during the long hunter-gatherer period in our history. However, Hayek largely overlooked the extent to which human cooperation arose on the basis of strong reciprocity, and the way in which our egalitarianism is manifested in impartial norms that protect against bullying and domination. These features of what is deemed “the Modern Egalitarian Package” allow it to be scaled up to large impersonal moral networks.