• Warfare, Ethics, Ethology: Evolutionary fundamentals for conflict and cooperation in the lineage of Man

    Author(s):
    Daniel Barreiros (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Subject(s):
    Warfare, Prehistoric, Primatology, War and society, Peace--Social aspects, War
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Ethics of Warfare, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Cognition, Evolution, Prehistoric warfare, Sociology of peace, war, and social conflict, War and conflict
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/s920-xp60
    Abstract:
    The aim of this article is to set a macro-historical narrative concerning the emergence of warfare and social ethics as symplesiomorphic features in the lineage of Homo sapiens. This means that these two behavioral aspects, representative of a very selected branch in the phylogenetic tree of the Primate order, are shared by the two lineages of great African apes that diverged from a common ancestor around six million years in the past, leading to extant humans and chimpanzees. Therefore, this article proposes an ethological understanding of warfare and social ethics, as both are innate to the social high-specialized modular mind present in the species of genera Pan and Homo. However behavioral restraints to intersocietal coalitionary violence seems to be an exclusive aspect of the transdominial modular cognition that characterizes modern humans. Thus, if in the evolutionary long durée, warfare and restrictions to intrasocial violence both appear to be ethologically common to humans and chimpanzees to a certain extent, an ethics of warfare - and, of course, the cognitive capability for intersocietal peace - seems to be distinctly human.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.22339/jbh.v2i2.2300
    Publisher:
    International Big History Association
    Pub. Date:
    2018-4-22
    Journal:
    Journal of Big History
    Volume:
    2
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    19 - 36
    ISSN:
    2475-3610
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

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