Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve

by Ian Morris, Stephen Macedo (Editor), Richard Seaford (Commentaries by), Jonathan D. Spence (Commentaries by), Christine M. Korsgaard (Commentaries by)

Overview

The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values

Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691175898
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2017
Series:	The University Center for Human Values Series , #41
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ian Morris is professor of classics and a fellow of the Stanford Archaeology Center at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction by Stephen Macedo xiii

Chapter 1 Each Age Gets the Thought It Needs 1

Chapter 2 Foragers 25

Chapter 3 Farmers 44

Chapter 4 Fossil Fuels 93

Chapter 5 The Evolution of Values: Biology, Culture, and the Shape of Things to Come 139

Comments

Chapter 6 On the Ideology of Imagining That “Each Age Gets the Thought It Needs,” Richard Seaford 172

Chapter 7 But What Was It Really Like? The Limitations of Measuring Historical Values, Jonathan D. Spence 180

Chapter 8 Eternal Values, Evolving Values, and the Value of the Self, Christine M. Korsgaard 184

Chapter 9 When the Lights Go Out: Human Values after the Collapse of Civilization, Margaret Atwood 202

Response

Chapter 10 My Correct Views on Everything, Ian Morris 208

Notes 267

References 305

Contributors 341

Index 343

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Ian Morris has thrown another curveball for social science. In this disarmingly readable book, which takes us from prehistory to the present, he offers a new theory of human culture, linking it firmly to economic fundamentals and how humans obtained their energy and resources from nature. This is bold, erudite, and provocative."—Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of How Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

"Ian Morris has emerged in recent years as one of the great big thinkers in history, archaeology, and anthropology, writing books that set people talking and thinking. I found delightful things in every chapter ofForagers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels, interesting enough that I found myself sharing them with family over dinner. The breadth of reading and the command of the subject are just dazzling. His major argument—that value systems adapt themselves to ambient energy structures, in the same way that an organism adapts to its niche—is fascinating."—Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain

"This is an important and stylistically excellent book written from a sophisticated materialist perspective. It is eminently readable, lively, and with clearly stated arguments explored in a systematic fashion. In a sense, it follows up on Jared Diamond's work on agricultural origins, and it parallels Steven Pinker's book on warfare in depicting a world that is culturally evolving in a certain direction. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels should have a serious impact."—Chris Boehm, author of Moral Origins: The Evolution of Altruism, Virtue, and Shame

Editorial Reviews

"Excellent and thought-provoking. . . . More important, by putting forth a bold, clearly formulated hypothesis, Morris has done a great service to the budding field of scientific history."—Peter Turchin, Science

"A provocative explanation for the evolution and divergence of ethical values. . . . In the hands of this talented writer and thinker, [this] material becomes an engaging intellectual adventure."—Kirkus

"A very good and enjoyable read."—Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

"Stimulating."—Russell Warfield, Resurgence & Ecologist

From the Publisher

2015-02-03
A provocative explanation for the evolution and divergence of ethical values.Humans are genetically hard-wired to respect certain universal core ethical concerns, and yet there have been "enormous differences through time and space in what humans have taken fairness [and] justice to mean," notes prolific academic Morris (Classics/Stanford Univ.; War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots, 2014, etc.). The author contends that a culture's interpretation of these concepts is driven by what works best for the form of energy capture on which the culture is based. That is, "our choices about what to be righteous about are...forced on us by the ways we extract energy from the world." Cheerfully admitting that his argument is reductionist, materialist, universalist, functionalist and evolutionist, Morris sorts cultures from the end of the last ice age to the present into foragers, farmers and fossil fuel users. Each of these groups captures more energy per capita than its predecessor; each is also more materially successful and so tends to displace its predecessor over time. Each group's interpretations of ethical concepts are reflected, among other things, in a culture's attitudes toward political inequality, including kingship and slavery, wealth and gender inequality, and toleration of violence. Morris concludes with some speculation about the future of ethical development as humanity's per capita capture of energy continues its hockey-stick rise into the next century. This is, in book form, the author's 2012 Tanner Lectures for Princeton's Center for Human Values, and like the lectures, it includes brief reactions and rebuttal by three academics and the novelist Margaret Atwood, concluding with an author's response in a chapter puckishly titled, "My Correct Views on Everything." In the hands of this talented writer and thinker, this potentially dry material becomes an engaging intellectual adventure, fully accessible to the generalist, as it ranges across millennia and disciplines including classical history, sociology, and moral and political philosophy.

Kirkus Reviews