Our Human Herds : Stephen Martin Fritz
The Theory of Dual Morality
Three hundred years ago, if a woman was raped and became pregnant, we’d kill the rapist and spare the unborn child; today we kill the unborn child and spare the rapist. Two hundred years ago Americans fought the British for their freedom; seventy years later they fought each other for the right to own slaves. How can we understand such phenomena?
Our Human Herds introduces a new theory in moral and political philosophy that explains these anomalies and many more. Just as our physical senses of sight, smell and taste evolved to help us navigate our physical environment, our two “social senses” evolved to guide us through our social environment.
These “social senses” manifest themselves in many ways, the most common of which are our political feelings of “liberal” or “conservative” and our economic preferences for “socialism” or “capitalism.” But the theory extends to all areas of human morality, explaining why it was once imperative that a woman be a virgin on her wedding night, or why it could have been considered “right” to deny women the vote.
Understanding our “social senses” allows us to decipher the perplexities of human morality as it has manifested itself throughout history.
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