Our Human Herds: Abridged

Our Human Herds presents a new theory in moral and political philosophy, called “dual morality.” The theory proposes that just as the physical senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing evolved to help us navigate our physical environment, two independent moral senses evolved to guide us to success in our social world. One prioritizes cooperation; the other, competition. The first bases moral justification on the egalitarianism that emphasizes our equal worth; the other finds moral justification in the inequalities that allow us to distinguish better from worse.

“Liberal” and “conservative” are merely the names given to the political manifestations of these two forms of moral expression, just as “socialist” and “capitalist” describe their economic manifestations, and “personality” and “character” their psychological ones.

Our Human Herds addresses what it means to be a human being, why we fight about the things that divide us, and why we unite behind the ideas that draw us together.

The book examines all aspects of human social behavior, revealing how and why we often disagree in our approaches to education, history, war, crime, pleasure, happiness, politics, science and religion.

“This is a learned, thoroughly researched study - and dazzlingly bright. The effervescent approach to writing makes its pages fly by ... Studies as brilliant as this one deserve a far wider audience. An engrossing and mind-expanding examination of morality" —Kirkus Reviews