The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality

AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'An ambitious and anecdote-rich sweeping history of morality's growing influence over our lives' WALL STREET JOURNAL 'This fat, complex, good-natured and intriguing book is full of such memorable material...startling and often thrilling' SPECTATOR 'A heroic effort...rich with complex narrative, full of unexpected twists like the inquisitors' tale' ECONOMIST For almost five million years, humans have been locked in a relationship with morality, inventing and reinventing the concepts of 'Good' and 'Evil', and weaving them into our cities, laws and customs. Morality is a concept that can feel joyless and claustrophobic, associated with restraint and coercion, restriction and sacrifice, inquisition, confession and a guilty conscience. For many, it is a device used to shame us into compliance. This impression is not necessarily incorrect, but it is most certainly incomplete. Hanno Sauer traces humanity's fundamental moral transformations from our earliest ancestors through to the present day, when it can often seem that we have never disagreed more over what it means to be good, and what it means to be right. But we can use our past as a basis for a new understanding of our future. Our current political disagreements may feel like the end of the world, but where will the evolution of morality take us next?

About the Author :
Dr Hanno Sauer is an Associate Professor of Ethics at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and a member of the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His current research takes an interdisciplinary approach to ethics, involving empirically informed metaethics that blends fields of neuroscience, cognitive science politics and social psychology.

Review :
A brisk, engaging survey covering five million years of human history This fat, complex, good-natured and intriguing book is full of such memorable material...startling and often thrilling Blend[ing] insights from evolutionary biology, cognitive science and anthropology ... Sauer has made a heroic effort to chart how morality has changed since the first humanlike animals began to populate Africa to predict how it might change in the future. It is a rich, complex narrative, full of unexpected twists Sauer's comprehensive history of morality from the origins of humanity until today provides a solid basis for contemporary debates - cleverly written, entertaining, and an invitation to rethink one's beliefs Fascinating A big book with a broad reach, written by an adroit, confident author ... Sauer is at his best when expounding today's febrile headlines [and] is the best navigator through the treacherous waters of postmodern and post-postmodern sociology that I know Hanno Sauer is a philosopher not shying away from the big questions. The Invention of Good and Evil charts the evolution of moralistic thinking from our earliest ancestors to the present day ... asking us to consider what it means to be good but also what it means to be right [and is] absolutely fascinating Many people will resist the idea that morality should be treated as just 'one value among others, not as unquestionably supreme', as Bernard Williams, the 20th-century moral philosopher, put it. The Invention of Good and Evil, an ambitious and anecdote-rich sweeping history of morality's growing influence over our lives, helps us to see why Traces humankind's most fundamental moral transformations from our earliest ancestors in East Africa adopting punitive behaviour to punish wrongdoers to today, where egalitarianism has been replaced with hierarchism ... a testament to Sauer's capacity to show that there are two sides to everything A tour de force through the history of our values One of the best non-fiction books of the year Elegant, confident, eloquent and smart This look into the past is very entertaining, versatile, interestingly presented and at the same time razor-sharp and full of surprises. Sauer hits the nail on the head of our current times Hanno Sauer is one of the most astute ethicists of his generation. So far, there has been no history of morality told from the perspective of philosophy. Sauer closes this gap: knowledgeable, funny and entertaining.