Invention of Good and Evil (eBook)

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.

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.

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

Fascinating

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

One of the best non-fiction books of the year

Elegant, confident, eloquent and smart

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

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

A tour de force through the history of our values

This fat, complex, good-natured and intriguing book is full of such memorable material...startling and often thrilling