Abstract
This chapter outlines the biological, cultural and philosophical history of altruism and virtue. It seeks to demonstrate that altruism and virtue are important constituents of our evolutionary inheritance, and that communities and individuals who ignore them are acting against the constitution of human beings, and are hence unlikely to flourish.
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Notes
- 1.
Phenomenology, 222.
- 2.
August Comte, Cours de Philosophie.
- 3.
It is a reference to the golden apple on which the goddess Eris inscribed ‘to the fairest’. She then threw it amongst the divine revellers at a wedding. Their scrambling for it eventually led to the Trojan War.
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Foster, C., Herring, J. (2015). Altruism and Community: A Biological and Philosophical History. In: Altruism, Welfare and the Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21605-8_2
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