The Savanna Code: What Good Are Morals?

Abstract

Dawn can be cool and quiet in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The hyenas cease wailing and thorn bushes on the canyon’s brink tremble in the breeze. Soon, the sun will light the gray strata of the ravine, and eventually it will rise higher in the blue sky and oppress the land with heat. Tourists will arrive from all over the globe, snapping photos and uploading them to their Facebook pages.

We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

—Attributed to Benjamin Franklin