Philosophy

Only cooperate

Item: The Pleistocene Social Contract
Author: Janna Thompson

Evolutionary origins of social contracts

by Janna Thompson •

September 2021, no. 435

The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and cooperation in human evolution by Kim Sterelny

Oxford University Press, £47.99 hb, 193 pp

Philosophy

Only cooperate

Evolutionary origins of social contracts

by Janna Thompson •

September 2021, no. 435

Archaeologists can tell us about the tools, diets, shelters, art, and burials of humans and other hominins who lived during the Pleistocene, the geological period lasting from two million to twelve thousand years ago. But what we most want to know is hidden from view. How did they communicate? What was it like to be them? How did they become us?

Janna Thompson

Janna Thompson is a professor of philosophy at La Trobe University. She is the author of Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice (2002) and Intergenerational Justice: Rights and Responsibilities in an Intergenerational Polity (2009). She has also written articles on environmental philosophy, aesthetics, feminism, and global justice.