Further still, it fails to account for the totality of morality, which is to say, why it is that things like virginity, music and words are given moral positions. Clearly there are totally differing points of view on such things with no consensus or evident biological reason to pick one or the other position, positive or negative, for something like heavy metal music. To say that morality is inherent and then back it up with evidence from lab psychology is to ignore an enormous part of what morality is, thus changing the meaning of the word to suit the argument. Seems silly and incorrect. More than that, it explains nothing.

It’s also evident that things like altruism are hard-wired in some sense, but it’s not like they can’t be overridden. So where does that leave us? With perfected, prescriptive ideas about morality, which won’t help anything.

The whole thing seems like an attempt to use psychology to back up the idea of having “pure” free markets. Don’t get me wrong – capitalism’s a fine thing, and it seems to produce for a large number of people well enough. But it seems fairly obvious that there need to be some controls. The idea of totally free markets is a lovely idea (an enlightenment idea, with lots of light and mechanistic Bach-type music playing when you imagine it) but the reality is a much grubbier, more realistic system, if what you want is happiness for the greatest number.

Anyway, I’m not actually an anthropologist – yet. I will be studying social anthropology soon, but right now, I’m studying Chinese, while trying to read as much in the way of anthropological classics as I can. It’s possibly the most fascinating subject in the world, to me, at least.

Gary Olson