In this book, Nicolas Baumard explores the theory that morality was originally an adaptation to the biological market of cooperation, an arena in which individuals competed to be selected for cooperative interactions. It is with this evolutionary approach that Baumard accounts for the specific structure of human morality.

• INTRODUCTION: Reconciling morality with the natural sciences


• Naturalism: The moral sense


• Contractualism: The social contract


• A naturalistic and contractualist theory of morality


• PART 1: THE MORAL SENSE


• Chapter 1: A mental organ


• 1. An autonomous disposition


• Moral judgments and moral intuitions


• Moral intuitions and moral ideas


• 2. A domain-specific disposition


• Morality, a passion among others


• The sense of honor


• 3. A universal disposition


• Variability as a product of the diversity of situations and beliefs


• Observed diversity and real diversity


• 4. An innate disposition


• 5. Non-intuitive moral judgments


• Chapter 2: A functional disposition


• 1. The competing passions


• 2. The moral sense and non-naturalistic theories


• The domain specificity of moral judgments


• The innateness of moral judgments


• 3. The moral sense as adaptation


• Functionality and modularity


• Efficient causes and final causes


• PART 2: MORALITY AS FAIRNESS


• Chapter 3: From cooperation to morality


• 1. A naturalistic contractualism


• 2. From the cooperation market to the sense of fairness


• The cooperation market


• Cooperation market theory vs. other mutualistic theories


• Manipulation on the cooperation market


• The cooperation market in the ancestral environment


• 3. The sense of fairness


• The example of reciprocity and justice


• Moral rectitude, or fairness in general


• Fairness and power relationships


• Framing effects


• Chapter 4: Moral principles and the sense of fairness


• 1. Getting past principles


• 2. The mutualistic logic of moral dilemmas


• Actions and omissions


• The trolley dilemma


• A mutualistic analysis of the trolley problem


• Utilitarian interpretations of the trolley problem


• 3. Principles and justice


• Chapter 5 A cognitive approach to the moral sense


• 1. A contract without negotiations: Morality and theory of mind


• The importance of others: Mental states vs. interests


• Consent has no moral value


• A mutualistic approach to responsibility


• 2. The evaluation of individual interests


• Intuitive axiology and the moral sense


• Victimless crimes


• Roles and statuses


• Moral differences between the sexes


• 3. The limits of the moral community


• The proper and actual domains of the moral sense


• The variability of the actual domain


• 4. Disposition and micro-dispositions


• PART 3: MORALITY AS SACRIFICE


• Chapter 6 Mutualistic morality and utilitarian morality


• 1. Utilitarian morality and group selection


• 2. Utilitarian societies?


• Observed utilitarianism and real utilitarianism


• Collectivism and utilitarianism


• Social institutions and moral interactions


• 3. Utilitarian judgments?


• Distributive justice


• Retributive justice


• Supererogatory actions


• Moral dilemmas


• 4. Economic games


• The ecological validity of economic games


• Economic games: moral situations


• A mutualistic analysis of economic games


• Chapter 7: Punishment: useless and uncertain


• 1. A marginal practice in non-state societies


• 2. Revenge, ostracism and self-defense: punishments?


• 3. A simple question of duty


• A mutualistic analysis of apparently punitive actions


• Punishment in economic games


• 4. Retributive justice and penal systems


• PART 4: MORALITY AS EXCELLENCE


• Chapter 8: Mutualistic morality and virtue morality


• 1. Sympathy


• The three faces of Adam Smith


• Of sympathy and the other social sentiments


• 2. The parental instinct


• 3. Disgust


• 4. The virtues


• Chapter 9: On the "state of nature "


• 1. Morality in animals


• Morality: one disposition among many


• Primate morality: reality or anthropomorphism?


• 2. Morality and social cognition


• Understanding others to communicate


• Communicating to cooperate


• CONCLUSION


• 1. The steps in the argument


• 2. The scientific implications of a mutualistic theory


• 3. The practical implications of mutualistic theory


• References

Nicolas Baumard is Research Scholar in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.