Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels

Guest:  Ian Morris, Willard Professor of Classics and a fellow of the Stanford Archaeology Center at Stanford University. Author of “Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve.”  Human values have changed over millennia: our tolerance for violence, our willingness to be divided into social classes by gender or wealth, our respect for authority, our definition of justice.  The fundamental question for Stanford classics and archaeology professor Ian Morris is, “What causes our values to evolve over time?” Are we squeamish about the death penalty because we’re more enlightened than our hunter-gatherer forbearers?  Morris, in a series of provocative lectures delivered at Princeton University, says no. Our values are not driven by evolutionary superiority. Rather, they’re driven by how we fuel our lives. Do we hunt, farm or burn oil, gas and coal? Morris has captured his Tanner Lectures in a new book called, “Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve.”