Journal Articles

1. Tomasello, M, Norms Require Not Just Technical Skill and Social Learning, but Real Cooperation, Analyse und Kritik, vol. 43 no. 1 (June, 2021), pp. 219-223 [doi].
   (last updated on 2024/04/24)

   Abstract:
   Birch's account of the evolutionary origins of social norms is essentially individualistic. It begins with individuals regulating their own actions toward internally represented goals, as evaluative standards, and adds in a social dimension only secondarily. I argue that a better account begins at the outset with uniquely human collaborative activity in which individuals share evaluative standards about how anyone who would play a given role must behave both toward their joint goal and toward one another. This then scaled up to the shared normative standards for anyone who would be a member of 'our' social group.