The Evolution of Religion and Morality: Volume II

This volume investigates key questions in the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion and highlights cultural variability and context specificity of diverse religious systems. It uses a unique dataset with 2,228 participants from 15 ethnographically diverse societies, and chapters address general predictors of commitment to supernatural agents, gender differences in religiosity, the role of punitive gods in cooperation, and the association between belief in moralizing gods and cooperation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 04 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive volume harnesses a unique dataset to delve into pressing inquiries about human religiosity. Building upon the groundbreaking first volume in this series, it presents findings from the second phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) project. The second volume explores fundamental questions in the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion, emphasizing the cultural diversity and contextual specificity of various religious systems. Comprising 2,228 participants from 15 ethnographically diverse societies spanning Africa, India, Oceania, and South America, including hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, subsistence farmers, and wage laborers, the dataset provides a rich foundation for the chapters.

Four chapters, utilizing the full dataset, address crucial inquiries:

What are the general predictors of commitment to supernatural agents?

Does gender influence religiosity?

Does belief in punitive gods foster cooperation?

Are supernatural agents implicitly linked with moral concerns?

Chapters from individual field sites delve deeper into the distinction between moralizing and local gods, the potential disruptive impact of belief in local gods on cooperation with anonymous co-religionists, and the relationship between belief in moralizing gods, cooperation, and differential access to material resources.

Beyond these empirical studies, the book includes an insightful discussion with experts on the challenges of conducting such a large cross-cultural project, offering practical recommendations for future endeavors.

The Evolution of Religion and Morality: Volume II will serve as an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers in religious studies, human evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion, and the sociology of religion. This groundbreaking work will deepen our understanding of the complex interplay between religion, morality, and human behavior across diverse cultures and time periods.

Weight: 630g
Dimension: 246 x 174 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032624075