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Books

Is the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good behaviour?

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems to be the history of an amalgam of moral and political virtues and vices, its thesis is actually the large claim that these have evolved; and he has no compunction about writing that the foundation stone of good behaviour is the possibility of capital punishment (against it though he is in today’s world).

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