Edges of the State

Edges of the State

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Description

Using philosophical and scientific work to engage the perennial question of human nature

This book takes a look at the formation, and edges, of states: their breakdowns and attempts to repair them, and their encounters with non-state peoples. It draws upon anthropology, political philosophy, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, child developmental psychology, and other fields to look at states as projects of constructing "bodies politic," where the civic and the somatic intersect. John Protevi asserts that humans are predisposed to "prosociality," or being emotionally invested in social partners and patterns. With readings from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James C. Scott; a critique of the assumption of widespread pre-state warfare as a selection pressure for the evolution of human prosociality and altruism; and an examination of the different "economies of violence" of state and non-state societies, Edges of the State sketches a notion of prosocial human nature and its attendant normative maxims.

LOC Call Number

JC11 .P76 2019

ISBN

9781517907969

Publication Date

2019

Department

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

City

Minneapolis

Edges of the State

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