HomicideThe human race spends a disproportionate amount of attention, money, and expertise in solving, trying, and reporting homicides, as compared to other social problems. The public avidly consumes accounts of real-life homicide cases, and murder fiction is more popular still. Nevertheless, we have only the most rudimentary scientific understanding of who is likely to kill whom and why. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson apply contemporary evolutionary theory to analysis of human motives and perceptions of self-interest, considering where and why individual interests conflict, using well-documented murder cases. This book attempts to understand normal social motives in murder as products of the process of evolution by natural selection. They note that the implications for psychology are many and profound, touching on such matters as parental affection and rejection, sibling rivalry, sex differences in interests and inclinations, social comparison and achievement motives, our sense of justice, lifespan developmental changes in attitudes, and the phenomenology of the self. This is the first volume of its kind to analyze homicides in the light of a theory of interpersonal conflict. Before this study, no one had compared an observed distribution of victim-killer relationships to "expected" distribution, nor asked about the patterns of killer-victim age disparities in familial killings. This evolutionary psychological approach affords a deeper view and understanding of homicidal violence. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 75
... interest and conflict Why homicide ? What's a homicide ? 10 11 13 -2- Killing Kinfolks Who kills whom ? Some American data 17 18 Do relatives pose a lesser risk ... interests 56 -4- Killing Children : II . Parental Homicide in the V Contents.
... interest groups 227 On the utility of the revenge motive 229 An eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth 231 An honorable resolution Vengeance lost 235 238 The decline of kin right in English law 241 Impersonal justice 245 -11- Calling the ...
... interests of others against their own ? In defense of whom or what might a normal person kill ? How do mutual valuations arise and how do they influence our willingness to inflict harm ? When are normal people in conflict prepared to ...
... interests of the privileged . We think the conceptual tools are available to do a better job . The very distastefulness of violence obstructs objective analysis by inspiring " explanations " that are really just value judgments ...
... assume that the properties of organisms are adaptively constructed as a result of selection , and inquire how behavior is organized to serve the interests of the actors . Predators , for example 4 Homicide and Human Nature.
Contents
10 | |
17 | |
Kinship and collaborative homicide revisited | 34 |
Femaleselective infanticide | 53 |
II Parental Homicide in the Modern | 61 |
Stepparents and offspring | 90 |
Oedipal conflict and the primal parricide | 107 |
Conflict over what? | 114 |
7 Why Men and Not Women? | 137 |
8 The Logic of SameSex Conflict | 163 |
9 Till Death Us Do Part | 187 |
10 Retaliation and Revenge | 221 |
11 Calling the Killers to Account | 253 |
12 On Cultural Variation | 275 |
Summary and Concluding Comments | 293 |
References | 299 |
6 | 120 |
Index | 323 |