Managing in the Gray

Managing in the Gray

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of duties. This is because rights and duties are two sides of

the same coin: If I have a right to my property, you have a

duty to respect it. If you have a right to be told the truth, I

have a duty to tell you the truth. In short, the idea that we

have strong, binding duties to each other shapes our lives and

institutions and suffuses our thinking.

Why is this the case? There is no definitive answer, but evo-

lutionary theory suggests a fascinating and provocative expla-

nation, one that we seem to be able to confirm in our everyday

experience.

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The basic idea is that, as a result of a genetic roll

of the dice, some prehumans had a better sense of empathy

than others. They could quickly grasp—perhaps relying on

what some n ...