Thinking and Morality as a Form of Cooperation in the Light of the Conception of Michael Tomasello

In his work A Natural History of Human Thinking, Michael Tomasello depicts thinking as a form of cooperation. Presenting at the same time a conceptual schema enriched with empirical data, he outlines a natural history of thinking in particular, indicating how the process of socialization and new, unique manifestations of human interaction alter the forms of thinking, from the ones we share with primates, through increasingly complex forms characteristic of the primitive man, to these of the contemporary man. In A Natural History of Human Morality Tomasello presents a similar structure, showing morality as a form of human cooperation in which, according to Tomasello, Homo sapiens, seen as “ultra-social primates”, developed new and uniquely human forms of social interaction and organization which, as a result, required new and also very specific for Homo sapiens psychological mechanisms in cognitive processes, social interaction and self-control. While in A Natural History of Human Thinking Tomasello’s main hypothesis is the Shared Intentionality Hypothesis, in A Natural History of Human Morality it is the Interdependence Hypothesis. Thus, this unique structure of abilities and motivation is the feature which distinguishes us from other primates. This essay aims to extract and outline this structure, focusing more on A Natural History of Human Morality.

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