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Articles

Moral Laws of the Jungle

Iain King derives a universal moral law from a moral field study.

Welcome to Africa! I’m in the remote jungles of South Sudan, near the unmarked border with the Central African Republic (roughly 5 degrees North and 23 degrees East, if you want to look it up). Most people here live in mud huts, spend their time farming small clearings in the forest, and are extremely poor. Never having met someone from Britain before, they’re very generous, offering me pineapple, dried ants, and – their greatest gift – an explanation of right and wrong.

The dried ants taste a bit like the crusty part of prawns, but more salty. I am curious to hear about how the insects are harvested, and how rival ant colonies fight it out.

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