Daly And Wilson's Violence Theory

The article written by Dan Jones essentially dislikes the lower violence rates in humans with evolution. The article hinges on a couple points, the first being that there simply hasn’t been enough time to adequately measure if lowered homicide rates can be attributed to evolution. Overall, Jones’ article offers many points of view and allows the reader to formulate his or her own opinion on the matter. The column offers possible explanation to some of the violence readers see in Voltaire’s novel, Candide. In the second paragraph, Jones sheds light on Daly and Wilson’s theory regarding violence. Daly and Wilson argue that, “murderous actions are usually the by-product of urges towards some other goal.” Essentially, this quote says that murderer’s end goal isn’t to murder, but that committing murder is simply one step to reach their ultimate goal. This can be seen quite clearly in Candide and the frequent murders that take place in the plot. Most clearly, Daly and Wilson’s by-product theory explain why Candide murdered Don Issachar and the Grand Inquisitor. The theory would state that Candide didn’t kill the two men because he hated them, instead he murdered them to help reach his end goal of being with Cunegonde. Their reasoning makes perfect sense when applied to Don and the

For example, when Candide murders Cunegonde’s brother, he does it because the benefits of having him dead outweighed the cost of having him alive, for he would be one step closer to being with his dear Cunegonde. Candide knew that he had a slim chance of getting caught because no one was near, so he decided that the benefits outweighed the risks, or