ABSTRACT
Mothers in this study are nurturing children who would be disposed of in many cultures (Hrdy, 1999: 460). Committing oneself to such a child, the sociobiologist Sarah Hrdy argues, is counter to self-interest and, where it happens, it represents “true heroism,” the kind of behavior that
“makes it awkward for even the most hard-core materialists to completely discount the existence of free will” (1999: 460). This formulation begs the question of why we find such “true heroism” (a problematic term) some places and not others.
