The Origins of Virtue is a 1996 book written by Matt Ridley about the issues surrounding human morality and how it develops. Ridley is a British journalist. In this book, he makes a connection between human morality and evolution. This book is considered a popular science book.

Ridley writes this book from a sociobiological standpoint, discussing how both society (socio) as well as genetics and biology (biological) can affect the development of human morality.

Throughout the book, Ridley argues that humans live in a society in which they would rather cooperate. He believes that humans must learn to trust one another and assist each other in order to limit the amount of conflict between societies.

Ridley states that this behavior is genetic and therefore is passed down from one generation to the next through evolution.

Ridley also argues that society works best in groups of 150 people. This number of individuals is ideal because members of this group will know who to work with and who to exclude from the group. When the societal group becomes too large, this is harder to decipher. This is an introduction to one theory that Ridley presents called "generous reciprocity".

Generous reciprocity means that cooperation will help humans survive. Ridley states that by working together as a whole, it will be easier to pass on genes to future generations, and these generations will be less aggressive. Ridley sees aggression as a negative behavior. He essentially believes in "The Golden Rule" and states that reciprocating the behaviors demonstrated by others will help further survival. If individuals reciprocate behaviors such as trusting those who are trustworthy, more goodness will spread to society.

Critics of this work argue that Ridley changes his thesis near the end of the book and is unable to provide sufficient elaborations on his theories. He also discusses how government and politics influence human beings and their morality.

Former President Bill Clinton named this work as one of the books that influenced his thinking.