What do you think?
Rate this book
The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics--as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies. Illustrations.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Robert Wright
146 books1,391 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
ROBERT WRIGHT is the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and Three Scientists and Their Gods. The New York Times selected The Moral Animal as one of the ten best books of the year and the other two as notable books of the year.
Wright is a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A contributing editor at The New Republic, he has also written for Time, Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker.
Wright has taught in the philosophy department at Princeton and the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and editor in chief of Bloggingheads.tv.
ROBERT WRIGHT is the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and Three Scientists and Their Gods. The New York Times selected The Moral Animal as one of the ten best books of the year and the other two as notable books of the year.
Wright is a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A contributing editor at The New Republic, he has also written for Time, Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker.
Wright has taught in the philosophy department at Princeton and the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and editor in chief of Bloggingheads.tv.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 695 reviews
March 27, 2022
Of course, all of our behavior, interactions with family, friends, and colleagues, love life,… is based on old primate group dynamics and Wright shows all aspects of our existence under this aspect, including Darwinism and many great speculations about how the past could have shaped the present and how unaware we tend to be regarding our roots because of our ever so big, fancy brains.
Women and men
The main motivations of male and female animal and human courtship behavior and its different short and long time motivations are described in witty and thought-provoking detail and one might find oneself with the one or the other „That´s it.“ while reading.
Birth of ethics and moral
It´s such a tricky question to say at which stage of development an animal has the intelligence and empathy to be able to anticipate the feelings of other gang members and if morality should be seen as an element that is just possible under those requirements. As long as instincts, no higher thinking and cruel, but for the survival of the pack essential, group dynamics are the driving forces of the brain, talking about true evil spirit and all higher emotions, in general, would be a bit far-fetched.
Chimp dictator vs bonobo hippies
But in chimps and in us, there are so many examples of thresholds, conflicting biological and sociological structures, and close to impossible to solve mind games. For instance, the chimps organized their society like a dictatorship, which enabled them to fight wars against other groups of chimps and to keep the population docile. That´s the reason why the peaceful bonobos have no chance against chimps, just as a pacifistic state has no chance against a warmongering god-emperor.
Technology changes the game forever
But as soon as culture, technology, and civilization kick in, the old structures of power that enable the rise to world domination become dysfunctional and do more harm to the whole state than a change to democratic, fair, and sustainable government and economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_D...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_H...
Those states build their inner stability, education, welfare systems,… on the softy ideas of fairness, collegiality, sharing, and morality instead of technocratic or sick ideologic principles. It seems, as if there is an emancipated, progressive, open-minded government, the people are, gosh, happy!
Wrights progressivity rocks
Wright has written 3 of the, highly subjective, most inspiring, and important books I´ve ever read and I couldn´t choose which one to prefer; the description of the origins of faith in the evolution of god in The Evolution of God, one of the best descriptions of how to build a better society in Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment or this marvel of showing how primitive we are thanks to the core of our physiology and it´s hairy history.
What would we be without our cognitive biases producing replication crisis
The dark side of evolutionary biology/psychology is that other biased journalists, authors, politicians,… can easily use it to make their papers, ideologies, economic five-year-plan, fit to whatever they want, entering the realm of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replica....
That´s a huge problem of many fields of science, but the worst collateral damage is the deliberate misinterpretations of authors who clearly define their ideas as theories, which brings entire fields of knowledge in disrepute, culminating in the danger of nobody daring to publish new, interesting hypothesis.
Utilitarianism in forms like in Scandinavia is nice, but if the selfless genes are unable to perform right because of the negative, epigenetic pressure in failed states and dictatorships. Nothing can help except to rebuild those societies from the scratch.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...
Women and men
The main motivations of male and female animal and human courtship behavior and its different short and long time motivations are described in witty and thought-provoking detail and one might find oneself with the one or the other „That´s it.“ while reading.
Birth of ethics and moral
It´s such a tricky question to say at which stage of development an animal has the intelligence and empathy to be able to anticipate the feelings of other gang members and if morality should be seen as an element that is just possible under those requirements. As long as instincts, no higher thinking and cruel, but for the survival of the pack essential, group dynamics are the driving forces of the brain, talking about true evil spirit and all higher emotions, in general, would be a bit far-fetched.
Chimp dictator vs bonobo hippies
But in chimps and in us, there are so many examples of thresholds, conflicting biological and sociological structures, and close to impossible to solve mind games. For instance, the chimps organized their society like a dictatorship, which enabled them to fight wars against other groups of chimps and to keep the population docile. That´s the reason why the peaceful bonobos have no chance against chimps, just as a pacifistic state has no chance against a warmongering god-emperor.
Technology changes the game forever
But as soon as culture, technology, and civilization kick in, the old structures of power that enable the rise to world domination become dysfunctional and do more harm to the whole state than a change to democratic, fair, and sustainable government and economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_D...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_H...
Those states build their inner stability, education, welfare systems,… on the softy ideas of fairness, collegiality, sharing, and morality instead of technocratic or sick ideologic principles. It seems, as if there is an emancipated, progressive, open-minded government, the people are, gosh, happy!
Wrights progressivity rocks
Wright has written 3 of the, highly subjective, most inspiring, and important books I´ve ever read and I couldn´t choose which one to prefer; the description of the origins of faith in the evolution of god in The Evolution of God, one of the best descriptions of how to build a better society in Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment or this marvel of showing how primitive we are thanks to the core of our physiology and it´s hairy history.
What would we be without our cognitive biases producing replication crisis
The dark side of evolutionary biology/psychology is that other biased journalists, authors, politicians,… can easily use it to make their papers, ideologies, economic five-year-plan, fit to whatever they want, entering the realm of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replica....
That´s a huge problem of many fields of science, but the worst collateral damage is the deliberate misinterpretations of authors who clearly define their ideas as theories, which brings entire fields of knowledge in disrepute, culminating in the danger of nobody daring to publish new, interesting hypothesis.
Utilitarianism in forms like in Scandinavia is nice, but if the selfless genes are unable to perform right because of the negative, epigenetic pressure in failed states and dictatorships. Nothing can help except to rebuild those societies from the scratch.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...
July 2, 2007
Evolutionary Psychology is a dangerous field. In all of evolutionary science, there's a lot of temptation to endorse a just-so-story that happens to fit all your current data (or worse, ignore some of the data as noise). But this is Human evolution we are talking about and thus it becomes even more important that we A) get the story right B) understand how general trends apply to individual cases and C) don't draw think that science can dictate morality.
Surprisingly, the book is best on point C, showing how science can inform some moral debates but not settle them. It's also good on point B, making the qualification several times, but perhaps not forcefully enough for it to really sink in for all readers. Point A is my biggest issue. The majority of the book was well argued, well documented, and likely right. The problem is that when the author is speculating, he tends not to tell you he is. The book might be a "must read" for everyone, but it's a "must read carefully".
I especially loved the use of Darwin's life for examples and the comparisons to J.S. Mill and Samuel Smiles, all of three of whom published classic works in 1859.
Surprisingly, the book is best on point C, showing how science can inform some moral debates but not settle them. It's also good on point B, making the qualification several times, but perhaps not forcefully enough for it to really sink in for all readers. Point A is my biggest issue. The majority of the book was well argued, well documented, and likely right. The problem is that when the author is speculating, he tends not to tell you he is. The book might be a "must read" for everyone, but it's a "must read carefully".
I especially loved the use of Darwin's life for examples and the comparisons to J.S. Mill and Samuel Smiles, all of three of whom published classic works in 1859.
December 15, 2008
This is one of those seminal books (to me at least) that has a lot to say about the nature of human relationships.
Quotes:
p 36 - ...while there are various reasons why it could make Darwinian sense for a woman to mate with more than one man (maybe the first man was infertile, for example) there comes a time when having more sex just isn't worth the trouble. Better to get some rest or grab a bite to eat. For a man, unless he's really on the brink of collapse or starvation, that time never comes. Each new partner offers a very real chance to get more genes into the next generation - a much more valuable prospect, in the Darwinian calculus, than a nap or a meal. As the evolutionary psychologists martin Daly and Margo Wilson have succinctly put it: for males "there is always the possibility of doing better."
There is a sense in which a female can do better too, but it has to do with quality, not quantity. Giving birth to a child involves a huge commitment of time, not to mention energy and nature has put a low ceiling on how many such enterprises she can undertake. So each child, from her (genetic) point of view, is an extremely precious gene machine. Its ability to survive and then, in turn, produce its own young gene machines is of mammoth importance. It makes Darwinian sense, then, for a woman to be selective about the man who is going to help her build each gene machine.
p 38
whatever the ancestral environment was like, it wasn't much like the environment we're in now. We aren't designed to stand on crowded subway platforms, or to live in suburbs next door to people we never talk to, or to get hired and fired, or to watch the evening news. This disjunction between the contexts of our design and our lives is probably responsible for much psychopathology, as well as much suffering of a less dramatic sort.
Quotes:
p 36 - ...while there are various reasons why it could make Darwinian sense for a woman to mate with more than one man (maybe the first man was infertile, for example) there comes a time when having more sex just isn't worth the trouble. Better to get some rest or grab a bite to eat. For a man, unless he's really on the brink of collapse or starvation, that time never comes. Each new partner offers a very real chance to get more genes into the next generation - a much more valuable prospect, in the Darwinian calculus, than a nap or a meal. As the evolutionary psychologists martin Daly and Margo Wilson have succinctly put it: for males "there is always the possibility of doing better."
There is a sense in which a female can do better too, but it has to do with quality, not quantity. Giving birth to a child involves a huge commitment of time, not to mention energy and nature has put a low ceiling on how many such enterprises she can undertake. So each child, from her (genetic) point of view, is an extremely precious gene machine. Its ability to survive and then, in turn, produce its own young gene machines is of mammoth importance. It makes Darwinian sense, then, for a woman to be selective about the man who is going to help her build each gene machine.
p 38
whatever the ancestral environment was like, it wasn't much like the environment we're in now. We aren't designed to stand on crowded subway platforms, or to live in suburbs next door to people we never talk to, or to get hired and fired, or to watch the evening news. This disjunction between the contexts of our design and our lives is probably responsible for much psychopathology, as well as much suffering of a less dramatic sort.
May 19, 2012
If you find yourself uncomfortable while hearing about genes for altruism or genes for retaliation..etc., then this book is for you. It will clear many misunderstandings about what is meant by a Selfish Gene. In fact, the book has many explanations that would have been good for Dawkins to include in later editions of his book The Selfish Gene or write about later. Like Dawkins' book, The Moral Animal talks much about altruism and how it can be understood in the new Darwinian light (based on kin selection and reciprocal altruism).
The book is surely disturbing and Wright doesn't shy away from taking ideas to their logical conclusions. Many things are counter intuitive, like for example how monogamy is (contrary to the popular belief) good for men more than women, since in the former many men will be without wives but no women without husbands. He argues that monogamy was probably adopted lately in order to maintain social stability. It is a highly intelligent and earnest book. There's a beautiful technique used here by trying to explain Darwin's life (which is described by most as "saintly") in light of Evolutionary Psychology which I enjoyed immensely, with Darwin being the moral animal. However, like any science, some things are still speculative and need to be verified by data as Wright always reminds us.
Having said all this, I marveled at the first 300 pages or so of the book. It changed many of my views about Evolution which I took for granted. We want to think of ourselves as animals with an extra part controlling the animal. This is most certainly false. We are animals capable (but not efficient) of contemplating our being an animal. Our brains are battlefields between our nature and our nurture (unlike what "anti-genetic determinists" think about Evolutionary Psychology).
What I liked less in this book were the parts about Utilitarianism and how we can overcome our genetic tendencies. I agree with many Utilitarian ideas which I read elsewhere, but I was somehow disappointed here after the amazing explanations of Evolutionary Psychology. This part needed further elaboration and treatment, and some ideas were left midway. However, it is a great introduction to the topic and I highly recommend it. The first 300 pages easily deserve a 5-star rating.
The book is surely disturbing and Wright doesn't shy away from taking ideas to their logical conclusions. Many things are counter intuitive, like for example how monogamy is (contrary to the popular belief) good for men more than women, since in the former many men will be without wives but no women without husbands. He argues that monogamy was probably adopted lately in order to maintain social stability. It is a highly intelligent and earnest book. There's a beautiful technique used here by trying to explain Darwin's life (which is described by most as "saintly") in light of Evolutionary Psychology which I enjoyed immensely, with Darwin being the moral animal. However, like any science, some things are still speculative and need to be verified by data as Wright always reminds us.
Having said all this, I marveled at the first 300 pages or so of the book. It changed many of my views about Evolution which I took for granted. We want to think of ourselves as animals with an extra part controlling the animal. This is most certainly false. We are animals capable (but not efficient) of contemplating our being an animal. Our brains are battlefields between our nature and our nurture (unlike what "anti-genetic determinists" think about Evolutionary Psychology).
What I liked less in this book were the parts about Utilitarianism and how we can overcome our genetic tendencies. I agree with many Utilitarian ideas which I read elsewhere, but I was somehow disappointed here after the amazing explanations of Evolutionary Psychology. This part needed further elaboration and treatment, and some ideas were left midway. However, it is a great introduction to the topic and I highly recommend it. The first 300 pages easily deserve a 5-star rating.
September 6, 2007
He doesn't find your cat story interesting, and he won't call in the morning. He has gazillions of sperm and you have 400 eggs. Harry was right when he told Sally men and women can't be friends. Any guy who tells you otherwise is just trying to sleep with you. They're all trying to sleep with you, all the time. Your co-workers, your friends, the traffic cop, your high school math teacher, your cousins, all of them. all the time. Even the gay ones. And that's why they invented fire, the wheel, carrots, sport cars, and football. To get some.
March 28, 2022
[Ooooops. I read both this and another book of Wright's called Three Scientists and their Gods a long time ago, and now realize this review is a mishmash of the two books together. No worries -- read them both if you're so inclined.]
This book served as the keystone that finally allowed me to put my worldview together -- a worldview that has certainly been tweaked here and there since then, but overall has remained stable. The world makes so much more sense when you realize the extent to which people's behaviors lie outside our conscious control. This idea is no longer controversial and has found its way into everything from sports psychology to widespread meditation to employee relations, but it takes some time to really internalize it.
The book, like evolutionary psychology itself, is guilty of overreach, but the obviousness and applicability of the central ideas are as clear and concrete in everyday life as gravity. The brain, like the rest of the human organism, is the result of an endless, amoral competitive process in which whatever works, wins.
Whatever works, wins. Hoo boy, that's an easy statement to misinterpret, misapply and wreak untold damage on society with. Which is not what this book is about -- what it's about is what that statement really means. Ayn Rand would find little to celebrate here.
Stepping back a minute, Wright's approach to this morass -- respectful but fascinated and amused -- seems to be the right one. Long, long after I've read it, certain passages are still stuck in my mind: Commenting that an agreeable person uses the word 'yes' the way children use ketchup, for example. A more complex example, in which some very abstract ideas about information theory were distilled down to an equation that looked exactly like a famous fundamental equation of thermodynamics was like traveling to Mars and finding a Burger King. Wright, a student of nonfictional master John McPhee, chose correctly to focus on three individual researchers, and let the science emerge through their stories.
I'm not going to try and explain the central lessons of the book here, but there is one fascinating subplot that, once understood, makes the world much more understandable. Many of us believe that 'morals' are something taught to us by Mom and Dad, by our schoolteachers and church leaders -- that without their guidance, we would quickly descend into a Lord of the Flies scenario. But if that's true, how did we end up living, for the most part, in relative harmony, even when several million of us are squashed into a small area?
This tendency towards social harmony rather than complete anarchy is an innate part of human nature. We label these innate decision drivers "morals," and they are very different for cats or for H. pylori. Sometimes things go out of whack, but it is a self-correcting system and sooner or later things settle down again, and always have. Have a nice day.
This book served as the keystone that finally allowed me to put my worldview together -- a worldview that has certainly been tweaked here and there since then, but overall has remained stable. The world makes so much more sense when you realize the extent to which people's behaviors lie outside our conscious control. This idea is no longer controversial and has found its way into everything from sports psychology to widespread meditation to employee relations, but it takes some time to really internalize it.
The book, like evolutionary psychology itself, is guilty of overreach, but the obviousness and applicability of the central ideas are as clear and concrete in everyday life as gravity. The brain, like the rest of the human organism, is the result of an endless, amoral competitive process in which whatever works, wins.
Whatever works, wins. Hoo boy, that's an easy statement to misinterpret, misapply and wreak untold damage on society with. Which is not what this book is about -- what it's about is what that statement really means. Ayn Rand would find little to celebrate here.
Stepping back a minute, Wright's approach to this morass -- respectful but fascinated and amused -- seems to be the right one. Long, long after I've read it, certain passages are still stuck in my mind: Commenting that an agreeable person uses the word 'yes' the way children use ketchup, for example. A more complex example, in which some very abstract ideas about information theory were distilled down to an equation that looked exactly like a famous fundamental equation of thermodynamics was like traveling to Mars and finding a Burger King. Wright, a student of nonfictional master John McPhee, chose correctly to focus on three individual researchers, and let the science emerge through their stories.
I'm not going to try and explain the central lessons of the book here, but there is one fascinating subplot that, once understood, makes the world much more understandable. Many of us believe that 'morals' are something taught to us by Mom and Dad, by our schoolteachers and church leaders -- that without their guidance, we would quickly descend into a Lord of the Flies scenario. But if that's true, how did we end up living, for the most part, in relative harmony, even when several million of us are squashed into a small area?
This tendency towards social harmony rather than complete anarchy is an innate part of human nature. We label these innate decision drivers "morals," and they are very different for cats or for H. pylori. Sometimes things go out of whack, but it is a self-correcting system and sooner or later things settle down again, and always have. Have a nice day.
December 19, 2018
I believe whoever wants to better understand the world, know why they feel what they feel and know why people behave the way they do, has to read evolutionary psychology.
This book provided me with two critical pieces I had been missing in the puzzle of evolution.
I had learned that many desires of ours are the manifestation of our genes. I also had learned that the environment is also responsible for shaping a huge portion of our behavior. But I lacked the knowledge of the relationship between the two and I also didn't know the precise relation of the environment and the genes in forging our behavior. Now, thanx to this book, I do.
It turns out that the evolution implants knobs in our brain, but how low or high these knobs are set to, is determined by the environment. It was a huge revelation for me.
I also have been pondering the boundaries of morality. Is there any objective morality to which we can cling?
Yes, now I know and it is utilitarianism. Our behavior is moral to the extent that they benefit the people and contribute the good of all. This is a touchstone with which we can hope to discern if an act is moral.
The writing was exceptional, the structure and depth of the material were superb.
I loved the book, and profoundly recommend it to anyone who aspires to reach a higher intellectual level.
This book provided me with two critical pieces I had been missing in the puzzle of evolution.
I had learned that many desires of ours are the manifestation of our genes. I also had learned that the environment is also responsible for shaping a huge portion of our behavior. But I lacked the knowledge of the relationship between the two and I also didn't know the precise relation of the environment and the genes in forging our behavior. Now, thanx to this book, I do.
It turns out that the evolution implants knobs in our brain, but how low or high these knobs are set to, is determined by the environment. It was a huge revelation for me.
I also have been pondering the boundaries of morality. Is there any objective morality to which we can cling?
Yes, now I know and it is utilitarianism. Our behavior is moral to the extent that they benefit the people and contribute the good of all. This is a touchstone with which we can hope to discern if an act is moral.
The writing was exceptional, the structure and depth of the material were superb.
I loved the book, and profoundly recommend it to anyone who aspires to reach a higher intellectual level.
February 22, 2008
Evolutionary psychology has been used far too much to excuse men for raping women and fucking up our society with wars and patriarchy. I refuse to respect it; I think it's working to excuse us for the things we should be able to rise above. Wright does fight the absolutists and say this science is not an excuse for how much we hurt each other, but if he is so enlightened, can't he see that he is at the same time validating a science that is increasingly and more aggresively being used as fuel for the anti-anti-rape movement? He is saying, "I like this science and think it explains us," first and foremost. His fails to remember that simply calling it "science" attaches a term to it that, as history shows, leads people to use any of its findings for their own benefit, treating them inescapable laws. His one- and two-sentence scoldings about how we should rise above his "science's" findings fall short of undoing the damage for readers who will use this book for evil.
January 19, 2014
On the road from Gethsemane to Calvary I lost my way.
For some obscure reason when I read the last page of this book and put it down, the above quote from one of the Lewis television series sprang to mind. I had to recheck the internet to ensure that my memory was in fact correct.
I lost my way and my mission in fact with this book The Moral Animal on page 128/464 and my positive thoughts gradually diminished as I began the slippery downward slide to the last page. I thought it was excellently written up to then. This book promised me everything I wanted in a book on evolution and Darwin has interested and intrigued me for years, leading me onto my current fascination with genetics.
This was meant to show me the new science of evolutionary psychology but this didn’t prove to be the case.
It is a study of men and women and relationships. It compares the Victorian culture with ours today that I thought would be worth reading but there are too many personal interpretations, the book is not linear and it meanders, well to me anyway, everywhere. I’m not too sure either that I agree with the author’s views on natural selection.
As an example:
The way natural selection has worked its will is to make some things seem “obvious” and “right” and “desirable” and others “absurd” and “wrong” and “abhorrent”. We should probe our common sense reactions to evolutionary theories carefully before concluding that common sense itself isn’t a cognitive distortion created by evolution.
I’m sure that many individuals will view this work favourably but it’s not for me. I actually don’t like the writing style. My other problem is that I’ve already read a really good biography on Darwin and other excellent books on evolution, and I was hoping for something new here. If it is to be found within these pages, well obviously I’ve missed it.
This is another case of the book looking the part, promising marvellous things, having excellent reviews and proving to be disappointing. I chose badly on this occasion.
For some obscure reason when I read the last page of this book and put it down, the above quote from one of the Lewis television series sprang to mind. I had to recheck the internet to ensure that my memory was in fact correct.
I lost my way and my mission in fact with this book The Moral Animal on page 128/464 and my positive thoughts gradually diminished as I began the slippery downward slide to the last page. I thought it was excellently written up to then. This book promised me everything I wanted in a book on evolution and Darwin has interested and intrigued me for years, leading me onto my current fascination with genetics.
This was meant to show me the new science of evolutionary psychology but this didn’t prove to be the case.
It is a study of men and women and relationships. It compares the Victorian culture with ours today that I thought would be worth reading but there are too many personal interpretations, the book is not linear and it meanders, well to me anyway, everywhere. I’m not too sure either that I agree with the author’s views on natural selection.
As an example:
The way natural selection has worked its will is to make some things seem “obvious” and “right” and “desirable” and others “absurd” and “wrong” and “abhorrent”. We should probe our common sense reactions to evolutionary theories carefully before concluding that common sense itself isn’t a cognitive distortion created by evolution.
I’m sure that many individuals will view this work favourably but it’s not for me. I actually don’t like the writing style. My other problem is that I’ve already read a really good biography on Darwin and other excellent books on evolution, and I was hoping for something new here. If it is to be found within these pages, well obviously I’ve missed it.
This is another case of the book looking the part, promising marvellous things, having excellent reviews and proving to be disappointing. I chose badly on this occasion.
April 27, 2011
So where does man get his morals from? Some people would say God. That assumes there is some absolute idea of virtue and morals handed to us from the almighty. Best evidence against this? The Bible. Read the first four books of the Old Testament, not just the ten commandments, and then tell me you would want to live in a society that allows you to sell your daughter into slavery and stone your spouse for adultery. Clearly our ideas of morality evolve and continues to evolve...for the better in my opinion
Perhaps the question should be not where but how do we get morality and virtues. Sociology see social values as originating to unify people and protect themselves from their own savage natures. But if this is true why do people often choose an altruistic stance even when it goes against cultural edicts. Along comes the science of evolutionary psychology which states our morality is not from societal causes but our own genes. As genes originates physical changes, they also originate behaviors that help us survive through generations. The author illustrates, not just through human examples but other mammals, how certain moral behaviors have developed to insure survival, which in the sense of natural selection means to reproduce and leave lot of descendents. Not only are we genetically predisposed to behave in certain ways but we often go out of our way to deceive ourselves about this. Bye bye freewill.
Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is the new kid on the block. While evolution is an established fact, EP is young enough that the author of this thought-provoking book is often left to speculation, and he freely admits to this. However there is a lot to digest and ponder in these pages. Much is controversial and not just to fundamentalist Christians. Some have accused EP as condoning sexism and even rape. Not so. While Wright clearly states natural selection is only interested in survival not morality, he also realizes that if we understand the reason we do what we do, the more we can use this information for our own betterment. I personally think EP is too much in its infant stage to accept wholeheartedly but I must say I'm impressed with this excellent introduction to EP. Certainly this healthy examination of morals and mankind is a better choice than blindly accepting "God-dictated" edicts that have justified persecution and suffering through the ages.
Perhaps the question should be not where but how do we get morality and virtues. Sociology see social values as originating to unify people and protect themselves from their own savage natures. But if this is true why do people often choose an altruistic stance even when it goes against cultural edicts. Along comes the science of evolutionary psychology which states our morality is not from societal causes but our own genes. As genes originates physical changes, they also originate behaviors that help us survive through generations. The author illustrates, not just through human examples but other mammals, how certain moral behaviors have developed to insure survival, which in the sense of natural selection means to reproduce and leave lot of descendents. Not only are we genetically predisposed to behave in certain ways but we often go out of our way to deceive ourselves about this. Bye bye freewill.
Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is the new kid on the block. While evolution is an established fact, EP is young enough that the author of this thought-provoking book is often left to speculation, and he freely admits to this. However there is a lot to digest and ponder in these pages. Much is controversial and not just to fundamentalist Christians. Some have accused EP as condoning sexism and even rape. Not so. While Wright clearly states natural selection is only interested in survival not morality, he also realizes that if we understand the reason we do what we do, the more we can use this information for our own betterment. I personally think EP is too much in its infant stage to accept wholeheartedly but I must say I'm impressed with this excellent introduction to EP. Certainly this healthy examination of morals and mankind is a better choice than blindly accepting "God-dictated" edicts that have justified persecution and suffering through the ages.
April 20, 2008
First and foremost: an uncritical read of this book will leave you feeling cynical and a bit cheated. It ranks up there with E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (though I'll admit that I know those two primarily by reputation, having read excerpts and not their entireties). It would be very easy to find yourself getting defensive about the material presented in here; especially if you believe humans to be some special exception among animals.
Meanwhile, with a more critical approach, you'll find that you cannot get Robert Wright's text out of your head: it is insightful, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, and at times palpably funny. Plus, you will find that it informs a great many (all?) of the human discourse (verbal or otherwise) that you encounter daily -- how certain traits and behaviors came to be and the functions they serve.
Don't ask about their intentions though; we need to remember that evolution is goal-less, after all. Put most succinctly:
We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones.
What Robert Wright sets out to do with The Moral Animal is to take Darwin's life and oeuvre (primarily The Origin of Species), frame them with two other important contemporary writings (John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism and Samuel Smiles' Self-Help), and use that lens to execute a thorough analysis and discussion of Darwinism and evolution, how human civilizations evolved as a consequence of "reciprocal altruism", and capsulize all of this as the basis for what Wright calls evolutionary psychology. Wright's choice of style is an interesting one and reminds me vaguely of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: meticulous and technical scientific discussions of biology, genetics, and evolution are interspersed with nearly whimsical narratives that detail the life and times of Charles Darwin. For every page that cites Robert Trivers or Richard Dawkins, there is another that quotes Darwin's personal correspondence or illustrates the backdrop of Victorian society. Wright's is an interesting and compelling approach that makes that text very engaging and approachable. Which is not to suggest that the material is easy to follow; Wright does not shy away from getting denser and heavier as the work progresses -- there were many instances were I found that I needed to double-back over certain passages to "get it".
Again, for as dense and technical as much of Wright's writing is, he throws himself whole-heartedly into the text and makes the material come to life. There is something strangely erotic about his in-depth scientific analysis of mate competition, cuckoldry, and evolutionary strategizing. There is something perversely amusing about his apples-to-oranges comparisons of Darwin and Freud. There is something appropriately voyeuristic about reading letters from Darwin to friends and seeing how they reflect elements of his own theories.
In many ways, Wright's eloquent prose is currency for getting us through some very challenging material. As I've already discussed, there is the implicit challenge of reading technical literature (especially as a layperson). More so however, is the explicit challenge that Wright lays out early in the text: that we all carry a great deal of cultural baggage that sets us up to reject the logical conclusions posited by Darwinism and evolutionary psychology. Wright spends the first half of the text building up to the discussions that give the book its title. By the time we get to Part Three: Social Strife, it is no small wonder why Wright keeps circling back on the example of bluegill sunfish and the equilibrium between "nest builders" and "mate poachers". The animal kingdom seems to contain not a more succinct microcosm of industry versus opportunism, of cost/benefit economies and stability through constant adjustments in strategy.
The cornerstone of the second half of The Moral Animal is reciprocal altruism, a theory introduced in the early 1970s by Robert Trivers. Wright gives reciprocal altruism the thorough treatment: he describes how it may (must?) have evolved, the benefits it bestows on an organism (or, more accurately, its genes), how reciprocal altruism gave rise to human societies and civilizations, and the feedback loop between society and biology (i.e., meme and gene) as mediated through the extremely complex manifestation of reciprocal altruism in human beings. At first glance, Wright's exposition may appear cynical and determinist: even "on our best behavior", we are just a product of our genes -- even agape presumes a pay-off in the form of a more "loving" and stable society for our offspring. Swing such a cynical evaluation around to the other end and you are using these postulates for justification of extramarital affairs, for rape and for genocide, or for whatever other Twinkie Defense you might conjecture. Wright is very conscious of this and tries to be very delicate and deliberate in his treatment of all this; he even goes so far as to label it "postmodern morality" and he summarily eviscerates these conclusions as damaging and naïve. (Perhaps he is so explicit about this because he wishes to avoid being damned in the same way as E.O. Wilson when he published Sociobiology.) Wright suggests that if anything "separates" humans from animals, it is self-reflection, the capacity that we have to evaluate our actions (and the actions of others) and consequently judge those actions. Wright asserts that even if the content of our judgments (and our abilities to make those judgments) are evolved tendencies, that we can on some level make choices about the "rightness" of a given action; that our memes (though he eschews that word) and genes interact and we express agency in our evolution.
Of course, he also appears to caution us that there is a great deal of cultural transmission going on in human evolution right now and that meme transmission is fragile and tenuous even under the best conditions. Hyperbolic though it may sound, Wright appears to suggest that we are one catastrophic event away from being free agents in the game of evolution.
Underlying all of this is the assertion that reciprocal altruism is a non-zero-sum game where each player (i.e., the genes that are making efforts through the organism to reproduce) functions as a kind of accountant of favors. Each organism is playing life and evolution as a game where sometimes the best move is to take a short-term loss, where sometimes the best move is to take a little more than what you're owed but not as much as you could exploit. In a way, this is a hopelessly romantic view of evolution -- that even despite the ubiquitously short half-life of any pleasure, that an organism might still "choose" a small short-term sacrifice for a greater long-term gain. In reading the entirety of Wright's argument however, it is certainly reasonable to assume that this is a pragmatic trait, that it's a complexly evolved response system for economies of scarcity -- that there is in fact nothing romantic about charity or sacrifice or romance or the outlaw exploiter. Mechanistically, we are all cogs in the perpetual motion machine of evolution's equilibrium. And as such, our morals (or lack thereof) are the motions of that machine balancing itself.
I could see how some, perhaps many might find this thought is unsettling. With his re-telling of Darwin's tale, Wright illustrates a Copernicanian re-centering of humankind, its origins, and even its humanity. As mentioned above, it can be easy to carve out portions of this hypothesis and serve them in cynical isolation. Taken as a whole, it is a strong composite view of humankind's genetic and cultural make-up, the forces that drove us to where we are, and the agency we may express over our destiny.
Meanwhile, with a more critical approach, you'll find that you cannot get Robert Wright's text out of your head: it is insightful, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, and at times palpably funny. Plus, you will find that it informs a great many (all?) of the human discourse (verbal or otherwise) that you encounter daily -- how certain traits and behaviors came to be and the functions they serve.
Don't ask about their intentions though; we need to remember that evolution is goal-less, after all. Put most succinctly:
We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones.
What Robert Wright sets out to do with The Moral Animal is to take Darwin's life and oeuvre (primarily The Origin of Species), frame them with two other important contemporary writings (John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism and Samuel Smiles' Self-Help), and use that lens to execute a thorough analysis and discussion of Darwinism and evolution, how human civilizations evolved as a consequence of "reciprocal altruism", and capsulize all of this as the basis for what Wright calls evolutionary psychology. Wright's choice of style is an interesting one and reminds me vaguely of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: meticulous and technical scientific discussions of biology, genetics, and evolution are interspersed with nearly whimsical narratives that detail the life and times of Charles Darwin. For every page that cites Robert Trivers or Richard Dawkins, there is another that quotes Darwin's personal correspondence or illustrates the backdrop of Victorian society. Wright's is an interesting and compelling approach that makes that text very engaging and approachable. Which is not to suggest that the material is easy to follow; Wright does not shy away from getting denser and heavier as the work progresses -- there were many instances were I found that I needed to double-back over certain passages to "get it".
Again, for as dense and technical as much of Wright's writing is, he throws himself whole-heartedly into the text and makes the material come to life. There is something strangely erotic about his in-depth scientific analysis of mate competition, cuckoldry, and evolutionary strategizing. There is something perversely amusing about his apples-to-oranges comparisons of Darwin and Freud. There is something appropriately voyeuristic about reading letters from Darwin to friends and seeing how they reflect elements of his own theories.
In many ways, Wright's eloquent prose is currency for getting us through some very challenging material. As I've already discussed, there is the implicit challenge of reading technical literature (especially as a layperson). More so however, is the explicit challenge that Wright lays out early in the text: that we all carry a great deal of cultural baggage that sets us up to reject the logical conclusions posited by Darwinism and evolutionary psychology. Wright spends the first half of the text building up to the discussions that give the book its title. By the time we get to Part Three: Social Strife, it is no small wonder why Wright keeps circling back on the example of bluegill sunfish and the equilibrium between "nest builders" and "mate poachers". The animal kingdom seems to contain not a more succinct microcosm of industry versus opportunism, of cost/benefit economies and stability through constant adjustments in strategy.
The cornerstone of the second half of The Moral Animal is reciprocal altruism, a theory introduced in the early 1970s by Robert Trivers. Wright gives reciprocal altruism the thorough treatment: he describes how it may (must?) have evolved, the benefits it bestows on an organism (or, more accurately, its genes), how reciprocal altruism gave rise to human societies and civilizations, and the feedback loop between society and biology (i.e., meme and gene) as mediated through the extremely complex manifestation of reciprocal altruism in human beings. At first glance, Wright's exposition may appear cynical and determinist: even "on our best behavior", we are just a product of our genes -- even agape presumes a pay-off in the form of a more "loving" and stable society for our offspring. Swing such a cynical evaluation around to the other end and you are using these postulates for justification of extramarital affairs, for rape and for genocide, or for whatever other Twinkie Defense you might conjecture. Wright is very conscious of this and tries to be very delicate and deliberate in his treatment of all this; he even goes so far as to label it "postmodern morality" and he summarily eviscerates these conclusions as damaging and naïve. (Perhaps he is so explicit about this because he wishes to avoid being damned in the same way as E.O. Wilson when he published Sociobiology.) Wright suggests that if anything "separates" humans from animals, it is self-reflection, the capacity that we have to evaluate our actions (and the actions of others) and consequently judge those actions. Wright asserts that even if the content of our judgments (and our abilities to make those judgments) are evolved tendencies, that we can on some level make choices about the "rightness" of a given action; that our memes (though he eschews that word) and genes interact and we express agency in our evolution.
Of course, he also appears to caution us that there is a great deal of cultural transmission going on in human evolution right now and that meme transmission is fragile and tenuous even under the best conditions. Hyperbolic though it may sound, Wright appears to suggest that we are one catastrophic event away from being free agents in the game of evolution.
Underlying all of this is the assertion that reciprocal altruism is a non-zero-sum game where each player (i.e., the genes that are making efforts through the organism to reproduce) functions as a kind of accountant of favors. Each organism is playing life and evolution as a game where sometimes the best move is to take a short-term loss, where sometimes the best move is to take a little more than what you're owed but not as much as you could exploit. In a way, this is a hopelessly romantic view of evolution -- that even despite the ubiquitously short half-life of any pleasure, that an organism might still "choose" a small short-term sacrifice for a greater long-term gain. In reading the entirety of Wright's argument however, it is certainly reasonable to assume that this is a pragmatic trait, that it's a complexly evolved response system for economies of scarcity -- that there is in fact nothing romantic about charity or sacrifice or romance or the outlaw exploiter. Mechanistically, we are all cogs in the perpetual motion machine of evolution's equilibrium. And as such, our morals (or lack thereof) are the motions of that machine balancing itself.
I could see how some, perhaps many might find this thought is unsettling. With his re-telling of Darwin's tale, Wright illustrates a Copernicanian re-centering of humankind, its origins, and even its humanity. As mentioned above, it can be easy to carve out portions of this hypothesis and serve them in cynical isolation. Taken as a whole, it is a strong composite view of humankind's genetic and cultural make-up, the forces that drove us to where we are, and the agency we may express over our destiny.
March 25, 2009
Dear Evolutionary Psychology, You are bullshit. Most sciences evolve from get-your-hands-dirty research-discovery-more-research cycles, but evo-psych evolved to meet the need of the media to have a constant influx of stories justifying sexism through "science."
So suck it. You are rejected.
So suck it. You are rejected.
February 19, 2009
This book is about 1/3 decent application of evolutionary theory, 1/3 stretching theory to cover subjects/behaviors that it might fit but there is no real evidence for (just logical reasoning), and 1/3 arm-waiving of barely thought-out evolutionary explanations. It also seems to be based largely on a few papers written in the '70s, constantly bringing up the same papers. Note the number of times the author mentions Trivers' papers. Additionally, the tone of the book (or train of thought of the writer) seemed to change a lot, which made for kind of awkward transitions when reading multiple sections in one sitting.
On a side note, I did find the anecdotes about Darwin's life and relationships pretty interesting, and a funny choice for use as examples of evolution in social behavior.
Even though I didn't particularly like much of this book, I hope people that do read this can read it with a grain of salt and a little thought: it can make for some good discussions if you read it with someone else.
On a side note, I did find the anecdotes about Darwin's life and relationships pretty interesting, and a funny choice for use as examples of evolution in social behavior.
Even though I didn't particularly like much of this book, I hope people that do read this can read it with a grain of salt and a little thought: it can make for some good discussions if you read it with someone else.
January 8, 2019
When Christopher Ryan (author of Sex at Dawn), suggested another compelling book to read: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, I was adamant enough that almost all my nagging personal questions about morality and discernment will be widely explained from an evolutionary and biological point of view.
True as what most book reviews say, Robert explores the most fascinating, sometimes-controversial concepts that affects the way we make decisions in our lives. This is the reason why books like this is such a winner!
Be open to dive deep into a rabbit hole discussion about religion, relationships, friendship, sex, love, status, self-esteem and our social networks.
What people consider good and beneficial for them may merely be based from the principle of social conditioning.
I personally feel that because of Wright’s clear and lucid way of explaining crucial matters, his writing has deeply changed my perspectives in some aspects of my life. This book is packed with immense knowledge about Evolutionary Psychology. The obvious premise, of course, that I agree with is when Wright presents that if anything separates animals from humans, it is self-reflection (the ability to evaluate our actions and the actions of others) and consequently judge those actions and morally act upon it. I need to listen to it again to pinpoint its flaws.
A must read...but a must read with extra care! #themoralanimal #robertwright
True as what most book reviews say, Robert explores the most fascinating, sometimes-controversial concepts that affects the way we make decisions in our lives. This is the reason why books like this is such a winner!
Be open to dive deep into a rabbit hole discussion about religion, relationships, friendship, sex, love, status, self-esteem and our social networks.
What people consider good and beneficial for them may merely be based from the principle of social conditioning.
I personally feel that because of Wright’s clear and lucid way of explaining crucial matters, his writing has deeply changed my perspectives in some aspects of my life. This book is packed with immense knowledge about Evolutionary Psychology. The obvious premise, of course, that I agree with is when Wright presents that if anything separates animals from humans, it is self-reflection (the ability to evaluate our actions and the actions of others) and consequently judge those actions and morally act upon it. I need to listen to it again to pinpoint its flaws.
A must read...but a must read with extra care! #themoralanimal #robertwright
June 2, 2022
This is a really cynical take on human nature so you must read carefully. There are many insights and hard truths here that are thought provoking, but he tends to stretch things a bit to have it neatly fit into a Darwinian framework. The conclusion reached by Darwin is that human beings have the capacity to be moral animals, but that we inherently aren't always moral. He writes:
“In this sense, yes, we are moral; we have, at least, the technical capacity for leading a truly examined life; we have self-awareness, memory, foresight, and judgment. But the last several decades of evolutionary thought lead one to emphasize the word technical. Chronically subjecting ourselves to a true and bracing moral scrutiny, and adjusting our behavior accordingly, is not something we are designed for. We are potentially moral animals — which is more than any other animal can say — but we aren't naturally moral animals. To be moral animals, we must realize how thoroughly we aren't”
The book explores topics ranging from marriage to friendship to social status to altruism and how all behaviour is ultimately rooted in self-interest and passing our genes on to the next generation.
“In this sense, yes, we are moral; we have, at least, the technical capacity for leading a truly examined life; we have self-awareness, memory, foresight, and judgment. But the last several decades of evolutionary thought lead one to emphasize the word technical. Chronically subjecting ourselves to a true and bracing moral scrutiny, and adjusting our behavior accordingly, is not something we are designed for. We are potentially moral animals — which is more than any other animal can say — but we aren't naturally moral animals. To be moral animals, we must realize how thoroughly we aren't”
The book explores topics ranging from marriage to friendship to social status to altruism and how all behaviour is ultimately rooted in self-interest and passing our genes on to the next generation.
December 7, 2008
I'm less than half way through this and I still can't find out what the author's focus is. He started out with a description of some of the different ideas about evolutionary psychology. Then he shifted to the biography of Darwin. Then to early childhood development. Now he is drawing conclusions, loosely based on Darwin's personal history and some of his letters, that I seriously question.
I hope that this book gets better and a little more focused.
-Joe-
I'm 3/4 of the way through and the author does not have a focus. This is just a bunch of notes (some totally unrelated). I'll not finish this book. The title and description are very misleading.
-Joe-
I hope that this book gets better and a little more focused.
-Joe-
I'm 3/4 of the way through and the author does not have a focus. This is just a bunch of notes (some totally unrelated). I'll not finish this book. The title and description are very misleading.
-Joe-
December 15, 2017
I loved this one. As soon as I was done, I picked up all of the author's other books. It was thought-provoking, well-written, and even applicable to life. Though I was uncomfortable with some of the broad generalizations on gender and sex and his flippant dismissal of feminist claims about the social fluidity of gender. Seems to me that more recent research (i.e. Cordelia Fine et al) have debunked some of the studies he relies on (like the famous fruit fly reproduction study). I would love to see Wright respond to those criticisms. I suspect that neither side is totally right on this. That yes, men and women are wired differently, but no, not as different as Wright believes.
November 17, 2021
Very well written and enjoyable discussion of evolutionary psychology, blended with biography of Charles Darwin. Minus one star for Part 4, which I thought was not as good (especially the author's simplistic presentation and naïve embrace of utilitarianism). Somewhat disappointed the book ended on a low note, but Parts 1-3 were excellent.
January 20, 2010
Here's the problem with evolutionary psychology: its style of reasoning is all what I believe the brainy types call ex post facto. That is, practitioners take a look at features or patterns of human behavior today, then ponder about why that kind of activity might have been advantageous in "the evolutionary environment," back when we were out there gathering and scavenging and occasionally trying to take down one of our fellow large mammals. Explanations tend to be extremely tidy, and awfully difficult to test.
For all that, many of the ideas of evolutionary psychology seem to have a startling degree of explanatory power. Probably the best-known example regards the widely cross-cultural sexual behavior of men and women. Men's brains, or bodies, or genes, "want" them to sleep with essentially any woman who moves, we are told, because this is in the best interest of pushing his genetic material forward. Women's brains, on the other hand, "want" them to snag and secure a mate who is likely to stick around and help gather food, run off predators, and do the dishes. Since these were successful reproductive strategies back in the day, the logic goes, more humans who embodied these characteristics survived to spawn the next generation.
Suspiciously neat and tidy? You bet! Able to explain a nearly universal observation about human behavior in a logical and intuitively attractive fashion? Absolutely! A tricky business, this evolutionary psychology.
The Human Condition
Robert Wright's 1994 synopsis of what was at the time still a relatively new academic discipline is beautifully written, balancing provocative arguments with careful reasoning and considerable erudition. He covers, for instance, the pros and cons of polygamy, and polygamy emerges seeming like a pretty reasonable option. The human drive to seek status, our frequent tendency to discount and reject strangers, and our peculiar habit of developing friendships are all traced to the possible genetic advantage that they would confer in the long eons of prehistory.
Some readers might be disconcerted by evolutionary psychology's apparent reduction of all human motivation and morality to pure biological self-interest. But this is hardly a new concept. Hobbes blew my mind all the way back in college, after all, with a vigorous argument that whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. Oh, and he wrote that in 1651. I bet he wasn't the first cynic to come down the path, either.
But Wright's look at the human condition is less of a bummer than it could be, anyway. What saves us -- or could save us -- is the mechanism of "love," a genetic tic that confers a reproductive advantage by aiding the survival of the offspring and close relatives of those who possess it. Because kin groups united by love in the evolutionary environment tended to succeed at the expense of every-primate-for-itself kin groups, we have inherited the capacity to feel fond and protective of each other. Now, living in (basically) the post-evolutionary environment, we can more or less choose to extend our capacity of love to people who don't share our genetic material -- friends, a community, a nation, even a stranger on the other side of the world. Ultimately, Wright's prescription for the human condition is much the same of that in Ozzie in his epic rock anthem Crazy Train: "Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate."
There is also some business about whether we possess free will or are just the expressions of a mechanistic brain chemistry. The answer, if I read it right, is that we are probably mechanistic, but it's important not to act like you think so.
The Darwinian Condition
The Moral Animal applies each of its... findings? insights? speculations? ...to the case study of a single human being. That human: Charles Darwin. So, a chapter about the evolutionary psychology of courtship will be followed by a chapter about Darwin's courtship, and how it did or didn't seem to embody evolutionary psychological principles. This structure is pretty weird, to say the least, but in practice it is not nearly as clunky as you might expect. The case-study aspect is actually kind of interesting, and Darwin left a massive-enough paper trail that there's plenty of documentary evidence of his thinking. Plus, the continuous weaving of the modern perspective with Darwin's own development of his ideas points out areas where he anticipated ideas that wouldn't be fully developed for more than a century, where he went off on tangents that have since been discredited, and where he seems to have been afraid to tread.
My only complaint about this book is that it is seventeen years old. It is written very much as a dispatch from a new and exciting area of science, and I am sure that much has happened in the interim. Are Wright's ideas now passé? Have they been bolstered and supplemented by lots of exciting new research? I dunno. Meanwhile, a few details he cites in support of his arguments, in particular relating to modern hunter-gather societies and to neurochemistry, are so out of date that even a casual reader dude like myself can flag them. I imagine that someone has written a newer synthesis of the field. I just hope that they wrote it half as gracefully and entertainingly as Wright wrote The Moral Animal.
For all that, many of the ideas of evolutionary psychology seem to have a startling degree of explanatory power. Probably the best-known example regards the widely cross-cultural sexual behavior of men and women. Men's brains, or bodies, or genes, "want" them to sleep with essentially any woman who moves, we are told, because this is in the best interest of pushing his genetic material forward. Women's brains, on the other hand, "want" them to snag and secure a mate who is likely to stick around and help gather food, run off predators, and do the dishes. Since these were successful reproductive strategies back in the day, the logic goes, more humans who embodied these characteristics survived to spawn the next generation.
Suspiciously neat and tidy? You bet! Able to explain a nearly universal observation about human behavior in a logical and intuitively attractive fashion? Absolutely! A tricky business, this evolutionary psychology.
The Human Condition
Robert Wright's 1994 synopsis of what was at the time still a relatively new academic discipline is beautifully written, balancing provocative arguments with careful reasoning and considerable erudition. He covers, for instance, the pros and cons of polygamy, and polygamy emerges seeming like a pretty reasonable option. The human drive to seek status, our frequent tendency to discount and reject strangers, and our peculiar habit of developing friendships are all traced to the possible genetic advantage that they would confer in the long eons of prehistory.
Some readers might be disconcerted by evolutionary psychology's apparent reduction of all human motivation and morality to pure biological self-interest. But this is hardly a new concept. Hobbes blew my mind all the way back in college, after all, with a vigorous argument that whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. Oh, and he wrote that in 1651. I bet he wasn't the first cynic to come down the path, either.
But Wright's look at the human condition is less of a bummer than it could be, anyway. What saves us -- or could save us -- is the mechanism of "love," a genetic tic that confers a reproductive advantage by aiding the survival of the offspring and close relatives of those who possess it. Because kin groups united by love in the evolutionary environment tended to succeed at the expense of every-primate-for-itself kin groups, we have inherited the capacity to feel fond and protective of each other. Now, living in (basically) the post-evolutionary environment, we can more or less choose to extend our capacity of love to people who don't share our genetic material -- friends, a community, a nation, even a stranger on the other side of the world. Ultimately, Wright's prescription for the human condition is much the same of that in Ozzie in his epic rock anthem Crazy Train: "Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate."
There is also some business about whether we possess free will or are just the expressions of a mechanistic brain chemistry. The answer, if I read it right, is that we are probably mechanistic, but it's important not to act like you think so.
The Darwinian Condition
The Moral Animal applies each of its... findings? insights? speculations? ...to the case study of a single human being. That human: Charles Darwin. So, a chapter about the evolutionary psychology of courtship will be followed by a chapter about Darwin's courtship, and how it did or didn't seem to embody evolutionary psychological principles. This structure is pretty weird, to say the least, but in practice it is not nearly as clunky as you might expect. The case-study aspect is actually kind of interesting, and Darwin left a massive-enough paper trail that there's plenty of documentary evidence of his thinking. Plus, the continuous weaving of the modern perspective with Darwin's own development of his ideas points out areas where he anticipated ideas that wouldn't be fully developed for more than a century, where he went off on tangents that have since been discredited, and where he seems to have been afraid to tread.
My only complaint about this book is that it is seventeen years old. It is written very much as a dispatch from a new and exciting area of science, and I am sure that much has happened in the interim. Are Wright's ideas now passé? Have they been bolstered and supplemented by lots of exciting new research? I dunno. Meanwhile, a few details he cites in support of his arguments, in particular relating to modern hunter-gather societies and to neurochemistry, are so out of date that even a casual reader dude like myself can flag them. I imagine that someone has written a newer synthesis of the field. I just hope that they wrote it half as gracefully and entertainingly as Wright wrote The Moral Animal.
August 31, 2018
This book would have been a 5-star work if Wright hadn’t insisted on incorporating the half-Darwin-biography model. It might sound cute on paper to analyze Darwin’s life through the lens of evolutionary psychology, but in practice it’s distracting, cumbersome and time consuming. The book could have been half as long and many times better if the reader wasn’t forced to learn about the color of Darwin’s socks. Still, the good parts of the text are fantastic.
November 19, 2009
a man's justification for bad behaviour
September 1, 2021
Not a huge fan of how he used Darwin's life to organize this book. It was a little distracting and it didn't seem to work for me.... but I did find this really fascinating. It is a LOT of information to take in though, which is why it took me almost 2 years to read. I do feel like I will revisit this and read chapters here and there so I can chew on this information more. I am so fascinated by evolutionary psychology, and this was a great deep dive into it... just don't expect to read this in one week.
April 18, 2013
"...bear in mind that the feeling of moral 'rightness' is something natural selection created so that people would employ it selfishly. Morality, you could almost say, was designed to be misused by its own definition." -- p. 344, The Moral Animal
Now if them ain't fightin' words, I don't know what is.
This book started slow for me but after the first chapter or so it starts to rock. Wright does a clever bit here, using Darwin himself as a subject for explicating the processes of natural selection and evolutionary psychology. So like two books in one, the biography being a freebie. Plus Wright's an engaging and witty writer; there are deep considerations throughout the book and a genuine laugh every few pages.
Wright really wins, though, when he's at his most thoughtfully provocative. In a freak example of truth in advertising, the back cover declares: "...this book compels us to rethink our most basic moral assumptions, with lasting implications for our public policy as well as for our intimate daily actions." That's no hyperbole. Pretty much wherever you stand on the atheist-agnostic-believer spectrum, the rug's yanked out from under you. (This goes for you too, nihilists.) One of Wright's main assertions, boiled way down, is that everything we believe in our deepest heart of hearts, the moral code we claim to live by and whatever we're dead certain is our Core Truth, is just a trick of natural selection; a device to further evolution's aims. And he's really damned convincing.
Whether you buy Wright's arguments or not, I submit it's a worthy exercise to try standing outside our own biases; to submit our beliefs to the skeptical scrutiny we apply to others' opposing beliefs; to question our behaviors and motives as witheringly as we would our most outrageous opponent's. It's brutal. Damn near impossible. Like trying to park your brain outside your skull and leave it there, watching. Reading The Moral Animal, I felt as though a gauntlet had been thrown. The challenge inherent here -- as I'm choosing to take it -- is to strip away all I take as self-evident, plus all the rationalization and corner-cutting and anything even remotely conveniently self-serving, and see what I can make of what's left. If you like this kind of angel-wrasslin', this book's for you.
(4.5 stars)
Now if them ain't fightin' words, I don't know what is.
This book started slow for me but after the first chapter or so it starts to rock. Wright does a clever bit here, using Darwin himself as a subject for explicating the processes of natural selection and evolutionary psychology. So like two books in one, the biography being a freebie. Plus Wright's an engaging and witty writer; there are deep considerations throughout the book and a genuine laugh every few pages.
Wright really wins, though, when he's at his most thoughtfully provocative. In a freak example of truth in advertising, the back cover declares: "...this book compels us to rethink our most basic moral assumptions, with lasting implications for our public policy as well as for our intimate daily actions." That's no hyperbole. Pretty much wherever you stand on the atheist-agnostic-believer spectrum, the rug's yanked out from under you. (This goes for you too, nihilists.) One of Wright's main assertions, boiled way down, is that everything we believe in our deepest heart of hearts, the moral code we claim to live by and whatever we're dead certain is our Core Truth, is just a trick of natural selection; a device to further evolution's aims. And he's really damned convincing.
Whether you buy Wright's arguments or not, I submit it's a worthy exercise to try standing outside our own biases; to submit our beliefs to the skeptical scrutiny we apply to others' opposing beliefs; to question our behaviors and motives as witheringly as we would our most outrageous opponent's. It's brutal. Damn near impossible. Like trying to park your brain outside your skull and leave it there, watching. Reading The Moral Animal, I felt as though a gauntlet had been thrown. The challenge inherent here -- as I'm choosing to take it -- is to strip away all I take as self-evident, plus all the rationalization and corner-cutting and anything even remotely conveniently self-serving, and see what I can make of what's left. If you like this kind of angel-wrasslin', this book's for you.
(4.5 stars)
July 31, 2013
I can see how this was groundbreaking for its time. But reading it in 2013, after Sperm Wars and Sex at Dawn and Mothers and Others and epigenetics and everything by Sapolsky, it's hard not to feel frustrated by everything that’s missing or incomplete or even wrong — but such is Science. We’ve learned much in the last 20 years, and Wright is directly responsible for much of that... so I offer a sincere and humble thank-you. With reservations.
If you’ve been paying attention you already know most of what's in here, and more. So read it as you would The Origin of Species: for historical perspective, for the pleasure of flashing back to a time when this knowledge was new.
If you’re new to this material, proceed with caution. Wright fails to draw a clear distinction between pre- and post-agricultural societies, forgetting that the latter is a recent but drastic aberration from our evolutionary roots. This taints some of his assumptions and arguments about family life and morality. Understandably so, but still, there is much newer knowledge out there: you might want to start with newer material such as the ones in the first paragraph.
If you’ve been paying attention you already know most of what's in here, and more. So read it as you would The Origin of Species: for historical perspective, for the pleasure of flashing back to a time when this knowledge was new.
If you’re new to this material, proceed with caution. Wright fails to draw a clear distinction between pre- and post-agricultural societies, forgetting that the latter is a recent but drastic aberration from our evolutionary roots. This taints some of his assumptions and arguments about family life and morality. Understandably so, but still, there is much newer knowledge out there: you might want to start with newer material such as the ones in the first paragraph.
May 24, 2011
Probably my favorite quote from this book comes from the chapter in which the author discusses whether or not we are truly moral animals. He concludes that we are almost:
The Moral Animal is a very thought-provoking and interesting book. It answers, but mostly it just attempts to answer, so many questions about why humans are the way we are, mostly from an evolutionary or genetic standpoint. It outlines the entire life of Charles Darwin in the process and compares events and examples from his life story that illustrate the points made by the author. I enjoyed everything about this book. I feel much enlightened and educated about the psychology of the human animal and I have a deeper respect and appreciation for "the reluctant Mr. Darwin."
We are potentially moral animals -- which is more than any other animal can say -- but we aren't naturally moral animals. To be moral animals, we must realize how thoroughly we aren't.
The Moral Animal is a very thought-provoking and interesting book. It answers, but mostly it just attempts to answer, so many questions about why humans are the way we are, mostly from an evolutionary or genetic standpoint. It outlines the entire life of Charles Darwin in the process and compares events and examples from his life story that illustrate the points made by the author. I enjoyed everything about this book. I feel much enlightened and educated about the psychology of the human animal and I have a deeper respect and appreciation for "the reluctant Mr. Darwin."
February 18, 2008
Because of its technical nature, at times it was hard getting through it all, but anyone with an interest in psychology would absolutely be fascinated by this book. I actually believe that EVERYONE should read this book, only because it gives you incredible insights as to who we are, why we act the way we do, and how we can make better decisions for our actions in the future.
March 19, 2021
"Sensual pleasures are the whip that natural selection uses to control us; to keep us in the thrall of its warped value system."
While I studied evolution at university, it was primarily in a biological sense with very little mention made of the way that evolution has powerfully shaped human psychology and behaviour. This book addresses the topic of evolutionary psychology by presenting much of humanity's social and sexual phenomena within the framework of Darwin's theory of natural selection. A variety of interesting subject matters are covered, such as the psychology underpinning differences in courtship/marriage between men and women, monogamy vs polygamy, the evolutionary motivation behind behaviours such as altruism and status-seeking within our social hierarchy, and why we are designed to be unhappy. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the way the writer analyzed Charles Darwin's life with respect to evolutionary psychology; how his marriage, scientific career and facets of his personality were influenced by the evolutionary forces described throughout the book. I think this is one of the most interesting books I've ever read - previously, I hadn't even known that evolutionary psychology was a whole field on its own. But the more I think about, the more overwhelmingly convinced I am that our sociobiology and psychology, like every other aspect of our development, are the products of natural selection, fine-tuned over and over and over again. I highly recommend this to everyone interested in understanding the evolutionary origins of our behaviour.
While I studied evolution at university, it was primarily in a biological sense with very little mention made of the way that evolution has powerfully shaped human psychology and behaviour. This book addresses the topic of evolutionary psychology by presenting much of humanity's social and sexual phenomena within the framework of Darwin's theory of natural selection. A variety of interesting subject matters are covered, such as the psychology underpinning differences in courtship/marriage between men and women, monogamy vs polygamy, the evolutionary motivation behind behaviours such as altruism and status-seeking within our social hierarchy, and why we are designed to be unhappy. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the way the writer analyzed Charles Darwin's life with respect to evolutionary psychology; how his marriage, scientific career and facets of his personality were influenced by the evolutionary forces described throughout the book. I think this is one of the most interesting books I've ever read - previously, I hadn't even known that evolutionary psychology was a whole field on its own. But the more I think about, the more overwhelmingly convinced I am that our sociobiology and psychology, like every other aspect of our development, are the products of natural selection, fine-tuned over and over and over again. I highly recommend this to everyone interested in understanding the evolutionary origins of our behaviour.
December 25, 2020
Is our morality, our sense of right and wrong, and also the choices we make, our predilections, tendencies and capacities for self-deception (believing fake news, voting for idiots during elections), and all other things which seemingly set us apart from other animals, are they all also the product of our evolutionary history? The author here would often sound as if he’s saying the affirmative but then again would go on as if he’s taking back what he had proposed. This is probably because evolutionary psychology is, as the title of the book suggests, a NEW science so there are still a lot we don’t really know. Moreover, the human mind is still mostly an unsolved enigma. Typical of how the book goes is this passage on its page 348:
“Of course, you can argue with the proposition that all we are is knobs and tunings, genes and environment. You can insist that there’s something… something MORE. But if you try to visualize the form of this something would take, or articulate it clearly, you’ll find the task impossible, for any force that is not in the genes or the environment is outside of physical reality as we perceive it. It’s beyond scientific discourse.”
Which is then immediately followed out by:
“This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, of course. Science may not tell the whole story…”
Imbedded in this book is also the life of Charles Darwin which was used as some sort of a template for how evolution in psychology goes. I learned here that if not for some clever tinkering on a potentially problematic situation Darwin and his friends did, this theory of evolution through natural selection would have been attributed not to Darwin but to another British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who had prepared an essay on it ahead of him. Had it happened differently, then, we would not be speaking of “Darwinism” today but of “Wallaceism” when referring to evolution through natural selection.
When Darwin had already achieved fame and had gone back to England, he was still a bachelor and, most likely, a virgin. He then wrestled with the problem of whether he should marry or remain a bachelor to concentrate with his work. To help him decide, he prepared a “deliberative memorandum” with two columns, one labeled “MARRY” and the other one “NOT MARRY.”
Under the “MARRY” column he jotted down:
“Children —(if it please God)…Constant companion, ( & friend in old age) who will feel interested in one,—object to be beloved & played with…better than a dog anyhow…Home, and someone to take care of house…Charms of music & female chit-chat—these things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time.”
Then in the “NOT MARRY” column he wrote:
“Freedom to go where one like…choice of Society and little of it—Conversation of clever men at clubs—not forced to visit relatives & to bend in every trifle—not to have the expense & anxiety of children—Perhaps quarrelling—Loss of time—cannot read in the evenings—fatness & idleness—anxiety & responsibility—less money for books etc—if many children forced to gain one’s bread.”
“MARRY” won in the end, with Darwin justifying his decision by writing down:
“My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working & nothing after all—No, no won’t do—Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House.—Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps.”
Funny that this evolutionist didn’t factor sex at all, when it was most likely sex. He had ten children and therefore proved himself to be a true evolutionary success.
“Of course, you can argue with the proposition that all we are is knobs and tunings, genes and environment. You can insist that there’s something… something MORE. But if you try to visualize the form of this something would take, or articulate it clearly, you’ll find the task impossible, for any force that is not in the genes or the environment is outside of physical reality as we perceive it. It’s beyond scientific discourse.”
Which is then immediately followed out by:
“This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, of course. Science may not tell the whole story…”
Imbedded in this book is also the life of Charles Darwin which was used as some sort of a template for how evolution in psychology goes. I learned here that if not for some clever tinkering on a potentially problematic situation Darwin and his friends did, this theory of evolution through natural selection would have been attributed not to Darwin but to another British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who had prepared an essay on it ahead of him. Had it happened differently, then, we would not be speaking of “Darwinism” today but of “Wallaceism” when referring to evolution through natural selection.
When Darwin had already achieved fame and had gone back to England, he was still a bachelor and, most likely, a virgin. He then wrestled with the problem of whether he should marry or remain a bachelor to concentrate with his work. To help him decide, he prepared a “deliberative memorandum” with two columns, one labeled “MARRY” and the other one “NOT MARRY.”
Under the “MARRY” column he jotted down:
“Children —(if it please God)…Constant companion, ( & friend in old age) who will feel interested in one,—object to be beloved & played with…better than a dog anyhow…Home, and someone to take care of house…Charms of music & female chit-chat—these things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time.”
Then in the “NOT MARRY” column he wrote:
“Freedom to go where one like…choice of Society and little of it—Conversation of clever men at clubs—not forced to visit relatives & to bend in every trifle—not to have the expense & anxiety of children—Perhaps quarrelling—Loss of time—cannot read in the evenings—fatness & idleness—anxiety & responsibility—less money for books etc—if many children forced to gain one’s bread.”
“MARRY” won in the end, with Darwin justifying his decision by writing down:
“My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working & nothing after all—No, no won’t do—Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House.—Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps.”
Funny that this evolutionist didn’t factor sex at all, when it was most likely sex. He had ten children and therefore proved himself to be a true evolutionary success.
April 6, 2021
I absolutely loved this book. I didn't find the concepts in this book that easy to grasp but I definitely benefited from having taken Evolutionary Psychology + Business Ethics classes that prepared me for the evolutionary, psychological, philosophical and ethical concepts discussed in the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's writing style that combined humor and sarcasm to illustrate how natural selection shapes our behavior. I especially appreciate the author's clever and compelling storytelling that weaves Charles Darwin's biography with the various contemporary theories in evolutionary psychology. Because what better way to explain evolutionary concepts than using the father of evolutionary thought himself as a firsthand example?!
Human behaviors are a mystery. Some of our most 'immoral' desires and behaviors such as cheating, lying, theft and murder had an evolutionary advantage. Although and thankfully, in our modern 'moral' world, having an evolutionary advantage doesn't justify such behaviors, however, understanding how it once served us is definitely humbling. It serves as a reminder that humans are in fact animals—despite how much we try to detach ourselves from being one.
When things don’t add up in life, remind yourself that your brain evolved to serve you in your ancestral environment not in the modern environment. Funnily enough, however, understanding this limitation may be sufficient to help our brain cope in the modern environment. It helps by giving us a perspective. ✌️
There is no room for self-righteousness. We are either victims or beneficiary of our genes and our environment. However, this doesn’t negate the concept of free will, which is why I so very much appreciate this book. Had the author just encouraged us to explore the dangerous territory that attempts to strip away all accountability and reduce us to our mere neurochemistry (the idea that we are slaves of biology), without guidance; I would have found the book a little irresponsible. Because “To tell people they’re not to blame for past mistakes is to make future mistakes more likely.” Fortunately, the author equips us with the introduction of utilitarianism (the philosophical ideal that strives towards the greater good) which I found meaningful and optimistic.
Whether or not 'free will' exists doesn't matter as much as paying attention to the role of social norms, values, rules and laws in shaping behaviors that are conducive to boosting the happiness and to reducing the suffering of all beings.
Even if we are to negate free will and admit that neurochemistry governs all, there is another root cause worth paying attention to and that is education and poverty. Time and again, most issues come back to society’s inequality as the root cause for crime and behaviors that warrant punishments.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who may be puzzled by human existence.
Ps. This book was first published in 1994! However and thankfully the theories are a classic and remain relevant today but things must have progressed since then. I am very excited to read from more modern publishing on the topics!
Human behaviors are a mystery. Some of our most 'immoral' desires and behaviors such as cheating, lying, theft and murder had an evolutionary advantage. Although and thankfully, in our modern 'moral' world, having an evolutionary advantage doesn't justify such behaviors, however, understanding how it once served us is definitely humbling. It serves as a reminder that humans are in fact animals—despite how much we try to detach ourselves from being one.
When things don’t add up in life, remind yourself that your brain evolved to serve you in your ancestral environment not in the modern environment. Funnily enough, however, understanding this limitation may be sufficient to help our brain cope in the modern environment. It helps by giving us a perspective. ✌️
There is no room for self-righteousness. We are either victims or beneficiary of our genes and our environment. However, this doesn’t negate the concept of free will, which is why I so very much appreciate this book. Had the author just encouraged us to explore the dangerous territory that attempts to strip away all accountability and reduce us to our mere neurochemistry (the idea that we are slaves of biology), without guidance; I would have found the book a little irresponsible. Because “To tell people they’re not to blame for past mistakes is to make future mistakes more likely.” Fortunately, the author equips us with the introduction of utilitarianism (the philosophical ideal that strives towards the greater good) which I found meaningful and optimistic.
Whether or not 'free will' exists doesn't matter as much as paying attention to the role of social norms, values, rules and laws in shaping behaviors that are conducive to boosting the happiness and to reducing the suffering of all beings.
Even if we are to negate free will and admit that neurochemistry governs all, there is another root cause worth paying attention to and that is education and poverty. Time and again, most issues come back to society’s inequality as the root cause for crime and behaviors that warrant punishments.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who may be puzzled by human existence.
Ps. This book was first published in 1994! However and thankfully the theories are a classic and remain relevant today but things must have progressed since then. I am very excited to read from more modern publishing on the topics!
July 22, 2014
The book is a Darwinian slant on Darwin the man and its new paradigm (evolutionary psychology). I only started to fully appreciate this book after I realized it was not a science book for non-scientist, but rather a philosophy book for non-philosophers.
The author coherently ties together through an overriding narrative on our human psychology and moral development. While I've listened to most of the more recent books on the same topic from various authors (Dawkins, Diamond, Pinker, Gazzaniga, Wilson,Kahneman, and Ridley) available on Audible, none of them tied together the story as well as this book and make you feel the philosophical implications of the theory of evolutionary psychology.
The book is dated (copyright 1994) but not out of date. Most of the stories told in the book I've heard versions of them in the more recent books. That's not a fault of the book. It's just that I read this book (in 2012) after having read the other books.
I enjoyed this book so much that after listening I started listening to his other book, "Nonzero".
Warning: this book has the ability to make you reassess you place in the universe and become more interested in philosophy. Enjoy.
The author coherently ties together through an overriding narrative on our human psychology and moral development. While I've listened to most of the more recent books on the same topic from various authors (Dawkins, Diamond, Pinker, Gazzaniga, Wilson,Kahneman, and Ridley) available on Audible, none of them tied together the story as well as this book and make you feel the philosophical implications of the theory of evolutionary psychology.
The book is dated (copyright 1994) but not out of date. Most of the stories told in the book I've heard versions of them in the more recent books. That's not a fault of the book. It's just that I read this book (in 2012) after having read the other books.
I enjoyed this book so much that after listening I started listening to his other book, "Nonzero".
Warning: this book has the ability to make you reassess you place in the universe and become more interested in philosophy. Enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 695 reviews