The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright (PDF)

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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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review An accessible introduction to the science of evolutionary psychology and how it explains many aspects of human nature. Unlike many books on the topic,which focus on abstractions like kin selection, this book focuses on Darwinian explanations of why we are the way we are–emotionally and morally. Wright deals particularly well with explaining the reasons for the stereotypical dynamics of the three big “S’s:” sex, siblings, and society. From Publishers Weekly New Republic senior editor Wright’s account of the latest trends in Darwinian theory unravels the evolutionary logic behind subjects ranging from friendship and romance to xenophobia and sibling rivalry. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review This clever and stimulating book is destined to become a classic . . . Like Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, it could well change the way people think and feel about their lives–perhaps even how they behave . . . It is, into the bargain, an intellectual entertainment argued with wit and style. — The Economist From the Inside Flap rally 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. About the Author Robert Wright is the bestselling author of Three Scientists and Their Gods, The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and, most recently, The Evolution of God, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and his awards include the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism. A contributing editor for The New Republic, Wright has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Time, and Slate.com. He is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and editor in chief of the website Bloggingheads.tv. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and their two daughters. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The Moral Animal, written in 1994 – the year I was born – reads with a level of pertinence that is ahead of its time. It should be and is a staple of Evolutionary Psychology. Matter of fact, because of the very [big picture] incipient nature of the field, it is a must read if you are especially interested in (I’m trying to hold back my temptation of saying everything) evolution and darwinism, morality, psychology, and behavioral science. What is evolutionary psychology? I will be brief but read the book to REALLY understand it. The field of evolutionary psychology attempts to explain human (and animal) behavior within the framework of our prior and ongoing evolution. With precision and clarity, the author Robert Wright applies the modern day understanding of evolution to understand our underlying motivations behind our actions and emotions. In four parts, and many chapters in between, the author covers really intuitive topics like sex, romance, love, family, friends, marriage, deception, self-deception, monogamy and polygamy, social status, and more. The last section of the book wraps it all together and covers the implications it can and cannot have on our behavior as well as our thinking of morality, law, and morale. Throughout the entire book, evolutionary psychological thinking is applied to the founder of evolution himself, Charles Darwin. Interestingly enough, we uncover on a deeper level the so called “selfish” motives and social advantages behind Darwin’s behavior. This is not to deny the apparent facts of the matter that Darwin was one of the most selfless, generous, and polite human-beings to ever live. On any test of morality, even compared to the Victorian aura of his time, he would get an A+. His hyperactive conscious for example, made him have restless nights as he was plagued by the idea he might have said something that offended somebody in one of the conversations he had with people throughout the day. It made him dread the indignity he witnessed with Brazilian slaves and animal cruelty. Despite his religious upbringing and education; his devoutly Christian wife; and the stringently religious society he lived in, he couldn’t help but lose his religious fervor due to his intellectual honesty and his inclined understanding of evolution. Despite all this, he delayed releasing his monumental findings and conclusions (that animals – and humans – evolved) to the public. He understood that it would shake the religious fabric of thinking at the time and he did everything he can possibly do to find things that can disprove his theory. All and all, he made it more robust and justified because if he released his ground-breaking discovery prematurely it could have been a monumental mistake for his professional career and I would contend for society as well.Now of course evolutionary psychology makes us look at the seemingly heightened level of morality of the Victorian era with a skeptical eye. It’s an evolutionary advantage to fit in and even prosper in the social environment you are in, and that’s the underlying reason why people seek respect and social status. The norm in Victorian times was to approach your neighbors with upmost charity and respect. Never uttering insults and always willing to go out your way to help if possible. Perhaps maybe it was because the towns in England in the 19th century were small, and everybody knew each-other? It was a much bigger disadvantage to be rude because a slight on your reputation can spread to everybody quickly. This is diametric to the city life today, where people are criticized as being indifferent, irreverent, and impolite. Subconsciously whether we deny it or not, we behave different depending on if we know we are going to see somebody again or if they are in our “inner circle”.Understanding the subject matter is important because when we inherit an evolutionary psychological view we gain the capability to view our behavior as a species in a perspective we may have not considered beforehand. This perspective can bring clarity and understanding. There will be speculation but it will be grounded speculation. For example, why are we inclined to care about the opinions of others that we know we will never see again? Part of the explanation can be that in our ancestral environment we were always much more likely to encounter the same person again. Our understanding of evolutionary psychology will have a huge impact on our understanding and mending morality in the future. Through this new paradigm, we get some clarification that men for example are not “pigs” or “wrong” because they want to instinctually mate with as many women as possible. Also, women are not “evil-creatures” because they cheat sometimes. That is not to say that each example is morally “right”, especially when taken ad-nasauem. But perhaps these understandings will garner sympathy and understanding for our human nature. In a sense, our understanding of this subject will bring on worry and legal issues. But remember, it is not an evolutionary advantage for males and females to inherit these behaviors in full. And as far as the law and policy goes, understanding animal/human nature will go a long way in helping reshape things. An example is poverty and why thanks to our understanding of human nature it is justifiable to set up programs to reduce it. There’s a psychological effect on income disparity, and though I won’t get into it here it does beget an interesting discussion. How about homosexuality? Of course once we can get past the highly ignorant and depressing discussion of whether it’s a “choice” or not, we can try to understand why homosexuality developed in species. And hopefully it can render the contemporary discussion of whether being gay is “right” or “wrong” as obsolete. And this goes for many other things as we come to terms with human nature. Remember, most of our modern evolutionary history and ancestry took place tens of thousands of years before any recorded history. Our modern society is only a small speck of time and many of our “crazy” or “irrational” behaviors can only be understood by the aforementioned time period of human evolution. My suggestion: buy the book. It’s a must-read.

⭐The synopsis on the book’s back cover compares this book to _The Selfish Gene_ or even _On the Origin of Species_ in its quality as a landmark book. I would not quite rate it that highly, but it is surely worthy of recognition as a landmark book in the development of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.Dr. Wright covers most, if not all, of the major topics into which evolutionary psychology has delved over the past several decades, including application of gene selectionism and evolutionary theory to explain social phenomena, altruism, the behavioral and psychological differences between males and females, human sexuality and sexual market value of men and women, monogamy versus polygamy and polygyny and the role of each in human marriage and reproduction, marriage in general, the adaptive purpose of varying family structures, the origins and function of social status, and the role of deception and self-deception in maximizing social cohesion. The author refers to a healthy diversity of conclusions from the work of such men as John Maynard Smith, E.O. Wilson, Robert Trivers, Robert Axelrod, and others, and explains the historical and ideological significance of these men’s contributions. Furthermore, Wright exemplifies his claims often by referring back to the life and times of Charles Darwin, showing how principles of evolutionary psychology manifested in Darwin’s social behavior (e.g., his marriage with his wife). This, I feel, substantially contributed to the entertainment value of the book.I do not quite award this book five stars on the grounds that the last few chapters, concerning “the moral of the story” of evolutionary psychology, are of dubious quality. The author fails to clearly articulate why he considers evolutionary psychology as any more relevant to morality than other biological and social sciences – thus casting into doubt the legitimacy of titling his work “The Moral Animal.” Perhaps it does, but the author does not succeed in making the case.In one chapter especially, he explicitly subscribes to utilitarianism. Although the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and the two Mills was a step forward in moral philosophy, and indeed probably made correct moral assessments 90% of the time, its defect was in regarding attainment of the greatest good as the central feature of morality, instead of classifying it as an important but inferior, secondary consideration after the more important feature of avoidance of the greatest harm. The 10% failure rate of utilitarianism in arriving at correct moral judgments becomes apparent when one considers that frequently the greatest good cannot be attained in a way any rational, impartial person would consider morally acceptable (for example, if a sufficient number of men gang-rape a woman, a consistent utilitarian would have to regard the act as morally acceptable on the grounds that gains of the perpetrators outweigh the loss of the victim). I would not cite endorsement of incorrect moral theory as reason to lessen my evaluation of a book on evolutionary psychology, except the author, as I have said, made it his intent to tie morality with evolutionary psychology, an aim at which, again, I claim he failed. For example, he might explain how evolutionary psychology fills the is-ought gap, and though he tries, he only partially demonstrates how evolutionary psychology does, in fact, do this (and contrary to many, the is-ought gap can be and has been closed by moral philosophers; see, for example, Bernard Gert’s _Morality_ and Michael Huemer’s _Ethical Intuitionism_.)Another defect I would note in these chapters, and again relevant to morality, is the author’s endorsement of pure determinism, and therefore, the idea that free will is an illusion. Perhaps this is a correct view or perhaps it isn’t; though I tend to err on the side of some form of free will actually existing (though we are less capable of controlling our actions than we typically believe), my general reading so far of the opposing views on the free will debate is that neither side argues its case very effectively. And I don’t think Wright – who contests the existence of free will with a specifically biochemical application of deterministic thought – argues his case effectively, or at least sufficiently, either. First, like the ancient Stoics, he attempts to reconcile preordained outcomes with moral responsibility and fails (as he only ever could have, as the two claims rest on opposing sides of a contradiction). Second of all, he somewhat begs the question with regard to determinism. Like Sam Harris and company on this issue, he claims that causal determinism necessitates preordinance of all future occurrences, and in doing so, posits the strawman claim that people who believe in free will reject causality. I don’t think the majority of free will theorists claim absence of causality; what they typically do is infer from an irreducibly probabilistic account of physics the conclusion that, although all effects arise from prior causes, causes have more than one possible effect. I’m not an expert in physics, so perhaps such an account is wrong; however, if it is wrong and Wright believes it to be wrong, he should explain himself further than simply appealing to biochemical causality as somehow, by itself, necessitating pure determinism. (And doing so would require extending his analysis to a more fundamental level than that of biochemistry: specifically, the level of physics. If pure determinism is true, then it must be explained at the level of physics before that of chemistry and biology, since higher levels of chemistry and biology are constructed on top of physics and cannot violate physics.)

⭐In this book, Robert Wright explains several human behaviors – i.e. human nature – using Darwin’s theory of evolution. The field, called Evolutionary Psychology, is based in the most recent understanding of Darwin’s theory, which the author states as new Darwinism. It is very interesting to see how a few concepts of Darwin’s theory, like status hierarchy, parental investment, kin selection and so on, proves to be more than enough to explain human behavior. Notwithstanding, the book is not a easy reading. The vocabulary is heavy. Some arguments are difficult to understand. Some narratives, in particular related to moral and philosophical issues, require a lot of reasoning to follow. Anyway, it is an excellent book. If you believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, you will be amazed as how it can be used to explain a lot about why we are the way we are.

⭐Anything by Bob Wright is great. But if you read this book and then his Why Buddhism Is True, you will be happier. Very insightful and sane.

⭐This book is actually quite humorous in a dry sort of way. I’m confident this was intentional by the Author as evolution (Gene Selection) doesn’t particularly have to play by the ideals of modern human moral values systems. So a sense of humour can help “lubricate” some of the more “Sharp” points of “Evolution in Teeth & Claw”. But of course Teeth and Claws do exist as do the Cuddly and Cute evolutionary adaptations.Evolutionary Biology (inc psychology/human behaviour ) has had many historic landmark discoveries (many of which are cited throughout this book) that have shone a scientific light on one of the most significant human social questions “Why We Are The Way We Are”?. Anyone (desiring to learn fact based information) whom reads this book with a questioning (critical) mind, that’s capable of taking into consideration information that’s founded on sound methodical research will find out that Evolutionary Psychology says much about human behaviour.Some of this behaviour many already sense at some level (“Folk wisdom” ,but socially/culturally are inclined not to say due to the social costs occured from those whom are easily offended by anything which contradicts their central premise.e.g. “deeply” held emotionally based beliefs). This book also contains information that nobody whom doesn’t study the Evolutionary Psychology/Biology research can be aware of (The deeper physiology that ultimately emerges, as feelings, that motivate humans to behave and think (or think and then behave) one way or another.So what’s it worth to better understand yourself and understand/ predict the behaviours/spoken words of those around you?. That depends on the context of the environment you find yourself in and what your objectives are. If your in a mental health profession (objective = health), evolutionary psychology can help alleviate those whom suffer irrational fears. If your a marketing sales person (objective =sales) evolutionary psychology can help companies to sell products using more ethically based advertising (e,g, Healthy food advertising aimed at kids to help get them started on the right track). If your in politics (and hopefully have a generally good ethical character because good ethical people voted for you), evolutionary psychology can help to form evidenced based policies that deliver rewarding social results that increase social equality & provide equal opportunity (a level “playing” field not based on unjustified discrimination).In summary:The Book, ‘The Moral Animal’ is another great addition to the science based books genre (though much research has been published since), written in such a way that the layperson can get a “feeling” (comprehension) of the scientific consensus of that topic. If you want to effectively learn chemistry there is no other way than to learn some basic concept of Atoms. If you want to effectively learn what and why humans are the way they are, there is no better way than the science based information of Evolutionary Psychology/ Biology.Natural + Sexual selection + genetic drift /Time= All life on Earth (& potentially some Life off Earth).

⭐The book is good when it sticks to a summary of the new discipline of evolutionary psychology. The summary and explanation of why group selection is not a valid theory is excellent. But when he strays into a polemic in favour of Victorian morality he is partial and argues by assertion rather than with scientific neutrality. His attempts to provide a psychological analysis of Darwin’s character and life are clumsy and spoil the book.I have come to tolerate badly edited free books from Amazon but having paid good money I feel the lack of even s simple spell check makes this a serious condemnation of Amazon abusing its partial monopoly of e-books. I give it 3 stars as an average of 4 stars for content and zero for bad presentation and editingDavid

⭐An excellent introduction to evolutionary psychology. Highly recommended.I hope you find my review helpful.

⭐Great book. Impossible to put down. Very well research and astonishingly impartial, it never takes one side without strong evidence backing it up. It connects in places with what you read in other books and in some other places, it helps you refine what really can be inferred on our human nature. For example, while books like C Ryan’s Sex at Dawn point towards a polygamous nature of the hunter gatherer. R Wright will clarify that polygamy is allowed in most tribes living close to the hunter gatherer lifestyle referencing mostly the same sources. Being allowed in certain conditions and being the norm is a big difference. he paragraph “winners and losers” in the marriage section for example will explain the benefits of socially institutionalized monogamy for social stability (society is less stable when you have too many males unable to attain reproductive success). It seems Richard Wright conclusions jump a bit less than other writers in the field. And it’s quite nice that way. The rest on Darwin’s life is great too. Overall, a must read book for those interested in evolutionary psychology.

⭐As the author admits he is selling the new Darwinian science of psychological evolution. But you don’t need to sell true science, just explain it. So take his theories with a pinch of salt. And yet so much of it rings true and it will challenge your assumptions on the way you live your life and why. Annoying at times it is still an enjoyable and important book, one I think I will be revisiting many times in the future.

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