Primates and Philosophers
How Morality Evolved
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Narrated by:
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Alan Sklar
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By:
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Frans de Waal
About this listen
"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.
In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes. Science has thus exacerbated our reciprocal habits of blaming nature when we act badly and labeling the good things we do as "humane". Seeking the origin of human morality not in evolution but in human culture, science insists that we are moral by choice, not by nature.
Citing remarkable evidence based on his extensive research of primate behavior, de Waal attacks "Veneer Theory", which posits morality as a thin overlay on an otherwise nasty nature. He explains how we evolved from a long line of animals that care for the weak and build cooperation with reciprocal transactions.
Drawing on both Darwin and recent scientific advances, de Waal demonstrates a strong continuity between human and animal behavior. In the process, he also probes issues such as anthropomorphism and human responsibilities toward animals.
Based on the Tanner Lectures de Waal delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2004, Primates and Philosophers includes responses by the philosophers Peter Singer, Christine M. Korsgaard, and Phillip Kitcher, and the science writer Robert Wright. They press de Waal to clarify the differences between humans and other animals, yielding a lively debate that will fascinate all those who wonder about the origins and reach of human goodness. The book is published by Princeton University Press.
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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Truth and Truthfulness
- By: Bernard Williams
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combinationof passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.
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Content is excellent but the sound quality falters
- By Andy B. on 09-08-23
By: Bernard Williams
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The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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The Landscape of History
- How Historians Map the Past
- By: John Lewis Gaddis
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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What is history, and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.
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Excellent Book!
- By Billy on 09-15-18
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On Becoming a Person
- A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
- By: Carl R. Rogers, Peter D. Kramer MD - introduction
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The late Carl Rogers, founder of the humanistic psychology movement, revolutionized psychotherapy with his concept of "client-centered therapy." His influence has spanned decades, but that influence has become so much a part of mainstream psychology that the ingenious nature of his work has almost been forgotten. With a new introduction by Peter Kramer, this landmark book is a classic in its field and a must-listen for anyone interested in clinical psychology or personal growth.
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An introduction to the core humanistic issues
- By Amazon Customer on 04-08-18
By: Carl R. Rogers, and others
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The Spiritual Brain
- A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
- By: Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Does religious experience come from God, or is it just the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on brain research on Carmelite nuns that has attracted major media attention and provocative new research in near-death experiences, The Spiritual Brain proves that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. The authors make a convincing case for what many in science are loathe to consider: that it is God who creates our spiritual experiences, not the brain.
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interesting topic, but frustrating listen
- By Barry T on 08-27-08
By: Mario Beauregard, and others
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Mind and Cosmos
- Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False
- By: Thomas Nagel
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete.
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Intellectual honesty at its finest
- By Alice Walker on 02-15-18
By: Thomas Nagel
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On Human Nature: Revised Edition
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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This revised edition of Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?
With characteristic pungency and simplicity of style, the author of Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the nature-nurture debate.
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A Heralding Voice...
- By Douglas on 07-22-14
By: Edward O. Wilson
What listeners say about Primates and Philosophers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- William
- 12-05-11
really good reading of a sometimes boring book.
What made the experience of listening to Primates and Philosophers the most enjoyable?
I was able to do it pretty much whenever I was able to listen to my Ipod.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Many of the conclusions drawn about things that I previously thought were
What does Alan Sklar bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Possibly the inflections in the reading, striking important points of interest.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Not really. Maybe some people can read about psychology of anyone in one sitting, but I can't.
Any additional comments?
Over good book about an overall, and mostly dry subject. As a graduate student of psychology, and a volunteer at a primate santuary, this book made learning psychology interesting.
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- Andre Paulino de Lima
- 07-31-12
Are humans just another primate?
What made the experience of listening to Primates and Philosophers the most enjoyable?
Frans de Waal is an authority in primate behaviour, with a long and productive academic career and lots of field work. The experiences he share in the book shed light in how many different aspects humans and non-human apes are similar, and how it is ever more convergent to frame those similarities as different grades in a continuum.
What did you like best about this story?
How de Waal explains why moral systems are bound to mammal biology aspects for us.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Spencer
- 02-12-20
dry but worthwhile
interesting subject, but rendered logically and dryly. the narrator gives a good performance and makes it listenable.
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- Douglas
- 12-14-13
Having Just Read...
Bekoff and Pierce's WILD JUSTICE, Peterson's THE MORAL LIVES OF ANIMALS and Morell's ANIMAL WISE, de Waal's PRIMATES AND PHILOSOPHERS came in as the perfect follow-up book to round out the line of thought. This collection of "debate essays," penned by Frans de Waal, Peter Singer, Christine M. Korsgaard, Phillip Kitcher, and Robert Wright (see my review of his THE MORAL ANIMAL), put forth the idea that morality is neither relative nor the sole property of human beings, but qualities that have developed for group survival and prospering through the process of evolution and natural selection, namely that characteristics such as empathy, fairness, justice, and rule-based interactivity are intimate parts of nature which all beings share in greater or lesser degree. (The question of degree is important, as no one wants to argue that a rat and a dog have the same level of moral sense as a human being--even though a rat can show a degree of empathy and a dog can participate in rule-based interactions.) I suggest the books listed above be read first and this be the cap--the ideas dovetail quite nicely, and the books on animal morality serve as a great preparation for a book about how animal morality evolved into human morality.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Qussay
- 11-18-17
Taking Ethics from the Hands of Philosophers into Biologists
The book argues around multiple cores, mostly about whether animals have evolved enough moral system to be humanized, intentionally ethical and has planning strategic, or animals behavior is governed by instinctive impulses away from mindful actions.
What’s great about this book is that it’s including multiple scholar’s opinions against De Waal’s “Veneer Theory” which is the argument that morality is only a thin veneer overlaid on an amoral or immoral core.
The scholars beside de Wall are, Robert Wright, Christine M. Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher and Peter Singer.
A very good book that worths every minute.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cody
- 12-24-11
A interesting, objective account
What made the experience of listening to Primates and Philosophers the most enjoyable?
This is a very thought provoking book. It builds a very strong case that human ethics developed from primate
Would you recommend Primates and Philosophers to your friends? Why or why not?
Yes, if they like to think.
Did Alan Sklar do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
It was a little dry. Could have used different voices for different philosophers.
Any additional comments?
Great book. I disagree with the conclusions of de Waal. Regardless valuable read for anyone who wants to better understand evolutions place in the role of ethics and morality.
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- J. D. Botet
- 04-09-12
Not too good for listening
This book wasn???t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
An scholar of primatology.
What could Frans de Waal have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Make it more linear with clear conclusions at the end of each chapter.
What about Alan Sklar???s performance did you like?
Good.Not the problem.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Primates and Philosophers?
None.Needs somehow a conclusion, with a short review by the end of each chapter.More linear story as well.
Any additional comments?
Just compare it with
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Marcel-Jan
- 03-26-11
Found myself in a discussion over semantics
I was looking for an audio book based on Frans de Waal's works. This audio book is not about explaining about evolutionary biology. In this audio book you get to hear some things Frans de Waal has found out and then get to hear what opponents in his field think about that. I really wonder why they wanted to make that into an audio book.
Content: 2/5, voice: 3/5, "in-car-listenable": 1/5
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3 people found this helpful