Customer Reviews

Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals

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A colleague and I chose this book as our "science selection" for our freshman studies classes at a small private college in the midwest. It's been a great choice. De Waal's approach is careful and considered; he is able to talk about ethics among non-human primates without anthropomorphizing. Even better, unlike some of his predecessors in what he calls "classical sociobiology," De Waal does not leap primate species in a single bound. Rather, he considers such issues as altruism and hierarchy in the bonobo, chimp and monkey universes on their own terms. This book is post-sociobiology and post-ethology without succumbing to glib anti-science perspectives.

De Waal is a superb writer. His style has absolutely captivated two classrooms full of bright college freshmen. The subject matter is fascinating. This book is a marvelous mix of natural and social sciences.

I envy De Waal's Emory office with the window view of Yerkes Center chimp life. What an amazing way to live!

Frans de Waal is one of the best known primatologists in the United States, and GOOD NATURED shows why. This careful study of primate behavior, both non-human and human, explores the issue of morality and the complex emotions that give rise to it. De Waal's topics range from empathy to social rules to diplomacy as he describes specific examples across primate species.

The black and white pictures illustrate his points, but they are by no means the highlight of this book. De Waal's insights, which never read too much into specific behaviors, walk the fine line between objective scientific reporting and an acknowledgment of the kinship between all primates. Seeing primates through his expert eyes is an enlightening experience.

This is truly an extraordinary book. I recommend it to readers who have a keen interest in primatology, sociology, and/or the kinship between humans and other species.

This work succeeds most of all by gradually eroding invisible assumptions about morality as an exclusively human prerogative. Chapter by chapter, Frans De Waal builds a convincing and rich assembly of proto-moral practices among nonhuman primates, defining and illustrating terms such as empathy, nurturance, cognitive altruism, and many others along the way. The result, which can sometimes feel like a complicated mass of overlapping and related terms, is a kind of ground shift in perception. This, at any rate, seems to be what he aims to accomplish, staying within the warrant of observational evidence. For some readers this might be a kind of Copernican Revolution against the absolute centrality of human beings in the moral universe. We are not alone: we have moral ancestry and moral companionship (fast disappearing) in the wilderness, in the zoos, and in the animal research laboratories. [As an aside, it also seems clear that there could be no effective substitute for the actual first-hand experience of social primates that De Waal reports]
De Waal's occasional jabs against contemporary moral philosophers (Peter Singer seems to be a main target) are suggestive but not thorough (which is perhaps just as well given the aim of the work). In particular, I found De Waal's "floating pyramid" a poor improvement on the more common notion of an "expanding circle" of moral empathy, as employed by Singer and others. The two are the same except for De Waal's addition of a resource constraint, which ensures that one's circle of moral concern only expands as resources become available. On this account, the affluent will (or should) demonstrate greater moral concern than the poor for strangers in need. This is not in accord with facts as far as I can tell. In all, however, this is an exciting read with some especially memorable tales of animal morality.

De Waal is brilliant, objective, careful in reaching conclusions, ethical, a good writer, and has a lot to say. He is very much aware of research in related fields, such as developmental psychology. He and others place great store on observation of animals in natural settings, but also use controlled experimentation, analogous to the type of studies psychologists are always performing on college students. While I think this was an outstanding book, I would acknowledge that the beginning is slower reading than the end: more focused on the necessary vocabulary, some of the controversies, more argumentative, a little redundant.

De Waal contrasts "lower" primates and chimpanzees so that we can better understand the evolution of morality, and such distinctions as that between learned adjustment and true empathy. Chimps will mourn, console, deceive; the alpha male will intervene in disputes where the only objective can be restoration of harmony. As all animals, their adaptive potential exceeds the range of behavior observed in natural settings. For example, in the wild, females do not usually spend much time with other adult females, whereas in captivity they do. In captivity, they may use their friendships/alliances to control overly aggressive males, and even influence who becomes the alpha male. While morality has a genetic basis, even in monkeys there is a cultural component. In one experiment, aggressive rhesus adolescents learned to be more tolerant after living with more peaceful stump tailed macaques for 6 months.

The adaptive potential of morality is that it fosters group cohesion, which for many species is essential for defense against predators, or to find or protect resources. This is not to deny that one basis of morality is the selfish gene: by helping kin, you are helping some of your own genes to survive, so "altruistic genes" tend to perpetuate themselves.

i concur with the previous reviewer's thoughts about this wonderful book. as someone who studies human organisations, i believe that de waal's book (and probably to my forthcoming delight a lot more of ethological psychology) sparks some interesting ideas about how human social control and organisation work. particularly topical are the links to evolution and its role in how we and our fellow higher-order primates organise ourselves.

I found the book to be highly readable and subject matter to be fascinating. This subject is no where near my field (which is history) but found that De Waal presents the material in way that is very accessible to anyone. De Waal has an entertaining writing style that keeps you absorbed in the reading without the effort I have found in other books on the subject.

It's very important for us to really look at where we come from and why we are what we are, and taking a look at our closest relatives is a good window into our minds. I found the analysis and the conclusions to be well formed and fairly presented. The evidence he gives for his conclusions is well documented and explained.

While I did have a few problems here and there, these did not detract from the overall readability and the pure enjoyment of the book. This was just a very enjoyable book that I would recommend to anyone, whether you have a deep interest in the topic or you're just looking for an interesting book to use up a few hours in the day.

I must say that this book has really helped me understand how monkeys, bonobos, and chimps live in both captivity and in the wild. In the same token it has also help understand how they all interact with each other, and sometimes I must admit that they seem to treat each other like humans treat one another.

Chapter Two in the book to me seemed to be the most interesting. De Waal with great detail writes about relationships within the species. How they accept handicap within the species and how they deal with an offspring's death.

Overall this book is outstanding and clearly understood. All chapters of this book even though this book is about primates, monkeys, etc., have a tie to human beings. I recommend this book to those individuals interested in learning the behavior and the nature of primates, monkeys, etc., but most of all those interested in learning the behavior and nature of humans, after all we did evolve from old world primates.

Good Natured is a book focusing on morality in the animal kingdom, specifically primates. Overall, I thought this was definitely a fairy easy and engrossing read. The book deals with the structure of primate societies and how they enforce morality, how deeply it extends through the primate family (de Waal primarily researches chimpanzees), and instances of love, guilt, aggression, deception from his own research and those of other primatologists. He also describes other philosophies and research into moral systems.

I like de Waals style: the studies he talked about were fascinating and he really keeps your interest. I guess the only negative is that the book is a little disjointed in places. For example, in the chapter on sympathy there is a section on deception. In the end he makes his own speculation on morality stretching across human boundaries and what he makes of the implications for treatment of primates and other animals. It's definitely a great read for anyone interested in the evolution of morality and primatology.

Frans deWaal
Good Natured:
The Origins of Right and Wrong
in Humans and Other Animals

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) 296 pages
(ISBN: 0-674-35660-8; hardcover)
(Library of Congress call number: BJ1335.W33 1996)

A world-famous primatologist explores the social behavior of animals.
They have complex family and clan structures.
They show caring toward other members of their groups.
However, does this behavior rise to the level
that might accurately be called "empathy" or "altruism"?

Troop animals do cooperate for hunting and mutual protection,
even when sometimes one individual dies for the good of the group.
Several stories support the thesis that primates do respond
to the special needs of others in the group,
when an individual is injured, for example.

Primates usually live in groups,
which have well-understood ranking among the various individuals.
They seem to operate according to rules,
even when some of the rules were imposed by zoo-keepers, for example.
Each animals knows the others.
They have fights and reconciliations.
They do form alliances with one another,
which enables them to know who will fight on their side if need be.
And they sometimes seem to care about keeping peace in the community.

They both share some foods and deceive others in the group
in order to keep more food for themselves.

In summary, this is a very good book about primate behavior,
especially as observed in captivity.
They have 'moral' systems of their own.
And they teach one another to follow the social rules.
But they do not have an abstract culture,
which would depend on abstract language,
which they can pass on to the next generation by means of words.

With respect to the four tests of personhood,
primates pass only two: consciousness and memory.
But they have no abstract language
and no autonomy to create their own reasons for living.
Thus understood, primates are not persons.

Seeking other explorations of personhood?
Search the Internet for: "Personhood Bibliography".

James Leonard Park, existential philosopher and medical ethicist

I teach graduate level courses on violence and was hoping that this book would give me some much-need background on roots of altruism and violence among primates. I must say that I am used to reading Richard Dawkins and Steven Jay Gould.
Despite the fact that the topic is fascinating, I find that De Waal is generally a poor writer. The message is lost on run-on sentences and chapters that seem to go on for ever.
I liked the pictures, though.