Community Reviews
Chapters
PART I Morally Evolved:
Primate Social Instincts, Human Morality,
and the Rise and Fall of “Veneer Theory”
Frans de Waal
PART II Comments
The Uses of Anthropomorphism
Robert Wright
Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action
Christine M. Korsgaard
Ethics and Evolution: How to Get Here from There
Philip Kitcher
Morality, Reason, and the Rights of Animals
Peter Singer
PART III Response to Commentators
The Tower of Morality
Frans de Waal
Review
I read the audiobook. I don't really get the point here. It's a collection of essays and the debate largely is about group morality and how one should understand it. I actually totally agree with de Waal so imagine how disappointed I would be if I didn't agree with his moral and scientific points. The issue is that the book is not deep or focused. A bunch of writers add their own ideas to it with single chapters. And de Waal then concludes that apes indeed have a deep and well-functioning moral and that human morality therefore is animalistic. The issue is that it's a loose debate and so it's quite banal. We never really see a fight with science with people stating that this experiment says this and that experiment says that. Rather they just debate with feelings. One guy feels it's this way, then de Waal responds by saying he feels another way. It's not conductive to learning in the reader as you have heard such arguments a million times before and they never conclude much. There is nothing new here. Nothing deep here. No smart argument or way to make the argument. It's just a bunch of people stating their personal opinions in an academic style.
It's just a bunch of chapters trying to explain animal moral in their own way. I just don't see who this is for. It's not for people familiar with the topic as this is very shallow. It's not for people who don't like dry and at times a bit dull philosophy. I would say I would very much recommend this to philosophers who are studying a subject without applying much science or scientific thinking. So they don't really have the tools to deep dive into topics anyhow and need such shallow overviews. But this is not the case for most people. We want more experiments and clear examples not just a few monkey studies presented by de Waal. So even though I would recommend this book to specific readers it's not relevant for most people and if you have read de Waal before, which we all have many times before, this will be more of the same just a tad more dull.
You will either find it too basic or too abstract. Unless you studying philosophy then you will likely like it a lot.
PART I Morally Evolved:
Primate Social Instincts, Human Morality,
and the Rise and Fall of “Veneer Theory”
Frans de Waal
PART II Comments
The Uses of Anthropomorphism
Robert Wright
Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action
Christine M. Korsgaard
Ethics and Evolution: How to Get Here from There
Philip Kitcher
Morality, Reason, and the Rights of Animals
Peter Singer
PART III Response to Commentators
The Tower of Morality
Frans de Waal
Review
I read the audiobook. I don't really get the point here. It's a collection of essays and the debate largely is about group morality and how one should understand it. I actually totally agree with de Waal so imagine how disappointed I would be if I didn't agree with his moral and scientific points. The issue is that the book is not deep or focused. A bunch of writers add their own ideas to it with single chapters. And de Waal then concludes that apes indeed have a deep and well-functioning moral and that human morality therefore is animalistic. The issue is that it's a loose debate and so it's quite banal. We never really see a fight with science with people stating that this experiment says this and that experiment says that. Rather they just debate with feelings. One guy feels it's this way, then de Waal responds by saying he feels another way. It's not conductive to learning in the reader as you have heard such arguments a million times before and they never conclude much. There is nothing new here. Nothing deep here. No smart argument or way to make the argument. It's just a bunch of people stating their personal opinions in an academic style.
It's just a bunch of chapters trying to explain animal moral in their own way. I just don't see who this is for. It's not for people familiar with the topic as this is very shallow. It's not for people who don't like dry and at times a bit dull philosophy. I would say I would very much recommend this to philosophers who are studying a subject without applying much science or scientific thinking. So they don't really have the tools to deep dive into topics anyhow and need such shallow overviews. But this is not the case for most people. We want more experiments and clear examples not just a few monkey studies presented by de Waal. So even though I would recommend this book to specific readers it's not relevant for most people and if you have read de Waal before, which we all have many times before, this will be more of the same just a tad more dull.
You will either find it too basic or too abstract. Unless you studying philosophy then you will likely like it a lot.
