The Moral Animal - Wikipedia
The Moral Animal
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The Moral Animal
Cover of the first edition
Author Robert Wright
Country United States
Language English
Subjects Social evolution, Evolutionary psychology, Morality, Ethics
Publisher Vintage Books
Publication date 1994
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 466 pages (paperback)
ISBN 0-679-76399-6 (1st edition, hardcover)
OCLC 33496013
The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright, in which the author explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology.
Contents
1Summary
2Reception
3See also
4References
5Bibliographical information
6External links
Summary[edit]
Wright explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology. He provides Darwinian explanations for human behavior and psychology, social dynamics and structures, as well as people's relationships with lovers, friends, and family.
Wright borrows extensively from Charles Darwin's better-known publications, including On the Origin of Species (1859), but also from his chronicles and personal writings, illustrating behavioral principles with Darwin's own biographical examples.
Reception[edit]
The New York Times Book Review chose The Moral Animal as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages. The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould criticized the book in The New York Review of Books.[1] The anthropologist Melvin Konner called the book "delightful".[2]
See also[edit]
Evolutionary ethics
Evolutionary psychology
John Stuart Mill
Kin selection
Reciprocal altruism
Richard Dawkins
Steven Pinker
The Naked Ape
References[edit]
^ Gould, Stephen Jay. Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism, The New York Review of Books. June 26, 1997.
^ Konner, Melvin. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Times Books, 2002, p. 498.
Bibliographical information[edit]
Robert Wright (1995-08-29). The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-76399-4.
External links[edit]
Stevin Pinker's New York Times Book Review article on The Moral Animal.
Booknotes interview with Wright on Moral Animal, January 8, 1995.
This article about an evolution-related book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.Categories:
1994 non-fiction books
Books by Robert Wright
English-language books
Evolutionary biology literature
Vintage Books books
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