Book Review
This book remains in print and is widely referenced as it approaches its second decade in
circulation. Highly impactful at the time it was issued, President Clinton devoured its
content and had everyone in the White House read it as well. One wonders what lessons
they learned, and how many actually completed it. It is not an easy read, because it is
packed with insights from social psychology, biology and contemporary human relations
theory. For example, Wright spends some 60 pages dealing with the differences in
thinking among males and females, but this is not a “Mars-Venus” treatment. His
overriding concern throughout is to show how Darwinian evolutionary theory can
provide insight into the moral behavior, within groups, between groups, and across the
normal group boundaries. However, he shows how and where Darwin’s own theory of
moral sentiments was wrong. In Darwin’s time, it was thought that performing
benevolent actions would beget benevolent behavior is return, and that habits, if followed
for many generations, would tend to be inherited. We now know, of course, that this
was wrong, that habits are passed from parents to the next generation by instruction
and example, not via the genes. And Wright goes to great lengths to show how
contemporary thinkers are refining our understanding as to how emotions, education,
and group morality come to affect behaviors.
Wright is an erudite author, honored with several national prizes for his columns in
periodicals and journals. His first book Three Scientists and Their Gods dealt with the
search for meaning in an age of information. In this book, his second, he introduces a
number of fascinating concepts that he later would explore much more deeply. Fir
instance, in this book he introduces the idea of game theory as a way to explain
reciprocal altruism, making reference to numerous thought experiments and laboratory
demonstrations (such as the prisoner’s dilemma) to show how the simple equation of
TIT FOR TAT has limited applicability. This whole discussion comes in for much more
extensive treatment in his subsequent book Non-Zero, and one could only hope that
more policy-makers in our own day would take this and other observations more
seriously.
In one fascinating chapter, Wright shows how Darwin was constricted by the “Victorian
conscience,” in some ways similar to the way Freud’s theories reflected the morality of
Vienna in his day. But he also shows that Darwin was sensitive to and aware of the
boundaries of his own thinking. In the final section Wright moves beyond Darwinian and
Freudian cynicism, as well as the utilitarianism of their Victorian contemporary, John
Stuart Mill. Wright’s prescription for overcoming the resulting cynicism and despair:
gratitude, saying “if you ponder the utter ruthlessness of evolutionary logic long enough,
you may start to find our morality, such as it is, nearly miraculous.” This book is not an
easy read, but it is worth considerable attention.
E. Maynard Moore, Ph.D., February 2010
circulation. Highly impactful at the time it was issued, President Clinton devoured its
content and had everyone in the White House read it as well. One wonders what lessons
they learned, and how many actually completed it. It is not an easy read, because it is
packed with insights from social psychology, biology and contemporary human relations
theory. For example, Wright spends some 60 pages dealing with the differences in
thinking among males and females, but this is not a “Mars-Venus” treatment. His
overriding concern throughout is to show how Darwinian evolutionary theory can
provide insight into the moral behavior, within groups, between groups, and across the
normal group boundaries. However, he shows how and where Darwin’s own theory of
moral sentiments was wrong. In Darwin’s time, it was thought that performing
benevolent actions would beget benevolent behavior is return, and that habits, if followed
for many generations, would tend to be inherited. We now know, of course, that this
was wrong, that habits are passed from parents to the next generation by instruction
and example, not via the genes. And Wright goes to great lengths to show how
contemporary thinkers are refining our understanding as to how emotions, education,
and group morality come to affect behaviors.
Wright is an erudite author, honored with several national prizes for his columns in
periodicals and journals. His first book Three Scientists and Their Gods dealt with the
search for meaning in an age of information. In this book, his second, he introduces a
number of fascinating concepts that he later would explore much more deeply. Fir
instance, in this book he introduces the idea of game theory as a way to explain
reciprocal altruism, making reference to numerous thought experiments and laboratory
demonstrations (such as the prisoner’s dilemma) to show how the simple equation of
TIT FOR TAT has limited applicability. This whole discussion comes in for much more
extensive treatment in his subsequent book Non-Zero, and one could only hope that
more policy-makers in our own day would take this and other observations more
seriously.
In one fascinating chapter, Wright shows how Darwin was constricted by the “Victorian
conscience,” in some ways similar to the way Freud’s theories reflected the morality of
Vienna in his day. But he also shows that Darwin was sensitive to and aware of the
boundaries of his own thinking. In the final section Wright moves beyond Darwinian and
Freudian cynicism, as well as the utilitarianism of their Victorian contemporary, John
Stuart Mill. Wright’s prescription for overcoming the resulting cynicism and despair:
gratitude, saying “if you ponder the utter ruthlessness of evolutionary logic long enough,
you may start to find our morality, such as it is, nearly miraculous.” This book is not an
easy read, but it is worth considerable attention.
E. Maynard Moore, Ph.D., February 2010
| Wright, Robert. (1994). The moral animal: Evolutionary psychology and everyday life. New York: Vintage Books/ Random House. [ISBN: 0-679-76399-6 As Reviewed: Paperback, 466 pp.] |
