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The Moral Lives of Animals
- Narrated by: Sanjiv Jhaveri
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Wild elephants walking along a trail stop and spontaneously try to protect and assist a weak and dying fellow elephant. Laboratory rats, finding other rats caged nearby in distressing circumstances, proceed to rescue them. A chimpanzee in a zoo loses his own life trying to save an unrelated infant who has fallen into a watery moat. The examples above and many others, argues Dale Peterson, show that our fellow creatures have powerful impulses toward cooperation, generosity, and fairness. Yet it is commonly held that we Homo sapiens are the only animals with a moral sense - that we are somehow above and apart from our fellow creatures.
This rigorous and stimulating book challenges that notion, and it shows the profound connections - the moral continuum - that link humans to many other species. Peterson shows how much animal behavior follows principles embodied in humanity's ancient moral codes, from the Ten Commandments to the New Testament. Understanding the moral lives of animals offers new insight into our own.
Dale Peterson's biography Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and Boston Globe Best Book of 2006. His other publications include Visions of Caliban (with Jane Goodall) and Demonic Males (with Richard Wrangham). Peterson lectures in English at Tufts University.
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Overall
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- Douglas
- 12-12-13
Read This Book Along With One...
entitled Wild Justice. They complement each other nicely. (Both are much better than Temple Grandin's rather disappointing Animals Make Us Human.) It is high time someone wrote a book or two on this subject. Endless Neo-Darwinians (Pinker, Nowak, Wright, et. al.), writing of the development of morality in humans, have used animal examples to demonstrate the concept of reciprocal altruism and how morality has evolved to preserve species through group caring and protection. It only makes sense that if humans need each other to survive in a rough and tumble world, and morality developed in order that we help each other out and resist harming each other at least a majority of the time so that we can better reproduce and carry on--how much more for other mammals who have to spend some time raising their young in groups and living in those groups sometimes for an entire lifespan? (It is suggested that the more social a mammal is, the more it will be geared toward moral behavior toward other members of the group, which makes perfect sense in this context...) We all know stories of dogs jumping into rivers to save little girls and cats waking tenants of a burning apartment complex (when they could have just run for their own feline lives!), but working with horses, I see smaller examples all the time. Just the other day, after a ride, I was returning my horse to pasture, and her pasture mate, very uncharacteristically, bolted and ran through the gate and had an escape and was heading for a rather dangrous situation near a road. Without prompting or any training in such a situation, my horse, Sassy, instantly took to the task of helping me corral the fleeing Ore back around toward the pasture and safety. It was unmistakable to me that my horse was doing me (and her pasture mate!) a favor because I needed help and she loves me and knows I do good things for her and will continue to do so (this is the entire basis of reciprocal altruism, which is the foundation of morality). But then, if you like the dramatic, life-saving examples, when you are done with this book and Wild Justice, read Cheryl Dudley's Horses That Save Lives. In short, The Moral Lives Of Animals is thorough and engaging--but it will tell someone who has worked for any time with four-leggeds what he knew all along: animals decidedly have a moral sense--and it aids in their everyday survival the same as it does for us.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Paul Z.
- 07-05-12
Not Bad
This was not a bad book, but I would classify it more as a book about philosophy than I would a work of non-fiction. The most quoted work is Melville’s Moby-Dick, and while most of the time he uses it to frame the extremes of the argument of the morality of animals, at other times he also seems to be using it as an actual reference of fact. His basic argument is that animals are moral, but that it is a different type of morality than that recognized by humans; sort of a species specific morality. While he develops this theory in great detail (other reviewers seem to think too much detail), in the end he makes a leap saying that, while humans and other animals all have this species specific morality, that humans should broaden their morality to encompass all other species, even though he just argued for "X" number of pages saying this was unnatural. In short if you tend to lean heavily to the “Animal Rights” side of civilization you will love this book. As you drift away from that being your “singular goal” I would say your excitement will also drift.
2 people found this helpful
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Performance
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- Michael Dowd
- 09-03-11
Great content; half again too long
If you could sum up The Moral Lives of Animals in three words, what would they be?
animals are us
What could Dale Peterson have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
have a competent editor cut it in half; have more of his scholarly experience appear near the front, which now reads like an adventure tale of youthful avocational interest and passion, with no assurance that it will actually lead somewhere important (which it eventually does, in fact, do)
How did the narrator detract from the book?
The narrator reads every sentence as if it was the climax of the paragraph, so it was exhausting to listen to.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Geoff
- 03-30-11
The Moral Lives of Animals is to long
The Moral Lives of Animals
Interesting topic but this book could have been much better at half the length.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Stef
- 09-11-18
Well written and brilliantly read
Sanjiv Jhaveri really brings life to this book. He manages to expertly convey nuance and personality.
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Story
World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits - self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics - are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals.
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Excellent Production
- By Kitty on 09-11-17
By: Carl Sagan, and others
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When Elephants Weep
- The Emotional Lives of Animals
- By: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Susan McCarthy
- Narrated by: David Ackroyd
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Abridged
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This engaging and authoritative portrait of animals' emotional lives is as groundbreaking as Darwin's Origin of Species in the facts and insights it presents about the animal kingdom. You'll meet an Indian elephant known for his facial expressions, a shy gorilla who is proficient in sign language and loves to play house with dolls, and an African grey parrot who, when left at the veterinarian's, cried, "Come here! I love you. I'm sorry. I want to go back."
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Great perspective, but one thing stood out...
- By Brianna Pleasant on 12-07-20
By: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, and others
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The Goodness Paradox
- The Strange Relationship Between Peace and Violence in Human Evolution
- By: Richard Wrangham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, even as daily life has exhibited calm and tolerance, war has never been far away, and even within societies, violence can be a threat. The Goodness Paradox gives a new and powerful argument for how and why this uncanny combination of peacefulness and violence crystallized after our ancestors acquired language in Africa a quarter of a million years ago.
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Great book but maybe less suited to an audiobook
- By Melanie Virtue on 05-05-19
By: Richard Wrangham
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If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal
- What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity
- By: Justin Gregg
- Narrated by: Justin Gregg
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination, and the creation of a world teetering toward climate catastrophe. Understood side-by-side, human exceptionalism begins to look more like a curse. As scientist Justin Gregg persuasively argues, there’s an evolutionary reason why human intelligence isn’t more prevalent in the animal kingdom. Simply put, non-human animals don’t need it to be successful.
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Difficult to balance philosophy and science.
- By Isaac Hunter on 08-17-22
By: Justin Gregg
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Beasts
- What Animals Can Teach Us About the Origins of Good Evil
- By: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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There are two supreme predators on the planet with the most complex brains in nature: humans and orcas. In the 20th century alone, one of these animals killed 200 million members of its own species, the other killed none. Jeffrey Masson’s fascinating new book begins here: There is something different about us. In Beasts he demonstrates that the violence we perceive in the "wild" is mostly a matter of projection. We link the basest human behavior to animals, to "beasts" ("he behaved no better than a beast"), and claim the high ground for our species.
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This one is a MUST!!! Thought provoking....
- By kristen on 03-10-14
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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 Social Leap
- The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come from, and What Makes Us Happy
- By: William von Hippel
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Social Leap, William von Hippel lays out a revolutionary hypothesis, tracing human development through three critical evolutionary inflection points to explain how events in our distant past shape our lives today. From the mundane, such as why we exaggerate, to the surprising, such as why we believe our own lies and why fame and fortune are as likely to bring misery as happiness, the implications are far-reaching and extraordinary.
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Amazing
- By tiffani on 11-15-18
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Beyond Words
- What Animals Think and Feel
- By: Carl Safina
- Narrated by: Carl Safina
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals.
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Great book by a scientist with a heart
- By Sharon on 11-12-15
By: Carl Safina
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In the Company of Bears
- What Black Bears Have Taught Me About Intelligence and Intuition
- By: Benjamin Kilham
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine raising an orphaned bear cub, carefully reintroducing her to the wild, then being welcomed back, almost daily, to observe her wild world for more than 17 years. Imagine visiting her in her feeding spots, watching her with her mates and her young, peering into her den, and, over time, observing the lives of all the other wild bears in her territory and surrounding ones. That is what happened to Ben Kilham.
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Best Bear book I have read!
- By Walking With Bears on 06-02-21
By: Benjamin Kilham
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Wild Justice
- The Moral Lives of Animals
- By: Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male?
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What Some Of Us Have Always Known...
- By Douglas on 12-12-13
By: Marc Bekoff, and others
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How the Mind Works
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?
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Excellent, but a difficult listen.
- By David Roseberry on 12-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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The Genius of Dogs
- How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think
- By: Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In their New York Times best-selling book The Genius of Dogs, husband-and-wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods lay out landmark discoveries from the Duke Canine Cognition Center and other research facilities around the world to reveal how your dog thinks and how we humans can have even deeper relationships with our best four-legged friends.
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Misleading title- My guess is that the Published
- By Howard on 08-26-14
By: Brian Hare, and others
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Queer Ducks (and Other Animals)
- The Natural World of Animal Sexuality
- By: Eliot Schrefer
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin, Dustin Ballard, Hope Newhouse, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A quiet revolution has been underway in recent years, with study after study revealing substantial same-sex sexual behavior in animals. Join celebrated author Eliot Schrefer on an exploration of queer behavior in the animal world—from albatrosses to bonobos to clownfish to doodlebugs.
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Absolutely Wonderful
- By iamltr on 06-18-22
By: Eliot Schrefer
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Bitch
- On the Female of the Species
- By: Lucy Cooke
- Narrated by: Lucy Cooke
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Studying zoology made Lucy Cooke feel like a sad freak. Not because she loved spiders or would root around in animal feces: All her friends shared the same curious kinks. The problem was her sex. Being female meant she was, by nature, a loser. Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones—dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. But Cooke tells a new story.
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Fun narrative, fascinating facts, & new angle
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 06-14-22
By: Lucy Cooke