Can we recognize a sense of morality in creatures other than ourselves? De Waal (Peacemaking Among Primates, 1989, etc.) asks, then smartly, rangingly, appealingly deploys his ethozoological background to see what he can find. Since moral systems are universal among humans, de Waal considers this tendency to be an integral part of human nature- -biologically significant, rather than a cultural counterforce. Yet from the standpoint of evolutionary biology, whence came such moral attributes as self-sacrifice and communal interests, dubious traits in the Darwinian scheme (but only when Darwin is narrowly interpreted, as de Waal notes)? And since the moral ingredients of sympathy, reciprocity, and peacemaking are found scattered throughout the animal kingdom, what is their evolutionary advantage? De Waal isn't looking for proofs—at this stage of research there aren't any. He's more interested in cross- pollinating his delicious array of intuitions, anecdotes, and random observations, with theories from neurobiology, visual anthropology, comparative psychology, evolutionary science, and cognitive ethology (his command of the fields that touch upon the biological roots of morality is dazzling; the guy did his homework, then went for the extra credit). Two theories in particular give some beef to his hunch that animals have a moral faculty: kin selection (in which the genetic imperative is satisfied even at one's own expense) and reciprocal altruism (immediate costs balanced by long-term benefits). The greatest truth emerging from juxtaposing genetic self-interest with intense sociality, de Waal figures, is that human and beast are both noble and brutish, both nurtured and natured. Unpretentious, open, humorous, and with a flair for language, de Waal nimbly displays that rare and wonderful scientific mind: as much at home with contradiction, clutter, and illogic as with systematic data.
Pub Date: March 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-674-35660-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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