''Good Natured'' is a book by
primatologist Frans de Waal on animal behavior and the
evolution of ethics.
Publishing history
The book was published in 1996 by
Harvard University Press under the full title ''Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals''. Much of the book details observations of
primate behavior, especially that of
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s and
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
s.
[de Waal 1996, p. 3: "After due attention in this book's first chapter to theories of evolutionary ethics, I will move on to more practical matters. Do animals show behavior that parallels the benevolence as well as the rules and regulations of human moral conduct? … As an ethologist specialized in primatology, I naturally turn most often to the order of animals to which we ourselves belong. … Our ancestors more than likely possessed many of the behavioral tendencies currently found in macaques, baboons, gorillas, chimpanzees, and so on."] On the final page, he concludes:
Notes
References
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External links
''Good Natured''at the
Harvard University Press
Review by Elena Madison{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012062040/http://clogic.eserver.org/2002/madison.html , date=2006-10-12
Biology books
Primatology
Ethology
Harvard University Press books