Download or read book Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees written by Lee Alan Dugatkin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here biologist Lee Dugatkin outlines four paths to cooperation shared by humans and other animals: family dynamics, reciprocal transactions (or "tit for tat"), so-called selfish teamwork, and group altruism. He draws on a wealth of examples—from babysitting among mongooses and food sharing among vampire bats to cooperation in Hutterite communities and on kibbutzim—o show not only that cooperation exists throughout the animal kingdom, but how an understanding of the natural history of altruism might foster our own best instincts toward our fellow humans.
Download or read book A Keeper of Bees written by Allison Wallace and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I was hooked. Call it adrenaline surge, call it honeybee venom in my veins–whatever the explanation, henceforth I would need these funky little critters in my life. Givers of sweet, thick honey, bringers forth of the fruits from trees and bushes and who knew what else, they also gave more food for thought than a body could know what to do with. –from A Keeper of Bees Allison Wallace’s devotion to honeybees and their amazing, intensely lived lives started years ago, when she was living in a cabin in the North Carolina woods. Ever since then, wherever she has called home, Wallace has kept company with bees. Now she gives us the honeybee in all its glory, dancing “the great, never fully knowable ecological dance,” striving like other creatures and plants to be all it can be in its short life. With a philosopher’s perception and a scientist’s knowledge, Wallace interweaves the facts of honeybee biology with reflections on desire, intimacy, work, evolution, memory, and home. She shares the thrill of intimately observing thousands of busy bees cozily ensconced in their brilliantly designed, perfectly weatherproofed hive. She muses on the female workers’ unceasing activity, and on the male drones’ idleness as each awaits his acrobatic midair mating with the queen, followed by his instant death. She marvels at the cosseted queen, upon whom the future of the hive depends.
Download or read book Following the Rules written by Joseph Heath and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, philosophers have been puzzled by the fact that people often respect moral obligations as a matter of principle, setting aside considerations of self-interest. In more recent years, social scientists have been puzzled by the more general phenomenon of rule-following, the fact that people often abide by social norms even when doing so produces undesirable consequences. Experimental game theorists have demonstrated conclusively that the old-fashioned picture of "economic man," constantly reoptimizing in order to maximize utility in all circumstances, cannot provide adequate foundations for a general theory of rational action. The dominant response, however, has been a slide toward irrationalism. If people are ignoring the consequences of their actions, it is claimed, it must be because they are making some sort of a mistake. In Following the Rules, Joseph Heath attempts to reverse this trend, by showing how rule-following can be understood as an essential element of rational action. The first step involves showing how rational choice theory can be modified to incorporate deontic constraint as a feature of rational deliberation. The second involves disarming the suspicion that there is something mysterious or irrational about the psychological states underlying rule-following. According to Heath, human rationality is a by-product of the so-called "language upgrade" that we receive as a consequence of the development of specific social practices. As a result, certain constitutive features of our social environment-such as the rule-governed structure of social life-migrate inwards, and become constitutive features of our psychological faculties. This in turn explains why there is an indissoluble bond between practical rationality and deontic constraint. In the end, what Heath offers is a naturalistic, evolutionary argument in favor of the traditional Kantian view that there is an internal connection between being a rational agent and feeling the force of one's moral obligations.
Download or read book The Art of Strategy A Game Theorist s Guide to Success in Business and Life written by Avinash K. Dixit and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-01-04 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I am hard pressed to think of another book that can match the combination of practical insights and reading enjoyment.”—Steven Levitt Game theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It’s the art of anticipating your opponent’s next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies—from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history—the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it. Mastering game theory will make you more successful in business and life, and this lively book is the key to that mastery.
Download or read book The Macaque Connection written by Sindhu Radhakrishna and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of this book arises from a symposium entitled “Human-Macaque Interactions: Traditional and Modern Perspectives on Cooperation and Conflict ” organized at the 23rd Congress of the International Primatological Society, that was held in Kyoto in September 2010. The symposium highlighted the many aspects of human-macaque relations and some of the participants were invited to contribute to this volume. The volume will include about 11 chapters by a variety of international authors and some excerpts from published literature that illustrate cultural notions of macaques. Contributions from invited authors will engage with four main perspectives – traditional views of macaques, cooperative relationships between humans and macaques, current scenarios of human-macaque conflict, and how living with and beside humans has affected macaques. Authors will address these concerns through their research findings and reviews of their work on the Asian, and the lone African, macaques.
Download or read book The Imitation Factor written by Lee Alan Dugatkin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed biologist draws on a wide range of his own and others' research into the behavior of fish, birds, whales, and humans to reveal the failure of genetic determination to explain mating behavior and the fundamental process of learning.
Download or read book The Moral Lives of Animals written by Dale Peterson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-06-19 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the moral behavior observed in animals and argues that human beings are not the only species to live by the principles of cooperation, kindness, and empathy.
Download or read book The Origins and Nature of Sociality written by Robert W. Sussman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific developments have increasingly been transforming our understanding of the place of human beings in nature. The contributors to this book focus on the current status of research on sociality and the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behaviour in non-human and human primates. They examine questions related to the evolution, cultural viability, and hormonal underpinnings of human sociality in specific detail, and describe patterns of sociality that shed light on human social behaviour.
Download or read book Animal Rights written by John M. Kistler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2000-06-30 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introductions to each chapter explain the issues, as well as the arguments that surround them, and a general introduction to the volume thoroughly explains how to use the book. Each entry contains the following information: author, title, edition, series title, location of publisher, name of publisher, number of pages, year of publication, and International Standard Book Number. Annotations include the most important information available to help the researcher, including web sites that contain not only the full text of the book when available, but also excerpts and articles or interviews by the author; short quotations from the books; and short descriptions and summaries of the books. All the information provided allows students to locate exactly what they need, while encouraging them to explore other issues and differing viewpoints.
Download or read book Human Characteristics written by Preben Bertelsen and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-23 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every once in a while, we have to reconsider the perennial questions concerning human nature: What are the special human behaviours, social practices, and psychological structures that make us particularly human? The field of evolution, psychology and cognitive science is the most expanding, inter-disciplinary area of this field for the time being, uniting different sciences under the same evolutionary paradigm and keeping them occupied by the same eternal questions stated above. Relevant data and theoretical considerations are piling up, but an overview is needed. To facilitate this a large inter-disciplinary conference entitled “Human Mind—Human Kind” was held at Aarhus University, Denmark. The studies fall into three well defined sections: 1) Evolution and Cognition—Comparative and Developmental Perspectives, 2) Human Sociality, Morality and Religiosity, 3) Human Sexuality and Mating Strategies. Specifying the differences between our own species and the rest of the animal world always provokes debate. But these demarcations simply have to be drawn once and again. They focus attention and stimulate research, exactly because they provoke and challenge other researchers to take up the glove and prove us wrong.
Download or read book Mutual Aid written by Pablo Servigne and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the merciless arena of life, we are all subject to the law of the jungle, to ruthless competition and the survival of the fittest – such is the myth that has given rise to a society that has become toxic for our planet and for our and future generations. But today the lines are shifting. A growing number of new movements and thinkers are challenging this skewed view of the world and reviving words such as ‘altruism’, ‘cooperation’, ‘kindness’ and ‘solidarity’. A close look at the wide spectrum of living beings reveals that, at all times and in all places, animals, plants, microorganisms and human beings have practised different forms of mutual aid. And those which survive difficult conditions best are not necessarily the strongest, but those which help each other the most. Pablo Servigne and Gauthier Chapelle explore a vast, forgotten continent of mutual aid in order to discover the mechanisms of this ‘other law of the jungle’. In so doing, they provide a more rounded view of the world of living things and give us some of the conceptual tools we need to move beyond the vicious circle of competition and self-destruction that is leading our civilization to the verge of collapse.
Download or read book Human Morality and Sociality written by Henrik Hogh-Olesen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-12-09 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human nature is enigmatic. Are we cruel, selfish creatures or good merciful Samaritans? This book takes you on a journey into the complexities of human mind and kind, from altruism, sharing, and large-scale cooperation, to cheating, distrust, and warfare. What are the building blocks of morality and sociality? Featuring contributions from leading researchers, such as Christophe Boesch, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Azar Gat, Dennis Krebs, Ara Norenzayan, and Frans B. M. de Waal, this fascinating interdisciplinary reader draws on evolutionary and comparative perspectives, and is essential reading for any students interested in the unique characteristics that define humanity and society.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology written by Leonie Huddy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 1005 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revised version of this essential interdisciplinary handbook.
Download or read book Kindred Spirits written by Allen M. Schoen, D.V.M., M.S. and published by Crown. This book was released on 2002-05-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Treating animals just as any healer would treat human beings, Allen Schoen has become one of America’s most celebrated veterinarians. Kindred Spirits shares the transformative power of his remarkable methods, explores how alternative healing is revolutionizing his profession, and, in the tradition of James Herriot, shares heartwarming stories of animals and their caretakers who have deeply enriched each other’s lives. Through moving scenes–such as an ailing German shepherd who fights to stay alive so he can assist and comfort his ailing human companion–Schoen details the ways in which the human-animal bond can provide a wellspring of love and support, and outlines his own special prescription for improving the care we give our animals through adopting simple healing practices at home. A remarkable new synthesis of science and spirit, Kindred Spirits at last reveals the many ways our animal friends can help us lead happier, healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Download or read book The Evolution of Morality written by Richard Joyce and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-08-24 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.
Download or read book Learning Group Leadership written by Jeffrey A. Kottler and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-07-09 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on how to conduct and lead groups in a variety of therapeutic settings, Learning Group Leadership: An Experiential Approach, Third Edition covers theory, process, leadership, ethics, special populations, and challenges as they relate to group work in a positive, realistic, and knowledgeable way. Jeffrey A. Kottler and Matt Englar-Carlson introduce important conceptual and practical information and then use activities, exercises, field study assignments, and personal application questions to help students apply concepts to their work and lives. The fully updated Third Edition brings concepts to life through “student voices” in every chapter, examples drawn from the authors’ combined 55-plus years of experience, and demonstration video content that contains sessions corresponding with every chapter. “This is the best book out there for introducing students to the complex world of groups. The text delivers what it promises in the title. It teaches counseling graduate students how to become solid group leaders (or—to be more precise—how to begin their journey in that direction), and it does this in a way that is positive, knowledgeable, and realistic.…The most impressive aspect of the material is the authors’ focus on the experiential approach (training students to be group leaders), combined with an accessible writing style, a lot of knowledge, and an enthusiastic attitude.” —Marilyn MacGregor, Western New Mexico University “It’s clear that the authors have a wealth of experience with counseling groups—information is conversationally presented and realistically discussed." —Marla J. Muxen, South Dakota State University “This book is very readable and clearly explains the points it makes using accessible examples which students can readily understand. Skills discussed can be appreciated and applied to whatever personal experience of facilitating groups the student already has; as such it is a text which ‘grows with the student.’” —Corinne Hutt Greenyer, University of Southampton
Download or read book Morality and the Environmental Crisis written by Roger S. Gottlieb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The environmental crisis besieges morality with unanswered questions and ethical dilemmas, requiring fresh examination of nature's value, animal rights, activism, and despair.
