The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and why They Matter

by Marc Bekoff, Jane Goodall (Foreword by)

Overview

Based on award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff’s years studying social communication in a wide range of species, this important book shows that animals have rich emotional lives. Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied. Filled with Bekoff’s light humor and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view animals and how we treat them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781577316299
Publisher:	New World Library
Publication date:	05/28/2008
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	443,866
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword   Jane Goodall     xi
Preface: The Gift of Animal Emotions     xvii
Acknowledgments     xxiii
The Case for Animal Emotions and Why They Matter     1
Cognitive Ethology: Studying Animal Minds and Hearts     29
Beastly Passions: What Animals Feel     43
Wild Justice, Empathy, and Fair Play: Finding Honor among Beasts     85
Hard Questions: Answering Skeptics and Addressing Uncertainty in Science     111
Ethical Choices: What We Do with What We Know     133
Endnotes     167
Bibliography     193
Index     203
About the Author     213

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Anyone interested in animal emotion will want a copy of this book. Bekoff speaks with the unique authority of an expert who is experiencing the success of a revolution in science and ethics that he helped make and that will endure (if we endure) as one of the signal achievements — along with the expansion of human rights and environmentalism — of the late twentieth century.”
— The BARk

“This thought-provoking book could very likely change your life.”
— The Animals Voice

“Marc Bekoff ably presents the richness and variety of the emotions in nonhuman animals — and doesn’t hesitate to draw the ethical conclusions implicit in his findings. I hope this book will be widely read by those who care about animals — and even more widely by those who don’t.”
— Peter Singer, professor of bioethics, Princeton University

Editorial Reviews

“Anyone interested in animal emotion will want a copy of this book. Bekoff speaks with the unique authority of an expert who is experiencing the success of a revolution in science and ethics that he helped make and that will endure (if we endure) as one of the signal achievements — along with the expansion of human rights and environmentalism — of the late twentieth century.”
— The BARk

“This thought-provoking book could very likely change your life.”
— The Animals Voice

“Marc Bekoff ably presents the richness and variety of the emotions in nonhuman animals — and doesn’t hesitate to draw the ethical conclusions implicit in his findings. I hope this book will be widely read by those who care about animals — and even more widely by those who don’t.”
— Peter Singer, professor of bioethics, Princeton University

From the Publisher

Any dog owner knows that her own pet has feelings, but what evidence exists beyond the anecdotal, and what does this evidence teach us? Bekoff, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Colorado, pores over decades of animal research-behavioral, neurochemical, psychological and environmental-to answer that question, compelling readers to accept both the existence and significance of animal emotions. Seated in the most primitive structures of the brain (pleasure receptors, for example, are biologically correlative in all mammals), emotions have a long evolutionary history. Indeed, as vertebrates became more complex, they developed ever more complex emotional and social lives, "setting rules" that permit group living-a far better survival strategy than going solo. Along the way, Bekoff forces the reader to reexamine the nature of human beings; our species could not have persevered through the past 100,000 years without the evolution of strong and cohesive social relationships cemented with emotions, a conclusion contrary to contemporary pop sociology notions that prioritize individualism and competition. He also explores, painfully but honestly, the abuse animals regularly withstand in factory farms, research centers and elsewhere, and calls on fellow scientists to practice their discipline with "heart." Demonstrating the far-reaching implications for readers' relationships with any number of living beings, Bekoff's book is profound, thought provoking and even touching. (Mar.)

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