Primates and philosophers: how morality evolved

BOOK REVIEW

Review of the book entitled Primates and philosophers: how morality evolved

Francisco M. Salzano

Professor, Department of Genetics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

^{Correspondence}

Frans de Waal

Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006

The publication of Charles Darwin's (1809–1882) seminal work "The Origin of Species" in 1859 drastically affected our view of the world. That book completed the dismantling of the myth that we were the center of the universe, started three centuries ago when it was demonstrated that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the center of our solar system. The explanation of the basis of the evolutionary process, which recently culminated in the so–called "molecular revolution," made clear that our brotherhood with other living beings is not an allegory anymore, but a cold scientific fact. That caused a shock in the millenary Judaic–Christian tradition, which claimed that the world had been created to serve us and that we were completely different from the animals, considered as beings without a soul.

Such considerations were determined by reading Frans de Waal's excellent work. His book is composed of an Introduction (11 pages) written by the editors of the University Center for Human Values Series at Princeton University, Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober, followed by three large subdivisions. In Part I, the author, who is a member of the Department of Psychology at Emory University, in Atlanta, USA, presents a summary of his studies through several decades on the behavior of primates, especially the chimpanzee (genus Pan) and the South–American monkey Cebus. The main focus of this first essay is a decisive attack on what he called "Veneer Theory," according to which human beings are basically evil, and human morality is only a thin veneer layer developed by culture on an antisocial, amoral and selfish content. On the contrary, he argues, an evolutionary view of ethics provides a glimpse of its roots in our closest biological relatives, such as the chimpanzees, in which empathy can be observed (the condition of being able to place oneself in another being's position), sympathy (affective response to other people's suffering), behavior of consolation, gratitude, impartiality and concern about humankind. In three appendixes, he considers: a) anthropomorphism and anthropodenial (the danger of transferring human characteristics to others, or the phobia to avoid them); b) whether large monkeys have a theory of the mind; and c) animal rights.

There are 78 pages in total, including comments by: a) Robert Wright, member of the media who had published a much advertised book about "The Moral Animal" in 1994. He approaches the theme "The Uses of Anthropomorphism" (15 pages); b) Christine M. Korsgaard, Professor of Philosophy at University of Harvard in Cambridge, USA, who analyzes "Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action" (22 pages); c) Philip Kitcher, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, in New York, USA, who examines "Ethics and Evolution: How to Get Here from There" (20 pages); and d) Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, who considers "Morality, Reason and the Rights of Animals" (19 pages).

The response to the comments was made by Frans de Waal in 21 pages, in which he performs an in–depth analysis of his thoughts on the characteristics of Moral, dividing it into three levels: moral feelings, social pressure and judgment and thinking. He also presents a taxonomy of the altruistic behavior in four categories: functional altruism, socially motivated help, focused intentional help and "selfish" help. According to him, the fourth category is exclusive of human beings.

Fascinating themes are discussed throughout the book. For example, de Waal adopts A. Macintyre's definition of morality, who considers it as a group–oriented phenomenon, born from the fact that we depend on a system of social support for survival. Also according to him, the domain of moral action can be summarized into Helping or (not) Hurting. Emphasis on the social and on distribution of wealth is also given by Korsgaard, who argues that "if you had all the wealthy in the world you would not be rich." De Wall, on the other hand, stresses that a moral system cannot provide equal consideration to all the life in the planet, and quotes Pierre–Joseph Proudhon, "If the whole world is my brother, then I have no brother." He is very critical as to the "Declaration about Large Monkeys," created in 1993 by Singer and a series of eminent researchers, which is the equivalent to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights passed by the United Nations in 1948. One of the most curious aspects concerning this issue was the decision made by the National Institutes of Health in the USA of sponsoring a retirement system for chimpanzees after their use in biomedical research. Such measure should frighten our politicians and INSS [National Institute of Social Security] managers, who are already scared about the social welfare deficit, early retirements and accelerated aging of the Brazilian human population!

What distinguishes us from a chimpanzee in biological terms? It is known that, at a nucleotidic level (DNA structures), the difference is only 1.2%, that the separation between these species must have occurred between five and seven million years ago and that, even after an initial separation, there must have been a gene flow between both divergent lineages. Curiously, brain–specific genes did not remarkably evolve in this differentiation process.

Other evolutionary aspects deserve consideration, for example: if the fundamental factor in evolution was natural selection, focusing on competition, how can the evolution of cooperation be explained? This problem has been considered by many researchers, and Martin A. Nowak (Science; 2006:314:1560–3) has recently performed a mathematical analysis.

What can be said as a matter of conclusion? That we are part of nature. Biology has made culture and moral rules possible, but it cannot dictate them. Ethics and moral are of an essentially human responsibility.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 Sept 2007
• Date of issue
  Apr 2007