What can you tell us about the origins of morality and justice in human society? You affirm that many of the traits that define morality –empathy, reciprocity, reconciliation and consolation- can already be seen in animals, most particulary in primates? Can the true pillars of humanity be found in other animals? Morality predates humanity?
I am not claiming that animals are moreal the way we are. But human morality was not developed from nothing. An entire psychology underpins it, including the capacity to make and follow rules, of emapthy and sympathy, of cooperation and reciprocity. For example our golden rule is one of empathy and reciprocity (do unto others …). All of this basic psychology can be found in our primate relatives, so that there’s in fact continuity between their behavior and human morality, as Darwin already sugegsted.
Essentially what parallels can be drawn today between primate and human behavior? Why studying animal behavior can help us to study human behavior? What do separate humans from apes? What is common and continues in our species?
Humans are animals, humans are primates. We certainly resemble them anatomically (we have hair, nipples, hearts, lungs, grasping hands, and DNA like the other primates), enough to say we are one of them. But also mentally, there is an enormous similarity, as we are finding out. So, we are primates, but perhaps special ones. We have language, for example, which really is the BIG difference. So, both those who want to stress similarities, like myself, have a point, and those who like to stress differences.
Why are we trained to avoid any talk of intentions or emotions in animals? How did you deal with that? Why do we have different standards for different species, so close to one another?
This started with American behaviorism, a school of thought according to which we only can know animal behavior, and should not talk about animals’ inner lives. Behaviorists don’t deny that animals have emotions, but say that since we can’t know them we should not talk about them. If they mean we cannot feel what an animal feels, they’re right, but this is no reason to avoid any discussion of animal emotions. We know for fear, aggression, affection that the same brain areas are affected in humans and rats for the same responses, so there’s every indication that the underlying brain mechanisms are the same. If that’s so, why should we avoid calling the responses by the same names?
No one had mentioned ever before the possibility of reconciliation in animals...Why did you think that reconciliation and social reciprocity were promising topics to study? You wonder if we teach our kids to defend by themselves or to find agreeable solutions, if we teach them rights or responsabilities...
These are the “integrative” responses. Behavior that serves to bring individuals together, such as reconciliation after a fight, when individuals kiss and embrace. Or as bonobos, they have sex after a fight. I am very interested in integrative responses. They are necessary to maintain the cohesion of a society. And yes, we need to teach this to children. We don’t usually need to teach them to fight, but we do need to tell them how to keep friends, how to share, and how to care for others.
From Descartes, the air has been filled with warnings against antropomorfism. What do you mean by anthropodenial?
Anthropodenial is the a priori rejection of similarity between human and animal behavior. If humans kiss after a fight and chimpanzees kiss after a fight, the Cartesians tell us that best is to call it differently since we don’t know if human and animal behavior is the same. Anyone who uses the same terms for both species – like calling it reconciliation - is accused of anthropomorphism. But I argue that not doing so – by using different terms – is a form of anthropodenial, of obscuring important similarities that may be there, of acting as if we know the two behaviors are different, whereas it is more likely that humans and chimpanzees, if they act alike, are motivated alike. So, I argue that the default postion should be for closely related species that similar behavior is similarly motivated. This is essentially a Darwinian assumption.
What are bonobos telling us? Why aren´t they still more extensively known?
Bonobos are the hippies of the primate world: peaceful, sexy. They have little aggression and lots of sex. I think they are less known than chimpanzees partly because they were discovered much later and there are fewer of them. But also because their behavior doesn’t fit the general thinking that we’re an aggressive species. People like to believe that we are “killer apes,” and bonobos just don’t support this story, hence have been neglected.
