PRIMATES AND PHILOSOPHERS Part 1 doc

[...]... concerned with goodness and its origins, in human and nonhuman animals alike PART I MORALLY EVOLVED PRIMATE SOCIAL INSTINCTS, HUMAN MORALITY, AND THE RISE AND FALL OF “VENEER THEORY” Frans de Waal 0 We approve and we disapprove because we cannot do otherwise Can we help feeling pain when the fire burns us? Can we help sympathizing with our friends? —Edward Westermarck (19 12 [19 08]: 19 ) Why should our nastiness... linking human and nonhuman morality consists of careful observations of the behavior of humanity’s relatives INTRODUCTION xiii De Waal has spent a long and extremely successful career minutely observing primate behavior and he has seen and recorded much goodness In the process he has developed immense respect and fondness for his subjects One part of the pleasure of reading de Waal on primates, a pleasure... of you to attend to this and other conversations among the set of scholars who think hard and care passionately about primate behavior and the set of those who think hard and care equally passionately about human morality The existence of this book is proof that those two sets are partially overlapping Part of its purpose is to advocate an increase in the extent of the overlap and to promote thoughtful... reference to contingent and contextual considerations So what we offer in this volume is a debate among five scholars who agree on some basic issues about science and morality It is a serious and lively conversation among a group of thinkers who are deeply committed to the value and validity of science and to the value and reality of otherregarding morality The question that de Waal and his commentators... chimpanzees, and then at other primates more distantly related to ourselves, and ultimately at non-primate social animals If our closest relatives do in fact act as if they were good, and if we humans also act as if we were good, the methodological principle of parsimony urges us to suppose that the goodness is real, that the motivation for goodness is natural, and that the morality of humans and their... again points out, p 14 4) that “It is only when we make general, impartial judgments that we can really begin to speak of moral approval and disapproval.” The most obvious capacity discontinuity between humans and nonhuman animals is in the area of speech, and the self-conscious employment of reason that we associate strongly with the uniquely human use of language Speech, language use, and reason are obviously... emotion-motivated “moral” behavior that de Waal and others have observed in primates and the “genuine” reason-based moral actions of humans? If the copy editor of this book knew the right answer to that question he or she would know which word in the previous sentence—“moral” or “genuine”—should have its scare quotes struck out Much in our understanding of ourselves, and the other species with which we share... nastiness be the baggage of an apish past and our kindness uniquely human? Why should we not seek continuity with other animals for our “noble” traits as well? —Stephen Jay Gould (19 80: 2 61) 0 H omo homini lupus —“man is wolf to man”—is an ancient Roman proverb popularized by Thomas Hobbes Even though its basic tenet permeates large parts of law, economics, and political science, the proverb contains... Admittedly, the same partial tendency may be endogenous to humans, as de Waal believes And it may be an endemic threat to human morality, as Robert Wright argues But, as Kitcher, Korsgaard, and Singer all point out, the universalization of the set of beings (all persons, or, with Singer, all creatures with interests) to which moral duties are owed is treated as conceptually feasible by humans (and as conceptually... of comparing apples and oranges: contrasting primate behavior (based on quantitative and anecdotal observation) with human normative ideals Of course, de Waal’s critics can respond that the difference among comparanda is precisely the point: nonhuman animals have not got any ought stories, or for that matter stories of any kind, because they lack the capacity for speech, language, and reason Nonhuman . Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober ; Christine M. Korsgaard [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN -13 : 978-0-6 91- 12447-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN -10 : 0-6 91- 12447-7 (hardcover. and the Rights of Animals Peter Singer 14 0 PART III Response to Commentators The Tower of Morality Frans de Waal 16 1 References 18 3 Contributors 19 7 Index 2 01 vi CONTENTS Acknowledgments 0 would. paper) 1. Ethics, Evolutionary. 2. Primates Behavior. 3. Altruistic behavior in animals. I. Macedo, Stephen, 19 57– II. Ober, Josiah. III. Korsgaard, Christine M. (Christine Marion) IV. Title. BJ1 311 .W14