Moral behavior in animals | Frans de Waal

Introduction

In this section, Frans de Waal introduces himself and talks about his interest in the painter Hieronymus Bosch and his famous painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights". He also discusses how he became interested in studying animal behavior.

• Frans de Waal was born in Den Bosch, where the painter Hieronymus Bosch named himself after.

• He has always been very fond of this painter who lived and worked in the 15th century.

• He became interested in studying animal behavior as a student when he went to a zoological garden in Arnhem where they keep chimpanzees.

Morality without Religion

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about morality and religion. He discusses what would happen with society if there was no religion or less religion.

• Hieronymus Bosch lived at a time where religion's influence was waning, and he wondered what would happen with society if there was no religion or if there was less religion.

• The painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights" has been interpreted as being humanity before the Fall or being humanity without any Fall at all.

• Frans de Waal wonders what would happen if we hadn't tasted the fruit of knowledge, so to speak, and what kind of morality we would have.

Chimpanzee Behavior

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about his research on chimpanzee behavior. He discusses how chimpanzees reconcile after fights and how it changed his view on animal behavior.

• Chimpanzees reconcile after fights by holding out a hand to each other or reconciling with sex.

• This is interesting because everything at that time was about competition and aggression, so it wouldn't make any sense for them to reconcile.

• Frans de Waal's whole picture of the animal kingdom, including humans, started to change at that time.

Human Nature

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about human nature and how it is often portrayed as nasty. He discusses how humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than given credit for.

• The image in political science, economics, humanities, and philosophy is that man is a wolf to man.

• This image is unfair to humanity because humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than given credit for.

• Frans de Waal became interested in studying these issues and studying them in other animals.

Pillars of Morality

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about the two pillars of morality: reciprocity and empathy/compassion.

• Reciprocity is associated with a sense of justice and fairness.

• Empathy and compassion are essential pillars of morality.

• If you would remove these two pillars from human morality, there would not be much remaining.

Cooperation Among Chimpanzees

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about cooperation among chimpanzees. He discusses an old video from the Yerkes Primate Center where they trained chimpanzees to cooperate.

• The video shows two young chimpanzees who have a box that is too heavy for one chimp to pull in.

• They work together by pulling at the same moment.

• One chimp has been fed but still works even though he's not interested in the food.

Working with Elephants

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about the challenges of working with elephants and how they developed an apparatus to test their cooperation.

Apparatus for Testing Cooperation

• An apparatus was created that had a single rope around it. Two elephants needed to pick it up at exactly the same time and pull in order for anything to happen.

• The first tape shows two elephants arriving together and picking up the rope together.

• In the next step, one elephant is released before the other. This elephant needs to be smart enough to wait and not pull on the rope, otherwise, the whole test is over.

• The waiting elephant puts its foot on the rope and waits for the other elephant to arrive.

Empathy in Animals

In this section, Frans de Waal discusses empathy in animals and how it can be studied.

Channels of Empathy

• Empathy has two qualities: understanding and emotional. It has two channels: body channel (adopting expressions/postures of others), cognitive channel (taking perspective of others).

• Synchronization is part of empathy mechanism which underlies empathy. Yawn contagion is related to empathy as well.

• Consolation behavior is empathy-driven. It's very similar to human consolation.

Altruism in Chimpanzees

• A simple experiment was done on chimpanzees living in Lawrenceville field station of Yerkes where two chimpanzees were put side-by-side. They were given a choice between receiving food only for themselves or both themselves and their partner. The chimpanzees chose the option of both themselves and their partner, showing that they care about the welfare of others.

The Pro-Social Token

In this section, Frans de Waal discusses the pro-social token experiment and how chimpanzees care about the well-being of others.

Two Color Tokens

• Chimpanzees have to pick one of two colors from a bucket full of color tokens.

Selfish Choice

• If a chimp makes the selfish choice, they need to give it to us. We put it on a table where there are two food rewards, but only one gets food.

Pro-Social Token

• For the pro-social token, both chimps get fed regardless of who makes the choices.

• Chimpanzees prefer the pro-social token and choose it more often than expected.

• They care about the well-being of other members in their group.

The Fairness Study

In this section, Frans de Waal talks about his famous fairness study with capuchin monkeys and how animals can have a sense of fairness.

Simple Task

• Two capuchin monkeys are put side-by-side in a test chamber.

• They need to do a simple task that involves cucumber as a reward.

Grape vs Cucumber

• If you give one monkey grapes instead of cucumber, inequity is created between them.

Wall Street Protest

• One monkey sees the other getting grape and starts protesting by throwing a rock.

• This is similar to the Wall Street protest.

Sense of Fairness

• Animals can have a sense of fairness, and philosophers need to rethink their philosophy.

Evolved Morality

In this section, the speaker discusses his belief in an evolved morality that is based on empathy, pro-social tendencies, reciprocity, and a sense of fairness. He explains that these ingredients are found in other primates and are necessary for creating a morality without necessarily involving god or religion.

Ingredients for an Evolved Morality

• Empathy and consolation

• Pro-social tendencies

• Reciprocity

• Sense of fairness

Creating a Morality from the Bottom Up

• The speaker aims to create a morality from the bottom up by working on the aforementioned ingredients.

• The goal is to achieve an evolved morality without relying on god or religion.