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Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (The University Center for Human Values Series) By Frans de Waal ( Princeton University Press )
Release Date: 2006-09-05
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Product Description
"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality. In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes. Science has thus exacerbated our reciprocal habits of blaming nature when we act badly and labeling the good things we do as "humane." Seeking the origin of human morality not in evolution but in human culture, science insists that we are moral by choice, not by nature. Citing remarkable evidence based on his extensive research of primate behavior, de Waal attacks "Veneer Theory," which posits morality as a thin overlay on an otherwise nasty nature. He explains how we evolved from a long line of animals that care for the weak and build cooperation with reciprocal transactions. Drawing on both Darwin and recent scientific advances, de Waal demonstrates a strong continuity between human and animal behavior. In the process, he also probes issues such as anthropomorphism and human responsibilities toward animals. Based on the Tanner Lectures de Waal delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2004, Primates and Philosophers includes responses by the philosophers Peter Singer, Christine M. Korsgaard, and Philip Kitcher and the science writer Robert Wright. They press de Waal to clarify the differences between humans and other animals, yielding a lively debate that will fascinate all those who wonder about the origins and reach of human goodness.
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 I loved this book!! ( mukymudman )
The format is a series of essays, the first by de Waal, then commentary, and then at the end his reply. Very interesting. Made me feel like I was back in College! Philosopy, anthropology, socialogy and psychology all rolled into one, plus morality and ethics--- all the good stuff!! Ties in with Dawkins' the God Delusion.I even sent a copy to my dad.:)
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 Frans the Wise ( gintis )
If you have never read anything by Frans de Waal, this is probably not the best book to start with. I would try Good Natured or Chimpanzee Politics, or even Our Inner Ape. This short book is really an overview of de Waal's views on primate morality, without the rich description of primate life offered in his earlier books, followed by commentaries by four well-known philosophers. The philosopher's comments are mildly interesting but forgettable, except for Peter Singer's defense of Kantian ethics, which is interesting and revealing of Singer's own take on morality.
De Waal is the star of this show, and he delves more deeply than ever before on the relationship between the quasi-moral behavior of non-human primates and the moral behavior of humans. De Waal has some very interesting things to say about human morality, and generally comes off as being wise and self-confident in his treatment of the sociobiology of morality.
"The moral domain of action," says de Waal, "is Helping or (not) Hurting others...Anything unrelated to the two H's fall outside of morality. Those who invoke morality in reference to, say, same sex marriage or the visibility of a naked [...] on prime time television are merely trying to couch social conventions in moral language." (p. 162) This statement is wildly incorrect, but incorrect in an interesting way. We know that social conventions take on moral weight with great regularity in all societies. How you pray, how you copulate, what you eat and wear, all become grist for the moralist's mill. Why is that? De Waal does not say. At any rate, this aspect of human morality appears to have little echo in the lives of non-human primates.
Because de Waal believes that Helping and (not) Hurting is the true subject of morality, he locates the pre-human roots of morality in empathy and sympathy, thus siding with David Hume and Adam Smith, and against Kant, who finds the roots of morality in Reason. There is little doubt but that apes have some significant endowment of capacity for sympathy, and that sympathy is an ineluctable part of human morality. This fact alone is strong support for de Waal's argument.
I venture, however, that there are other roots of human morality in the animal world. One of these is the respect for private property, which is exhibited in many animals as territoriality and in the great apes as respect for a "personal sphere of control" over valuable resources. The interested reader can refer to Herbert Gintis, "The Evolution of Private Property", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 64,1 [sep] (2007):1-16, where the biological basis for such respect takes the form of loss aversion. Needless to say, by "private property" I do not mean private property in the legal sense, but rather the personal sense that individuals have a private sphere in which their will is law, and this sphere is intimately related to having "personal possessions" that are respected by others as a matter of course.
De Waal does not say what forms of human morality are not legacies of, or continuations of, the characteristics of the great apes. I suggest the following, which are therefore virtually exclusively human.
First is the notion of a "character virtue," such as honesty, bravery, piety, considerateness, trustworthiness, cleanliness, and the like. These are supremely moral virtues and although they generally promote prosocial ends, they are not Helping or Hurting, and do not depend on empathy or sympathy. I am honest because it is the right way to be, not because I care about other people.
Second is the notion that there are social norms, and it is right and good that individuals follow these norms, and it is right and good that we punish people who violate these norms, even when it is costly to do so. The notion that we "obey the rules" of society even when it is costly to do so, and even if we can profit by violating these norms, is a distinctly human form of morality. It also accounts for why humans treat social conventions (e.g., what forms of food and clothing are permissible, who is allowed to marry whom) as within the realm of the moral, although they may be arbitrary from the point of view of Helping and Hurting.
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Wonderful read; very well written.
This book was lent to me by a friend, and after reading I felt it necessary to purchase my own copy. I would have never made this choice, this text is completely outside my normal reading genres, but I'm very glad I did. Frans de Waal provides and extremely well written thesis on his views of morality in humans, his views are then analyzed by others, and closes with his response. I haven't read his other text Good Natured, but intend to do so.
It is important to note that I am in no way highly educated in the fields of primatology, anthropology, or philosophy; my background is in math and computer science; so I came to this book with a certain ignorance.
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A well argued but incomplete study
Frans de Waal draws on his own and others' considerable research into primate behavior in arguing that human beings come endowed by nature with strong moral equipment. He argues more carefully in this book whose audience is more academic, than in others of his books, but he revisits many of the same themes, such as compassion and perspective-taking, and tells many of the same stories.
It is not clear to me that many of the philosophical respondents really understood de Waal, or cared to engage his thesis. Many of the respondents seem to be grinding their own axes using de Waal's screed as a stone.
However in my judgment de Waal doesn't make a convincing case for the relation of human behaviors under modern conditions to ancestral behaviors under ancestral conditions. There are clearly analogies, and his 'principle of evolutionary parsimony' suggests that the analogies are really homologies. In my opinion the conditions of human life in the modern world are so different from that of apes that human morality most likely depends on mental processes that don't occur among apes, or are irrelevant to them.
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Welcome new perspectives on moral theorizing
This book is an interesting confrontation between primate research and professional moral philosophers. The aim is to discuss De Waal's attack on `veneer theory', the idea that moral behaviour is not really grounded in our nature but just a thin cultural overlay, but the discussion quickly becomes way more general.
In fact, we quickly see familiar dividing lines appear. Some, like Korsgaard, see morality as based on reason alone, and therefore purely human. Others, like De Waal, see it as primarily based on inborn capacities like empathy, and maintain that we share a lot of our morality with primates.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. Actually almost all the contributors confirm this in some way, but this is obscured by the fact that the authors do not seem to be able to agree on the meaning on the word`morality'.
Semantic confusion and untenable extremes: Nothing new in the world of moral philosophy then? What does make this book interesting, is that this time the discussions are informed by empirical evolutionary research, which means that even the philosophers have to keep their feet on the ground. Apart from the ape-stories being interesting to read, the result is a welcome new perspective on existing moral theories.
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