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10 Virtuous Nature IF YOU THINK that we are the only creatures on Earth with a moral sense, then you’re in good company. Most experts in behaviour believe that morality is a uniquely human trait, without which our complex social life would never have emerged. I disagree. Accuse me of anthropomorphising if you like, but I’m convinced that many animals can distinguish right from wrong. Decades spent watching wild and captive animals have persuaded me that species living in groups often have a sense of fair play built on moral codes of conduct that help cement their social relationships. Nature isn’t always ruthlessly and selfishly competitive. That’s not all. I suspect that herein lies the origin of our own virtue. Biologists have had real problems trying to explain why humans are frequently inexplicably nice to each other. It just doesn’t make sense in evolutionary terms, unless there are ulterior motives behind our seemingly altruistic actions. Perhaps we expect a payback somewhere down the line, or maybe our good deeds are directed only towards kin, with whom we share genes and hence a biological heritage. Nobody has really considered the possibility that being considerate to your neighbours might sometimes be the best way to survive. But I’m starting to find evidence that a well-developed sense of fair play helps non-human animals live longer, more successful lives. In other words, virtue is its own reward—fairer is fitter. It’s an understatement to say that looking for the roots of morality in animals is very difficult, but at least we can start to break the problem down. The first question to answer is, are animals capable of the empathy and feelings that underlie morality? We know that in humans the neural basis for these feelings lies in the brain’s amygdalae and hypothalamus, and they are mediated by neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. We also know that many animals, especially mammals, possess the same neurological structures and brain chemicals as we do. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they share our feelings, but careful observation of animals in action suggests that at least some of them do. Recent overviews of research by Stephanie Preston and Frans de Waal from the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta and Stanley Kuczaj’s group at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg show that empathy is more widespread among animals than science has so far been willing to recognise. They point to research that suggests non-human primates, dolphins, whales, elephants and hippopotamuses, and even some rodents, behave in ways that support the claim that empathy has deep evolutionary roots. In one classic study published in 1964, Stanley Wechlin and his team at the Northwestern University Medical School in Illinois showed that a hungry Reprinted from Bekoff, M. 2002. Virtuous Nature. New Scientist 13 July, 34–37, with permission from New Scientist. rhesus monkey would not take food if doing so meant another monkey got an electric shock. In similar situations rats will also hold back when they know their actions would cause pain to another individual. Then there’s the study published two decades ago by Hal Markowitz from San Francisco State University. He reported that after training Diana monkeys to insert a token into a slot to get food, he observed a male helping the oldest female who had failed to learn the task. On three occasions the male picked up the tokens she had dropped, put them into the machine, and allowed her to have the food. We’ll probably never know whether these rats and monkeys were feeling empathy as we do. But what we can do is start comparing what’s going on in animal brains with what happens in our own. Neuroimaging techniques such as PET scans and functional MRI are starting to shed new light on human emotions, and I hope that it won’t be long before we start doing similar studies with non-human primates and other animals. In the meantime, watching animals in action has convinced many researchers, myself included, that they possess the emotions upon which a moral sense is built. Chimps and monkeys, for example, seem to feel embarrassment , whales and ravens show signs of falling in love, and even iguanas register pleasure (New Scientist, 29 April 2000, p 32). In my own research I have taken this one step further—looking for evidence of fair behaviour. I’m particularly interested in social...

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