13.1 Is Morality Human?

Humans can be incredibly compassionate and fair. We want to care for others, and when we can, we will override Hamilton’s Rule for chosen kin, and even strangers. We attribute this behavior and giving tendency to many things – human nature, family values, education, religion. But is that really the root of morality?

In their book, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, ethologist Marc Bekoff and bioethicist Jessica Pierce argue for a much broader understanding of morality. Other animals also live in social groups, require cooperation, and have incredibly rich emotional lives. Trade-offs between raising one’s young and surviving another season are also commonplace. So of course, there must be rules of conduct and expectations within groups to keep everyone healthy, fed, and safe. In the end, Bekoff and Pierce make a compelling case for the evolved value of fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity in nearly all social species.

Frans de Waal identifies two pillars of morality in his Ted talk “Moral Behavior in Animals.” These two pillars are compassion and fairness. Compassion starts with empathy – the ability to feel what others feel. Fairness starts with reciprocity – a concept to which we have already been introduced. These become testable…want to know how?

What is Fairness?

Fairness is simply the cultural label we give to reciprocity. Nearly every species, in some way or another, knows when they aren’t getting a fair shake. This is because of a trait known as inequity aversion. As de Waal points out in his Ted talk, capuchin monkeys (and other animals) will happily perform various trained tasks so long as everyone gets paid the same. However, once inequity is introduced, the individual getting less – lesser value, lesser quantity – will begin to act out or give up. Sure, they will try first. Perhaps they did something wrong? Perhaps the person with whom they are working has increased expectations? But eventually, those receiving unfair treatment know it and react accordingly.

Watch this video of two dogs performing the same task. The experimenter asks them each to sit, shake, or lie down on cue. The dog on the left becomes increasingly enthusiastic as they are paid for each correct answer. However, watch what the dog on the right does when they do not get paid…look familiar?

What we see in this video is a dog who gives up. After all, nothing they do seems to result in a treat – though they clearly try their best. Eventually, they simply stop trying altogether. Not unlike a small child who has not received the cookie they were promised.

What About Empathy?

Watch someone yawn. It could be your dog, cat, sister, partner, parent, or child. Did you want to yawn back? Do you want to yawn simply because you keep reading the word yawn (yawn, yawn, yawn…)? This is a simple, testable form of empathy we call emotional contagion. And this is where empathy begins.

Emotional contagion (sometimes called social contagion) evolved from shared fight or flight responses. This makes sense. If others in my social group startle and prepare to run away, it is best I follow without question. If I wait to process whether I think I should run, too, I might find myself on a predator’s lunch menu. As a result, I can easily “catch” others’ fear.

This emotional contagion forms the building blocks of empathy, or the ability to feel what others feel. Empathy can cause us to act (run away) or to console (we want to sooth others when they hurt). Empathy can grow into sympathy, resulting in a deeper understanding of what someone else feels. This ability allows us to process what the other person is feeling. And if empathy and sympathy move us to action, compassion is the result. A compassionate person is one who seeks to relieve or reduce the cause of the suffering. And as we have learned in early chapters, sometimes this may even come at risk of personal cost.

Dogs, chimpanzees, bonobos, elephants, and many other species have already been documented displaying empathy. In fact, one study by Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer found evidence that dogs will respond to human crying with an effort to console. Of course, this may not come as a surprise. This ability to “sense” human fears and sadness is one of the oft cited reasons for the benefits of animal assisted interventions.

Morality on a Continuum

We certainly should not assume other species are capable of sympathy since it requires a level of comprehension we cannot yet measure in other species. However, there is certainly behavioral evidence that compassion is present in other species.

Anthropologist Barbara J. King writes about animal empathy, loss, and compassion in her book, How Animals Grieve. The book is rich with observations of crows holding funerals and elephants mourning lost young. When a matriarch falls ill, the other elephants stand around her in a circle, hind ends facing inward, in a protective stance. They stay this way until she has finally passed. Then the trumpet, nuzzle the body, and move on.

In the end, like every trait discussed in this book, compassion and fairness exist on a continuum. Some species barely display any concern for others at all. Some species, especially social hunters, demonstrate the existence of clear rules for the group. These rules are often enforced through ritualistic displays of aggression, meant not to harm others, but rather, to remind them of the hierarchy within the group.

It is from here that we turn to the potential for group rules to override our cooperative selves.