Chris Mooney — 6 Amazing Ways Animals Show Compassion

...if you're a primatologist..., your view of morality is radically different. You probably see indications of "moral" behaviors all throughout the animal kingdom, and especially among our primate relatives such as bonobos—who show high levels of empathy, have a female-dominated social structure, and use sex, rather than violence, to solve in-group social conflicts, and even when they encounter other, potentially hostile groups.

Emory University's Frans de Waal—the celebrated primatologist familiar from other books like The Age of Empathy—makes a case for our evolved and biologically grounded morality in his new bookThe Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates. Morality, de Waal argues, "antedates religion… [and] much can be learned about its origins by considering our fellow primates."

In our interview (audio clip above, full length here), De Waal carefully explained his case for how morality springs from evolution and is part of us on a basic, emotional level—literally, part of the human wiring. That hardly means we're incapable of wrong. But it does mean that sympathy, compassion, and a sense of fairness are deeply embedded in us—and also, in our fellow animals.

Mother Jones
6 Amazing Ways Animals Show Compassion
Chris Mooney