Grim wrote:

Still on vacation ....actually wasn't able to read seriously much of the book yet!!

Still on vacation?

I want what you have!

Grim wrote:I would think of de Waal as directly challenging Hobbes and Rousseau. But it is also important to rememeber that these names have been dead...for a while. They can't defend themselves and we shouldn't expect it of ourselves to be able to relate to the atmosphere of their times as little we can expect that they would be able to visualize our own.

I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when talking about a long-standing "conversation" - and the one about human essential nature is one of some duration. What I see theorists like de Waal doing is sliding the terms of the conversation a bit sideways. As you said it may no longer be about whether our natures are good or bad - it may even not be about our "essential" nature since defining our "essence" presumes things about the production of behaviour that are based on assumptions that are sometimes long out of date or simply incorrect.

More than anything I admire the kind of work done by theorists like de Waal because it doesn't just continue the conversation but forces us to look at our assumptions and redefine our terms.

Suzanne E. Smith wrote:I think de Waal is trying to show, based on his studies of monkeys and apes, that human morality is not strictly a choice (and that humans have to work hard to make the right choice--veneer theory), but that present day human morality has its origins from the evolution of the socialization of the great apes in particular, who are able to show empathy, sympathy, compassion, helping, fairness, and group loyalty. These traits became embedded in our personalities during evolution and he believes that the exhibition of these traits is not superficial (a veneer).

I would agree that de Waal sees our morality as an evolutionary product that stems directly from our earlier primate states. This implies that many of our behaviours are a product of our biology. So, for example, we have no choice about the fact that we react to authority. I don't think de Waal would say that this means we don't have a choice about what behaviour we enact. I also agree with you that he thinks that our "positive" traits (like empathy agression compassion) are as much a part of us as our "negative" traits (like agression and intolerance for outsiders). Typically in some strands of European philosophy the negative traits are seen as predominant and the positive ones have been seen as coming from some outside force (like religion or a social contract). It is this typical approach that I think de Waal is trying to blow up.

Suzanne E. Smith wrote:Huxley was actually the original inventor of the veneer theory, and I guess you would have to say that he and Hobbes both believe humans to be antisocial creatures. Rawls believes that we became social only because there was benefit/protection in the community (selfish reasons you could argue). I think all three of these philosophers are arguing the same thing.

Agreed.

Suzanne E. Smith wrote:

From Mary Lupin: 3. And if not, is de Waal really arguing against what they said or against the cultural presuppositions that gave rise to their various theories?

I think de Waal is definitely arguing against what they said. Please see the Table on page 22 of the book.

Sorry if my question didn't make my point. What I was saying is a bit like what Grim pointed out in the post just before yours. ..that what de Waal is arguing for is in someways so radically different because of different assumptions and different cultural ways that they may not really be arguing the same thing anymore.

For example, most of these theorists probably assumed that there was a discoverable, discrete essential nature. A religious person might call this a soul. Another might call it a self. But there is an assumption that there is an "it" to discover - something unitary, present and essential. If this is not the case, and these earlier theorists are assuming its presence, does that not change the terms of the argument radically?

DWill wrote:Maybe this is not entirely a fair judgment, but I do see De Wall putting up a straw man here...The key point here might be the extent to which these other scientists actually articulate this view, vs. the impression De Wall gets from their writing.

I find this a very interesting thing. I agree with you that this certainly seems to be what de Waal is doing and it makes me wonder why. I would like to ask him about it during the chat if I can find a way to phrase it without being offensive. I assume de Waal has the historical background to see that this is not really a fair summary of the various positions and wonder if he is using it as a rhetorical device to generate the premise for the book. I also wonder if there is some argument-counter-argument history that came out in the literature after his book Good Natured came out that would explain it.

DWill wrote:...I can see no contradiction between believing in Darwin's theory and also believing that humans must be vigilant lest our aggressive, selfish, or self-deceiving tendencies overtake us. There is a large amount of empirical evidence of humans screwing up to support such a view, after all.

I don't think there is a contradiction either. I do think we need to explore our moral tendencies more thoroughly though. What I mean by that is that we say things like "humans are compassionate...", "humans are aggressive." What we should say is something more like "when in relationship with close kin humans tend to express compassion toward..." or "when in relationship with unrelated, unknown persons humans tend to express a limited form of compassion. These limitations are often marked by the short duration of effort, the ease with which the distress is forgotten..."

MaryLupin wrote: I find this a very interesting thing. I agree with you that this certainly seems to be what de Waal is doing and it makes me wonder why. I would like to ask him about it during the chat if I can find a way to phrase it without being offensive. I assume de Waal has the historical background to see that this is not really a fair summary of the various positions and wonder if he is using it as a rhetorical device to generate the premise for the book. I also wonder if there is some argument-counter-argument history that came out in the literature after his book Good Natured came out that would explain it.

When I came to the Peter Singer essay, I wondered why I hadn't thought of the simple refutation of VT that he gives. Singer says that VT has two parts: positing that nonhuman animals follow only selfish instincts that will help them survive, while humans have overlaid a veneer of moraility over this selfish core, a veneer that mainly masks the still-selfish motive of our actions. That other animals have social emotions, including the makings of empathy and altruism--a fact that at this point can hardly be denied--invalidates a premise of VT.

I don't think there is a contradiction either. I do think we need to explore our moral tendencies more thoroughly though. What I mean by that is that we say things like "humans are compassionate...", "humans are aggressive." What we should say is something more like "when in relationship with close kin humans tend to express compassion toward..." or "when in relationship with unrelated, unknown persons humans tend to express a limited form of compassion. These limitations are often marked by the short duration of effort, the ease with which the distress is forgotten..."

I also like Singer's claim that de Waal distorts what Huxley might have meant. Humans have developed the ability to act as gardeners of their own intentions and thoughts, sometimes using notions of morality to root out the strong impulse to satisfy desires. Nice point about specifying in which situations we tend to be most successful in acting morally. This strategy will let us avoid having to try to answer the question, "Are we basically good or irredeemably selfish."

MaryLupin wrote:For example, most of these theorists probably assumed that there was a discoverable, discrete essential nature. A religious person might call this a soul. Another might call it a self. But there is an assumption that there is an "it" to discover - something unitary, present and essential. If this is not the case, and these earlier theorists are assuming its presence, does that not change the terms of the argument radically?

But isn't de Waal then simply suggesting what amounts to a counter idealism to these things? The innocent ape (trained yet still "wild" enough to count) able to take the hand of modern man and create some type of compromising yet non-bestial unity.

To quote Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morals:

"...so that this hypothesis, and after a fashion that is at least entertaining, the Darwinian beast and the ultramodern unassuming moral milksop who "no longer bites" politely link hands, the latter wearing an expression of a certain good-natured and refined indolence, with which is mingled even a grain of pessimism and weariness, as if all these things - the problems of morality - were really not worth taking quite so seriously. But to me, on the contrary, there seems to be nothing more worth taking seriously..."

Is Nietzsche's one of the philosophers the books title alludes to? Why/why not?

What benefits are there to debating the nature of terms as potentially essential mental faculties in other species when we can be certain that these abstract properties do exist in humans - even human childern?

Nietzsche's notion of morality rests upon his understanding of the 'will to power'...which is not merely domination and exploitation and the drive to master...but, more importantly, a unfathomable flow of multiple drives and energies: pushing, surging, moving, overtaking, falling beneath, mixing, pulsing, exploding, expanding, turning in upon itself and flowing outward...this will to power is an exhuberant force of tidal ebbs and flows where each existing "this" or "that" is actually an intermittant combination of drives and forces, transforming from one compostion and on its way to something else.

At the human level, there is a linguistic maneuver which labels these combinations of drives into categories and ideas: what is essentially a poetic effort becomes a dogmatic assertion: "these combinations of drives here, they are x and always x....those combinations of drives there are y and always y"...all the while all and every combination of drives is shifting, surging, changing and transforming, becoming something new. It is morality that says: "There will be no change in this case, becoming will solidify and harden into being: thou shalt and it must."

Will to power was not the point. Succient summary though, if a bit obscure.

DWill wrote:I suppose that his claim that emotion is more important than rationality, could be considered a refutaion to some moral theorists. The title of the book still might be misleading, or at least ambiguous. Publishers like to be provocative to spur sales. But I think it's reasonable to say that we can learn something about our ethics by studying primates, if not learn FROM the ethics of primates.

True. This is definatly an impetus for thought. I get a little fustrated however in that the scope and topic are narrow and yet de Waal seems to feel that any small allowance granting relationship between man and ape equates to licence for serious moral commentary. I'm having trouble figuring out why his work and the work of primatologists is all that important in the sense of human moral understanding. Of course it could be said that one knows least about himself, but, we have spent decades studying other humans, we do know a lot about ourselves. To say that looking to another species for understanding is efficient seems counterintuitive. I feel that the somewhat off-handed dismissal of the importance of anthropomorphic language and perspective is a serious mistake. As if it is ok because we both have opposable thumbs. But really don't the similarities seem to stop there? We are not really all that similar to apes: we don't live like them, we don't really look like them, we don't interact like them in any other manner than very generally. How much difference is enough to matter because it seems that similarities are all too easy to create - they are seemingly wherever you want to find them really.

In terms of emotion and rationality of morality. It would seem to depend on what type of morality you are discussing. In a normative sense emotion would not be as important, in a practical sense very. But moral relativism is, by de Waal's own decision, off-topic here and, I would definatly argue that this emotional-practical/rational-normative distinction does create a relativism.

Interbane wrote: Empathy is what drives our quest for morals, it is the impetus as I've said. What I meant when I said that reasoning is the spark, is that empathy cannot consider things such as the nuances of tipping your waitress. Not only can it not consider it, but it is not a consideration at all unless some things are first understood. Once it is understood (either through teaching or deliberation) that tipping is a moral act, then our empathy is what drives us to obey that moral. I chose 'tipping the waitress' as the example, but there are surely better examples if you have problems with it.

This is similar to the chicken and the egg. However, the way I think of it is that empathy doesn't come before reasoning when considering what is good for society. You could ask, "what would motivate us to answer such a question in the first place?", but I again think the answer is reasoning. It must be understood that what is good for others is in turn good for us. The problem with my reasoning here is that empathy is actually the catalyst when the 'others' are part of your 'in-group', such as family members and close friends. Reasoning is relegated to a catalyst only for 'out-group' considerations, yet that is the majority of the discussion here I think.

All this says nothing about the importance of either factor. Empathy is far more important and is required for morality, where reasoning is only required for larger groups where moral behavior has no survival benefit. Without the survival benefit, there is no reason to act morally regardless of empathy, but that's another discussion entirely.

In a nutshell, reasoning 'initiates', and empathy 'drives', but only when considering 'out-groups'.

(Interbane posted this is another thread, but it parallels our discussion of the book, so I've quoted him and will reply here.)
I think the waitress example is a good one because it shows that humans have a greater means of responding empathetically due to our ability to bring in considerations that are not intrinsic to the situation before us. If we know that a waitress gets sub-minimum wage and can't make it without tips (extrinsic knowledge), our tipping can be an occasion for expressing empathy (even though most probably do it out of custom). Our higher cognitive powers mean that we can discover more opportunities for empathy, and they might even be the reason that we can show true empathy in the first place. Adam Smith defined empathy (or maybe it was sympathy) as the ability to"take another's part in fancy." If the great apes can do this as well, as de Waal relates, they probably do so in a rudimentary way, or maybe the ability is relatively rare in chimps, vs. universal in humans.

I still prefer to view empathy as the spark, with conscious reasoning often not being needed. De Waal also discusses the largely automatic nature of empathy, and our tendency to invent rationales for our empathic responses after the fact (e.g., "I just knew I had to do something.")

Is there a difference worth discussing between our actual empathic responses and our articulations of what it is to be moral? It is very clear that no other animal can articulate moral reasoning. But it seems that that could be seen as a cheap trick in some ways. What about walking the talk? I can see how I'm edging toward the idea of a veneer, that is of moral posturing without any actions performed toward others.

I think this posturing may be what we see in talk about doing well by others outside our group. It's not that we're relying more on reason in this situation, in my view, but that we're "not really feeling it." Proximity seems so important to the true display of empathy. I can say I empathize with the plight of the refugees in Darfur, but do I feel empathy in fact? The problem with out groups is that they're not in proximity. If we have any real contacts with "out" people," this alone often brings them "in" and allows us to empathize with them.