Sublime

De Waal zieht aus seinen Studien den Schluss: Die menschliche Moral ist »fest in den sozialen Emotionen unserer Vorfahren verankert«.

Primates, it seems, don’t like to be ruled by bullies or treated unfairly: some of the key traits linked to dominance are kindness, sociability, and cooperation. Even the physically smallest chimpanzee can end up being the alpha if he shows an ability to win trust and loyalty, adds de Waal.

Edward O. Wilson, “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”

The discovery that capuchin monkeys are averse to receiving unequal outcomes, much like humans, suggests that these tendencies are evolved rather than learned.

An evolutionary anthropologist and a specialist in primate studies, he argues that while humans do have an instinctual tendency to engage in dominance-submissive behaviour, no doubt inherited from our simian ancestors, what makes societies distinctively human is our ability to make the conscious decision not to act that way. Carefully working throu