Underskog

Introduction: Professor Christel Fricke “From a Philosophical Point of View: Empathy, Sympathy and the Challenge of Equality”

Main speaker: Professor Frans de Waal “Prosocial Primates: Empathy in Animals and Humans”

Homo homini lupus – “man is wolf to man” – is an old Roman proverb popularized by Thomas Hobbes. Even though it permeates large parts of law, economics, and political science, the proverb fails to do justice to our species’ thoroughly social nature as well as to canids, which are among the most gregarious and cooperative animals. For the past quarter century, this cynical view has also been promoted by an influential school of biology, followers of Thomas Henry Huxley, which holds that we are born nasty as a result of “selfish” genes. Accordingly, it is only with the greatest possible effort that we can hope to become moral beings. Charles Darwin, however, saw things differently: he believed in continuity between animal social instincts and human morality. Modern psychology and neuroscience support Darwin’s view about the moral emotions.

In this lecture, the acclaimed author of The Age of Empathy (2009) shows how empathy comes naturally to a great variety of animals, including humans. In his work with monkeys and apes, he has found many cases of one individual coming to another’s rescue in a fight, putting an arm around a previous victim of attack, or other emotional responses to the distress of others. By studying social behaviors in animals, such as bonding, the herd instinct, the forming of trusting alliances, expressions of consolation, and conflict resolution, Frans de Waal demonstrates that animals and humans are preprogrammed to reach out, questioning the assumption that humans are inherently selfish. He argues that understanding empathy’s survival value in evolution can help to build a more just society based on a more accurate view of human nature.