Animals can tell right from wrong

Until recently, humans were thought to be the only species to experience complex emotions and have a sense of morality. But Professor Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, US, believes that morals are ‘hard-wired’ into the brains of all mammals and provide the ‘social glue’ that allows animals to live together in groups.

His conclusions will assist animal welfare groups pushing to have animals treated more humanely. Professor Bekoff, who presents his case in his book Wild Justice, said: ‘Just as in humans, the moral nuances of a particular culture or group will be different from another, but they are certainly there. Moral codes are species specific, so they can be difficult to compare with each other or with humans.’ Professor Bekoff believes morals developed in animals to help regulate behaviour in social groups. He claims that these help to limit fighting within the group and encourage co-operative behaviour.

His ideas have met with some controversy in the scientific community. Professor Frans de Waal, who examines the behaviour of primates, including chimpanzees, at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, US, said: ‘I don’t believe animals are moral in the sense we humans are – with a well-developed and reasoned sense of right and wrong – rather that human morality incorporates a set of psychological tendencies and capacities such as empathy, reciprocity, a desire for co-operation and harmony that are older than our species. Human morality was not formed from scratch, but grew out of our primate psychology. Primate psychology has ancient roots, and I agree that order animals show many of the same tendencies and have an intense sociality.’

Wolves live in tight-knit social groups that are regulated by strict rules. Wolves also demonstrate fairness. During play, dominant wolves will appear to exchange roles with lower-ranking wolves. They pretend to be submissive and go so far as to allow biting by the lower-ranking wolves, provided it is not too hard. Prof Bekoff argues that without a moral code governing their actions, this kind of behaviour would not be possible. Astonishingly, if an animal becomes aggressive, it will perform a ‘play bow’ to ask forgiveness before play resumes.

In other members of the dog family, play is controlled in a similar way. Among coyotes, cubs which are too aggressive are ignored by the rest of the group and often end up having to leave entirely. Experiments with domestic dogs, where one animal was given some ‘sweets’ and another wasn’t, have shown that they possess a sense of fairness as they allowed their companion to eat some.

Elephants are intensely sociable and emotional animals. Research by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, from the department of zoology at Oxford University, suggests elephants experience compassion and has found evidence of elephants helping injured members of their herd. In 2003, a herd of 11 elephants rescued antelopes which were being held inside an enclosure in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The top female elephant unfastened all of the metal latches holding the gates closed and swung them open, allowing the antelopes to escape. This is thought to be a rare example of animals showing empathy for members of another species – a trait previously thought to be the exclusive preserve of humankind.

A laboratory experiment involved training Diana monkeys to insert a token into a slot to obtain food. A male who had become skilled at the task was found to be helping the oldest female, who had not learned how to do it. On three occasions the male money picked up tokens she dropped and inserted them into the slot and allowed her to have the food. As there was no benefit for the male monkey, Professor Bekoff argues that this is a clear example of an animal’s actions being driven by some internal moral compass.

Since chimpanzees are known to be among the most cognitively advanced of the great apes and our closet cousins, it is perhaps not remarkable that scientist should suggest they live by moral codes. A chimpanzee known as Knuckles is the only known captive chimpanzee to suffer from cerebral palsy, which leaves him physically and mentally impaired. What is extraordinary is that scientists have observed other chimpanzees interacting with him differently and he is rarely subjected to intimidating displays of aggression from older males. Chimpanzees also demonstrate a sense of justice and those who deviate from the code of conduct of a group are set upon by other members as punishment.

Experiments with rats have shown that they will not take food if they know their actions will cause pain to another rat. In lab tests, rats were given food which then caused a second group of rats to receive an electric shock. The rats with the food stopped eating rather than see this happen.

Whales have been found to have spindle cells in their brains. These specialised cells were thought to be restricted to humans and great apes, and appear to play a role in empathy and understanding the emotions of others. Humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales have all been found to have spindle cells. They also have three times as many spindle cells as humans and are thought to be older in evolutionary terms. This finding suggests that emotional judgements such as empathy may have evolved considerably earlier in history than formerly thought and could be widespread in the animal kingdom.