Frans de Waal on the Origins of Morality
Subject Areas : Philosophy
Keywords: Evolution, Ethics, sympathy, Altruism, primates, Frans de Waal,
Abstract :
Abstract Evolutionary ethics is one of the major branches of philosophy of ethics which is still the subject of many researches. There is no doubt that one of the illustrious scholars is Frans de wall who has written several books and articles in this subject matter. He is strongly influenced by Darwin and Spencer and his profound research about primates, particularly chimpanzees and booboos, suggested new perspective on human morality. Contrary to many other scholars, who maintains that morality is a matter of culture and selfishness, he contends that our behavior is other-regarding and he puts much emphasis on cooperation and also posits that morality has roots in our evolutionary history. Despite the fact that many philosophers such as Hobbes believes that humans as fundamentally asocial or even antisocial, he postulates that humans are social and good natured in essence. He also contends that there is a continuity between human morality and animal social tendencies, And the main distinction between human and animals are moral judgments and capacity of reasoning.
منابع
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