ay behave together for a common good, these studies look deeper and have found emotions such as empathy and sadness and remorse. These are feelings that would drive an individual to do things that moved toward a goodness or happiness without being strictly self-benefiting. Frans de Waal looks at primates from a societal view. He wonders how could, through evolution and the survival of the fittest, empathy exist? This conclusion makes the assumption that the emergence of morals must be a transcendent process beyond the bounds of scientific explanation. (Moral Kin, review by William McGrew GOOD NATURED: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals). Waal wants to prove this assumption wrong. He looks at the general presence of moral systems across all of humanity. This state assumes that all societies have ethics, ethics are integral to human nature. He uses the reaction to a situation as his definition of an expectation. The definition is The familiarity with a particular outcome to the degree that a different outcome has an unsettling effect, as reflected in confusion, surprise or distress. (Moral Kin, review by William McGrew GOOD NATURED: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals)This mental state caused by the situation is determined on the basis of observable acts. Unexpectedly, [] about 200 animals gathered in silence around the mother-to-be, who soon squatted and delivered the newborn into her hands. The mothers closest companion, an elder female named Atlanta, screamed in reaction to the birth, embraced two other chimpanzees, and spent the next several weeks closely attending the mother and offspring. (Interdisciplinary Study of Nonhuman Primates Gains Ground, Bunk The Scientist, vol. 12, #10).It is quite possible that the emotional reaction of Atlanta reflected empathy, that is, identification with the understanding of what was happening to her friend. (F.B.M. de Waal, Good Natured: Origin...
