Good Natured

"Frans de Waal is one of my favourite scientists. He is such a good writer. If all scientists wrote as well as Frans de Waal, writers like me would be out of business! Once when I talked to him about this aspect of his life he said something that has always struck me as really interesting. He said he does some of his best scientific thinking when he is writing for the public because when he is writing for other scientists he has to think about the basic zeitgeist of the scientific argument. He has to think about which scientists are going to criticise his work and so on, whereas when he is writing for the general public he can concentrate on the pure idea. Good Natured essentially looks at the ongoing debate over what separates us from other animals. As a species we love to try to work out the characteristics that separate us from all other species – the traits that some argue make us “better”. So in this book De Waal takes on one of the most fundamental questions in this argument – are we the only moral species? He does this through looking at different instances of what you might call moral behaviour in other species. One of the ones that I really love is about a species of monkey called a rhesus macaque which is commonly used in lab experiments. They are tough and adaptable, relatively long-lived and very smart. They are not warm and cuddly personalities – of course, I wouldn’t be if I was caged and experimented on. But he tells a story of macaques in the wild. The one I like involves an elderly female who became blind. Two of the younger males actually protect her and help her get food. It is such interesting behaviour because it is not like they had anything to gain from it. It’s great for breaking down stereotypes and blurring some of those walls that we like to build between us and other animals. Yes, I do. I think you see altruistic behaviour in other species. One of the questions that a lot of biologists ask, of course, is whether moral decision-making derives from genetics and biological drivers or whether it genuinely is an altruistic, thoughtful decision process. I don’t think we actually know the answer to that, certainly not in animals. We can’t interview a macaque to ask him about morality!"