Frans de Waal: Morality without Religion
TED
Uploaded on 21 Nov 2011
(18min)
http://youtu.be/le-74R9C6Bchttp://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_moralsHuman morality is older than our current religions, and may go back to tendencies observable in other mammals. In a bottom-up view of morality, this talk is one man's road to discovering an array of positive tendencies in animals at a time when competition and aggression were the only themes.
Equal Pay for Monkeys
(3min)
http://youtu.be/-dMoK48QGL8The funniest bit of Frans de Waal's TED talk.
DISCUSS AS:
How monkeys handle moral outrage
Feb 20, 2012
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/20/10459741-how-monkeys-handle-moral-outrageThe bottom line from de Waal's talk is that a sense of fairness, outrage over moral equality and the ability to reconcile and cooperate are not uniquely human behaviors. Rather, such sensibilities were hard-wired into brains long before the rise of the human species. This is reflected in neuroscience as well, de Waal said. "Very ancient parts of the brain are involved in moral decision making," he observed.
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