Jeg blev født i Den Bosch, som maleren Hieronymus Bosch opkaldte sig selv efter. Så jeg har altid været meget glad for denne maler der levede og arbejdede i det 15. århundrede. Hvad der er interessant omkring ham, i forhold til moral er at han levede i en tid hvor den religiøse indflydelse var aftagende, og han undrede sig, tror jeg, over hvad der ville ske med samfundet hvis der ikke var nogen religion eller hvis der var mindre af det. Så han malede sit berømte maleri, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," som nogle har fortolket som værende menneskeheden før syndefaldet, eller som menneskeheden uden noget syndefald overhovedet. Så det får en til at tænke over, hvad der ville ske, hvis vi ikke havde smagt videnskabens frugt, så at sige, og hvilken slags moral ville vi have?
I was born in Den Bosch, where the painter Hieronymus Bosch named himself after. And I've always been very fond of this painter who lived and worked in the 15th century. And what is interesting about him in relation to morality is that he lived at a time where religion's influence was waning, and he was sort of wondering, I think, what would happen with society if there was no religion or if there was less religion. And so he painted this famous painting, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," which some have interpreted as being humanity before the Fall, or being humanity without any Fall at all. And so it makes you wonder, what would happen if we hadn't tasted the fruit of knowledge, so to speak, and what kind of morality would we have.
Meget senere, som studerende, tog jeg til en helt anden have, en zoologisk have i Arnhem hvor vi har chimpanser. Det her er mig i en tidlig alder, sammen med en babychimpanse. (Latter) Og der fandt jeg ud af, at chimpanser er meget magtsyge, og skrev en bog om det. På det tidspunkt var meget af dyreforskning fokuseret omkring aggression og konkurrence. Jeg gav et dybdegående billede af dyreriget, inklusiv af menneskeriget, og inderst inde er vi alle konkurrenter, vi er aggressive, vi er faktisk alle egen maksimerende. Det her er udgivelsen af min bog. Jeg er ikke sikker på hvor godt chimpanserne læste den, men de virkede bestemt interesserede i bogen.
Much later, as a student, I went to a very different garden, a zoological garden in Arnhem where we keep chimpanzees. This is me at an early age with a baby chimpanzee. (Laughter) And I discovered there that the chimpanzees are very power-hungry and wrote a book about it. And at that time the focus in a lot of animal research was on aggression and competition. I painted a whole picture of the animal kingdom and humanity included, was that deep down we are competitors, we are aggressive, we are all out for our own profit, basically. This is the launch of my book. I'm not sure how well the chimpanzees read it, but they surely seemed interested in the book.
I processen med at gøre alt dette arbejde med magt og dominans og aggression og så videre, fandt jeg ud af, at chimpanser forsoner sig efter opgør. Det vi ser her er to hanner der har haft en fejde. De endte oppe i et træ, og en af dem rækker hånden ud mod den anden, og cirka et sekund efter jeg tog dette billede, nærmede de sig hinanden i træet, og de kyssede og krammede hinanden.
(Laughter) Now in the process of doing all this work on power and dominance and aggression and so on, I discovered that chimpanzees reconcile after fights. And so what you see here is two males who have had a fight. They ended up in a tree, and one of them holds out a hand to the other. And about a second after I took the picture, they came together in the fork of the tree
Det er rigtig interessant, da det på daværende tidspunkt handlede om konkurrence og aggression, så det ville ikke give nogen mening. Det eneste der betyder noget, er om man vinder eller taber. Men hvorfor ville man forsone efter en konflikt? Det giver ikke nogen mening. Det her er måden bonoboerne gør det på. Bonoboer gør alt med sex. Så de forsoner også med sex. Men princippet er præcis det samme. Princippet er at man har et værdifuldt forhold der er skadet af konflikt, så det skal man gøre noget ved. Så hele mit billede af dyreriget, og også af menneskeriget, begyndte at ændre sig på det tidspunkt.
and kissed and embraced each other. And this is very interesting because at the time, everything was about competition and aggression, so it wouldn't make any sense. The only thing that matters is that you win or you lose. But why reconcile after a fight? That doesn't make any sense. This is the way bonobos do it. Bonobos do everything with sex. And so they also reconcile with sex. But the principle is exactly the same. The principle is that you have a valuable relationship that is damaged by conflict, so you need to do something about it. So my whole picture of the animal kingdom, and including humans also, started to change at that time.
Så vi har det her billede i statskundskab, økonomi, humaniora, filosofi for den sags skyld, at mennesket er en ulv mod mennesket. Så inderst inde er vores natur egentlig grim. Jeg synes det er et meget unfair billede overfor ulven. Ulven er, trods alt, et meget samarbejdsvilligt dyr. Og det er derfor der er mange af jer der har en hund derhjemme, som også har alle disse karakteristika. Og det er egentlig unfair overfor menneskeheden, fordi menneskeheden er egentlig meget mere samarbejdsvillig og empatisk, end den får ære for. Så jeg blev interesseret i disse emner og at studere det i andre dyr.
So we have this image in political science, economics, the humanities, the philosophy for that matter, that man is a wolf to man. And so deep down, our nature is actually nasty. I think it's a very unfair image for the wolf. The wolf is, after all, a very cooperative animal. And that's why many of you have a dog at home, which has all these characteristics also. And it's really unfair to humanity, because humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than given credit for. So I started getting interested in those issues and studying that in other animals.
Her er de moralske grundpiller. Hvis man spørger hvem som helst "Hvad bygger moral på?", så vil disse to faktorer altid blive nævnt. Den ene er gensidighed, og sammen med det en følelse af retfærdighed og rimelighed. Og den anden er empati og medfølelse. Og menneskelig moral er mere end det, men hvis man fjerner disse to grundpiller, ville der ikke være meget tilbage, tror jeg. Så de er absolut essentielle.
So these are the pillars of morality. If you ask anyone, "What is morality based on?" these are the two factors that always come out. One is reciprocity, and associated with it is a sense of justice and a sense of fairness. And the other one is empathy and compassion. And human morality is more than this, but if you would remove these two pillars, there would be not much remaining, I think. So they're absolutely essential.
Lad mig give jer et par eksempler. Det her er en meget gammel video fra Yerkes Primate Center hvor de træner chimpanser til at samarbejde. Det er allerede omkring hundrede år siden, at vi lavede eksperimenter omkring samarbejde. Her er der to unge chimpanser der har en kasse, og kassen er for tung til at én chimpanse kan trække den hen til sig. Og selvfølgelig er der mad oven på kassen. Ellers ville de ikke trække så ivrigt. Så de trækker kassen hen til sig. Og som man kan se, er de synkroniseret. Man kan se at de arbejder sammen, at de trækker på samme tid. Det er allerede et stort spring i forhold til mange andre dyr, der ikke ville være i stand til at gøre det. Nu vil I se et mere interessant klip, da den ene af de to chimpanser nu er blevet fodret. Så én af dem er egentlig ikke rigtig interesseret i opgaven mere. (Latter) (Latter) (Latter)
So let me give you a few examples here. This is a very old video from the Yerkes Primate Center, where they trained chimpanzees to cooperate. So this is already about a hundred years ago that we were doing experiments on cooperation. What you have here is two young chimpanzees who have a box, and the box is too heavy for one chimp to pull in. And of course, there's food on the box. Otherwise they wouldn't be pulling so hard. And so they're bringing in the box. And you can see that they're synchronized. You can see that they work together, they pull at the same moment. It's already a big advance over many other animals who wouldn't be able to do that. Now you're going to get a more interesting picture, because now one of the two chimps has been fed. So one of the two is not really interested in the task anymore. (Laughter) (Laughter) (Laughter)
Prøv at se hvad der sker her til sidst. (Latter) Han tager faktisk det hele.
[- and sometimes appears to convey its wishes and meanings by gestures.] Now look at what happens at the very end of this. (Laughter) He takes basically everything.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Der er to pointer omkring det her. Den ene er, at chimpansen til højre har komplet forståelse for at han har brug for partneren -- så en fuld forståelse for brugen af samarbejde. Den anden pointe er, at partneren er villig til at arbejde selvom han ikke er interesseret i maden. Hvordan kan det være? Jamen det har sandsynligvis at gøre med gensidighed. Der er faktisk meget bevis for, at primater og andre dyr gengælder tjenester. Så han vil få en gengældt tjeneste en gang i fremtiden. Så det er hvordan det hænger sammen.
There are two interesting parts about this. One is that the chimp on the right has a full understanding he needs the partner -- so a full understanding of the need for cooperation. The second one is that the partner is willing to work even though he's not interested in the food. Why would that be? Well, that probably has to do with reciprocity. There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors. He will get a return favor at some point in the future. And so that's how this all operates.
Vi laver den samme opgave med nogle elefanter. Men med elefanter, det er meget farligt at arbejde med elefanter. Et andet problem med elefanter er at man ikke kan fremstille et apparat der er for tungt til én elefant. Man kan sikkert godt fremstille det, men det bliver nok et temmelig uhåndterlig apparat tror jeg. Så det vi gjorde i det tilfælde -- vi laver disse studier i Thailand for Josh Plotnik -- er vi har et apparat som der er et reb omkring, et enkelt reb. Og hvis man trækker i denne side af rebet, så forsvinder rebet på den anden side. Så to elefanter skal samle rebet op på præcis samme tidspunkt og trække. Ellers sker der ikke noget og rebet forsvinder.
We do the same task with elephants. Now, it's very dangerous to work with elephants. Another problem with elephants is that you cannot make an apparatus that is too heavy for a single elephant. Now you can probably make it, but it's going to be a pretty clumsy apparatus, I think. And so what we did in that case -- we do these studies in Thailand for Josh Plotnik -- is we have an apparatus around which there is a rope, a single rope. And if you pull on this side of the rope, the rope disappears on the other side. So two elephants need to pick it up at exactly the same time, and pull. Otherwise nothing is going to happen and the rope disappears.
I det første klip I skal se bliver to elefanter der bliver sluppet løs samtidig og ankommer til apparatet. Apparatet er til venstre med mad oven på. Så de kommer sammen, de ankommer sammen, de samler det op sammen, og de trækker sammen. Så det er faktisk ret simpelt for dem. Der er de. Så det er sådan de trækker den ind. Men nu gør vi det sværere. Fordi hele formålet med dette eksperiment er at finde ud af hvor godt de forstår samarbejde. Forstår de det for eksempel lige så godt som chimpanserne?
The first tape you're going to see is two elephants who are released together arrive at the apparatus. The apparatus is on the left, with food on it. And so they come together, they arrive together, they pick it up together, and they pull together. So it's actually fairly simple for them. There they are. So that's how they bring it in. But now we're going to make it more difficult. Because the purpose of this experiment is to see how well they understand cooperation. Do they understand that as well as the chimps, for example?
Så det vi gør i næste trin er at vi slipper den ene elefant løs før den anden, og den elefant skal være smart nok til at stå der og vente, og ikke trække i rebet -- fordi hvis han trækker i rebet, så forsvinder det og forsøget er ovre. Nu gør denne elefant noget der ikke er tilladt som vi ikke lærte den. Men det viser den forståelse han har, fordi han planter sin store fod på rebet, står på rebet og venter på den anden, og så vil den anden gøre alt arbejdet for ham. Så det er hvad vi kalder nasseri. (Latter) Men det viser hvilken intelligens elefanter har. De udvikler adskillige af disse alternative teknikker som vi ikke nødvendigvis synes godt om. Så nu kommer den anden elefant
What we do in the next step is we release one elephant before the other and that elephant needs to be smart enough to stay there and wait and not pull at the rope -- because if he pulls at the rope, it disappears and the whole test is over. Now this elephant does something illegal that we did not teach it. But it shows the understanding he has, because he puts his big foot on the rope, stands on the rope and waits there for the other, and then the other is going to do all the work for him. So it's what we call freeloading. (Laughter) But it shows the intelligence that the elephants have. They developed several of these alternative techniques that we did not approve of, necessarily. (Laughter)
og trækker den ind. Se den anden. Den anden glemmer selvfølgelig ikke at spise. (Latter) Dette var samarbejde, gensidigheds delen.
So the other elephant is now coming ... and is going to pull it in. Now look at the other; it doesn't forget to eat, of course. (Laughter) This was the cooperation and reciprocity part.
Nu noget omkring empati. Empati er mit hovedemne for tiden. Og empati har egentlig to sider. Den ene er forståelsen af det. Det her er bare en almindelig definition: evnen til at forstå og dele en andens følelser. Og den følelsesmæssige del. Så empati har egentlig to dele.
Now something on empathy. Empathy is my main topic at the moment, of research. And empathy has two qualities: One is the understanding part of it. This is just a regular definition: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. And the emotional part.
Den ene er kropsdelen. Hvis man snakker med en trist person, så vil man tillægge sig en trist kropsholdning, og inden længe føler man sig trist. Og det er kropsdelen i følelsesmæssig empati, som mange dyr har. Den gennemsnitlige hund gør det også. Det er faktisk derfor mennesker har pattedyr hjemme og ikke skildpadder eller slanger eller noget i den stil der ikke har den slags empati. Og så er der den kognitive del, som betyder at man kan forstå en andens synspunkt. Og det er mere begrænset. Der er få dyr -- jeg mener at elefanter og aber kan den slags -- men der er meget få dyr der kan den slags.
Empathy has basically two channels: One is the body channel, If you talk with a sad person, you're going to adopt a sad expression and a sad posture, and before you know it, you feel sad. And that's sort of the body channel of emotional empathy, which many animals have. Your average dog has that also. That's why people keep mammals in the home and not turtles or snakes or something like that, who don't have that kind of empathy. And then there's a cognitive channel, which is more that you can take the perspective of somebody else. And that's more limited. Very few animals, I think elephants and apes, can do that kind of thing.
Så synkronisering, som er en del af hele empatimekanismen, er meget gammelt i dyreriget. Og ved mennesker kan vi selvfølgelig studere det via smittende gaben. Mennesker gaber når andre gaber. Og det er relateret til empati. Det aktiverer de samme områder i hjernen. Vi ved også, at mennesker der bliver smittet meget af gab, er meget empatiske. Mennesker der har problemer med empati, såsom autistiske børn, de bliver ikke smittet af gab. Så det er sammenhængende.
So synchronization, which is part of that whole empathy mechanism, is a very old one in the animal kingdom. In humans, of course, we can study that with yawn contagion. Humans yawn when others yawn. And it's related to empathy. It activates the same areas in the brain. Also, we know that people who have a lot of yawn contagion are highly empathic. People who have problems with empathy, such as autistic children, they don't have yawn contagion. So it is connected.
Og det studerer vi ved vores chimpanser ved at vise dem et animeret hoved. Det er hvad man kan se øverst til venstre, et animeret hoved der gaber. Og der er en chimpanse der kigger, en rigtig chimpanse der kigger på en computer skærm, der viser disse animationer. (Latter) Så smittende gaben som I sikkert allesammen er bekendt med -- og måske begynder I snart at gabe -- er noget vi deler med andre dyr. Og det er forbundet med hele kropsdelen af synkronisering der hører under empati, og det er dybest set universelt hos pattedyr.
And we study that in our chimpanzees by presenting them with an animated head. So that's what you see on the upper-left, an animated head that yawns. And there's a chimpanzee watching, an actual real chimpanzee watching a computer screen on which we play these animations. (Laughter) So yawn contagion that you're probably all familiar with -- and maybe you're going to start yawning soon now -- is something that we share with other animals. And that's related to that whole body channel of synchronization that underlies empathy, and that is universal in the mammals, basically.
We studerer også mere komplekse udtryk. Det her er trøst. Det her er en han chimpanse der har tabt en dyst og han skriger. og en ung kommer og lægger en arm om ham, og trøster ham. Det er trøst. Det er meget lig menneskelig trøst. Og trøsteadfærd er drevet af empati. Faktisk er måden at studere empati hos menneske børn at instruere et familiemedlem i at handle fortvivlet, og så ser man hvad barnet gør. Så det er relateret til empati, og det er den slags udtryk vi kigger på.
We also study more complex expressions -- This is consolation. This is a male chimpanzee who has lost a fight and he's screaming, and a juvenile comes over and puts an arm around him and calms him down. That's consolation. It's very similar to human consolation. And consolation behavior -- (Laughter) it's empathy driven. Actually, the way to study empathy in human children is to instruct a family member to act distressed, and then to see what young children do. And so it is related to empathy,
Vi offentliggjorde for nylig et eksperiment I måske har hørt om. Det omhandler altruisme og chimpanser hvor spørgsmålet er, om chimpanser bekymrer sig om andres velfærd. Og i årtier er det blevet antaget at det kun er mennesker der kan det, at det kun er mennesker der bekymrer sig om andres velfærd. Vi gennemførte et meget simpelt eksperiment. Vi udførte det på chimpanser der bor i Lawrenceville, i en feltstation til Yerkes. Så det er sådan de bor. Og vi kalder dem ind i et rum og laver nogle forsøg med dem. I denne case sætter vi to chimpanser ved siden af hinanden. Én af dem har en kasse med poletter, og poletterne har forskellig betydning. Én slags polet giver kun mad til den der vælger, den anden giver mad til begge.
and that's the kind of expressions we look at. We also recently published an experiment you may have heard about. It's on altruism and chimpanzees, where the question is: Do chimpanzees care about the welfare of somebody else? And for decades it had been assumed that only humans can do that, that only humans worry about the welfare of somebody else. Now we did a very simple experiment. We do that on chimpanzees that live in Lawrenceville, in the field station of Yerkes. And so that's how they live. And we call them into a room and do experiments with them. In this case, we put two chimpanzees side-by-side, and one has a bucket full of tokens, and the tokens have different meanings. One kind of token feeds only the partner who chooses, the other one feeds both of them.
Det her er et studie vi gennemførte med Vicky Horner. Og her er de to farver poletter. Så de har en hel spand fuld af dem. Og de skal vælge én af de to farver. I kan se hvordan det foregår. Så hvis denne chimpanse tager det selviske valg, der i dette tilfælde er den røde polet, skal han give den til os. Så vi samler den op, vi sætter den på bordet hvor der er to madbelønninger, men i dette tilfælde er det kun den til højre der får mad. Den til venstre går væk, fordi hun ved det allerede, at det her ikke er en god test for hende. Den næste er den prosociale polet.
So this is a study we did with Vicki Horner. And here, you have the two color tokens. So they have a whole bucket full of them. And they have to pick one of the two colors. You will see how that goes. So if this chimp makes the selfish choice, which is the red token in this case, he needs to give it to us, we pick it up, we put it on a table where there's two food rewards, but in this case, only the one on the right gets food. The one on the left walks away because she knows already that this is not a good test for her. Then the next one is the pro-social token.
Så den der træffer valgene - det er det interessante her -- for den der træffer valgene, gør det ikke nogen forskel. Så hun giver os en prosocial polet og begge chimpanser får mad. Så den der træffer valget får altid en belønning. Så det gør ikke nogen forskel overhovedet. Så hun skulle egentlig vælge i blinde. Men det vi ser er at de foretrækker den prosociale polet. Det her er 50 procent linjen der er den forventningen om det tilfældige. Og især hvis partneren tiltrækker sig opmærksomhed, vælger de mere.
So the one who makes the choices -- that's the interesting part here -- for the one who makes the choices, it doesn't really matter. So she gives us now a pro-social token and both chimps get fed. So the one who makes the choices always gets a reward. So it doesn't matter whatsoever. And she should actually be choosing blindly. But what we find is that they prefer the pro-social token. So this is the 50 percent line, that's the random expectation. And especially if the partner draws attention to itself, they choose more.
Og hvis partneren presser dem -- så hvis partneren begynder at spytte vand og true dem -- så går valget ned. Det er som om de siger
And if the partner puts pressure on them -- so if the partner starts spitting water and intimidating them -- then the choices go down. (Laughter)
"Hvis du ikke opfører dig ordentligt, så vil jeg ikke være prosocial i dag." Og det her er hvad der sker uden en partner, når der ikke sidder en partner. Så vi fandt at chimpanserne bekymrer sig om andres velbefindende -- især, de her er andre medlemmer af deres egen gruppe.
It's as if they're saying, "If you're not behaving, I'm not going to be pro-social today." And this is what happens without a partner, when there's no partner sitting there. So we found that the chimpanzees do care about the well-being of somebody else -- especially, these are other members of their own group.
Det sidste eksperiment som jeg vil nævne for jer, er vores studie i retfærdighed. Og det her blev et meget berømt forsøg. Og nu er der mange flere, da vi efter at have gjort det her for 10 år siden, blev det meget kendt. Og vi gjorde det oprindeligt med kapucineraber. Så nu viser jeg jer det første eksperiment vi lavede. Det er også blevet lavet med hunde og fugle og med chimpanser. Men sammen med Sarah Brosnan startede vi med kapucineraber.
So the final experiment that I want to mention to you is our fairness study. And so this became a very famous study. And there are now many more, because after we did this about 10 years ago, it became very well-known. And we did that originally with capuchin monkeys. And I'm going to show you the first experiment that we did. It has now been done with dogs and with birds and with chimpanzees. But with Sarah Brosnan, we started out with capuchin monkeys.
Så det vi gjorde var, at vi satte to kapucineraber ved siden af hinanden. Igen, de her dyr, de lever i en gruppe, de kender hinanden. Vi tager dem ud af gruppen, sætter dem i et test rum. Og der er en meget simpel opgave som de skal lave. Og hvis man giver dem begge agurk til opgaven, de to aber ved siden af hinanden, er de begge helt villige til at gøre det 25 gange i træk. Så agurk, selvom det efter min mening bare er vand, men agurk er helt fint for dem. Så hvis man giver partneren vindruer -- madpræferencerne hos mine kapucineraber svarer præcis til priserne i supermarkedet -- så hvis man giver dem vindruer -- en klart bedre føde -- så skaber man en ulighed mellem dem. Så det er det eksperiment vi lavede.
So what we did is we put two capuchin monkeys side-by-side. Again, these animals, live in a group, they know each other. We take them out of the group, put them in a test chamber. And there's a very simple task that they need to do. And if you give both of them cucumber for the task, the two monkeys side-by-side, they're perfectly willing to do this 25 times in a row. So cucumber, even though it's only really water in my opinion, but cucumber is perfectly fine for them. Now if you give the partner grapes -- the food preferences of my capuchin monkeys correspond exactly with the prices in the supermarket -- and so if you give them grapes -- it's a far better food -- then you create inequity between them. So that's the experiment we did.
Vi filmede det for nyligt med nye aber der ikke havde lavet opgaven før, da vi tænkte at de måske ville vise en stærkere reaktion, og det viste sig at være rigtigt. Den til venstre er aben der får agurk. Den til højre er aben der får vindruer. Den der får agurk, læg mærke til at det første stykke agurk er helt fin. Det første stykke spiser hun. Så ser hun at den anden får vindruer, og så ser I hvad der sker. Så hun giver os stenen. Det er opgaven. Og vi giver hende et stykke agurk og hun spiser det. Den anden skal give os en sten. Og det er hvad hun gør. Og hun får en vindrue og spiser den. Det ser den anden. Hun giver os stenen nu, får, igen, agurk. (Latter) Hun tester en sten mod væggen. Hun skal give den til os. Og hun får agurk igen. (Latter) Så det her er i bund og grund "Wall Street protest" I ser her.
Recently, we videotaped it with new monkeys who'd never done the task, thinking that maybe they would have a stronger reaction, and that turned out to be right. The one on the left is the monkey who gets cucumber. The one on the right is the one who gets grapes. The one who gets cucumber -- note that the first piece of cucumber is perfectly fine. The first piece she eats. Then she sees the other one getting grape, and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us. And that's what she does. And she gets a grape ... and eats it. The other one sees that. She gives a rock to us now, gets, again, cucumber. (Laughter) (Laughter ends) She tests a rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us. And she gets cucumber again. (Laughter) So this is basically the Wall Street protest that you see here.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Lad mig fortælle jer -- Jeg har stadig to minuter til overs, lad mig fortælle jer en sjov histore omkring dette. Dette forsøg blev meget berømt og vi fik en masse kommentarer, især fra antropologer, økonomer, filosoffer. De kunne ikke lide det overhovedet. Fordi de havde bestemt sig for, tror jeg, at retfærdighed er et meget kompleks emne og at dyr ikke kan have det. Og en filosof skrev endda til os at det var umuligt at aber skulle have en retfærdighedssans fordi retfærdighed blev opfundet under den Franske Revolution. (Latter)
I still have two minutes left -- let me tell you a funny story about this. This study became very famous and we got a lot of comments, especially anthropologists, economists, philosophers. They didn't like this at all. Because they had decided in their minds, I believe, that fairness is a very complex issue, and that animals cannot have it. And so one philosopher even wrote us that it was impossible that monkeys had a sense of fairness because fairness was invented during the French Revolution. (Laughter)
En anden skrev et helt kapitel at han ville tro på det havde noget med retfærdighed at gøre hvis den der fik vindruer, ville afvise vindruerne. Det sjove er, at Sarah Brosnan, der har gjort det med chimpanser, havde et par kombinationer af chimpanser hvor, minsandten, den ene der ville få vindruer ville afvise vindruerne indtil den anden også fik vindruer. Så vi er tæt på den menneskelige følelse af retfærdighed. Og jeg synes filosoffer skal genoverveje deres filosofi.
And another one wrote a whole chapter saying that he would believe it had something to do with fairness, if the one who got grapes would refuse the grapes. Now the funny thing is that Sarah Brosnan, who's been doing this with chimpanzees, had a couple of combinations of chimpanzees where, indeed, the one who would get the grape would refuse the grape until the other guy also got a grape. So we're getting very close to the human sense of fairness. And I think philosophers need to rethink their philosophy for a while.
Så lad mig opsummere. Jeg tror på, at der er en udviklet moral. Jeg synes moral er meget mere end det jeg har snakket om, men det ville være umuligt uden disse ingredienser som vi finder i andre primater, som er empati og trøst, sociale tendenser og gensidighed og en retfærdighedssans. Så vi arbejder på disse specifikke emner for at se om vi kan skabe en moral fra bunden og op, så at sige, uden at Gud og religion nødvendigvis er involveret, og se hvordan vi kan finde frem til en udviklet moral.
So let me summarize. I believe there's an evolved morality. I think morality is much more than what I've been talking about, but it would be impossible without these ingredients that we find in other primates, which are empathy and consolation, pro-social tendencies and reciprocity and a sense of fairness. And so we work on these particular issues to see if we can create a morality from the bottom up, so to speak, without necessarily god and religion involved, and to see how we can get to an evolved morality.
Og jeg takker Jer for jeres opmærksomhed.
And I thank you for your attention.
(Bifald)
(Applause)