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PRIMATES AND PHILOSOPHERS Part 4

Theo dấu vết hóa thạch, tổ tiên của Linh trưởng có thể đã tồn tại vào thời kỳ Creta muộn cách đây khoảng 65 triệu năm, Linh trưởng lâu nhất được ghi nhận sống vào thời kỳ Paleocene muộn là Plesiadapis, cách đây c. 55–58 triệu năm. | 52 FRANS DE WAAL that follow genuinely cooperative impulses. I don t know if people are deep down good or evil but to believe that each and every move is selfishly calculated while being hidden from others and often from ourselves seems to grossly overestimate human intellectual powers let alone those of other animals. Apart from the already discussed animal examples of consolation of distressed individuals and protection against aggression there exists a rich literature on human empathy and sympathy that generally agrees with the assessment of Mencius that impulses in this regard come first and rationalizations later e.g. Batson 1990 Wispé 1991 . COMMUNITY CONCERN In this essay I have drawn a stark contrast between two schools of thought on human goodness. One school sees people as essentially evil and selfish and hence morality as a mere cultural overlay. This school personified by T. H. Huxley is still very much with us even though I have noticed that no one not even those explicitly endorsing this position likes to be called a veneer theorist. This may be due to wording or because once the assumptions behind Veneer Theory are laid bare it becomes obvious that unless one is willing to go the purely rationalist route of modern Hobbesians such as Gauthier 1986 the theory lacks any sort of explanation of how we moved from being amoral animals to moral beings. The theory is at odds with the evidence for emotional processing as driving force behind moral judgment. If human morality could truly be reduced to calculations and reasoning we would come close to being psychopaths who indeed do not mean to be kind when they act kindly. Most of us hope to be MORALLY EVOLVED 53 slightly better than that hence the possible aversion to my black-and-white contrast between Veneer Theory and the alternative school which seeks to ground morality in human nature. This school sees morality arise naturally in our species and believes that there are sound evolutionary reasons for the .