There is a lot in this book. Too much to capture in a brief review but much of the main idea behind the chapters is linked to the idea "that arguments for evolutionary continuity...... the idea that the differences between species are differences in degree rather than differences in kind--are being supported for a wide variety of cognitive and emotional capacities in diverse species. We believe that there isn't a moral gap between humans and other animals", There is very much an evolutionary underpinning to the ideas. I've tried to capture some of the more interesting (to me) arguments in the following by some selective quotes...whilst realising that they can't give justice to all the nuances of the original.
"There is tremendous interest in the emotional and cognitive lives of animals, and there are daily revelations that surprise and even confound some of our assumptions about what animals are like. For example, fish are able to infer their own relative social status by observing dominance interactions among other fish. Fish also have been observed to display unique personalities. We know too that birds plan future meals and that their ability to make and use tools often surpasses that of chimpanzees. Rodents can use a rake-like tool to retrieve food that is out of reach. Dogs classify and categorize photographs the same way humans do; chimpanzees know what other chimpanzees can see, and show better memory in computer games than do humans; animals from magpies to otters to elephants grieve for their young; and mice feel empathy. For anyone who follows scientific literature or popular media on animal behavior it's obvious that we're learning a phenomenal amount".
"The innumerable situations in which we see individual animals working together aren't merely veneers of cooperation, fairness, and trust, but the real thing. Cooperation, fairness, and justice have to be factored into the evolutionary equation in order to understand the evolution of social behaviour in diverse species."
"Norms of behaviour will vary across species. Even within species there might be variations in how norms of behavior are understood and expressed. For example, what counts as "right" in one wolf pack might not be exactly the same as in another wolf pack because of the idiosyncrasies of individual personalities and the social nerworks "
"The heart of wild justice is the suite of moral behaviors that fall into three rough "clusters" (groups of related behaviors that share some family resemblances) that we've used as a fulcrum to organize our mate-rial: the cooperation cluster (including altruism, reciprocity, honesty, and trust), the empathy cluster (including sympathy, compassion, grief, and consolation), and the justice cluster (including sharing, equity, fair play, and forgiveness)."
"Although stories are appealing to many people, some researchers view tales of this sort as nothing more than just-so stories. It's true that anecdotes provide a kind of data that is qualitatively different from the hard numbers of empirical studies, and they cannot substitute for rigorous scientific research. But the use of stories, or "narrative ethology," is an important part of the science of animal behaviour." I guess we have to take their word for this but maybe try to retain some objectivity.
"Because animal research has for decades been performed in the service of human needs and desires, there is a habitual inclination to generalize to humans from what we learn about animals. Yet this habit of mind can lead to loose and sloppy science. Each species is unique, and even among a given species there will be individual variation. We cannot safely generalize in the realm of morality from animal behavior to human behavior or, while we're at it, from human behavior to animal behavior. This is why we constantly repeat the mantra "morality is species-specific."
"we now know that the emotional lives of animals are every bit as rich as our own. There's a lot of interest in animal emotion and lots of new research.......The tendency to focus on "negative" emotions such as pain, fear, and aggression has given way to an increased interest in "positive" emotions such as love, joy, and pleasure, and to complex emotional experiences such as empathy, grief, and forgiveness." I found it interesting that slime moulds were excluded as showing altruism if indeed slime molds were behaving altruistically, we wouldn't want to cal it moral altruism, because slime moulds don't meet our threshold requirements. Presumably, slime molds do not have rich emotional lives, nor do they have cognitive skills such as reading intentions or making predictions about the future. (There seem to be a lot of unproven assumptions here.
We believe that a sense of fairness or justice may function in chimpanzee society, and in a broad range of other animal societies as well.
"What we have done in this book is to give a descriptive account of moral behaviour in animals. On the other hand, our definition of morality does have normative elements. In other words, we say some concrete things about what constitutes moral as opposed to immoral behavior. Moral behavior is other-regarding and prosocial; it is behavior that promotes harmonious co-existence by avoiding harm to others and providing others with help. Norms of behavior that regulate social interactions are found in humans and animals alike. And these norms seem to be universal: in those animal societies in which morality has evolved, we see a common suite of behaviors."
"An evolutionary approach to morality can help with the problem of relativism, because core behaviour patterns are found in all human societies, and they're also found throughout animal societies in nature. These core behavior patterns may be heavily instinctual or hardwired; here, universal norms are likely to emerge, such as an instinctive empathic or altruistic response. Other, more species-relative norms may be peculiar to culture and place. There is room for both universals and for moral innovation.
Although much of the research we've cited in Wild Justice speaks to human moral behavior, we need to be very clear that we're not trying to provide a genealogy of human morality; we don't offer any hypotheses about where human morality comes from or why certain norms seem to persist over time and across cultures."
"It is worth noting that modern scientific research on animals, as well as the industrial farming of animals, has traditionally been justified by a scientific description of what animals are like. It's long been asserted as scientific fact that animals don't have complex thoughts or rich emotional lives. It is therefore, the old logic goes, morally acceptable to use animals however we please. As it turns out, the scientific description of the cognitive and emotional capacities of animals has undergone a major sea change in the last decade, and the old logic no longer works. In fact, the new logic imposes strong constraints on how we interact with other animals. A scientifically accurate description has the power to alter our perception of reality and can thus alter our moral responses.......More careful and scientifically accurate description of the lives of animals may lead to increased sensitivity to their needs."
Actually, a well argued case for giving more credit to animals than we have given in the past ...with all sorts of ramifications for our own morality in terms of the way we treat animals. I give the book five stars. ( )

If you are familiar with the works of the likes of Frans de Waal, Edward O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, [insert name of reputed ethologist/biologist], the subject matter of this book will not come to you as a surprise. In a way, its premisse, that of animals having a sense of justice, morality, fairness, all being evolved traits, is just a given. However, when you start to read the book, you know you are not the primary target audience of its message.

The book presents its case in defense of the notion of Wild Justice, a sense of justice, morality, fairness that some social animals have, thus blurring even more the lines that separate the human animal from all other non-human animals. The case is more philosophical, or theoretical, than practical; that is, the authors rely on the works of primatologists, ethologists, biologists, etc, to draw conclusions allowing them to question the long standing assumptions that morality is an exclusive human characteristic.

The text tends to be a bit repetitive, the text seeming to be rotating in some way, the same idea popping up again and again with a very similar presentation. Is it intentional? Is this the result of having the text composed by two separate authors? In any case, that’s not as bad as it sounds, for the repetitions allow you to remember, or at least to give a second (or third, fourth, ...) thought about the issue that is being put forth.


Does it deserve a reading? If you are familiar with the biology/ethology field, maybe not. If you have a philosophical bent and like to explore the ethical dimensions open up by the current consensus on the animal behavior front, than this book is for you. For in it you’ll have a good summary of the observations, experiences, hypotheses and conclusions on animal behavior research. ( )

Fabulous book that breaks down the black or white divisions of morality (Is or is not) and shows how there is a moral continuum. More highly social animals are more likely to engage in moral behavior than less social animals. All this, largely based on the studies of animals in their own habitats.

Jessica Pierce is co-author and covers the philosophical content. She does a great job of explaining the spectrum of moral behavior, such as, cooperation, empathy, and justice, in a way that's easy to understand.

The authors "define morality as a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups. These behaviors relate to well-being and harm, and norms of right and wrong attach to many of them. (As of 10/22/13 on http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/041612.html .)"

Offers astounding insight into the complexity and subtlety of animal behavior. ( )

Recently I read an article about 'animals you should not keep as pets'. One such animal was a monkey/ape in it the author claimed that apes/monkeys at time go on a rampage and will bite their owner because they do not have a moral consciousness. I beg to differ and 'Wild Justice - The Moral lives of Animals. " is exactly the subject this book discusses do animals have a moral consciousness? Do they have a moral code? Do they feel empathy ? Or are these strictly human conditions. (Ps monkeys /apes bite you because the are wild animals !) ( )

"Vom Mitgefühl der Tiere" ist ein Beispiel dafür, wie man über ein ausgesprochen interessantes Thema ein extrem langweiliges Buch schreiben kann. Die Autoren versuchen darzustellen, dass nicht nur der Mensch, sondern auch Tiere über Gefühle verfügen und Verhaltensweisen wie Empathie, Kooperation und Gerechtigkeit zeigen. Diese drei Komponenten halten die Autoren für die Grundlage moralischen Verhaltens. Sie postulieren also, dass Tiere über Moral verfügen. Dies trifft explizit für hoch entwickelte, sozial lebende Säugetiere zu.

So spannend und zeitgemäß dieser moderne Ansatz auch sein mag, hat er die Autoren leider nicht dazu veranlasst, ein ebenso spannendes Buch zu schreiben. Gleich zu Beginn zählen sie eine Reihe von Beispielen moralischen Verhaltens im Tierreich auf, und als Leser erwartet man, dass es nun so weiter geht und dass die Theorie der Autoren anhand von mehr Beispielen erklärt wird. Allerdings folgen nun fast keine neuen Beispiele mehr, sondern der Rest des Buches ist rein theoretisch gehalten, in recht trockenem, akademischen Stil. Man meint, ein Schulbuch in Händen zu halten.

Wirklich ärgerlich ist, dass sich die Verfasser außerdem ständig wiederholen: Die wenigen Beispiele aus der Tierwelt, die am Anfang erzählt werden, kommen im Buch immer wieder vor. Ja, der Schluss des Buches rekapituliert wortwörtlich den Anfang, was als wenig originell empfunden wird. Offensichtlich fürchten sich die Autoren sehr davor, ins Anekdotische zu verfallen, was als unwissenschaftlich gilt, und sind deshalb so sparsam mit Beispielen für moralisches Verhalten im Tierreich. Andererseits muten sie dem Leser die Beschreibung eines Experiments zu, bei dem eine Ratte dabei zuschauen muss, wie eine andere Ratte geköpft (!) wird. Sinn und Zweck solcher Experimente sind mehr als zweifelhaft, und man fragt sich, ob die Versuchstiere nicht etwa auf einem höheren moralischen Niveau stehen als die Experimentatoren. Mitfühlendes Verhalten von Tieren kann auch ohne solch sadistischen Versuche erforscht werden.

Die Verfasser glänzen außerdem mit einer Vielzahl von Fremdwörtern, was ansich kein Problem ist, da sie ja bei Nichtwissen leicht nachgeschlagen werden können. Allerdings hört es mit der Allgemeinverständlichkeit dann auf, wenn dem Leser ein Wort wie "Haupthistokompatibilitätskomplex" ohne Erklärung präsentiert wird. Auch kann man sich nicht aus dem Zusammenhang erschließen, was damit gemeint ist. Dann fällt auch noch auf, dass die Absätze ständig übergangslos und ohne Überleitung aneinandergereiht sind, was das Verständnis der Zusammenhänge erschwert.

Jeder, der schon einmal mit höher entwickelten, sozialen Tieren zu tun gehabt hat, hat bestimmt festgestellt, dass sie über ähnliche Empfindungen verfügen wie wir, und dass der Mensch keineswegs weit über den Tieren steht, wie er so gerne von sich selbst annimmt. Mensch und Tier sind das Ergebnis ein und desselben Entwicklungsprozesses. Dankenswerterweise versuchen die Autoren, diese Tatsachen zu untermauern, was ihnen wirklich sehr hoch anzurechnen ist, aber die Art und Weise, wie sie dies tun, bringt einfach kein Lesevergnügen. Ein populärwissenschaftliches Buch stellt man sich anders vor. ( )