January 17, 2004
Monkey morality.
Sharing might not be as nice as it's cracked up to be.
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From the same site, more monkey morality.
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Interesting article, but they draw their conclusions from the fact that the monkeys share when harassed and don't when not harassed. Who is to say the monkeys even notice the other monkeys are there? It seems odd to assume the monkey is sharing in order to relieve the harassment. Couldn't it be that the harassing monkey was just more obviously hungry and therefore sharing was simply, say, more of an evolutionary necessity? Or maybe I didn't read the article close enough or it wasn't a detailed enough summary of the findings. Either way, given how little we really know about animal (or human) thought, it seems presumptious to equate it with any kind of morality system.
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waitaminute... p2p sharing?
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Jeez, my own little monkey wouldn't eat nearly as much if he didn't come up to me and say, "toast, toast, toast" (his word for any food) continuously until I shared mine with him. If I was a monkey (which I am), I'd totally give them something to shut them up. You're right though, there's not enough detail: But if the partition was opened - giving the hungry animal the chance to beg, steal or fight for food - sharing was common. So it couldn't be that the chimp/monkey couldn't conceive of passing food through a small gap but could when there was no partition at all? It's not a spacial issue?
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This article is available in full to Premium plus subscribers x 2 Trying to read it through illicit means would make you an immoral monkey.