Morality in animals

[abaris]

I once read that the primary motivational difference between chimps and bonobos can be demonstrated by putting a cardboard box into a room with a pair of each kind of animal.  The chimps will fight over who gets the box.  The bonobos will climb into the box and have sex.


Boru

Chimps are certainly more aggressive than Bonobos, but there are cooperation experiments with himps, some dating back as far as the late 30ies, where they work as a team to reach a common goal. It's also been tried with elephants and they too make a combined effort.

There also have been experiments to judge their sense of justice. One I remember wasn't even with great apes but with capuchins as far as I recall. Both were in seperate cages, but could observe each other. They each had to perform tasks and were rewarded with treats. In the beginning both got the same treats, but then one of them got handed grapes whereas the other go the original standard food. The one being so disfavored started throwing the treat back at the researcher when he saw what was happening.

Edit: Found it, it's one of Frans de Waals experiments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOZ8OSd5xlg

Here's a short one also about de Waal concerning chimp empathy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_192a6kLg