The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society

This is my second Frans De Waal book and I am still incredibly impressed with his work. He does such a great job of taking complex ideas and presenting them SO clearly. He leans hard into the ethos argument, as he proves over and over his authority based on his experience working with primates. This helps to support his argument, in addition to the familial tone he writes in. I never felt talked down too, I never felt confused by his ideas or the connections he was making. I also like his repetitiveness. The ideas are repeated just enough to get the point across. The idea of empathy as an ancient evolutionary adaptation is fascinating, encouraging, and supported well with research and anecdotes in this book.

Frans de Waal has produced another excellent book with `The Age of Empathy.' He thus continues to produce breakthrough insights that began with his classic book, Chimpanzee Politics. In this book he examines the phenomenon of empathy from an evolutionary perspective. He does so by drawing upon a wealth of data from biological observations and experiments that includes primates of course but numerous other species as well. The evidence and the story that he develops are both interesting and revealing. And the story builds a strong case to support the thesis that even `advanced' emotional and mental processes such as empathy are not unique to humans, but have observable antecedents among numerous other species within the animal kingdom. His thesis follows and enriches the tradition begun by biologist Donald Griffin in his book, Animal Thinking. His thesis also ties in comfortably with the arguments presented by Daniel Dennett in his book, Freedom Evolves. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the description of similarities between the behaviour of children and primates. Experiments with monkeys and chimpanzees display amazingly parallel behavioural tendencies with that of human infants. The dominant theme is a shared aversion to perceived injustice. This finding is consistent with the field of evolutionary psychology of course. But reading de Waal's book is both exciting and instructive of how very deep some of our emotional roots lie within evolutionary history. The author draws a number of political conclusions from the evidence he presents. His conclusions are consistent with a humanist philosophy. While I personally am able to relate to the conclusions, I have to admit that the ideas are only partially developed. But the book offers a clear challenge nonetheless. Conservative ideologies are almost certainly based upon assumptions regarding human behaviour that biological science is showing to be false. The onus is placed upon serious practitioners in political philosophy to develop new theories of socio-political organization that are based upon sound biological science. As it happens this is my argument as well in The Bridge. David Hillstrom

In this highly entertaining, lovingly written, and amply documented book, de Waal reverses his usual direction of argumentation, using the fact that primates exhibit rudimentary forms of human prosociality to assert that human sociality is fundamentally empathetic and altruistic. Indeed, de Waal suggests that chimpanzees exhibit a mix of hierarchical and egalitarian sensitivities, and empathetic and ruthlessly aggressive sensitivities similar to that of humans. De Waal does not even entertain the Romantic idea that humans are inherently benevolent but corrupted by an evil society, but he returns repeatedly to a critique of the American conservative tendency to view human nature as basically selfish. The bottom line is that de Waal develops a concept of human nature block by block, chapter by chapter, and then uses this concept to build a novel and very attractive political economy for our time. The evidence for de Waal's model of human, monkey, and ape nature is a combination of anecdote (as in other de Waal books) and controlled laboratory experiment. The latter element is of course central, because people have been speculating about human and animal nature for centuries without even approaching a consensus. The major implication of this research for humans, which uses behavioral game theory and experimental economics, is that we now know with almost perfect certainty that humans are not the selfish sociopaths of traditional economics and sociobiology, but rather are motivated by a complex mix of self-regarding, other-regarding and fundamentally moral objectives. De Waal goes through this evidence enough to make his point, without becoming bogged down in the sort of detail that is of critical importance for experts in the field, but boring for the general reader. What is new in this book is a similar emphasis on controlled laboratory research on non-human primate "nature." His conclusion is that primates, as expected from elementary evolutionary biology, exhibit in rudimentary form, the same mixture of selfish and prosocial behaviors as found in humans. One of the neuroscientific developments that I learned for the first time from this book is the relationship between Von Economo neurons (VEN cells) and what de Waal calls the "co-emergence hypothesis." This hypothesis holds that self-awareness (e.g., recognizing oneself in a mirror) and empathy (recognizing feelings in others) co-emerged in several mammal species, including humans, some apes, dolphins, whales, and elephants. The new fact is that VEN cells, which are long, spindle-like neurons that reach deep into the brain, connecting cortex to the more primitive parts of the brain, have been found in these, and only these, animals! It is popular these days to treat the results of behavioral game theory as providing a fatal critique of economic theory and a shining endorsement of evolutionary biology. This is certainly not the case, and de Waal treatment in this book is balanced and accurate

Primatologist Frans de Waal has produced another book full of lively writing and thoughtful analysis, reminding us of our exquisite animal roots. In "The Age of Empathy," De Waal is out to set the record straight: too many people invoke "evolution" to justify treating each other in contemptuous ways. This has got to stop, because this modern version of "Social Darwinism" is a highly selective and distorted version of the kind of animals we humans are, as well as a wildly inaccurate interpretation of way natural selection works. In short, we are NOT condemned by nature to treat each other badly. Rather, there is a much different and much pervasive aspect regarding the kind of animal we humans have evolved to be. We are highly groupish, often peace-loving beings who are well-tuned to look out for each other. Not that we always do this well, but there is plenty of reason to conclude that we are highly social in an empathetic way. In this book, De Waal accomplishes his goals with reference to ample evidence from human history and with meticulous observations and social experiments regarding our primate cousins. Keep this book handy for the next time someone claims that they don't need to care about people who are struggling to make it "because that's the way of nature." This approach to life is a cop-out; it is certainly not justified by Darwin's work.

What a timely book. I heard Frans De Waal give an interview on NRP's Diane Rehm show discussing his new book and immediately bought and read it. It was thought-provoking and makes you realize the similarities in human and animal behaviors. Cooperation, negotiation, kindness, and empathy are needed more than ever in families, organizations, and in politics. I hope we can learn some important lessons about our species from his extensive primate research. I enjoyed reading about Frans De Waal's work and past publications on the website: [...]

I've only read the first chapter so far but am IMPRESSED! with both the forthrightness and plain old correctness-type rightness of his words. I'd like to see copies of this book provided in hotel dresser drawers instead of the Judeo-Christian or Qu'ran or Buddhist offerings found in most of them. If it's true that some travelers want to read something that will make them feel pretty good about being humans, this book ought to do it! De Waal is applying the massive knowledge he gained from years of being a first-class primatologist to help readers correctly understand certain economic situations originally misinterpreted by "social Darwinist" H.Spencer and still being misinterpreted by "materialist fundamentalists" R.Dawkins and D.Dennett. (Naturally, religious zealots of many sorts either ignore or repudiate Darwin since his observations do not seem to support the poetically expressed claims they take as historical reports.) For years now I've been disconcerted that so many of today's economists are still stuck in classical (linear)theory when it seems more of them would move on to recognizing the need for admitting nonlinear chaotic processes going on. Maybe De Waal's observations from a different point of view will help them loosen their grip on that comforting but out of date state of being.