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CHAPTER XVIII

ETHICS, MORALITY, AND SCIENCE

I use ethics and morals interchangeably to mean the same thing. But a critical point is that from the perspective of a Science of Ethics one cannot differentiate an ethical/moral choice from any other choice. David Morris [1] frames the issue in the essential way when he says, "An ethics of daily practice...would need to employ almost a novelist's eye in order to uncover the implications of acts and choices so small that we rarely stop to observe them. It would take as its goal an examination of behavior that we automatically consider free from ethical content: what we read, what we wear, how we talk to our children, the furnishings we choose, even perhaps the daydream that passes unnoticed as we round a familiar corner."

The point of the foregoing is that every choice we make has an ethical/ moral dimension. Therefore, every choice must be examined as to whether it moves one toward or away from becoming an Enlightened Person. We must focus on choices because that is the key issue. It then becomes very important to learn how to make the best choices possible, and to establish social resources to help individuals in their decision making processes. This is why the SECOND WAY OF WISDOM (see Volume I, Chapter II) focuses on making choices.

In an Enlightened Community the choices that are best for an Enlightened Person are the ones that are also best for the Community. As a result there are no conflicts between what is good for the person and what is good for the community. If there is a conflict it's because of erroneous beliefs in the individual or in the society, and these must be studied in order that they can be changed. There can be no pressures to force persons to make choices that are not in their own best interests. This approach conflicts with past philosophical and religious perspectives. These taught that making the right choices involved sacrifice and conflicts. They taught that doing the right thing was difficult. The person's "animal" nature would always attracted them toward base and evil behavior it has been thought.

CHAPTER XVIII. A.

A. WHAT OTHER ANIMALS CAN TEACH US ABOUT MORALITY

A book by Frans De Waal [2] that has helped me clarify my thinking about morality as it relates to Science of Ethics is explored here. In fact De Waal has helped me turn my thinking around on the issue of morals. Before reading GOOD NATURED I had been convinced that morality was an unredeemable concept. But he changed my mind. He helped me think through my position and realize that my current ideas involving morality no longer made it necessary to discard the concept. I am now willing to agree with De Waal that human beings are moral animals. They are deeply concerned about right and wrong. This line of thinking led directly to recognizing that what I have worked on all these years is, in fact, a Science of Ethics. And from the perspective of Science of Ethics it is clear that right behavior is that behavior which leads toward achieving a SFLIHM (a Sustainable Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning). Wrong behavior is any behavior that prevents or interferes with achieving a SFLIHM. The fact that almost every choice has this effect, rather than being a negative as I had supposed, I now see as a positive.

p. 2-3: "Since we [humans] are moral beings to the core, any theory of human behavior that does not take morality 100 percent seriously is bound to fall by the wayside. Unwilling to accept this fate for evolutionary theory, I have set myself the task of seeing if some of the building blocks of morality are recognizable in other animals."[2]

p. 10: "Universally, human communities are moral communities; a morally neutral existence is as impossible for us as a completely solitary existence."

  RESPONSE: De Waal presents a clear argument for the importance of morality and the reasons why it is necessary to incorporate this approach even though it is quite different from the way philosophers have traditionally discussed morality since it is an empirical approach, not merely a rational approach using Platonic ideals.

p. 3: "Cognitive ethology: looks at animals as knowing, wanting, and calculating beings."

The biological Order of Primates that includes human beings also has macaques, marmosets, lemurs, monkeys, baboons, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, etc.

p. 9: "In no society worthy of the name do the members lack a sense of belonging and need for acceptance."

"Each member contributes to and benefits from the group, although not necessarily equally, or at the same time."

  RESPONSE: As indicated in many places in A NEW FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION current U.S. culture lacks this sense of belonging and awareness of a need for acceptance in various of its parts. And it is toward alleviating this deficiency that A NEW FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION is primarily directed.

p. 10: "...the broadest definition of this book's theme would be as an investigation into how the social environment shapes and constrains individual behavior."[2]

p. 11: "[Thomas] Malthus went so afar as to claim that if there is one right that humans clearly do not possess, it is the right to subsistence that they themselves are unable to purchase with their labor."

  RESPONSE: Obviously, Malthus was totally off base when it comes to clarifying how human beings should live and how society needs to be organized. In an Enlightened Community all persons have a right to subsistence, all have a right to be productive parts of the community in what ever way they are capable of being. And that right is given to them by their acceptance into an Enlightened Community.

p. 12: "[Kin selection means a] helping tendency may spread if the help results in increased survival and reproduction of kin."

"[Reciprocal altruism means,] helpful acts that are costly in the short run may produce long-term benefits if recipients return the favor."

p. 21: "Animals, [Petr] Kropotkin argued in MUTUAL AID, need to assist one another in their struggle for existence; a struggle, not so much of each against all, but of masses of organisms against the adversity of their environment."

  RESPONSE: And, for human beings this includes creating a place where every person can live in joy and plenty working to achieve their full positive potential.

p. 26: "Birds of a feather tend to like and love each other, to the extent that researchers can statistically predict if dating couples will break up or stay together based on how well they match on various dimensions."

p. 27: "How do individuals strike a balance between serving their own interests and operating as a team? How are conflicts resolved without damage to social ties?"

  RESPONSE: These are the key problems in becoming an Enlightened Person. These are primary problems in building and maintaining an Enlightened Community.

P. 28: "[Adam Smith, 1776, in WEALTH OF NATIONS observed in his very first sentence that human beings possess capacities,] 'which interest them in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary, though they derive nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.' This passage still stands as one of the most succinct and elegant definitions of human sympathy, a tendency Smith believed present in even the staunchest ruffian."

  RESPONSE: But this sympathy requires some nurturing in childhood/ infantancy in order to develop. The more and the better this support the deeper and more dependable this interest and concern about the future of others.

p. 29: "In the primate order, the most widespread and best-developed collaboration is alliance formation, defined as two or more individuals banding together to defeat a third. For example, two male chimpanzees team up in order to overthrow the established ruler. The two challengers will swagger shoulder to shoulder in an intimidating manner, with their hair on end, often embracing or mounting each other directly in front of their rival, and of course supporting each other if it comes to an actual confrontation. By doing so for weeks or months on end, they wage a veritable war of nerves that may force the other male out of power. This is one of the most committed forms of animal cooperation that I know, one in which lives are literally at stake. Alpha males rarely go down without a fight."

p. 30: "...without conflicts of interest to be settled, what good would a moral system do?"

  RESPONSE: I think a moral system is about how an individual person can live the best life possible. When that is properly done conflicts of interest are settled as a by-product, not as the primary goal of behavior. This is true because there is no conflict between an Enlightened Person and an Enlightened Community. This means there are no conflicts among Enlightened Persons. What is truly best for one Enlightened Person is what is in fact best for every other Enlightened Person."

p. 29-30: [The first condition for the evolution of morality is conflict with the environment, the need for cooperation to overcome hostile forces in the world.]

"The second condition for the evolution of morality...is conflict within the group. Moral systems are produced by tension between individual and collective interests, particulary when entire collectivities compete against one another."

  RESPONSE: In an Enlightened Community we would have risen to a new level where these issues would be looked at differently. The total cooperation to utilize the environment for the welfare of humanity would almost totally remove conflict within the group. Any lingering conflict deriving from alpha male/female and other "tribal" propensities would be dealt with in the context of seeing these as challenges for each individual to overcome and for the Community to provide any assistance necessary for this to be done successfully.

p. 30: "Human history furnishes ample evidence that moral principles are oriented to one's own group, and only reluctantly (and never even-handedly) applied to the outside world."

  RESPONSE: For an Enlightened Person the situation is very different. Since an Enlightened Person recognizes the relationship between their own well-being and the well-being of every other person whether in one's group or the outside world. Of course it's critical that every other person share this realization or there will indeed be conflicts. The goal of an Enlightened Community would be to guide such conflicts so that they would help the individuals involved move toward becoming Enlightened Persons.

p. 31: "[Community concern:] ...each and every individual has a stake in the quality of the social environment on which its survival depends. In trying to improve this quality for their own purposes, they help many of their group mates at the same time. An example is arbitration and mediation in disputes; it is standard practice in human society -- courts of law serve this function -- but recognizable in other primates as well."

  RESPONSE: In an Enlightened Community there would be institutions to promote arbitration and mediation far more effective than courts of law. Every person would function within their full personal power as the result of the support of all members of their community.

p. 31: "With their flamboyant orange coats of thick, long hair and their gentle blue faces, golden monkeys are perhaps the most gorgeous primates in the world. In the wild, these rare langurs from China occur in aggregations of up to three hundred or four hundred individuals. Field-workers believe that within these groupings exist many smaller units of a single adult male, several females, and their dependent offspring. As in other primates with one-male units, male golden monkeys are twice the size of females. Even if the male therefore is absolute king, the integrity of his unit probably depends as much on how well the females get along as on his dominance over them."

p. 33: "Community concern...is expressed in the amelioration of social relationships among others to the intervener's [chimpanzees in this case] own advantage. This represents a first step toward a system such as human morality that actually elevates community interests above individual interests. Not that the two ever become disconnected -- natural selection would never produce such an arrangement..."

"[Indirect reciprocity:] ...helpful behavior may pay off via third parties....Once doing good is appreciated at the group level, it does not need to be rewarded on a tit-for-tat basis to yield benefits."

"Our actions are mirrored in the eyes of the spectator in the same way that everything we do is reflected in the responses of our group. Theories of moral evolution need to assign a significant role to such outside attention, hence concern themselves with the community level."

p. 35: "The mind does not start out as a tabula rasa, but rather as a checklist with spaces allotted to particular types of incoming information."

  RESPONSE: These scientifically based understandings of human development provide a way to interpret human behavior and human needs. This is essential for developing a Science of Ethics.

p. 36: "Possibly we are born, not with any specific social norms, but with a learning agenda that tells us which information to imbibe and how to organize it."

"Because a similar learning agenda seems to regulate language acquisition, I will speak of moral ability as a parallel to language ability."

p. 39: "Evolution has produced the requisites for morality: a tendency to develop social norms and enforce them, the capacities of empathy and sympathy, mutual aid and a sense of fairness, the mechanisms of conflict resolution, and so on. Evolution also has produced the unalterable needs and desires of our species: the need of the young for care, a desire for high status, the need to belong to a group, and so forth. How all of these factors are put together to form a moral framework is poorly understood, and current theories of moral evolution are no doubt only part of the answer."

"In the remainder of this book, I will investigate the extent to which aspects of morality are recognizable in other animals, and try to illuminate how we may have moved from societies in which things were as they were to societies with a vision of how things ought to be."

  RESPONSE: And these kinds of studies provide the perspective necessary to perfect a Science of Ethics. It ties into a key assumption of Science of Ethics that since the evolution of symbolic language, Modern Humans have been in the process of re-inventing themselves.

p. 43: "...chimpanzees both kiss-feed their young and kiss between adults. A close relative of the chimpanzee, the bonobo, even tongue-kisses."

p. 44: "Primates, including humans, develop succorant tendencies surprisingly early in life, thus contradicting an extensive literature according to which the young are egocentric, mean, even egregiously sinful."

  RESPONSE: It is essential that we recognize the above if we are to truly understand our human character. Therefore, we need to discard the mythology that has led us for so long to ignore reality and observation and impose erroneous characterization of human beings

p. 54: "Monkeys react to the death or disappearance of an attachment figure in a way outwardly similar to human grieving. In the 1960s this process was investigated in the laboratory by Charles Kaufman and Leonard Rosenblum, who separated infant monkeys from their mothers. A protest phase, with vigorous calling and searching for the mother, was followed by a despair phase, with nonresponsiveness, loss of appetite, slouching posture, and empty gaze. It is unclear, however, if such depressions ever reach the point where monkeys die of grief in the way that Jane Goodall described for the wild chimpanzee Flint, who died three weeks after the loss of his mother, the famous Flo. Flint was already eight and a half years old, but had been unusually dependent. In Goodall's words, 'His whole world had revolved around Flo, and with her gone life was hollow and meaningless.' Autopsy revealed inflammation of Flint's stomach and abdomen. It is indeed possible that his death was caused by a weakened immune system due to depression, yet we cannot rule out the obvious alternative that Flo and Flint had fallen victim to the same disease, and that Flint had merely held out a little longer than his mother."

  RESPONSE: Many things may have been going on here, but all study consistently indicates that human infants like other primates need nurturing. Without it the quality of their life suffers and leads to development of the human monsters written about throughout history. For me the key point here is taht "human monsters" come out of monstrous errors in teh veliefs of a society. Science of Ethics must work to change such beliefs.

p. 64: "...use of anthropomorphism as a means to get at the truth, rather than as an end in itself...sets its use in science apart from use by the layperson. The ultimate goal of the scientist is emphatically not to arrive at the most satisfactory projection of human feelings onto the animal, but rather at testable ideas and replicable observations. Thus, anthropomorphism serves the same exploratory function as that of intuition in all science, from mathematics to medicine. As advocated by Gordon Burghardt:

What I am calling for is a critical anthropomorphism, and predictive inference that encourages the use of data from many sources (prior experiments, anecdotes, publications, one's thoughts and feelings, neuroscience, imagining being the animal, naturalistic observations...et cetera). But however eclectic in origin, the product must be an inference that can be tested or, failing that, can lead to predictions supportable by public data.

 

"But what about the cherished principle of parsimony -- the one great bulwark against all this liberal thinking? The problem is that insofar as monkeys and apes are concerned, a profound conflict exists between two kinds of parsimony. The first is the traditional canon that tells us not to invoke higher capacities if the phenomenon can be explained with lower ones. This favors simple explanations, such as learned adjustment, over more complex ones, such as cognitive empathy."

"The second form of parsimony considers the shared evolutionary background of humans and other primates. It posits that if closely related species act the same, the underlying process probably is the same too. The alternative would be to assume the evolution of divergent processes for similar behavior; a highly uneconomic assumption for organisms with only a few million years of separate evolution. If we normally do not propose different causes for the same behavior in, say, tigers and lions, there is no good reason to do so for humans and chimpanzees, which are generically as close or closer."

"In short, the principle of parsimony has two faces. At the same time that we are supposed to favor low-level over high-level cognitive explanations, we also should not create a double standard according to which shared human and ape behavior is explained differently."

  RESPONSE: Of course a fundamental principle of a Science of Ethics is HBAURS (Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System). This means that we cannot escape anthropomorphism. The more fully we understand this the less likely we are to project that anthropomorphism onto the Universe and interpret the universe to have our attributes, abilities, and interests. As Burghardt indicates any inferences must be able to be tested or lead to predictions that can be. Lacking this evidence they must be seen as conjectural.

Parsimony is a tool. Like all tools it must be used appropriately. It has real value as long as it is not taken as TRUTH and used as if it had some mystical power.

p. 68: "Some cognitive psychologists view the self as the interface between an organism and its environment.

  RESPONSE: As indicated in Volume I, Chapter II, Science of Ethics sees the self or the "I" as more more than this.

p. 68: "According to J.J. Gibson, the more complex an organism's interactions with its environment, the better it needs to know itself. This premise applies to the physical environment, but perhaps even more to the social milieu."

p. 69: "Understanding one' surroundings equals understanding oneself."

p. 70: "One indication of a relation between the two [mirror self-recognition and empathy] is that the first signs of cognitive empathy in children appear at about the same time as mirror self-recognition."

p. 88: "Despite its fragility and selectivity, the capacity to care for others is the bedrock of our moral systems. It is the only capacity that does not snugly fit the hedonic cage in which philosophers, psychologists, and biologists have tried to lock the human spirit. One of the principal functions of morality seems to be to protect and nurture this caring capacity, to guide its growth and expand its reach, so that it can effectively balance other human tendencies that need little encouragement."

  RESPONSE: How true, how true!

p. 90: "Descriptive rules are not particularly interesting from a moral perspective, as they lack the crucial 'ought' quality. Stones do not fall to avoid getting into trouble. Only animals and humans follow prescriptive rules, rules actively upheld through reward and punishment. With regard to other animals we notice this most readily if the rules are of our own design, such as those that we apply to pets and work animals. Yet the remarkable trainability of certain species, such as sheepdogs and Indian elephants, hints at the possibility of a rule-based order among these animals themselves."

  RESPONSE: Certainly the study of other animals and human beings is necessary and useful. However, with the advent of a Science of Ethics we reach a new level of moral development. The "ought" becomes more personal and more closely tied to what is truly in our own best interest.

p. 91: "Jimoh, the current alpha male [chimpanzee] of the Yerkes Field Station group, once detected a secret mating between Socko, an adolescent male, and one of Jimoh's favorite females. Socko and the female had wisely disappeared from view, but Jimoh had gone looking for them. Normally, the old male would merely chase off the culprit, but for some reason -- perhaps because the female had repeatedly refused to mate with Jimoh himself that day -- he this time went full speed after Socko and did not give up. He chased him all around the enclosure -- Socko screaming and defecating in fear, Jimoh intent on catching him."

"Before he could accomplish his aim, several females close to the scene began to 'woaow' bark. This indignant sound is used in protest against aggressors and intruders. At first the callers looked around to see how the rest of the group was reacting; but when others joined in, particularly the top-ranking female, the intensity of their calls quickly increased until literally everyone's voice was part of a deafening chorus. The scattered beginning almost gave the impression that the group was taking a vote. Once the protest had swelled to a [p. 92] chorus, Jimoh broke off his attack with a nervous grin on his face: he got the message. Had he failed to respond, there would no doubt have been concerted female action to end the disturbance."

"These are the sorts of moments when we human observers feel most profoundly that there is some moral order upheld by the community. We cannot help but identify with a group that we watch day in and day out, and our own values of order and harmony are so similar that we would have barked along with the chimpanzees if we thought it would have mattered! Whereas some of us are inclined to explain the group's reaction to Jimoh in moral terms, such as 'He just went too far,' other observers might prefer a more neutral account along the lines of 'Chimpanzees sometimes bark in response to aggression.' There is one problem with the latter view, however: one never hears woaow barks when a mother punishes her own offspring, or when an adult male controls a tiff among juveniles -- even if he uses force in the process. Not every fight triggers these calls. It is a reaction to a very particular kind of disturbance, one that seriously endangers relationships or lives. Thinking in terms of rules and violations may help us come to grips with its relevant features."

"Undoubtedly, prescriptive rules and sense of order derive from a hierarchical organization, one in which the subordinate pays close attention to the dominant. Not that every social rule is necessarily established through coercion and dominance, but prototype rule enforcement comes from above. Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to social rules, as anyone who has tried to teach simple house rules to a cat will agree. Even if cat lovers fail to see a nonhierarchical nature as a shortcoming -- on the contrary! -- it does place their pets firmly outside the human moral realm. Evolved as solitary hunters, cats go their own way, indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks of them."

"Respect for rules and norms can develop only when the opinions and reactions of others matter. Fear of punishment is important, but not the whole story: the desire to belong to a group, and to fit in, is also involved. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, who pioneered research in this field, these elements are recognizable in the first stages of human moral growth. Development begins with obedience and a wish to stay out of trouble, followed by an orientation toward approval and pleasing others. For the child, it is the adult's approval that is sought; for the adult, it may be that of an omnipotent God infused with absolute moral knowledge. There is obviously more to morality -- Kohlberg's scheme counts six stages up to and including [p. 93] an autonomous conscience -- yet submission to a higher authority is fundamental. This feature is also less peculiarly human than some of the abilities involved in the later stages: submission to authority is part of a primordial orientation found not only in our fellow primates, but in a host of other animals as well."

"A hierarchical orientation is...widespread in the primates, although in their case it is mitigated by a strong tendency to form alliances, that is, a tendency for two or more parties to band together against a third. Alliances usually bolster the position of dominants, but sometimes subordinates jointly stand against higher-ups. The resulting balancing of power, combined with a tendency for reciprocal exchange, produces the beginnings of an orientation to equity, particularly in the chimpanzee."

"We can see this orientation when a group is faced with an attractive resource. Will the bosses claim everything for themselves, or will they share? In chimpanzees begging for food is common, and a beggar who is ignored may express frustration by throwing a fit. Temper tantrums are high drama, capable of inducing possessors to relinquish part of their food. The rhesus macaque, in contrast, lives in a society with rather intolerant dominants. From a safe distance the subordinate silently watches the dominant's food consumption. Sharing is absent in this species, as is begging and protest against monopolization. The contrast can be summarized by saying that rhesus monkeys have different expectations than chimpanzees about the distribution of resources. Chimpanzees count on a share; rhesus monkeys do not."

"In analogy with the human sense of justice, we may call this a sense of social regularity, which I define as follows:  

A set of expectations about the way in which oneself (or others) ought to be treated and how resources ought to be divided. Whenever reality deviates from these expectations to one's (or the other's) disadvantage, a negative reaction ensues, most commonly protest by subordinate individuals and punishment by dominant individuals.

"The sense of how others should or should not behave is essentially egocentric, although the interests of individuals close to the actor, especially kin, may be taken into account (hence the parenthetical inclusion of others). Note that the expectations have not been specified: [p. 96] they are species typical. Because the expectation, or at least the ideal, of equality is so pronounced in our own species, we perceive the rules among rhesus monkeys as less 'fair' than those in our closest relative, the chimpanzee. More important than this human bias, however, is the fact that all species seem to act according to what they can (or have come to) expect from others, thus creating a stable and predictable modus vivendi among themselves."

  RESPONSE: The essence of an Enlightened Person and an Enlightened Community would incorporate the ideas that De Waal discusses above, expectation of others, threat of group response to gross violations of social norms, etc. However, the full range of these entities would represent a giant step in a new direction. This would be what is captured by the idea of a "light at the end of the tunnel." This would be the fulfillment of the individual abilities evolved with the language ability; i.e., the mechanism to fulfill one's true needs. Because this is being tackled empirically rather than from a mythological, or a Platonic, ideal perspective it is being tested for rather than assumed, so this opens up a whole new level of achievement. This is truly something new under the sun. It allows the individual to give up God in order to achieve the things belief in God led persons to ignore; i.e., quality of life, cooperation with all other persons, etc.

p. 96-97: "The only way to estimate a species' sense of social regularity is by paying as much attention to spontaneous social acts as to how these acts are received by others. We need to determine which kinds of behavior are accepted and which meet with resistance, protest, or punishment. Here is a brand-new research agenda, one that will reveal differences not only between species, but perhaps also between different groups of the same species."

"Attributed to Saint Bonaventura, a thirteenth-century theologian, the saying 'The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind' warns of the exposure of character flaws in people free of the usual social constraints. Power creates freedom of action, but often also brings vanity, mercurial mood swings, and constant worry over how long the power will be enjoyed. Reality may merge into fantasy for holders of absolute power; there is nothing to check their will. Few people have the self-discipline to handle this drug. Its trappings are [p. 98] partly due to the admiration and ingratiation received from others. If individuals cannot be powerful themselves, they seek the glow of someone else's power."

"When the Great Chief enters a room, all heads turn and discussions come to a halt. We experience the presence of something larger than life. The chief may speak softly, yet everyone listens; he [sic] may tell a stale joke, yet everyone laughs; he [sic] may make an odd request, but no one doubts that there must be an excellent reason. Why do we attribute superhuman qualities to such people, and why do we allow them to exploit our feelings of insecurity? Power is not an individual attribute; it is a relational one. For every powerful person there are others supporting that superiority, feeding that ego."

  RESPONSE: There is much that needs to be said on this point because the "tribal" propensities such as the alpha male/female propensity are key issues to consider in understanding Homo sapiens sapiens and therefore in issues around building an Enlightened Community made up of Enlightened Persons. First, we must acknowledge the reality of these drives. Then we must recognize that they are very malleable like all human drives. How this plays out depends not only on its strength in a given individual, but also on the specifics of the individual's upbringing. Whether they are raised in a nurturing, focused environment. Whether their society has the resources to shape the drives -- regardless of their strength -- in ways that move the person in the direction of their own best interest. Character flaws must be directly addressed and every preventative measure possible taken. When that fails then the full resources of the society must be focused to help the person avoid being diverted by these flaws from becoming an Enlightened Person.

p. 98: "Like any pact, however, the one between dominant and subordinate is fragile. No one is more aware of this than the power holder himself. The more absolute the power, the greater the paranoia."

"The desire to dictate the behavior of others is such a timeless and universal attribute of our species that it must rank with the sex drive, maternal instinct, and the will to survive in terms of the likelihood of its being part of our biological heritage. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that not all students of animal behavior believe in its existence."

p. 99: But there is much evidence "...that animals deliberately strive to dominate others. In the 1930s Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist who later became famous for his theories about self-actualization, was one of the first to study social dominance in monkeys. He happened to do so in the same small zoo in Madison where I observed macaques decades later. Maslow described the cocky, confident air of dominant monkeys and the slinking cowardice, as he called it, of subordinates. He postulated a drive for dominance, in the same breath objecting to the term 'submission' as it might imply that subordinates give up any hope of besting their superiors (which according to Maslow they never do). Despite this objection, he was one of the first to speculate about the function of submissive behavior, saying that it placates the dominant by admitting social inferiority."

  RESPONSE: There is no doubt in my mind that this drive exists in human beings. But as indicated above there is all kinds of evidence that it can be channeled to be congruent with developing an Enlightened Community. Certainly, in such a community dominance and submission would be dealt with very carefully so that no person was accumulating stress from improper resolution of this drive; i.e., ways that prevent aother from achieving a SFLIHM.

But I think Maslow's point is extremely important. Circumstances cause an individual to behve in a submissive way. Change the circumstances and they will react in a dominant way, and vice versa, as indicated below.

p. 100: When one sees "...a swaggering alpha chimpanzee greeted by groveling subordinates who hurry over to him from great distances, it is evident that these encounters communicate much more than a mere win or loss. Status rituals reveal the deep structure of relationships and expressive cohesive tendencies as much as hierarchical ones. I will speak of formal dominance, to distinguish such external signs of status from everyday contests and their rather variable outcomes."

"Changes in formal rank often take place via a series of provocations by the previous subordinate, who may incur defeat and injury before winning any confrontations. A chimpanzee male who used to go out of his way to pay his respects to the boss, bowing all the way and nervously jumping away at the slightest threat gesture, is transformed into a defiant producer of noise and mayhem. He seems to have grown in size, displaying every day a little closer to the dominant, forcing him to pay attention by throwing branches and heavy rocks at him. In the beginning the outcome of these confrontations is rather open ended. Depending on the amount of support each rival receives from the rest of the group, a pattern will emerge, sealing the dominant's fate if it turns out to be in favor of his challenger. In all the processes that I have witnessed, the critical moment is not the first victory for the challenger, but the first time he elicits submission. The former dominant may lose numerous times, flee in panic, end up screaming high in a tree, and so on, but if he refuses to raise the white flag that the species evolved for this purpose, the challenger will not let up. Only when his target formally submits will the challenger change his conduct from aggressive to tolerant. The two rivals will reconcile, and calm will be restored."

RESPONSE: I remember reading many time about men fighting, and after a great struggle, one wins and the other loses. But afterwards they shake hands and indicate they can now be friends. There is no longer a doubt as to which is the alpha male!

p. 100: "How to explain the incredible energy put into rank reversals, the life-endangering risks taken, and the abrupt change in attitude once the other submits, other than as an action-reaction chain aimed at forcing the other into recognizing a new order? I am a firm believer that primates (and many other animals as well) are aware of their dominance relationships and share our will to power in the sense that they actively try to improve their positions whenever shifts in alliance or physical abilities permit."

"It is even possible that monkeys and apes are aware of more than just their own position relative to others. Robert Seyfarth has demonstrated that wild monkeys of adjacent rank groom one another more than those many positions apart, a finding confirmed by our own research. Seyfarth speculated that monkeys may be so familiar [p. 101] with their rank order that they not only realize who is above or below them, but also by approximately how many rungs on the ladder. This awareness would require an appreciation of rank relations among others."

  RESPONSE: Science of Ethics would impact the "will to power" by recognizing this comes out of our "tribal" propensities and is therefore something in the process of changing as we continue our efforts to re-invent our species by helping individuals realize that the pay-off comes not by dominating others, but by helping to build an environment where all persons can maximize fulfillment of all their needs which allow them to become Enlightened Persons. Desire to dominate others may be a strong force in many people. Helping them to overcome it must be a concern of an Enlightened Community.

RESPONSE TO P. 106: De Waal mentions that rats only follow rules on eating when the enforcer is in the room. This is very similar to what human beings do when they are confronted with the same situation. If they don't internalize the rules they only follow them when they think they will be caught.

RESPONSE TO P. 109: "Perhaps guilt and shame...." To me what this means is that the person does indeed need to feel connected to the society in order to do the right things. And an Enlightened Community must be organized so as to maintain these connections.

RESPONSE TO P. 110: When "...dominant males [macaques] were entirely removed.... subordinates felt free to copulate. They also suddenly performed bouncing displays and walked around with their tails proudly in the air, actions characteristic of high-ranking males." The foregoing provides insight into one of the reasons why alpha male behavior is incompatible with an Enlightened Community. In modern society rather than providing order to the society because everyone knows their place we find just the opposite.

Since people frequently do not know each other every encounter between two males would require a period of testing to see who is dominant and who must be submissive. The chaos such activities would bring to modern societies would be destructive. This is particulary true when knives, guns, and body guards add another layer of confusion about who is the dominant. But beyond this is just putting energy into dominance/submission rather than how to become an Enlightened Community is a gigantic waste of energy and would very likely prevent the development of communities where this can be achieved.

RESPONSE TO P. 114: Teasing behavior by infant and adolescent chimpanzees raises some important questions. How does this play out in Homo sapiens sapiens? The issue of limits is also another good question that needs to be carefully addressed.

RESPONSE TO P. 116: "The person who lies without blushing, who never shows remorse, and who grabs every opportunity to bypass the rules just does not strike us as the most appealing friend or colleague." When we are searching to clarify the model of the Enlightened Person it is material such as the foregoing that must be given prime consideration.

RESPONSE TO P. 117: "Some believe that a self-serving agenda guides human behavior under all circumstances...." Count me as such a believer. I believe that an Enlightened Person would be such a person. Where all this breaks down is where many persons believe that by lying, cheating, and stealing they can serve their own needs. This is never true, but it is particularly untrue in an Enlightened Community. Lying, stealing, and cheating require living so that other people are the enemy, chumps, marks, fools, etc. This way of living is not congruent with living fully and openly. It is cramped and repressed. It is the difference between living and going through the motions. Unless we realize that it is to our advantage as a fully functioning human being to give freely and to create an environment where others can give freely we are not laying the foundation for worthwhile and continuing existence of our species.

RESPONSE TO P. 122: It should be clear that male and female Homo sapiens sapiens differ in important ways. Also as De Waal indicates these differences are in most cases really averages and on any given behavior there are always some males and some females who have equal standing. As a result the bottom line is what is the direction that an Enlightened Community should be working to move its members so that the Community can be maintained and the person can be fulfilled in a long term way; i.e., to achieve a SFLIHM. In this regard it is important to draw experience and insights from the results of all behavior and to encourage what is best for everyone, particularly the individual involved.

RESPONSE TO P. 124: "To most women, conflict is a threat to connection, to be avoided at all costs." This gets to the core of a problem for which an Enlightened Community must find a solution as well as modern society. Females working to become Enlightened Persons cannot avoid conflict. It is necessary for them to continue moving in the direction of their best self. But they have no internal equilibrium to guide them in negotiating this experience. When these conflicts arrise they are like land mines waiting to explode in male/female relations.

Most women probably need guidance in learning how to engage in conflict (or confrontation) as most men probably need guidance in learning how to participate in empathic behavior and not miss its essential components. When women do engage in confrontation they tend to do it in a way that in the wild would lead to their being knocked on their ass. And many men in fct respond this way. Obviously, this is not the path toward Enlightment so another path is needed. The path of dialogue with the goal of mature dependence discussed in Chapter IX is the one recommeded for those who desire to become an Enlightened Person.

RESPONSE TO P. 125: "Variation in dominance style" based on the degree of common purpose in the society seems like an important insight. Since an Enlightened Community is based on a common purpose for each member of the society it would appear that the issue of dominance/subordinate among Enlightened Persons could be handled very effectively.

RESPONSE TO P. 127: "If there exist both mutual dependency and realistic opportunities to leave, dominants had better be 'nice' to their companions lest they find themselves without anyone to dominate." It seems essential to organize an Enlightened Community so that everything is done to encourage egalitarian behavior and structures.

One way to do this would be to keep Wisdom Groups/CPAWs (Centers for the Practical Application of Wisdom) separate from each other rather than as large all-inclusive bodies. As a result if a group does get off track its members would have numerous options for leaving it.

RESPONSE TO P. 127: "In egalitarian societies, men intent on commanding others are systematically thwarted in their attempts. The weapons used by their supposed inferiors are ridicule, manipulation of public opinion, and disobedience....The power of leaders is thus delineated by an alliance from below." In an Enlightened Community there would be massive feed-back to ensure that any citizen who succumbs to their dominance propensities will be socially exposed and appropriately treated.

RESPONSE TO P. 128: "Egalitarian societies permit certain men to act as leaders because it is harder to survive without any leadership at all than with a limited degree of inequality." In an Enlightened Community the goal would be to channel leadership to Tenth Level members of Wisdom Groups (see Chapter I). Such persons would not mis-use their leadership positions and thereby divert their progress from becoming an Enlightened Person.

RESPONSE TO P. 131: "A fair leader is hard to come by, hence it is in the community's interest to keep him [sic] in power as long as possible." Hopefully, in an Enlightened Community fair leaders would be the rule rather than the exception.

"Although high-ranking individuals have disproportionate privileges and influence, dominance also depends to some degree on acceptance from below." And an Enlightened Community would be organized in such a way as to maximize this factor.

  RESPONSE TO P. 132: This material provides a clear idea of how males with better brains and language skills might have gained the advantage to become alpha males -- leaders in Homo sapiens societies. They might have had a superior ability to maintain harmony in the group and also in organizing hunting parties and during times of conflict with neighboring tribes.

"Emphasis on leadership rather than dominance, made the privileges of high status contingent upon services to the community...." I think the foregoing captures the key to understanding dominance/submission relationships in human beings. I would say that all history and relevant fiction captures this point. When rulers attempt to dominate rather than lead, their position is always at risk. When they are superb leaders who maintain peace and security (at least within the tribe, clan, or nation) all work to sustain their rule.

In an Enlightened Community led by Tenth Level members all should prosper and none should suffer from unresolved alpha male/female drives.

p. 162: "Instead of concluding that morality is a cultural construct that flies in the face of nature, [T.H.] Huxley and his followers would have done better to broaden their perspective on what the evolutionary process can accomplish. Petr Kropotkin had an inkling; Trivers formulated it with admirable precision. Given what we know now...the advantages of mutual aid seem to hold reasonably well for monkeys, apes, and some other animals."

  RESPONSE: But this is the essence of the human struggle for understanding. It has taken us over 100 years to be able to tie together all dimensions of evolution. Only now do we have not only the ideas, but the evidence to understand the concerns of those who resisted evolutionary thinking. We can see the importance of their ideas and how these ideas can in fact be dealt with in a better way. By expanding our thinking about how evolution really works rather than how past thinkers believed it worked we come to better, more useful answers.

p. 164: "The common view of aggression as the expression of an internal drive, or a sign of frustration, or a response to some irritating external stimulus rapidly lost appeal for me....To me, the individuals became more and more of an abstraction; it was their relationships that caught my attention...I saw a dominance order, kinship bonds, alliances, and rivalries among my monkeys."

p. 165: "...aggression turns out to be an integral part of social relationships: it arises within them, it upsets their dynamics, and its harmful effects can be 'undone' through soothing contact."

"...they just cannot afford alienation."

  RESPONSE: Although I don't see the individual as an abstraction, in general I like De Waal's approach. When we look at the relationships part of aggression we see the dynamics that need to be addressed to keep aggression and similar behaviors within satisfactory limits.

p. 166: "Occidental culture enjoys a long-standing love affair with personal autonomy. We are individualists at heart, and what better way to stress this fact than by claiming that our primogenitor was self-sufficient?"

  RESPONSE: And this love affair with personal autonomy is one critical aspect of humanity's efforts to find "the light at the end of the tunnel." Many cultures have captured the social aspect of individual needs. But this is only half of the challenge of Homo sapiens sapiens. Discovering a way to free individuals to find their personal power, to channel their unique talents in socially constructive ways is the missing piece of the puzzle. This is a piece that is actually only clarified within a Science of Ethics. With this discovery Homo sapiens sapiens finally has brought together the opportunity provided by the evolution of the language ability. With this we reach our maturity. Now we can utilize this potential to take our rightful place in the universe.

p. 168: "[Chimpanzee community life] ...is like life in a small village where everyone knows everyone else: there is stability, closeness, and security in these relationships, but also intense control."

  RESPONSE: And this intense control is what Homo sapiens sapiens must move beyond if it is to discover its potential. Only in an Enlightened Community can this issue be addressed in an appropriate way.

p. 169: "Humans cannot readily exit the group to which they belong. The double meaning of 'belonging to' says it all: they are part of and possessed by the group. Migration between groups does occur in nature but tends to be limited to a particular life stage of one or the other sex....in the long run, most group members are stuck with one another."

  RESPONSE: In America today it is comparitively easy for individuals to exit the group they were raised in. But the result is a lot of lonely, depressed people. A new answer is needed that has never existed before -- one that develops personal power, but fits it into a nurturing community. This is the essence of an Enlightened Community.

Rather than being stuck with each other the social resources of the Community are organized to ensure that each individual connects with persons who nurture their growth toward achieving a SFLIHM and building the relationships necessary to sustain this state.

p. 170: "The good of the group is a factor only insofar as it overlaps with that of the individual. Yet this overlap is considerable if group membership is a matter of life or death."

  RESPONSE: And since an individual can only become an Enlightened Person within an Enlightened Community, group membership is truly a matter of life and death.  

p. 183: "When demand exceeds supply -- a common condition in nature as well as human society -- a collision of individual interests is inevitable. Some of the resulting conflicts will be resolved contentiously, perhaps with threat or use of violence. Therefore, we can dismiss absolute peace as utopian. Only two realistic alternatives exist in our imperfect world of limited resources: (1) unmitigated competition, or (2) a social order partially shaped and upheld by aggression."

  RESPONSE: Of course I vote for utopia. I am not willing to accept the past 10,000 years as an example of what the future of Homo sapiens sapiens will be like. I think we have reached a point where neither scarcity nor aggression are necessary. With sufficient effort Enlightened Persons and Enlightened Communities can begin to bloom on this lovely planet.

p. 184: "Some of humanity's most cherished social institutions are firmly rooted in and upheld by aggression. Systems of justice, for example, can be regarded as the successful transformation of a deep-seated urge for revenge ...which keeps this urge within acceptable boundaries. Law enforcement, which is little else than governmental violence...is often, but by no means always, sanctioned by the majority of the population."

  Response: But law enforcement institutions are among those that will change most dramatically in an Enlightened Community as aggression and other antisocial acts becomes rare occurrences and are dealt with in very different ways. It is critical to realize that Homo sapiens sapiens are in the process of creating themselves and although we evolved from primate stock and have certain characteristics as a result, those characteristics provide a broad range of behaviors and flexibility such that we have the versatility to become Enlightened Persons and to create an Enlightened Community. This may not come about easily. But it can happen.

p. 207: "Community concern can be defined, then, as the stake each individual has in promoting those characteristics of the community or group that increases the benefits derived from living in it by that individual and its kin....Whether animals realize how their behavior impacts the group as a whole is not critical for the evolution of community concern...."

"Not satisfied with a society fashioned by uncoordinated individual efforts, one of humanity's chief accomplishments is to translate egocentric community concerns into collective values. The desire for a modus vivendi fair to everyone may be regarded as an evolutionary outgrowth of the need to get along and cooperate, adding an ever greater insight into the actions that contribute to or interfere with this objective. Our ancestors began to understand how to preserve peace and order -- hence how to keep their group united against external [p. 208] threats -- without sacrificing legitimate individual interests. They came to judge behavior that systematically undermined the social fabric as 'wrong,' and behavior that made a community worthwhile to live in as 'right.' Increasingly, they began to keep an eye on each other to make sure that their society functioned in the way they wanted it to function."

"Conscious community concern is at the heart of human morality."

  RESPONSE: My ideas on right/wrong behavior are along the same lines as De Waal's. I define "right" behavior (or moral/ethical behavior) as that which leads one toward achieving a SFLIHM. And "wrong" or immoral/unethical behavior as behavior that prevents or at least makes it more difficult to achieve a SFLIHM. The necessary mechanism for achieving this is to become an Enlightened Person in an Enlightened Community.

Certainly everyone has much to gain by helping to create an Enlightened Community. But they have equally as much to gain by becoming an Enlightened Person. Of course each depends upon the other and neither can exist independently from the other.

p. 207: "Human morality can be looked at as community concern made explicit to the fullest degree."

  RESPONSE: Just so. I would say that my definition of moral behavior as that behavior which leads one toward achieving a SFLIHM does just what the foregoing promotes.

p. 215: "I do not feel superior to a butterfly, let alone to a cat or a whale. But who can deny our species the right to construct its moral universe from a human perspective?"

  Response: It's not so much the right to do so, but the reality that there is no other way. If we were to decide that apes must be dealt with exactly like retarded human beings that is our choice. And it is just as much a human perspective as realizing that all human behavior, goals, moral choices, etc. are similarly grounded on a human point of view.

HBAURS is the essence of every human outlook. If we attempt to invent a God as the Ultimate Reference System or imbue the Universe with some attribute, the reality is that these represent HBAURS. These are human view points and have no higher moral standing. And, when we say that to maintain the current ecosystem is the highest good, or all life is sacred this is equally the case.

p. 217: "Morality is as firmly grounded in neurobiology as anything else we do or are."

  RESPONSE: Yes, and with that neurobiology we focus our efforts and abilities to become better, to do better -- to become Enlightened Persons and build an Enlightened Community.

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1. THE CULTURE OF PAIN, David B. Morris, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991.

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