NATURE . WILDLIFE
How Animals Feel
52' (GER, FRE, ENG subs)
Do animals have compassion? Are they capable of complex emotions such as empathy, altruism or fairness? It is proven that animals are smart.
Also emotions such as joy or sadness are very common in the world of our four-legged friends. But now new results in behavioral research seem to revolutionize what we knew about the emotions of animals so far. Could then morality be a product of evolution that helps animals to survive?
In the Tai National Park in Côte d'Ivoire a young chimpanzee has lost his mother. Leopards killed her and now the little one is alone. Will someone from the ape family in which he lived with his mother take care of him? At the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig behavioral scientists are evaluating the observations. It is not a matter of course that genetically related animals take care of a runt. Will the other chimpanzees act out of compassion?
The scientist Frans de Waal researches at the Emory University of Atlanta, if animals are fair and how they cooperate. For him it is obvious: An individual that acts selfishly will have problems in the future. Egoism does not pay off.
The willingness to cooperate is tested with the so-called “string pulling test", where animals can only attain food if they work together. For elephants and chimpanzees this is not a hard task and even ravens and wolves have mastered this assignment. But when a wolf makes a selfish move he will be indicted. For the scientist Kurt Kotrschal the question appears, if a sanctioned infringement can be identified as moral behavior. And could then moral be a product of evolution that helps animals to survive?
The scientist Frans de Waal researches at the Emory University of Atlanta, if animals are fair and how they cooperate. For him it is obvious: An individual that acts selfishly will have problems in the future. Egoism does not pay off.
The willingness to cooperate is tested with the so-called “string pulling test", where animals can only attain food if they work together. For elephants and chimpanzees this is not a hard task and even ravens and wolves have mastered this assignment. But when a wolf makes a selfish move he will be indicted. For the scientist Kurt Kotrschal the question appears, if a sanctioned infringement can be identified as moral behavior. And could then moral be a product of evolution that helps animals to survive?
Facts
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Original TitleWie Tiere fühlen
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Year2016
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Length52' (GER, FRE, ENG subs)
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ResolutionHD
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Film byGabi Schlag
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Produced by