Have you ever wondered exactly why you feel sorry for someone who is less fortunate than yourself? One Emory researcher may have discovered a biological basis for such emotions in humans.

Frans de Waal, director of the Living Links Center at Emory University, published a book las year, Primates and Philosophers, in which he hypothesized that human morality may have evolved from simple "emotional building blocks" seen in the behavior of social primates like chimpanzees.

The Living Links Center is a part of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, where de Waal and his team combine behavioral and genetic studies to unravel human and ape evolution. At the field station, researchers observe and test behavioral traits, such as reconciliation, in chimpanzees and other social primates who are allowed to freely interact.

"Over the last fifteen years we have been watching these chimpanzees on a daily basis, taking data," de Waal explains.

One way to analyze reconciliation is by studying behavior after physical confrontation.

"We probably have 4,000 fights in the data over the 15-year period," de Waal said. "We can analyze who they reconcile with, which individuals provide reassurance after fights."

He said all the fights occur spontaneously, much like fights among kids at a playground.

De Waal's work on reconciliation in part helped lead him to publish his findings on morality in primates.

"I discovered that chimpanzees kiss after a fight, then later I described the same thing for bonobos that have sex after a fight," de Waal said. "Not only do the two opponents reconcile, but the victim of aggression receives reassurance from other individuals. Other individuals come over and embrace them and kiss them. This is something I call consolation, and that relates to empathy."

De Waal theorizes that complex human emotions and moral systems evolved from the simpler emotional reactions he has observed in chimpanzees and bonobos.

"Basically, if you remove reciprocity and empathy from the human psychology, we could not have a moral society," de Waal said.

De Waal's evolving morality theory is opening a dialogue between academic disciplines, like philosophy and biology, on the basis of human ethical decisions.

Biologist Arri Eisen, associate professor at the Emory Center for Ethics and Science and Society program director, views this positively.

"In my mind it's better to bring those conversations together and not have any one disciple think they own anything," he said. "I think it's really important to have all the relevant parties - the lawyers, the businessmen, the philosophers - around the table for complex issues like ethics, consciousness and race."

In the future, de Waal plans to focus on interactions between groups of social primates - for example, whether one group of chimpanzees will transmit ideas or information to another group.

"We're doing a lot of studies on cultural transmission in chimpanzees," de Waal said.

As for future experiments on morality, de Waal said, its nature makes investigation difficult.

"It's sort of a fuzzy topic anyway, so it's very hard to come up with precise questions," he said.

- Contact Brett Israel at bisrael@emory.edu