Humans – Moral Animals

Some animals can feel empathy, they respond to unfair treatment and help fellow members of their species – they show behaviours that comply with morals. What this means for the moral capacities of humans and whether these are actually the product of evolution, however, remains controversial.

Angela Kallhoff presents a key analysis of the relationship between animal protomorality and the moral capacities of human beings, which culminates in the provocative hypothesis that humans are »moral animals«. For it is precisely our ethical competence, without which we would be no more than beasts, that liberates us from the constraints of the animal kingdom. This insight has serious consequences for the organisation of social life.