Tomasello argues that “in some groups of chimpanzees, individuals hunt monkeys together in groups. But they do not call their partners out for poor performance, or apologize or make excuses or feel guilty for their own poor performance, or feel obligated to share the spoils in a fair manner among participants” (sect. 2.1, para. 1). According to the author, a chimpanzees group hunting does not amount to a display of moral behaviour in the form of fairness. Other primatologists have argued differently (Brosnan & de Waal Reference Brosnan and de Waal2003; de Waal Reference de Waal2006a; Høgh-Olesen Reference Høgh-Olesen2009). Most notably, Boesch (Reference Boesch2005, p. 629) described the complexity of this practice: “Like a team of soccer players, individuals react opportunistically to the present situation while taking into account the shared goal of the team. Some players will rarely make a goal, like defenders and goalies, but the success of the team will critically depend upon their contribution. This is very reminiscent to group hunting in chimpanzees where synchronisation of different coordinated roles, role reversal, and performance of less successful roles favour the realisation of the joint goal.”
The philosophical analysis of group hunting practices can help Tomasello appreciate the distinctive character of this behaviour, and to reconsider the claim that we lack convincing evidence that nonhuman animals manifest a sense of moral obligation, like fairness, in their group activities.
We know that these group hunting strategies require a coalition of up to four individuals: the driver, who forces the target prey (normally a red colobus monkey) into a specific direction into the tree canopy; the blocker, who makes sure that the target prey does not de-route from the direction imposed by the driver; the chaser, who attempts to chase the target prey from above; and the ambusher, who is positioned at the end of the induced trajectory and is ready to trap the target prey. Crucial to the success of the hunt is that chimpanzees shall effectively coordinate a single hunt as long as each of the participants to the hunt remains loyal to his role. Subsequently, the spoils are distributed taking into account the role covered during the hunting. As a result, individuals who worked harder and exposed themselves to higher risks get more than the others when it comes time to be rewarded.
As Boesch and Boesch-Achermann (Reference Boesch and Boesch-Achermann2000) explained, the hunting behaviour is a learning process that starts around 8–10 years of age and that takes about 20 years of practice in order to be mastered. Different roles in the hunt require different levels of expertise and can be performed by more or less experienced individuals. This practice is very demanding because it requires (1) the capacity to understand the behaviour of another species, that is, the red colobus monkeys, and (2) the capacity to coordinate actions among individuals towards a common goal across time. Along with the authors we can establish that the mechanisms in group hunting is kept stable by (a) a mechanism for individual recognition (that is, the mutual assignment of roles), (b) temporary memory of actions in the recent past (that is, time-delayed coordination of the actions), (c) attribution of value to those actions (that is, acknowledgment of the roles), and (d) social enforcement of those values (that is, fair distribution of the spoils).
I shall explain the philosophical implications of the analysis of this behaviour. Along with Tomasello, we can appeal to Bratman's planning theory (Reference Bratman2014) to explain that what is crucial for a sense of obligation psychologically is indeed the capacity for shared agency which Bratman has outlined in a number of core qualities required for complex multi-agent and time-delayed action coordination. Differently from Tomasello, I argue that these correspond to the features that, according to Boesch and Boesch-Achermann (Reference Boesch and Boesch-Achermann2000), keep the chimpanzees’ hunting stable. Bratman argued that the capacity for temporally extended intentional agency depends on the ability to (b) retain memory of actions in the recent past. This supports the capacity for self-governance that depends on the ability to (c) attribute values to the actions in which the agents are engaged. The latter triggers (d) mutual responsiveness to those actions in virtue of the values that are attributed to them. Then, this results in (a) a mechanism for mutual recognition that enables shared intentional activity (Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2015; Reference Kaufmann and Kiverstein2017).
I elaborate on this and explain that, in addition, the mechanism of group hunting might be underpinned by a relatively stable normative or, we can even say, proto-institutional component that may be applied to explain how far fairness can extend among chimpanzees. I shall call this phenomenon action-free perdurance, and I will suggest how the display of fairness among chimpanzees, and presumably among other animal species, is made possible.
If we think about what distinguishes a hunting team from, say, a football team, arguably this is what we shall call “action-free perdurance” (of a state of affairs). Social entities, such as football teams, with an institutional component exist prior and subsequently to the online coordination of shared actions. Their existence is independent of the actual or online performance of a shared action. Instead, for group hunting, it seems that the normative aspect exists only in an online mode – that is, during the actual performance of a shared action. This is because the cognitive capacities that allow for conceptual thought and language may be requested for creating institutional reality, and for maintaining the normative power of institutions. Since language seems to facilitate the establishment and the perdurance of a state of affairs in the absence of online coordination of shared actions, it follows that creatures lacking conceptual capacities, presumably, lack those for the creation of institutional facts as well. Nevertheless, this different cognitive equipment allows for action-bound acts of fairness as a consequence of hunting practices.
Last, it is interesting to notice that, hunter-gatherer populations of humans in Paraguay and Venezuela carry on hunting practices with analogous developmental paths to those of chimpanzees, both in terms of the time necessary for learning and of the age range during which individuals hunt more frequently and more efficiently (Kaplan et al. Reference Kaplan, Hill, Cadeliña, Hayden, Hyndman, Preston, Smith, Stuart and Yesner1985; Walker et al. Reference Walker, Hill, Kaplan and McMillan2002). Further comparative analysis with chimpanzees group hunting may even tell us about the continuity of shared agency in species other than us.
Tomasello argues that “in some groups of chimpanzees, individuals hunt monkeys together in groups. But they do not call their partners out for poor performance, or apologize or make excuses or feel guilty for their own poor performance, or feel obligated to share the spoils in a fair manner among participants” (sect. 2.1, para. 1). According to the author, a chimpanzees group hunting does not amount to a display of moral behaviour in the form of fairness. Other primatologists have argued differently (Brosnan & de Waal Reference Brosnan and de Waal2003; de Waal Reference de Waal2006a; Høgh-Olesen Reference Høgh-Olesen2009). Most notably, Boesch (Reference Boesch2005, p. 629) described the complexity of this practice: “Like a team of soccer players, individuals react opportunistically to the present situation while taking into account the shared goal of the team. Some players will rarely make a goal, like defenders and goalies, but the success of the team will critically depend upon their contribution. This is very reminiscent to group hunting in chimpanzees where synchronisation of different coordinated roles, role reversal, and performance of less successful roles favour the realisation of the joint goal.”
The philosophical analysis of group hunting practices can help Tomasello appreciate the distinctive character of this behaviour, and to reconsider the claim that we lack convincing evidence that nonhuman animals manifest a sense of moral obligation, like fairness, in their group activities.
We know that these group hunting strategies require a coalition of up to four individuals: the driver, who forces the target prey (normally a red colobus monkey) into a specific direction into the tree canopy; the blocker, who makes sure that the target prey does not de-route from the direction imposed by the driver; the chaser, who attempts to chase the target prey from above; and the ambusher, who is positioned at the end of the induced trajectory and is ready to trap the target prey. Crucial to the success of the hunt is that chimpanzees shall effectively coordinate a single hunt as long as each of the participants to the hunt remains loyal to his role. Subsequently, the spoils are distributed taking into account the role covered during the hunting. As a result, individuals who worked harder and exposed themselves to higher risks get more than the others when it comes time to be rewarded.
As Boesch and Boesch-Achermann (Reference Boesch and Boesch-Achermann2000) explained, the hunting behaviour is a learning process that starts around 8–10 years of age and that takes about 20 years of practice in order to be mastered. Different roles in the hunt require different levels of expertise and can be performed by more or less experienced individuals. This practice is very demanding because it requires (1) the capacity to understand the behaviour of another species, that is, the red colobus monkeys, and (2) the capacity to coordinate actions among individuals towards a common goal across time. Along with the authors we can establish that the mechanisms in group hunting is kept stable by (a) a mechanism for individual recognition (that is, the mutual assignment of roles), (b) temporary memory of actions in the recent past (that is, time-delayed coordination of the actions), (c) attribution of value to those actions (that is, acknowledgment of the roles), and (d) social enforcement of those values (that is, fair distribution of the spoils).
I shall explain the philosophical implications of the analysis of this behaviour. Along with Tomasello, we can appeal to Bratman's planning theory (Reference Bratman2014) to explain that what is crucial for a sense of obligation psychologically is indeed the capacity for shared agency which Bratman has outlined in a number of core qualities required for complex multi-agent and time-delayed action coordination. Differently from Tomasello, I argue that these correspond to the features that, according to Boesch and Boesch-Achermann (Reference Boesch and Boesch-Achermann2000), keep the chimpanzees’ hunting stable. Bratman argued that the capacity for temporally extended intentional agency depends on the ability to (b) retain memory of actions in the recent past. This supports the capacity for self-governance that depends on the ability to (c) attribute values to the actions in which the agents are engaged. The latter triggers (d) mutual responsiveness to those actions in virtue of the values that are attributed to them. Then, this results in (a) a mechanism for mutual recognition that enables shared intentional activity (Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2015; Reference Kaufmann and Kiverstein2017).
I elaborate on this and explain that, in addition, the mechanism of group hunting might be underpinned by a relatively stable normative or, we can even say, proto-institutional component that may be applied to explain how far fairness can extend among chimpanzees. I shall call this phenomenon action-free perdurance, and I will suggest how the display of fairness among chimpanzees, and presumably among other animal species, is made possible.
If we think about what distinguishes a hunting team from, say, a football team, arguably this is what we shall call “action-free perdurance” (of a state of affairs). Social entities, such as football teams, with an institutional component exist prior and subsequently to the online coordination of shared actions. Their existence is independent of the actual or online performance of a shared action. Instead, for group hunting, it seems that the normative aspect exists only in an online mode – that is, during the actual performance of a shared action. This is because the cognitive capacities that allow for conceptual thought and language may be requested for creating institutional reality, and for maintaining the normative power of institutions. Since language seems to facilitate the establishment and the perdurance of a state of affairs in the absence of online coordination of shared actions, it follows that creatures lacking conceptual capacities, presumably, lack those for the creation of institutional facts as well. Nevertheless, this different cognitive equipment allows for action-bound acts of fairness as a consequence of hunting practices.
Last, it is interesting to notice that, hunter-gatherer populations of humans in Paraguay and Venezuela carry on hunting practices with analogous developmental paths to those of chimpanzees, both in terms of the time necessary for learning and of the age range during which individuals hunt more frequently and more efficiently (Kaplan et al. Reference Kaplan, Hill, Cadeliña, Hayden, Hyndman, Preston, Smith, Stuart and Yesner1985; Walker et al. Reference Walker, Hill, Kaplan and McMillan2002). Further comparative analysis with chimpanzees group hunting may even tell us about the continuity of shared agency in species other than us.