How compassionate are humans compared to other animals?

This is what I mean about needing to be careful when assessing others by virtue of the content of our feeling complexes (see post just before this). Clearly, both humans and macaques have compassion but the content of that feeling complex is also clearly different when comparing the human and macaque versions. Of course, what is also true, is that the causal relations differ between our species when comparing the various complexes (say between the complex known as compassion, and the one known as respect [for authority]) and their place in the overall set of complexes.

This video is also rather strong support for the contention that we need to continually assess our intuitions about our own states and those of others using empirical evidence. If we don’t do this, then all we really do is assess what we believe to be true by virtue of what we believe to be true. And of course, doing this isn’t going to get us anywhere sane.