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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
… any animal whatever, endowed with wellmarked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man.
– Darwin (1871, p. 472)Introduction
Darwin's conjecture that morality is an epiphenomenon of intelligence is consistent with increasing evidence that self-awareness depends upon cognitive and affective capacities present in only a few species. The connection between self-awareness and morality, of course, is that conscience is a manifestation of self-awareness. If we follow Darwin's lead and compare the manifestations of self-awareness and their development in species closely related to humans, we may be able to begin to trace the evolution of self-awareness. In order to compare kinds and degrees of self-awareness, of course, we need a system for classifying the phenomenon and a method for diagnosing its manifestations. Ideally the classification system will allow us to identify a broad range of selfrelated phenomena so that we can compare many species and thereby reconstruct the evolutionary history of self-awareness and self-knowledge.
This volume grew out of a 1991 conference on self-awareness in monkeys, apes, and humans at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California. A major goal of the conference was to bring together investigators who espoused opposing viewpoints on a variety of issues relating to self-awareness.
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