Animal Behavior Science as a Social Science: The Success of the Empathic Approach in Research on Apes

Traditionally, the animal behavioral science has been practiced as a natural science, and as such, it has successfully studied the discrete behavior of species expressions. However, methodological, philosophical, and ethical issues have struggled for animal behavioral science for centuries. Animal behavior researchers working within the scope of the paradigm of natural science may be limited by the persistence of positivist epistemology and denial of emotional connections with subjects. In the past three decades, a new paradigm called empathy has developed in this field beyond the limits of traditional methods. A brief explanation of the work of the six researchers who empathized with their research showed how to exploit specific areas of animal behavior science as a social science. Their research is carried out with emphasis on phenomenological epistemology, ethnographic methods, group culture and character, and even species characteristics. This approach creates highly moving and convincing results and contributes to the new ethics of human respect for non-human animals and their connection with nature.

In the mid 1970s, a new science emerged to study the evolutionary aspects of social behavior of animals and humans. Science and social biology protect evolutionary ethics by simplifying moral behavior to biological behavior. The most prominent spokesperson and founder of social biology is E. O. Wilson (1929-), a biologist at Harvard University. Wilson agrees with Julian Huxley that morality comes from the process of evolution but does not agree that evolution is directed towards a specific goal or is progressing consciously. In fact, the great human dilemma is that there is no goal, goal, purpose in evolution theory. To illustrate this, it is believed that the protection coloration of some moths does not occur for them to survive, and does not occur due to the threat from predators. Instead, there is a random genetic variation, then there is environmental choice. The fact that some moths or sages survive is a coincidence of evolution

Traditionally, the animal behavioral science has been practiced as a natural science, and as such, it has successfully studied the discrete behavior of species expressions. However, methodological, philosophical, and ethical issues have struggled for animal behavioral science for centuries. Animal behavior researchers working within the scope of the paradigm of natural science may be limited by the persistence of positivist epistemology and denial of emotional connections with subjects. In the past three decades, a new paradigm called empathy has developed in this field beyond the limits of traditional methods. A brief explanation of the research of the six researchers who empathized with their research demonstrated the successful use of certain areas of animal behavioral science as a social science.

Animal behavioral science as a social science: success of empathy in human research