Czy bonobo mogą nas nauczyć etyki?
Could bonobo teach us ethics?

Summary/Abstract: According to a common opinion morality is one of the attributes making human beings different to other species. Still, in a contemporary primatology there are more and more suggestions concerning moral empathy and related behaviors (or: behaviors based on it) which are perceived in some primates’ activities. Special capacities of such kind are attributed to bonobo chimpanzees. Some interpretations of their behaviors are used as arguments for their human nature, which they reveal, but, at the same time, they characterize and constitute behaviors typical to human beings. However, even in environmental ethics specialists claim that only human beings are and could be a moral subject. Such an attitude constitutes a moral gap between human beings and other species, even though it is not observed in terms of a biological or metaphysical point of view. Only man has a capacity to intentionally act being led by the sense of moral duty. Thus, the so called “animal pedagogy”, based on observations of animal behavior, can convey only metaphorical sense, useful in literature but not in ethics.

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