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 Michael Medved

Are Chimps Immoral?

April 24, 2012 @ 5:07 pm

The Disney Company's handsome new nature film Chimpanzeefeatures spectacular jungle footage from the Ivory Coast, but it's coupled with insipid narration that actually ruins the movie.

As delivered by Tim Allen, the script centers around a lovable baby chimp whose mother falls victim to a rival band of chimpanzees described repeatedly as "a mob," or "gang," comprised of "thugs." In fact, no meaningful difference in behavior distinguished supposedly nice chimps from purported meanies-both groups struggle desperately to survive amidst scarce resources.

The movie shows even intelligent animals ruled by instinct, not some code of honor; they are incapable of either morality or immorality. Only human beings, discerning for thousands of years some timeless rules established by a higher power, can exercise real choice, displaying conduct that counts as genuinely good or evil.

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Comments (9)


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  • Drool wrote...
    Thousands of Years?
    April 24, 2012 5:12 pm
    The human condition including all of our beliefs as to how we should interact with each other have been going on for a wee bit longer than that. One has to ignore science and be a young earther to go along with that.

    Regarding chimps, they rely on much more than instinctive behavior. They learn, use tools, make war, have emotions, laugh, cry, and do many things like us.

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    no need for morality
    April 24, 2012 6:48 pm
    Considering that being human is often defined as having a sense of morality, the chimp can clearly be said to lack morality. But 'immoral' implies knowing and rejecting morality, so...... .......... Chimps, and other animals, really have no NEED for morality. Such aulterism as does exist in the animal world extends only to immediate family or pack or some other very small unit. Sometimes also to cooperation on a one to one basis, but this is generally in 'self' interest more that aulterism. ............ Humans, too, probable had NO NEED for morality when WE were confined to small clan that would more often fight with (or simply avoid) another clan than 'cooperate'. ... Morality likely was the result of cooperation between larger and larger groups, first expressed as the word of God and then laws to enforce cooperation. All morality really is is a belief on the part of humans that following God and/or the law is inherently right, without being forced by either.
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  • Drool wrote...
    Such aulterism as does exist in the animal world extends only to immediate family or pack or some other very small unit.
    April 24, 2012 7:33 pm
    or tribe, religion, or ethnic group. Sound familiar?
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  • Snout wrote...
    Just wondering.
    April 24, 2012 7:00 pm
    I really am as I didn't really take any serious science courses in college. If we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    In case you truly wonder.
    April 24, 2012 7:43 pm
    Evolution is never a straight - line, exclusionary process. Whatever common creature apes and mad evolved from, no longer exists, but is still ancestor to both. Same with the ancestor of monkeys and apes (lamers) and so forth. Were there no divergence, we would all be the same, amoeba or human. ............. And evolution does not exclude the hand of God. Perhaps in nudging things along, even over millions of years. .. Genesis does say that God said 'let us make man in our own image' and that 'there were giants in the earth in those days..' Perhaps God tweaked ape evolution to produce humans. And maybe Genesis was simply the best way God could explain the Big Bang (let there be light) and evolution to a people still too simple to understand as we think we do today. ........... Or, perhaps, there are still minkeys so that we may enjoy their antics.
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    typos -
    April 24, 2012 8:09 pm
    apes and MAN. .........................and 'minkeys' is from 'The Pink Panther', which I don't think ever evolved from anything.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Tribal subjectivity
    April 25, 2012 8:35 am
    The movie maker artificially humanizes the baby chimp.

    Therefore, the mean, evil, group of rival chimpanzees that kill the mother are "thugs", working as a "mob" or a "gang".

    Of course, from the perspective of the thugs, the mother chimp may have wandered into their territory and started taking up space and food that they felt they could not spare.....

    Tribal subjectivity is not limited to chimpanzees. Check out the vicious names people call one another, right here on this comment board, simply because they don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to politics. Tribal subjectivity at play.

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  • Nolm N Sayn wrote...
    It's Disney for Pete's sake
    April 25, 2012 9:34 am
    C'mon Michael, you know as a movie critic that Disney loves to pull on the hearstrings of the audience by having the main character lose it's parent(s) and then get involved in the emotion of watching this character makes their way in the world. Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Parent Trap, The Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Fox and the Hound, Oliver and Company, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Brother Bear all have either parents that are dead or at least the offspring are separated from the parents. Granted, this movie is more of a documentary, but it's hard to sell a boring chimp survival documentary unless you're PBS.
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