The behaviours Flack and de Waal describe as origins of human morality lack the most essential features of the human ethical competence; namely, application of the concepts good and bad to events, the capacities for guilt and empathy for another's state, and the ability to suppress actions that would compromise the self's virtue. These serious differences between apes and humans challenge the suggestion that primate behaviour lies on a continuum with human morality.

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)