When humans are presented with a situation in which their life is at risk, to save another, no person would willingly risk their life for a medal, or a moment on the evening news. Instead, their decision, which must be made quickly, comes from something that has been instilled in them. Their actions to risk their life to save another, is an example of function altruism. De Waal writes of function altruism in mammals and how it is a survival mechanism for the species. For example, he begins the first selection with a story of a mother dog that willingly raised three tiger cubs. He states that the reason for such "altruism" may be have been due to the need for survival. If she raised the cubs as her own, it would be unlikely that as adults, the tigers would see her as a source of prey. However, on the part of the mother dog, this was not an act of altruism at all. It was simply her maternal instinct to care for three infants who needed a mother.
De Wall's example of the mother saving the tiger cubs can be related to the idea of humans who risk their lives in order to save others because their motive to do such an act is driven from a force within themselves. However, animals while animals must learn altruistic abilities, humans are born with them and can learn more as they grow and develop. Humans live in a culture in which they learn what emotions are accepted and right, and which are unacceptable and bad. Animals simply live in a world where they must learn on their own through experience what is good and bad.
In contradiction to his example of altruism using the mother dog and her raising of the three cubs, De Wall uses a statue showing an image of "nature, red in tooth and claw." He explains a fight between a tiger and an eagle, and in the fight the eagle is trying to scratch the tiger's eyes out with its ferocious talons. De Wall describes this competitive battle as "a dramatic rendition of the ubiquitous struggle for existence, the cut throat competition between organisms over limited resources.
