Animal Understanding: What level is it compared to humans?

[O,just,O]

Take a squatch for example of being far smarter than a human on so many levels.
Now I must go off to work so that I can pay the car loan & house mortgage.
O.

[ugaarguy]

I don't think "knowing right from wrong" is instinctive in humans, it's something we are taught and is culturally dependent. I think some animals are capable of being taught it, at least on a rudimentary level. As an example, a dog that is "housebroken" has been taught that peeing and pooing in the house is "wrong", while doing those things in certain places outdoors is "right".

Actually humans do intrinsically know right from wrong. That's our conscience. The exception is Psychopaths, who totally lack any conscience. Sociopaths have extremely weak consciences. Both lack empathy. As reflected in the DSM V, the understanding is shifting to these being disorders of varying degrees falling under the broad spectrum of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (much like autism and Asperger's are now evaluated on the broad Autism Spectrum.)

I'm still not able to think of a single thing that's been recognized as "wrong" by all societies through all of recorded history. That, as I stated earlier, makes me think "morality" is just another way of saying "if you get caught doing something your group considers unacceptable, you will get punished". As for psychopaths and sociopaths, is it that they "don't know" what their society considers right from what their society considers wrong, or just that they don't care.

Murder and rape are two of the big universal wrongs. Humans are just very selfish on both the individual and tribe level, and we're very intelligent. We find ways to justify harming others to soothe our consciences. Societies may, and do, define differently what does or does not constitute murder, etc, but it is still a universal wrong.

As far as psychopaths and sociopaths go, they know what their societies consider as wrong, and most of them are incredibly intelligent. It goes deeper than not caring. They believe themselves to be special, superior, and entitled. They feel no guilt when others suffer or are harmed for their own gain. They also lack empathy, so they're literally incapable (or minimally capable at best) of understanding that others have feelings or emotions. Other people are just emotionless beings that are either resources or obstacles to the psychopath / sociopath. Many are not violent. Many are highly successful business people who have climbed to the top by being ruthless in their dealings with both competitors and colleagues. These are intelligent people who have figured out how to maximize their gain and minimize their risk within the bounds of their societies. They still lack guilt over screwing others over and have no empathy. They just do it within the legal and ethical gray areas of their societies.

[awa54]

I don't think "knowing right from wrong" is instinctive in humans, it's something we are taught and is culturally dependent. I think some animals are capable of being taught it, at least on a rudimentary level. As an example, a dog that is "housebroken" has been taught that peeing and pooing in the house is "wrong", while doing those things in certain places outdoors is "right".

Interesting points, Deacon.
However, I would argue that even a house-trained pet still does not know the difference between "right" and "wrong". Not in any moral sense, that is. Don't they obey our commands out of either fear of punishment or anticipation of reward?

I think the concept of morality is simply not found in the animal kingdom. Only humans seem to have an innate understanding of something being morally "right" or morally "wrong". We may disagree about what constitutes right and wrong, but the basic concept of morality seems to be unique and universal to humans.

Some animals do possess a very high level of intelligence, which almost seems to rival that of humans sometimes. I've heard that ravens can be very intelligent and quick to learn complex puzzles.

First off, right and wrong are societal constructs, I don't think they're truly innate, though they've been learned and ingrained in our culture, so thoroughly as to seem so to many, as such they're not absolute and may shift with societal changes over time.

Once at the dog park, my male Shiba Inu chose, with no prompting from me, to help get an aggressively playing dog off of a submissive dog that was freaking out, he sized up the situation, chose a side and waded in... he didn't know either of the other dogs and both were substantially larger than him, he didn't fight the aggressive dog, just grabbed a mouth full of haunch and assisted the intervening humans in separating them. I'm convinced that his choice was based on a sense of fairness (there were other times that both of my Shibas displayed an understanding of fairness), while that's not as complex a construct as "morality" it's a large step toward it.

In general I think we humans give animals less credit than they deserve when it comes to raw intelligence and understanding social complexities (as they apply to that animal of course). If we didn't have the tools of language and math to help us record and work through abstract concepts, I think we'd be pretty similar in capability to gorillas, elephants or dolphins.

[The Deacon]

Murder and rape are two of the big universal wrongs. Humans are just very selfish on both the individual and tribe level, and we're very intelligent. We find ways to justify harming others to soothe our consciences. Societies may, and do, define differently what does or does not constitute murder, etc, but it is still a universal wrong.

As far as psychopaths and sociopaths go, they know what their societies consider as wrong, and most of them are incredibly intelligent. It goes deeper than not caring. They believe themselves to be special, superior, and entitled. They feel no guilt when others suffer or are harmed for their own gain. They also lack empathy, so they're literally incapable (or minimally capable at best) of understanding that others have feelings or emotions. Other people are just emotionless beings that are either resources or obstacles to the psychopath / sociopath. Many are not violent. Many are highly successful business people who have climbed to the top by being ruthless in their dealings with both competitors and colleagues. These are intelligent people who have figured out how to maximize their gain and minimize their risk within the bounds of their societies. They still lack guilt over screwing others over and have no empathy. They just do it within the legal and ethical gray areas of their societies.

I'm still going to disagree. Granted, both humans and many animals are hard wired to protect their offspring, their families, and their group. However, I consider that to be natural selection of a beneficial trait for survival or their species. If someone claims that it means we know doing these things is "morally right" then so is the way many animals nurture and protect their offspring, and will fight to defend the pack.

In my opinion, "murder" is simply killing someone whom your society considers it unacceptable to kill. Historically, depending on when and where you live, that could mean yourself, members of your family, members of your tribe, fellow tenants of your landlord, members of your religion, or anyone your country is not currently at war with. Currently, in the USA at least, there's the interesting dichotomy between the way we charge someone who kills a pregnant woman with 2 counts of murder while providing government subsidies to pay for abortions.

As for rape, again it becomes a question of your society's definition of "rape". Is all non-consensual sex is rape? Historically, that has never been the case. Until recently, few women had the right to say no, the biological imperative to reproduce has always ruled. I suspect there are still places where it is acceptable for a man to force himself upon his wife. I suspect that some prostitutes are "working" under duress. I know there is at least one religion that considers non-consensual sex to be an acceptable punishment for non-believers. I suspect that somewhere on the globe there's a group that considered non-consensual sex with the women of your conquered enemies (or even those enemies themselves) to be the spoils of war.

[The Meat man]

You make good points, both Deacon and ugaarguy. Ethics and morality is a very complex subject.

Deacon, I'll grant you that our concepts of right and wrong are often greatly influenced by our interactions with society. But this leads me to ask, absent society, is there such a thing as morality, in your opinion? For example, if you were stranded on a desert island alone with another human, would it be right or wrong to kill and eat that person to survive?

If I understand you rightly, it seems to me that, if our sense of morality is not innate but is bequeathed to us by the societies in which we live, then absent that society, there would be no morality at all. Wouldn't this mean that anything is permissible, and that there is no such thing as an action being right or wrong?

This has been a very interesting discussion and I've enjoyed following along.

[The Deacon]

You make good points, both Deacon and ugaarguy. Ethics and morality is a very complex subject.

Deacon, I'll grant you that our concepts of right and wrong are often greatly influenced by our interactions with society. But this leads me to ask, absent society, is there such a thing as morality, in your opinion? For example, if you were stranded on a desert island alone with another human, would it be right or wrong to kill and eat that person to survive?

If I understand you rightly, it seems to me that, if our sense of morality is not innate but is bequeathed to us by the societies in which we live, then absent that society, there would be no morality at all. Wouldn't this mean that anything is permissible, and that there is no such thing as an action being right or wrong?

This has been a very interesting discussion and I've enjoyed following along.

Thanks, Meat Man.

In that specific case I think I would still be influenced, to at least some extent, by the mores of the society in which I was raised, even if I do not totally agree with them. So I might wind up killing and eating that person, but I might also feel guilty to some degree afterward. On the other hand I might be able to justify killing as a matter of self defense. In that case, given that I'm of the "clean your plate, children are starving in Europe" generartion and have mostly hunted for meat or pest control rather than sport, I probably would then consider wasting all that "long pork" (not to mention the liver and tongue) to be immoral.

I think what we call morality, is a combination of the traits evolution has determined to be useful for the survival of the fittest to perpetuate the species and things our society considers necessary to maintain the social order even when they run counter to our instincts.

[ChrisinHove]

Cannibalism certainly was not unknown in adrift/shipwrecked/snowed in survival situations, historically, when religious mores were considerably stronger than now.

People enjoy the horror genre of books and films, but I recall beginning to understand the true meaning of horror when hearing of a mother in the ghetto who suffocated her crying baby to avoid her family being discovered.