«

»

Animals have Morals

Categories:

06/07/2009

If you are the proud owner of  a dog (or even a cat), you would be the first to agree that some animals seem to empathize with human emotions and certainly with each other.  We hear of cross empathy between dogs and cats taking care of stray litters, of dogs able to sense when their owner is sad.  Intuitively we know that animals are capable of strong emotions.

Recent studies on animal behavior shows just that, but with a slight twist.   Supposedly animals  follow a moral code that enables their packs or groups to better function.  It is a simple tool of evolution, one that humans have also picked up on.  Agreeing to not take your neighbor’s  stuff and not kill your neighbor is a benefit to all when attempting to survive.  An article by Telegraph interviewed Professor Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder.  Professor Bekoff suggests that morals are built into the social patterns of high animal brains.

He claims that these rules help to control fighting within the group and encourage co-operative behaviour.

Recent neurology work has also revealed that distantly related mammals such as whales and dolphins have the same structures in their brains that are thought to be responsible for empathy in humans.

Other findings have also suggested that some animals may even be capable of showing empathy with the suffering of other species.

Elephants, rodents, monkies, bats, dolphins, wolves: all animals that survive in packs or groups and rely on a moral code of conduct to keep the group functioning at its best.  Humans are simply one step above this basic moral system in that we are able to analyze this moral conduct in ourselves and in other animals.  We are also able to break such moral codes with our big brains  by justifying killing with “holy war” or taking another people’s land in the name of a god we worship.  In this way we have de-evolved from the system still used today by animals such as dolphins and wolves.

To conclude, here is a picture of a mother bird blocking the water in a drain pipe with her own body to protect her nest and chicks.

  • matt

    Along the dolphin case, dolphins are also the only animal that kills for sport. So I really wouldn’t use that as an argument for saying the dolphins, or any other animal, are superior to humans. See here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3323070/Killer-dolphins-baffle-marine-experts.html
    Not only do dolphins kill other animals for fun, they also kill their own. Looks like your article just lost all it’s steam.

  • http://liberatedmind.com LiberatedMind

    We could say the same thing about humans. We kill for sport, not only our own species but other species as well. We kill our own species in war and in hatred. The point about dolphins and other animals higher up on the cognitive scale is that they exhibit behavior that parallels raw human emotion (which ultimately drives our societies moral code of conduct). There may not be much difference between a dolphin who kills for sport or a human who kills for sport. In this sense, we stand equal with such animals, a standing some would argue that is a step below where our cognitive ability should function.

    A common argument Christians raise when posed with a hypothetical where there is no “god” to tell them how to behave: they postulate that they would rape, kill and steal because there would be no god to tell them not to. Yet we see in countries like England and New Zealand where 40-50% of citizens claim no belief in a god and function normally in society without going mad and hurting others. This is due to the social moral code whereby every member of that civil society has agreed to behave in a certain manner so that the group as a whole may benefit. The “incentive” to behave according to this social moral code is acceptance into the group and all the benefit that come with being in a collective group. In the United States in places like Oregon and Maine where the non-theists number 30% and higher, we find less crime, less abortions, less poverty than in states like Texas where religion dominates and atheism is the minority. This is noted throughout the world: the most peaceful nations are also the least religious.

    To tie it all together, what we find is that “immoral behavior” as defined not by religious books but rather by society is more commonly broken in places with the highest community of religious for the simple reason that “immoral” acts such as murder or rape are justified by the religious as “righteous” or “commanded by god”. This fracture between societal moral law and religious moral law is evident in such books as the Christian Bible. The god of the Old Testament is a god who condones genocide and slavery, commands human sacrifice, praises war efforts and allows his “people” to sleep with the women of conquered tribes. The god of the Old Testament is a god who’s morals deeply oppose the morals of advanced and enlightened society today.