Do animals have morality? - - - -
No. One may say that they show 'moral behavior', but this would be a kind of behavior that we - the only moral animals on earth! - interpret as 'moral'.
Morality is a set of norms, rules, commandments and values. These 'exist' in a counterfactual world of what ought to be, but animal do not live in such a world. Their world is full of things that are what they are.
Morality has to be distinguished from strategic behavior (If I want to acheive this goal, I have to behave in a way that help me to acheive this goal), which is quite common among highly social and intelligent animals, like apes, dolphins or crows.
Animals may show empathy and fairness, but not because some norm or commandment tells them to do so. No chimps does ever learn You have to groom other members of your group - This behavior is hardwired - by evolution - in their brains because it pays off. Most of it is basically tit-for-tat: If I groom you, you'll groom me. If I am friendly towards alpha, this will improve my status in the group.
In a truly moral framework, it would be wrong to ask "what's in for me?". "Why should I always tell the truth, or : Why am I supposed not to steal, if this would benefit me and if nobody is looking and I'm confident to get away with it?". In a moral world, you should not do X, and you should do Y, just because it is the right thing to do, not because it somehow benefits you.
Chimps do not have anything comparable, they have no rules, no norms to follow. As highly social animals they have pro-social instincts, and they are intelligent enough to practice some strategic thinking, but that's all.
There is a sort of common human behavior that does not exist in other species and that could be seeen as a litmus test for true moral behavior: so-called third-party punishment: When I witness someone violating a moral norm, I feel obligated to punish the evil-doer, even - and this is crucial - if that punishment entails some disadvantage for me. Why ? Because I feel loyal to the norm / rule / value, not necessarily to this very person that is harrassed by the evil-doer. This identification with moral norms and values is typical for human beings as moral animals.
(To those who want to know more about why human morality is unique in the animal kingdom, I recommend the book "A natural history of human morality" by Michael Tomasello)
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At it's most fundamental form, morality is empathy. Many animals clearly display empathy, and I assume that we humans don't perceive it in many more.
Look at what we're (collectively) doing to each other and to our planet and the other creatures on it. Do we have morality?
OldWiseAss
Level 7
May 18, 2022
1
More and more we are learning all higher evolved beings are very similar. Animals (including humans) all subscribe to basic instincts (survival and procreation). Things like going to war is often also shared. Just read about a group of Chimpanzees that attacked a family (and killed their newborn baby) because the family had invaded their space. Even after the family left the author of the report watched the gang attacking their house and throwing rocks at it. Any nature film may surprise us at how much many animals not only have a consciousness but have behavior similar to us. When resources start to become limited competition starts, along with deciding who gets what. The competition often includes violence.
JackPedigo
Level 9
May 18, 2022
0
Morality comes from the structure of the society that you live in. It can change in ideas simply because of it's origin. Animals do have a structural group and when humans observe this they may see what they call morality. This is because animal behavior can also change. The whole argument to me is like wanting to claim your dog is Democrat or Republican.
DenoPenno
Level 9
May 18, 2022
3
Ryo1:
I reckon my dogs are both conservertive - they prefer sticking to their routine and don't like radical changes.
Other animals have altruism, generosity, heroism, all the traits of "morality" except for the word morality.
To prove that humans have some superior "morality", you must prove that human altruism isn't also the result of biological programming to protect related genes; especially since other animals also demonstrate intraspecific altruism (like humans, other species also adopt pets).
(I very specifically say "other animals", since we humans are, of course, part of the animal kingdom. Your post seems to suggest that humans are somehow "different" from all the other animals. We aren't; we're just stuck up.)
Paul4747
Level 8
May 17, 2022
3
@Matias That's irrelevant, it's still "programming" (so to speak) that we can't control.
@Matias Repeated testing has shown that people across cultures, when presented with the "Trolley Problem" and similar moral dilemmas, respond consistently the same, no matter where they're from.
Here we analyze responses to three sacrificial dilemmas by 70,000 participants in 10 languages and 42 countries. In every country, the three dilemmas displayed the same qualitative ordering of sacrifice acceptability, suggesting that this ordering is best explained by basic cognitive processes rather than cultural norms. The quantitative acceptability of each sacrifice, however, showed substantial country-level variations.
This evidence suggests that morality and ethics are ingrained, but refined by the culture we live in. Cloaking morals in a veneer of culture or religion disguises their origin, but can't negate it.
@Matias To me real morality must be reason based. Too often people use emotions to determine moral principles which applies to their tribe. Morals have to set a standard for LIFE (writ large) in general.
"...litmus test for true moral behavior: so-called third-party punishment: When I witness someone violating a moral norm, I feel obligated to punish the evil-doer,..."
So is it the sense of morality that is hijacked and reprogrammed by evil-doers to create immoral soldiers, soldiers who will harm or kill others to satisfy their new morality?
If we see acts of cruelty perpetrated by soldiers (for Christ, as example), and feel revulsion, who is to say which morality is the true morality? If the soldiers effectively intimidate us against punishing the evil-doer, does that mean that fear and intimidation invalidates our morality?
racocn8
Level 9
May 17, 2022
3
skado
Level 9
May 17, 2022
2
@Matias
As is true of every word, the word “morality” carries whatever meaning we assign it.
Do we have some qualities other apes don’t? Certainly. At least in degree. Did those qualities come to us from some mysterious channel other than the same processes of evolution that formed the other animals.
No. Not that I can see.
I suspect de Waal can explain it quite well. Our brains are bigger and capable of greater complexity, so our iteration of morality is naturally more complex, like our iteration of technology, civilization, and so on.
If you want to arbitrarily define the human iteration of morality as the only true morality, then go for it. We humans like to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution ( or creation, depending on one’s worldview). But it is an arbitrary distinction that we assign ourselves, based on words we made up.
It’s the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy. No “true” morality can be found outside us superior humans. And how do we know? Because WE say so!
The biological view is not so human-centric. It’s more of a continuum. Humans have developed higher levels of cognitive conceptualization. Bats have developed higher levels of audio-location. Dogs have developed higher levels of olfactory identification. Each species is unique in some way. It’s mostly just a matter of degree.
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