Animals have a sense of morality?
According to
one scientist at least:
Scientists studying animal behaviour believe they have growing evidence that species ranging from mice to primates are governed by moral codes of conduct in the same way as humans.
Until recently, humans were thought to be the only species to experience complex emotions and have a sense of morality.
But Prof Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are "hard-wired" into the brains of all mammals and provide the "social glue" that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups.
He has compiled evidence from around the world that shows how different species of animals appear to have an innate sense of fairness, display empathy and help other animals that are in distress.
I don't get what is so special about moral compasses if they are all relative to the particular culture one is raised in and do not necessarily include those perceived as outsiders:
"Just as in humans, the moral nuances of a particular culture or group will be different from another, but they are certainly there. Moral codes are species specific, so they can be difficult to compare with each other or with humans."
Looks like we sociopaths are more alone than we thought. But at least no one will ever be able to call us filthy animals anymore.
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According to one scientist at least:
Morality is a feeling not a compass....thats the best way i can try and explain it. Those who do what is considered "immoral" don't "feel" anything negative about the act they are committing. I suppose society uses morality as a compass to control the masses, like a tool almost....However i guess what i find moral others perhaps wouldn't and vise versa, morality is relative to the individual. Thats what i think anyway, i may be wrong...just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteActually I agree. And so would Phage judging from one of his comments on another post. From what I’ve read, the evidence seems to indicate that morality is felt as emotion (shame, guilt, righteous indignation, disgust, and so on) first. Rationalizing those emotions (creating moral principles) come second.
ReplyDeleteThe moral sense is universal feature of the human mind (and by universal I mean cross cultural). It’s true that specific moral codes differ among various social groups and individuals; however there do appear to be some moral concepts that are commonly shared across the world. Also, it has been pointed out by a variety of researchers and thinkers that basic moral knowledge is gained with very little explicit instruction and without laborious mental work. This suggests that the moral sense is innate. The moral instinct has been aptly compared to our instinctive facility with language. Languages may differ among groups, but they are generated based on a universal set of grammatical principles. And learning to speak your native language in childhood is a relatively easy skill to learn. This is because the standard human brain comes equipped with a robust intellectual tool kit for acquiring human speech. So it is with morality, in my view.
It’s like the piano. There may be only 7 white notes and 5 black notes per octave, but from those 12 notes comes a seemingly infinite variety of musical compositions. So it would be with morality (and language, and art and so on…). The standard brain has a basic moral syntax built in, which is then used to generate the variety of moral codes, traditions and mores we see the world over.
I guess this means that the sociopath is “tone deaf” when it comes to morality, so to speak. Perhaps. I’d also suggest that it doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that morality exists independent of brains. Morality was evolutionarily adaptive for a species also endowed with innate selfishness and aggressiveness. I see no reason to believe that morality is an objective fact of the universe however. In other words, sociopaths aren’t missing out on some great truth of existence. We’re just in a better position to clearly see what morality is and is not and how it functions for most people most of the time, without idealism blurring the vision.
You would think that Scientists would be smart enough to notice this already. Evolution would basically create morality in species so genes would survive and progress--like in humans and their sense of empathy.
ReplyDeleteHumanity needs more humility.
What about psychopathic animals?
ReplyDelete...what, like cats? Wait no, that's schizophrenic.
ReplyDelete