Adam wrote;
"It is patently obvious to me from all that I know of non-human animals that
they do "feel" their worlds in moral ways: longing, mourning, shame,
depression, etc. Again, to refer back to Descartes, supposedly one of the
West's greatest thinkers, ludicrously aiming to prove that animals are mere
automatons, poking them with sharp objects and declaring, "Oh, they cry out
in pain, but that's only a built in mechanism. They're programmed to make
that noise." I have always felt all related arguments to distance our
species from others in some elitist and self-satisfied way stemmed from not
much more than the frightened efforts of mortals hoping for a little bit of
"I win! I'm better!" in their short lives."
(and other good stuff I'm -snipping-)
Bissell here: Just so non-human animals must feel: lust, avarice, gluttony,
rage, (I forget the other three). The problem here, Adam, is that you seem
to be proposing that *either* animals feel human-like moral emotions *or*
they are Cartesian automations. Isn't there another course? Can't there be
an alternative to the moral/immoral model? Actually, you proposed it
yourself when you suggested the limits of the ecological niche defined
"normal" and "abnormal" behaviors. I agree that acting within ecological
bounds defines normality; i.e. a circus tiger is a repulsive brute compared
to a wild tiger. Isn't that leaving the idea of morality and immorality
aside? Is that what you were suggesting and the rest of us have missed the
point, or am I putting words in your computer?
Steven
http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
What we lost with that wild, primal existence
was a way of being for which the era of
agriculture and civilization lacks counterpoise.
Human life is the poorer for it.
Paul Shepard
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