>Jim asked
>>I am willing to listen to your account of the moral life of dogs. Tell >me
>how I would recognize seeing a dog exercise moral judgment.
>
>Dogs quite frequently risk or give their lives to save human companions all
>the time.
Well, okay. But it seems to me that an awful lot more dogs in my
neighborhood commit suicide by running in front of moving vehicles than
save the lives of their human companions.
Of course, you would attribute this to "instinct" we extol the
>virtue of human mothers who risk their lives for their children all the time.
Nope, not at all: I am beginning to see the light. Dogs are moral
creatures whose bad moral traits include selfishly killing themselves and
peeing on the floor when they know that it bothers me. whew! thanks for
setting me straight.
:-)
I'm gently teasing you,
Jim
>Not only that, but quite often dogs will go to great lenghths to save humans
>who are not even their companions. Kindness and love, (I must explain to
>you), are feelings that humans and non-human beings alike express, without
>cold calculations. You seem to need so much structure for these decisions,
>maybe because some of those feelings might not be there. Unfortunate monkeys
>in primate labs were starved, and only given food if they pressed a button
>that they later found would deliver a shock to other primates. They soon
>resolved to go hungry rather than elicit a shock to their helpless collegues.
>Just as we might have difficulty knowing that someone speaking a different
>language than we do, has feelings and makes moral decisions, (without the help
>of an interpreter), we cannot be explicitly told of moral decisions of most
>non-human beings. There have often been similar denigrations of human beings,
>denying them feelings and thoughts, without their ability to defend
>themselves, due to cultural and language differences. It is not totally
>coincidental that the intelligent animals that we can communicate with, such
>as chimpanzees via sign language have shown the feelings of complex thought.
>Those that we cannot precisely communicate with yet, we can tell by way of
>similar neuroanatomy, facial expressions and feelings of pain, that they
>certainly have complex emotionss Because most wild free non-human beings make
>life decisions, much more crucial to survival than the typical human being
>does; it is fairly obvious that these beings must act intelligently for their
>own survival as individuals and for other known individuals within their
>flock, pack or pod. Why would a being have well-developed cerebral
>hemispheres, designed for decision making, and yet autonomously act at the
>level of the midbrain or hindbrain as you suggest? Unfortunately, it has
>taken some inhumane experiments to show very ingenius problem solving
>abilities in most vertebrates and some intelligent invertebrates like
>crustaceans and cephalopods. Octipii have been shown to watch one unscrew a
>lid to some food from another tank, and more quickly learn the trick than if
>figuring it out de novo.
>
>Peace for All Beings
>Jamey Lee West
>
>
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