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Reddit mentions of The Moral Lives of Animals

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Reddit mentions: 5

We found 5 Reddit mentions of The Moral Lives of Animals. Here are the top ones.

The Moral Lives of Animals
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Found 5 comments on The Moral Lives of Animals:

u/DnMarshall · 17 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

Well, I'm glad you're more of an expert than our scientists.

Have you googled "Do animals have morality?"

​

Have you read this

this

this

this book

this book

this TED talk

etc.

If not, then coming back and continuing to bother us despite not doing an iota of research on your own is incredibly rude.

u/PopcornMouse · 7 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

> What is consciousness?

"Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind... In the majority of experiments that are specifically about consciousness, the subjects are human, and the criterion that is used is verbal report: in other words, subjects are asked to describe their experiences, and their descriptions are treated as observations of the contents of consciousness." These methods are obviously heavily biased towards humans, we can't just ask a chimpanzee if it self aware, we must infer it from their behaviours and how they interact with their physical and social worlds. Easier said than done.

> Are single celled organisms like bacteria, conscious?

No.

> How much up the evolutionary ladder do we have to go to start finding consciousness?

Evolution is not a ladder, there is no best species at the top of this ladder. Its more like a tree. In evolution, there can be many solutions to one problem. Take flight for example, insects, birds, and bats have all solved the problem of flight in different ways, with different combinations of traits, with different kinds of genes. The same is very likely true for consciousness and higher cognitive intelligence. We may very well find the exact gene(s) that make use conscious that does not mean that other species need those exact genes in order to be conscious too. Other species may solve the problem of consciousness in a different way than we have. If we look for species with characteristics that are exactly our own, well its like just looking for species with feathers and assuming they are the only ones that fly - you miss the bats and insects.

> How are humans able to make another conscious being?

We are not born conscious, it is a series of skills, traits, and abilities that develop during infancy and early childhood that lead to our conscious abilities. For example, children learn between the ages of 3-5 how to lie. Before this time period their brains are not developed enough to make the connection that their thoughts are distinct and different from other individuals thoughts. They think everyone knows what they are thinking, they can't lie. Some humans never develop the ability to be fully conscious, like severely autistic individuals. "Deficits occur in people with autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as neurotoxicity due to alcohol abuse."

Other animals can lie, and deceive if they want to. Are they conscious? its really hard to say. We have a couple of tests that give us a pretty good idea that other species exhibit consciousness. For example, the mirror test. You place an individual in front of a mirror with a dot on their body that they can only see looking through the mirror. If they touch the dot or look for the dot on their own bodies then they are making the link that the image in the mirror is themselves. Infants older than 18 months usually pass the mirror test, infants under 18 months don't. Other higher cognitive skills that have been observed in some species include object manipulation, tool making, multi-step problem solving, lying, sense of fairness, morals, ethics, and mourning the dead.

These animals in no particular order are: elephants, dolphins, birds like crows, ravens, or pigeons, pigs, all of the great apes, and some monkeys. Obviously we are talking about a really diverse group of species, species from many different and distinct evolutionary paths that are able to solve complex problems, communicate in complex ways, form complex social bonds, and importantly show signs of theory of mind, or consciousness. Generally speaking these animals function at a cognitive level similar to a 3-5 year old child.

The ethical question then becomes, if a chimpanzee can pass a mirror test, can be shown to have higher cognitive functions why do we deny them the basic rights we give to humans, when some humans including infants lack these skills? Should we keep these animals for our own amusement or instrument, we don't with ourselves but why is it ok with them? I won't comment on my opinion, but these are important ethical questions worth thinking about.

I recommend:

u/NapAfternoon · 6 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

Generally speaking, we should not anthropomorphize animals and their behaviours. However, its worth noting that animals do indeed feel emotions. But I don't agree when people state that animal minds don't work that way - they do. This is because the underlying mechanisms of emotion in humans and in other animals is essentially the same because they have evolved from common origins.

Affective neuroscience is a very interesting area of study which examines "the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood." It also examines how our own neural mechanisms are mirrored in animals (and especially mammals) because of shared ancestry. The study of emotion is definitely a very active area of science that permeates many different fields - evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, human behaviour, animal communication, human communication, origin of communication, psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology...each look at different questions concerning emotions, and their origins.

In ELI5 words this means that animals are certainly capable of feeling emotions because the neural mechanisms that produce emotions are conserved through evolution, and are similar to the neural mechanisms that produce emotions in ourselves. All mammals, being related through common ancestry, have even more similar and conserved mechanisms - humans are of course mammals too!

But a few things to note:

  • The way animals express a particular emotion may differ from the way humans express that emotion. For example, humans often smile to exhibit happiness. But for the rest of the primate order smiling is either a signal of submissiveness or fear. This does not mean that other primates are incapable of feeling happiness, but that they very likely express it in different ways from ourselves. We also have to be very mindful that other animals, even cognitively complex ones, may be physically constrained and incapable of complex facial expressions. For example, we know dolphins are capable of a lot of complex cognitive tasks, they are able to identify themselves in the mirror and they may even have names for one another...but they don't have the facial musculature to make the expressions that are, well, as expressive as ours. Their emotions may not even be obvious for this reason, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

  • Humans like to make emotions poetic, like love. But love is simply a kind of attachment emotion. Humans become attached to each other and objects, sometimes to the point of obsession. Animals also become attached to each other. Mothers and their infants, bonding pairs of adults, social groups...all of these are forms of attachment exhibited in the animal kingdom. Again if you were interested in studying love, as a scientist you would actually study attachment. I recommend the book affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions (linked above). It can be rather technical, but it is very good read. In any case, if we want to objectively study emotion and their origins, we sort of need to take the "humanity" out of emotions and look at them in a more universal way.

  • Comparing species requires a unbiased approach. One method would be to measure and examine their physiology - specifically their nervous system and their hormonal systems. Emotions are basically produced by these two things...so by studying these two systems in ourselves and in other species we gain a better understanding of the origins and complexities of emotions that humans and other animals exhibit. The more complex these two systems are the more likely the species can interpret or feel every increasing complex emotions. This is why we generally assume that mammals feel more complex emotions than reptiles, and reptiles more than amphibians (like your frog), and frogs more than invertebrates - but the line isn't hard. For example, crocodiles are surprisingly social, we know that other social species like some mammals and birds exhibit some of the most complex emotions recorded. Not to mention that crocodiles have a very well developed nervous and hormone systems. Octopi have very well developed nervous systems and we know that they are able to solve complex problems and respond negatively to harmful noxious stimuli. So where does this put them on the scale? Probably somewhere above tarantula but below dolphins and primates. Other invertebrates, like insects and spiders have comparatively underdeveloped nervous and hormonal systems. For example, while they have nociceptors that feel pain they might not have the required brain complexity to interpret that pain on a psychological or emotional level. However, this wikipedia article on pain interpretation in invertebrates points out: pain interpretation is very much complex even for their "simple" systems and that many invertebrate species (e.g octopi) do meet the required recommendations for being able to interpret psychological pain. I just want to emphasize that it is really hard to place animals in distinct little boxes, and its becoming increasingly difficult to support the statement that we are somehow different from them in this regard. Even complex emotions and cognitive functions like frustration, sense of self, sense of fairness, empathy, lying, and cheating have been demonstrated in the animal kingdom.

    Again, I just want to reiterate that we should not project human emotions unto animals but that does not mean animals are not capable of feeling the same emotions as humans. We need evidence that animals feel a particular emotion, and we have gathered much evidence for many different species for many different emotions - from behavioural observational experiments to studying the biochemistry and physiology of these animals - we are beginning to understand more clearly the complexity of their lives from their perspectives.

    For something a little more directed towards the layman, the Moral Lives of Animals is a very good read, as is Age of Empathy.
u/Cebus_capucinus · 4 pointsr/askscience

Just a few clarifications since science tends to be nit-picky about words. Humans are not carnivores, in fact there are very few true carnivores on this planet. Humans are omnivores.

Not all cultures consider cannibalism to be psychotic or barbaric. "In some societies, especially tribal societies, cannibalism is a cultural norm. Consumption of a person from within the same community is called endocannibalism; ritual cannibalism of the recently deceased can be part of the grieving process, or a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. Exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community, usually as a celebration of victory against a rival tribe. Both types of cannibalism can also be fueled by the belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the characteristics of the deceased."

> Are animals capable of having morals?

An extremely loud YES!. Why so loud? Because its such a scientific good question to ask. I would first like to recommend The moral lives of animals by Dale Peterson. I would also like to reccommend any book written by Frans de Waal - especially "The age of Empathy".

It is important for me to say that other animals do not have human morals. It makes sense, they are not humans after all. What they deem to be moral or immoral stems from environmental and social pressures or factors unique to them. We can't even clump animals as a whole, since what is moral to an elephant is not the same to a chimpanzee. Even Darwin stated: "Animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts, which in us would be called moral". So the idea of morality in animals is not new, but can be still profoundly radical since humans love to dichotomize ourselves with animals - "us" vs. "them", with us being on the top: the best, the smartest and most important animal of them all. Ideas which stem from the concept of the "Great Chain of Being". The idea of morality in animals puts us more closely to them behaviourally and cognitively than most people are comfortable with. But I digress, the best way for you to learn about morality in animals is to read books about animal behaviour, cognition and sociality and of course moral behaviour.

> To answer you first question - are humans the only species which does not eat its own?

Well since we do, and since it is moral in certain cultures this question needs to be changed a bit. The point of it is that some (omnivorous and carnivorous) animals do eat their own kind and some do not.

u/SqueakyGate · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

Animals are not the only ones which use tools, there has been documented tool use in many primates, bird species, invertebrates, and other mammals. Tools are not unique to humans. Just google tool use in animals, or watch videos of them using tools on youtube.

> Have an advantage over every other species ever?

Well, we still have a long way to go. We are not the longest lived species, or even the longest lived kind of species. For example, the bacteria have been around for billions of years, we hominins have only been around for ~7 million years. If you were to look at this from the perspective of an elephant or dolphin, there are plenty of things that they can do that we can't (like swim very well at all). So why have you determined that intelligence is the best and most superior trait to which we should compare all other species? That is a very human-centric point of view. From a dolphins perspective we look pretty dumb in the water.

What makes humans unique?

The short answer is not much, maybe aspects of three things: language, cognition and culture.

The long answer is this: Animal intelligence and intelligence in general is very very hard to define. Traditionally, we would test animals and define them based on what we thought humans could only do. One of our most defining characteristics was thought to be the use of tools - but that is so obviously not true, many animals from various orders use tools. And so we went down the list of things we thought were unique to humans and found that on some level or another animals could do the very same things we could - albeit under different contexts, usually pertaining specifically to the needs of the animal. I guess the easiest way to discuss this topic is to let you know about where animal behaviour science is.

Aspects of language: mainly in how complex we can make it, and our ability to change it so quickly. Animals also communicate in many different ways and we are still discovering new modes of communication. Some species display tendencies of recursiveness, syntax, regional dialects and other aspect of language that one might consider "human". This is a highly debated area.

(Human) language may require complex thought, but complex thought may not require language. It is hypothesized that "theory of mind must have preceded language use, based on evidence of use of the following characteristics: intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared plans and goals, intentional sharing of focus or topic, and pretending." - all of these precede language and we see many of them being expressed in animals, especially within the primate order. So first cognition then language. Why is this important? Because while animals may not be able to express themselves verbally in the same way we do, they may approximate us in many other aspects of cognition. This is important when we consider ethical treatment of animals. You wouldn't lock a 3 year old in a cage...yet that is exactly what we are doing with chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants. You wouldn't preform tests on a 5 year old yet we do that with macaques and rats. We are beginning to understand that these species feel, react and think much like we do - yet we still consider them to be "others" which are less worthy. This isn't a PETA statement, I am just trying to get you to think about why we treat other animals the way we do and if it is justified.

We also need to consider that many animals communicate using other senses - smell, touch, they even use magnetic fields to sense their world. Testing them on their ability to use speech or writing is biased. How should we test them? or even begin to compare them to humans? We also need to consider that our 'voice boxes' are developed in such a way that enables us to talk the way we do. You can't roar like a lion or make ultra low frequencies like a elephant - so why should we judge them on their ability to talk exactly like us? I am trying to get you to think from the perspective of another animal, not from the perspective of a human.

Language and communication take many forms. It has been postulated that gestures played an important role in pre-language hominins (including early humans), in that they used gestures rather than words to communicate. The snag is that there is no way for this to be archeologically preserved like written language or oral traditions and gestures don't require specific physical adaptions (i.e. you don't need a "voice box").

Aspects of cognition: We know that animals are capable of cognitive reasoning, problem solving, they teach and learn, they feel many if not all the emotions we feel especially mammals, they are capable of deception, lying, cheating etc. They have a concept of the "self" and "others". They are knowing, being and living like us to top it all off... they also have morals.

However, humans do stand apart in some key areas of cognition. Some researchers surmise that cooperative breeding enhances the performance of social cognitive domains and it also motivates the individual to share mental states with others. Cooperative breeding is a social system where mothers require help from others to raise their offspring - all human cultures exhibit this trait and this developed because we are bipedal and have trouble giving birth. Combined, cooperative breeding and the motivation to share mental states leads to shared intentionality, which is the ability and desire to work collaboratively with others towards a shared goal, as well as understanding that others are aware of your intentions. Cooperative breeding in primates to date is observed only in callatrichids and humans, both of which exhibit shared intentionality. What sets apart humans from other cooperative breeders with shared intentionality is our ancestral ape-level cognitive system. The unique combination of social cognitive skills, ape-level cognitive skills and shared intentionality led to the development of our species-specific traits, including language and enhanced cultural transmission. Our ape-level cognitive skills stem from freed grasping hands, our tool use and ability to solve complex problems.

In theory, extant apes have all the necessary cognitive preconditions (i.e. simple understanding of others mental states) approximating humans but they lack the motivational components of cooperative breeding, and thus lack shared intentionality. However, groups of chimpanzees hunting involve the delegation of tasks (i.e herders, ambushers) where all participants must assess the others hunting position and effectiveness in order to successfully carry out a shared goal. What is contested is whether they understand that together they are dedicated to the shared goal, a key component of shared intentionality.

Although there are two major camps on this it is thought that modern human intelligence and behaviour developed about 60,000 years ago in what is known as behavioural modernity. Before this date humans could not use language in the way we do it now, and effectively were more like chimpanzees in terms of intelligence. Humans evolved about 200,000 years ago. Others think that our intelligence developed slowly, over time not from one single mutation or behavioural event.

Aspects of Culture Animals posses culture in much the same way we do. There are countless examples and I would be happy to provide them but this post is already long enough. Human culture is only different in one way - we build upon previous experience. Known as the ratchet effect we can take someone else's idea and change it slightly to build on it, the previous idea is never lost. Our knowledge is continuously building upon its self. Animals have a harder time accomplishing this, if a novel idea is presented it takes a long time for it to take hold.

Fire and Cooking

I think fire and learning to cook food definitely changed the way our brains work - only fire and cooking predate humans. Physical fire and cooking evidence dates back 400,000-700,000 years. Things like fire pits and charred remains. Morphological evidence dates back 1.2 million years with Homo erectus being the first hominin to show morphological changes due to a change in diet - the teeth change, the length of the intestine changes etc. If the hominin body underwent such drastic changes as a result of cooking food, then why not the brain as well? There is a chimpanzee named Kanzi, who learned without training how to build a fire and cook food. So it is not necessarily that our closest cousins can't do something we think is uniquely human - they lack the motivation to do so.

Summary

My favourite quote that revolves around this topic is this: "“Everybody is a genius. But, "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid." – Albert Einstein. We need to make sure we are testing animal's intelligence in their own right - not based off of our own preconceptions or misconceptions. Moreover, its not cars, or guns or any modern object that we have that makes us unique it is the underlying behaviours and traits (like enhanced cooperation and cumulative culture) which make us unique.

If you have any questions or specific examples you would like me to explain please let me know.

TL;DR The only things that make humans different from other animals is that we have complex language, cumulative culture and shared intentionality. This does not make us better, just different.