A New Scientist book review:
Wild Justice makes a compelling argument for open-mindedness regarding non-human animals. It also argues that social behaviours such as cooperation provide evidence for a sophisticated animal consciousness. In particular, the authors propose that other animal species possess empathy, compassion and a sense of justice – in other words, a moral code not unlike our own. … They believe such codes are necessarily species-specific and warn against, for instance, judging wolf morals by the standards of monkeys, dolphins or humans. …
Bekoff and Pierce make their case by calling on a wide range of animal studies, from field biology to the laboratory and from the anecdotal to the statistical. … [In an] experiment, rats refused to push a lever for food when they realised their action meant another animal got an electric shock.
Some possible responses:
- Apparent animal "morality" isn't real morality, because it lacks human factor X.
- To the extent animal morality differs from human, animals are just wrong.
- Each species only intuitively knows what it is moral for that species to do.
- Creature have preferences and social norms; there is no further "morality."
GD Star Rating
loading...
loading...
