Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 21, 2016, 12:29 (2986 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: There are two points at issue here, arising from articles by Greer and O'Hear which you quoted as support for your beliefs. Firstly, Greer denies that animals have these emotions. 
DAVID: You keep missing what was to me the key point of the article point. Nagel's thoughtful book, What it is like to be a bat. We do not know what an animal feels when he shows fear, other than the simple statement, he is obviously afraid'-Greer made a brief passing reference to Nagel in support of his epistemological discovery that we can't know what it is like to be an animal (in this case, a bat). I pointed out - and you agreed - that we can't know what it is like to be another human being either. The “key point” of the article was Greer's contention that attributing emotions to animals was an anthropomorphization. You have now agreed that animals have the same basic emotions as ourselves, and that is the foundation for the argument below:
 
dhw:We are hugely sophisticated animals, the “raw emotions” are not anthropomorphizations but inherited characteristics, and these and other common characteristics are the basis of what you have so aptly described as our “evolutionary extensions”.
DAVID: This sentence shows me that we are beginning to come to a meeting point of opinion. We are vastly different from animals with some of the same basic emotions in our reactions to events.-O'Hear argued that there was no evolutionary explanation for our quest for knowledge, our moral sense, and our appreciation of beauty. I have argued that there is a clear evolutionary progression from the animal basics (exploring the environment, the needs of the individual subordinated to those of the community, aesthetics as part of the mating process) to our own vastly more complex developments, resulting from our self-awareness. You agreed that all of these were an “evolutionary extension”. I have tried to explain why I disagree with Greer and O'Hear. Since you accept that animals have basic emotions, and there is also an evolutionary progression from all of these other basic characteristics to our own vastly more sophisticated forms, it seems we are indeed at one.