Different in degree or kind: moral animals? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 12, 2016, 19:02 (3178 days ago) @ David Turell

We have seen all sorts of stories and videos of animals acting in a moral way, helping other animals or rescuing people. Do the animals understand what they are doing is the point of this essay, in the same or different sense than we recognize the morality of the act:-https://books.google.com/books?id=BTbvCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=weaver+bird+knots&source=bl&ots=DwIHOjEjk_&sig=94hRXqxpgyidm0THVQLOKiZffWk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSqdax4bvLAhUC3mMKHUHYBgY4ChDoAQg-MAY#v=onepage&q=weaver%20bird%20knots&f=false-"While the evidence of apparently moral behaviour in animals is no longer in dispute — and cannot be restricted to mere anthropomorphic outpourings — how to interpret this evidence still is. Most scientists and philosophers are still sceptical of the idea that there is ‘real' or ‘genuine' morality at work here. This scepticism comes in two forms, one associated with scientists, the other with philosophers.-"Underlying scientific opposition is what has become known as Lloyd Morgan's Canon, after the 19th-century British ethologist Conwy Lloyd Morgan. The basic idea is reasonable: when we explain animal behaviour, we should not postulate any more than we absolutely have to. In other words, we should not explain the behaviour of animals in complex, moral terms when another — non-moral — explanation is available. But are there other, non-moral, explanations for the sorts of cases described above?-***-"Perhaps Lloyd Morgan's Canon itself is wrong. We might think of the Canon as akin to a game with a set of arbitrary rules: don't give animals anything more than you absolutely have to. Assume only the bare minimum of cognitive abilities required to explain their behaviour. Ditto emotional sensibilities. Moral emotions — kindness, sympathy? Certainly don't give them those unless there is no other choice. We know that we have cognitive and emotional capacities aplenty, and we know that we can, and often do, act for moral reasons. But don't assume other animals are like us unless there is no other option.-"Here, courtesy of de Waal, is another possible game. We know that animals are like us in many ways — in terms of their evolution, their genetic structure, the structure of their brains, and their behaviour. Given these known similarities, when we see animals behaving in ways that seem to be similar to the ways we behave, then do not assume a difference in motivation unless there is some evidence that supports this difference. When a chimpanzee gives what appears to be a consoling hug to its fellow who has just received a savage beating from the alpha male then, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the working hypothesis should be that the chimpanzee is motivated by the same sorts of emotions as a human would be in the same sort of situation. If, in the human case, we take this to be an expression of sympathy, then we should assume the same for the ape unless there is positive evidence to suppose otherwise.-***-"The scepticism of philosophers towards the idea that animals can behave morally is subtly different from that of scientists. Scientists question whether there is enough evidence to support the claim that animals can be motivated by emotions such as kindness or compassion, or by negative counterparts such as malice or cruelty. Philosophers argue that, even if animals were to be motivated by these sorts of states, this is still not moral motivation.-***-"In a nutshell, this is the philosopher's worry: moral action seems to imply moral responsibility. If I act morally, then I am, it seems, morally responsible for what I do. But do we really want to hold animals responsible for what they do? -***-"Most philosophers have been united in their reasons for thinking that animals cannot be responsible for what they do. To be responsible requires an ability that animals do not have — the ability to scrutinise their motivations critically......What is crucial is that it cannot do this — it does not have the ability to scrutinise its motivations.-***-"But there is another tradition, associated with the philosopher David Hume and developed later by Charles Darwin, that understands morality as a far more basic part of our nature — a part of us that is as much animal as it is intellectual.....
Our morality is rooted in our biology rather than our intellect.-Comment: The gap of 'different in kind' makes the argument difficult to resolve.