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

by dhw, Sunday, February 12, 2017, 09:19 (2842 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Support for animal sense of fairness in monkeys and dogs:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120909-monkeys-and-dogs-judge-humans-by-how-they-...

DAVID’s comment: There has to be a sense of fairness built in to conscious animals who are social.

Thank you for this highly perceptive comment. No society can function without fairness, and our fellow creatures worked out their own systems long before we came on the scene. Why anyone should think that our fellow animals do NOT know the difference between fair and unfair, sharing and not sharing, good and bad treatment is quite beyond me. But it’s always reassuring when experts provide us with evidence of the blindingly obvious.