Just curious as to how you think it's instinctive for the dog and not for people. The vast majority of dogs will decide not to engage a threat to their owner if the dog feels it will be injured or killed. It makes that decision to either engage and risk it's life or not to engage and survive. Is this less of a choice than the instincts that drive people to make the choice to either risk their life or not risk their life defending someone in their social group?
Very nice! Ms. Francisco has a lovely voice. rhester, I can't explain the Wonder Dog to you. You would have had to have met him to understand. It wasn't just instinct. He had an intelligence that went far beyond that of any dog I have ever known. Back when I had him, and lived in Houston, I had a very large number of friends. Yes, most are still friends today, but some are no longer with us and we are out of touch with many of them, due to time, distance, and life. Having said that, were you to ask any of them about this dog, they would agree with me. I could show him a "trick" I wanted him to do, once, and he not only "got it," but would remember it and perform it at parties in front of dozens of people. He had discretion. He would unfailingly walk up to the prettiest girls at a gathering and introduce himself. I can't tell you how many times I got dates because of him. I got him from the animal shelter as a puppy, before I met my future wife. He was half labrador retriever and half standard poodle... a labradoodle, before anyone knew what that was. I've never used his name here because any one of my friends would instantly know that it was me posting. Life after death? I haven't a clue, but if there is, I hope he is there. We'll have some great conversations.
the difference is moral conscience, right and wrong- animals don't have moral conscience and we don't treat them as if they do (except on tv and movies) Dolphins can save a human from a shark attack but it is not a moral act, you don't arrest dolphins if they don't do it, they do it based upon instinctive relationship to sharks and protective instincts. The dolphin doesn't put itself at risk because it has valued the human otherwise you would expect all dolphins to respond morally like humans a human can act on a motive of survival or fear or pleasure or pain but the difference in a human is the moral motivations- what is right and wrong. Dog's motives aren't free or better put they aren't moral. Before you can say an action is right or wrong morally it must be a free choice. If I took up a baseball bat and hit someone you don't say bad baseball bat. If my dog goes down the street and gets another dog pregnant you know it is not because of a moral choice. Any action can be self less but only humans can have moral motivations. We know that animals don't have this and we know humans do have this. That is why it is wrong for humans to wreck ecosystems and animals must live in an eco-balance to survive. It is morally wrong for humans to cause extinctions for selfish greed for example. But if mother nature gets out of balance some species will hunt others to extinction without any moral implication. Sure it is a survival instinct, it is better termed adaptation. It is not creative in the sense of watching a sunset and writing a poem. I probably wasn't clear, moral choices have to be free for them to be moral. You cannot say something is right or wrong if there is no choice. more than opinion I'm just guessing for the fun of it.
Your reasoning here is entirely circular. Altrusim in animals is not really altruism, becuase they are animals, whereas altruism in humans is not instinctive but rationally chosen behavior, since humans are humans, and not animals. Sorry but that just doesn't fly and raises tons of pretty obvious questions. Humans obviously have SOME instincts - why did the instinctive altruistic behaviors get magically discarded? Since I have free choice and the capacity to reason, why I can't I discard other instincts as well? I'm instinctively resentful of rats and mice. Hate the damned things. Rationally though, I know that I should be able to beat the crap out of a mice or a rat in a fight. In fact I've killed at least 3-4 of them using my superior warrior skills over the years. They present no real threat to me, bubonic plague notwithstanding. Yet still the sight of them repulses me.
nope, I said the motivations were different, because they are. of course humans have instincts, but animals do not have moral conscience and humans do. the issue is humans can make moral choices based upon right and wrong. that's all altruism is disinterested benevolence which is moral in basis, it is different than just a characteristic like protection or self defense. anything can demonstrate characteristics like- love, loyalty, hate, revenge, etc but it doesn't make it a moral choice unless there is a moral capacity. I just don't get what is so hard about understanding that if we call animals a bunch of murderers we are only attributing a human trait to their actions we are not implying that they have moral motives.
He will be there for you Deckard and all I can say about Wonder Dog is that he was a very good friend to you and he treated others the way we should all treat others.
dogs have strong loyalty and protective instincts and they can also be very loving, they are also very intelligent animals humans can also act out of shear instinct such as fear or survival insticts but what animals lack is moral capacity, or moral conscience it should be obvious since the entire human species holds itself responsible to this capacity. for an animal it is not a question of right and wrong choices it is depending on species and intelligence a matter of pure instinct domesticated animals show more human tendencies because they are more trainable there are very few great white shark amusement parks were a girl rides the great white shark around the big swimming tank there are other differences between humans and animals I thought this one was fairly obvious
I would say 90+% of people operate on pure instinct, and rationalize the morals after the fact. There is even a term which has been invented to make these instinctual emoters believe they are acting in a rational way, at least with resepct to negative instinct. It is called The Wisdom of Repugnance. [rquoter] "in crucial cases...repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it." [/rquoter] Maybe we should start a thread - when was the last time you did something that repelled you to your deepest core, but you knew intellectually was right? I think there would be a whole lot of people hard pressed to come up with even 1 example. And much of what people do that gets described in terms of anguished philosophical reason, would be described as instinctual survival strategy if seen in animals. There is alot of intellectualization involved in human "moral choices".
Your argument essentially goes like this, if I'm reading it right Animals develop altruistic behaviors based on "instinct" but when modern men evolved, instinctive altruistic behaviors vanished, since man devleoped morals. You know this, because man does have morals an animals don't, because they do. Aside from the circularity - WHen did this happen? Homo Erectus? Homo Neandertalises? Homo Habilis? Later? Why did this happen from a biological point of view? Instinctive Altruistic/mutualistic behaviors have been beneficial for social animals for millions of years, yet they magically went away? Why would any species discard a type of behavior that has enabled it to prosper? For no apparent reason? Why did we retain some instinctive behaviors, yet altruistic instincts went away, and your "moral conscience" behaviors superimposed themselves? You haven't really posited any basis for this and your argument seems to rest a lot more on faith in "moral conscience" than on any logical argument.
In animals instincts go beyond motivators like fear, hunger, and sex. They drive behavior in ways that doesn't happen in humans. For instance some newborn animals can be fooled into following instinctively a different species mother, for example I believe there are cases where certain birds have instinctively accepted a cat as mother because the switch was made while the instinctive behavior could be manipulated. Point being, there are strong motivators in humans such as fear and sex that strongly influence choices, but the difference in humans is the moral conscience. No animal has a moral conscience that can correctly value right and wrong behaviors. Animals do not experience guilt. An animal can experience fear as a result of learned experience but not guilt. this is just skirting around human conscience and guilt when you are driving down the freeway doing 85 mph (about 20 mph over the limit) you don't necessarily feel any repugnance especially if everyone else is doing the same speed, but let a policecar drop in right on your rear bumper with siren and lights flashing and see if you don't suddenly realize what you are doing is wrong. That is conscience at work. It no longer matters what every other driver is doing, your conscience brings realization of your guilt. Moral government is how humans must deal with all choices. I think there is confusion because conscience can be damaged or destroyed by guilt. If you damage your conscience long enough or strong enough you can destroy your moral basis and end up acting right when wrong and wrong when right. That is why so many evil things are done by humans who actually think they are doing a good thing- there is a great abundance of evidence for this in human history This is actually more a case of choosing morally inspite of emotional motivations and humans do this constantly. To be repelled by something is an emotional response based upon disgust or hate which varies from person to person. This is why parents tell their kids to eat the green vegetables. It may not smell good or taste good but a moral decision is not tied to senses or emotions but to right and wrong. I thought I would die when my parents forced me to eat brocolli, I think I might have got sick to my stomach but that was because I was disgusted with the physical taste and smell. Only a moral motivation to do what my parents commanded got me to put it in my mouth. Try getting an animal to eat something it doesn't want to eat, get ready to shove hard. moral- principle of right and wrong - Webster's Dictionary I just don't see where animals ever choose behaviors based solely on a moral motivation Humans always have to deal with their conscience, or moral motivations. Ottomaton I am just guessing- I see differences between humans and animals that may not be there, but I have never seen any strong evidence myself that animals are motivated by what is right and what is wrong- demonstrating conscience. I don't anticipate animals feel guilt for doing what is instinctive, I know this is not true for humans. I think animals can show alot of traits that are human in nature but not moral. I also understand that humans can violate conscience and act like animals.
You are not reading it right or most likely I just can't explain myself, Alturism to me is a moral choice. It is valuing choices and deciding what is right and wrong. I am saying that animals can appear to be alturistic in behaviors because we assign that to them when in fact their motive is not moral at all. They are not reasoning what is right and wrong based upon conscience they are reasoning instictive behaviors apart from moral government. Look at it this way. If you wanted to build a subdivision but it would kill alot of wildlife in the process you would have to deal with what is the right thing to do. Either way you have to deal with conscience. If the same animals killed each other for food or protection this is an instinctive behavior that is not motivated at all by moral choice. Animals do not have to deal with right or wrong when hungry. They might share food, sacrifice meals for their young etc but all of this is instinctive there is no right or wrong decision for them. Maybe I am just over simplifying something that is more complex. But I think the actual evidence in nature is overwelming that animals are not moral beings and humans are. Was Michael Vick treated as if he couldn't help dog fighting because he gave into instinct and did any of the dogs go to prison? I'm tired and rambling at this point, got to do a wedding tomorrow, Rockets won and I'm throwing out Michael Vick, I don't even remember what I posted just toooo tirrreeedddddd. Been fun
Rhester. I agree with Sam that your argument seems to be self-fulfilling. You use your own assumption that animals are incapable of moral reasoning to justify your argument. My own view is that this comes down to is that you can't ask an animal what motivates its behavior so you assumption is that it is instinct and not some sort of moral reasoning. My own view is that animals to differing degrees are capable of moral reasoning. I would say dolphin behavior is clearly an action that isn't motivated by instinct since dolphins don't always attack sharks so clearly a dolphin saving a human from a shark is highly indicative of something than mere instinct.
Listen, I haven't read through all the arguments here but sometimes we need to step back and look at the big picture, and so check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKMw1ndl-EY&feature=related Rather amazing if you watch all five episodes.
rocketsjudoka, we may have different definitions of a moral action what you suggest poses an impossible logic, logically you must define their behavior as right or wrong for it to be moral. no one logically says that a dolphin made the wrong choice or a dolphin made the right choice- the logical explanation for dolphin behavior is intelligence and protective instinct if there is no moral accountability there is no moral action
The problem is this: how do you know "morality" is determined by actual right and wrong action rather than the same instincts you claim determine animal action? Nietzsche studied this problem extensively and found that the concept of morality was deeply rooted in a desire for social control ("will to power"), something that is certainly common in social animals.
