Subject:
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Re: 3 Question (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Jul 2001 00:18:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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709 times
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ross Crawford writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > > (To Ross, it's
> > > more reasonable to ask that you prove this happens than that I prove it
> > > doesn't, partly because you're asking me to prove the negative and partly
> > > because your claim would be the more far fetched)
> >
> > OK. You asserted "animals are amoral" with nothing to back it up. Go type
> > "dog hero" into your favourite search engine, look through the list of hits.
> > Many acts can be explained by (the dog exhibiting) self preservation, but
> > what causes a dog to jump into a flooding river & drag out a human? What
> > causes a dog to drag a human back home after he experienced a heart attack?
> > Their morals may not be as complex as ours, but that doesn't make them
> > non-existent.
>
> Good examples! Dogs are pack animals, it is true. Is that sufficient to
> explain these behaviours? I don't know. Saving one's meal ticket would
> exhibit forethought. Do dogs have such? The conventional answer is that they
> don't, so that's not an explanation either.
>
> Are these examples of morals? Or just of bonding? I don't know.
What about dolphins which have saved people with probably no real
opportunity for bonding? My feeling is that most of what makes us human
is not unique to us, but is exhibited to at least some degree by other
animals. It is interesting to note that most (all?) of the animals which
seem to share some of the characteristics we tend to associate with
"human intelligence" are pack animals.
I have seen very few examples of things proposed as uniquely human
traits that I have not seen at least some degree of in animals. I think
I even disagree with the lack of forethought in animals. They seem to
exhibit an ability to "set up" situations (the one which immediately
comes to my mind which I have trouble totally dismissing is my guinea
pig who would get out of his cage and wait by my bedroom door for me to
open it so he could bolt down the hall to get to my sister's room and
her guinea pig). I wonder how much better we'd understand intelligence
and the brains function if we didn't work so hard to put ourselves as
something unique and above animals.
I'm also not sure how unique our tendency to kill our own kind is. Many
(most?) animals do kill their own kind if there is a resource crunch. I
think that can be found to be the root cause of most human strife. The
big difference between us and other animals is that we have probably
developed much better defences against "natural" effects which tend to
control population.
On the other hand, we do seem to be unique on this world. I've got to
believe that if any other species had the combination of capabilities
which we have and use to build our culture that the two species would
have figured out how to say "hello" to each other.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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