Subject:
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Re: 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 14:50:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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1071 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> > > Chris:
> > > > > Neither the lion nor the wildebeest is concerned with
> > > > > morality. It is an action completely without moral regard. It is
> > > > > therefore amoral. But not immoral.
> > >
> > > Scott:
> > > > I agree.
> >
> > My position is that we should not infer human characteristics on animals. We
> > should judge them by their standards - not ours.
>
> No no, your position on whether animals are moral/immoral OR amoral. Do you
> think they are moral/immoral or amoral?
Good restatement. Good luck getting a straight answer though.
I agree that we ought not to infer or impute human characteristics of
animals unless they are demonstrably present. That's why I think of animals
as amoral, because I tend to (with some room for doubt) hold morality as a
human trait. To say something is amoral is not a judgement, it's merely
saying that morality doesn't apply to that thing. That is, that we are not
applying a human characteristic to a non human thing.
The arguments or examples advanced for some animals being moral seem to
focus on animals most like us, as Frank said... animals that have
significantly well developed higher brain functions, animals that you can
argue don't live completely in the present but can anticipate possible
futures (beyond "the rabbit will come out of this hole"), animals that have
some sort of proto-society (packs or herds with dominant members) and so forth.
I COULD just take that as my escape clause and say that when I said animals
are amoral I didn't mean these sort of animals that have some human traits,
because they're not quite fully animal.
But I won't. I'll instead ask what is necessary for morality to develop?
Here are some possibles: Reasoning ability, the ability to think in the
abstract, Language, the ability to understand consequences, the ability to
use logic... Not an exhaustive list, and some duplication is present. Not
sure that's a well formed way to look at the question either. Might spark
some thought. This sort of addresses Ross's questions (and I liked Chris's
answers) but at a more building block level. These abilities are more fine
grained.
++Lar
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