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Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)
Twain's pithy remark is right on, on the surface. Animals excluding humans do what comes naturally and instinctively. But there is research showing chimps to act deceitfully at times! So it may follow that the higher a creature's intelligence, the more flexibility it has to make behavioral choices like deceit--or to be fair, altruism and justice. I think there is a continuum of intelligence among animals, albeit with a huge leap from other apes to humans (most of 'em ). Evolution would imply such a continuum rather than some divine spark that gave humans intelligence, and no other creatures.
Even animals have, as you say, "moral" codes based on instinct and a certain amount of intelligent recall of what happens when Omega Dog challenges Alpha Dog. But humans have a rather different moral code than, say lions, who also have a social hierarchy, but obviously don't find it immoral to kill other animals for food. In fact male lions kill the cubs of other males in order to mate with the females. Not what we humans would consider "moral"!
Our human moral codes stem from the presence of primitive instinct (hunger, sex, fear, survival/xenophobia) modified by the sophisticated ability to reason. We figured out that it did not ultimately do us benefit to indiscriminately lie, cheat & steal, murder, etc. (Not that we don't still do it rampantly--we just have realized that it is not a good thing because it harms other humans, and if they do it to us, it harms us.) We all feel pain, grief, sorrow, frustration, despair, and other unpleasant emotions as a result of the above negative behaviors. So it made sense for us to codify some rules as we were going from small tribes to larger groups in which more strict rules are necessary.
Of course, despite the religious view that God had to be there to tell us what to do, (which is sort of humorous when you think about how old Yahweh actually behaved ), it's perfectly logical that we humans formed our moral systems. In fact, it's even a bit demeaning to our intelligence to insist that we couldn't figure this out without some deity!
I just read your post (#60) and than Wzippler’s post (#59) and think he shows we are not that different than the animals you list. Our only advantage is intelligence, and the hope we can learn from our mistakes. To date it seems we are not doing to good a job at learning from our mistakes.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)
Twain's pithy remark is right on, on the surface. Animals excluding humans do what comes naturally and instinctively. But there is research showing chimps to act deceitfully at times! So it may follow that the higher a creature's intelligence, the more flexibility it has to make behavioral choices like deceit--or to be fair, altruism and justice. I think there is a continuum of intelligence among animals, albeit with a huge leap from other apes to humans (most of 'em ). Evolution would imply such a continuum rather than some divine spark that gave humans intelligence, and no other creatures.
Even animals have, as you say, "moral" codes based on instinct and a certain amount of intelligent recall of what happens when Omega Dog challenges Alpha Dog. But humans have a rather different moral code than, say lions, who also have a social hierarchy, but obviously don't find it immoral to kill other animals for food. In fact male lions kill the cubs of other males in order to mate with the females. Not what we humans would consider "moral"!
Our human moral codes stem from the presence of primitive instinct (hunger, sex, fear, survival/xenophobia) modified by the sophisticated ability to reason. We figured out that it did not ultimately do us benefit to indiscriminately lie, cheat & steal, murder, etc. (Not that we don't still do it rampantly--we just have realized that it is not a good thing because it harms other humans, and if they do it to us, it harms us.) We all feel pain, grief, sorrow, frustration, despair, and other unpleasant emotions as a result of the above negative behaviors. So it made sense for us to codify some rules as we were going from small tribes to larger groups in which more strict rules are necessary.
Of course, despite the religious view that God had to be there to tell us what to do, (which is sort of humorous when you think about how old Yahweh actually behaved ), it's perfectly logical that we humans formed our moral systems. In fact, it's even a bit demeaning to our intelligence to insist that we couldn't figure this out without some deity!
Thank you, Mozart! I can't believe someone dredged this thread up after it had been lying for so many months... I don't know why people do that...
I'm still under the impression that instinct is something along the lines of inherited "knowledge" - at least in many eukaryotic organisms. To go back to my dog... Last night he was sick and dry heaving. I brought him outside and let him walk around in the backyard. He started eating grass like he hadn't eaten something in months. Shortly thereafter he threw up and seemed to be a lot better.
But, it made me wonder.... Where did he learn this from? I certainly didn't teach it to him and he hasn't been around enough dogs in his lifetime to have learned it from them. Yet, he knew exactly what would make him throw up. Then I started to think about a survival story I read where some guy was lost at sea for several weeks. His only source of food were "flying fish" that just so happened to jump in his boat. As his nutrients started to wane, he started craving different parts of the fish. The eyes became something he craved even though he would normally never have eaten them.
So I wondered where this "instinct" comes from. How does the brain draw the connection between the eyes (whose vitamins and proteins he would have needed out at sea more than anything else) and the actual true necessity that it warranted? Similarly, how did my dog know to eat the grass? My only guess is that a dogs nose is, of course, many thousands of times stronger than a human nose, and he could smell a chemical in the grass that makes him throw up. Regardless, in both cases, it seems to be instinctual behavior that is somehow learned. My only guess is that some "learned" behavior becomes passed down not in the sense of the actual knowledge of it; but rather the wiring of the brain that pre-empts these sorts of survival mechanisms.
Anyway, regardless of whether we're talking about dogs eating grass to throw up, humans craving fish eyes for survival, or morals in either dogs and humans, there does seem to be some sort of necessity for cohesiveness and "law" in order for some species to survive and that sort of pre-emptive wiring seems to be passed down from generation to generation.
Thank you, Mozart! I can't believe someone dredged this thread up after it had been lying for so many months... I don't know why people do that...
I'm glad they did...allowed me to wax verbose on something I find interesting!
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Anyway, regardless of whether we're talking about dogs eating grass to throw up, humans craving fish eyes for survival, or morals in either dogs and humans, there does seem to be some sort of necessity for cohesiveness and "law" in order for some species to survive and that sort of pre-emptive wiring seems to be passed down from generation to generation.
Now that I'm over my brief case of dry-heaves from the dog barf and fish eyeballs, I will address your point--I agree, and see no reason that "instinct", whatever it is, would not be mediated through the brain, and inherited through hard-wired circuits in the limbic system. (Actually sort of smacks of Jungian "archetypes", doesn't it?--But then we'll get into the Collective Unconscious, and lord knows where that'll lead. )
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), it's perfectly logical that we humans formed our moral systems. In fact, it's even a bit demeaning to our intelligence to insist that we couldn't figure this out without some deity!
