Morality in Animals

 

Recap

Theory of mind contest: human children vs. primates vs. dogs

🥇First place: Human children (see Cheney and Seyfarth, Baboon Metaphysics)

1. 6 months--follow mother's direction of gaze
2. 6-9 months--grasp what another is reaching for
3. 18 months--grasp likes and dislikes of others when different from their own
4. 2 years -- know to point at toy on a high shelf when asking for help reaching it, if parent wasn't in the room when toy was put there
5. 1-2 years -- children "want to share their experiences and emotions with others" (Cheney and Seyfarth p. 151)
6. 4 years--start passing the false belief test (e.g. they say that Snoopy doesn't know there are candles in the crayon box)

🥈Second place: dogs (Julianne Kaminski video)

1. Compared to apes, dogs are better at understanding they have to obey when they are seen
2. Better at understanding finger pointing and direction of gaze

🥉Third place: the great apes (chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos)

1. Failed false belief test in many experiments for 30 years (Call and Tomasello 2008)
2. Passed false implicit belief test in more recent experiment (Krupene, Kano, et al 2016)
3. But there's some question they understand seeing (Povinelli and Vonk 2003)
4. They do understand hiding, finger pointing, direction of gaze, but not as well as dogs (Kaminski video)

Fourth place: baboons (monkeys, not apes)

1. Bad at hiding but they do hide
2. They also hide food in their mouths
3. Crossing rivers with infants--unaware of infants unique problems
4. But sensitive to distress

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Two questions:

1. Why do dogs do so well, despite being more distant from humans? (what does Kaminski say?)
2. Why don't apes do better? 

• DeWaal, Appendix B--Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind?

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Frans DeWaal

Can the rudiments of morality be found in primates and other animals?

Two possible answers:

1. Morality is purely human.  ❌
• Morality "tames the beast" in us. 
• Without human morality we'd act "like animals"--totally selfish and violent.  
• Morality is a "veneer" hiding our vicious animal nature.
2. Animals have the precursors of morality. ✅
• Our morality evolved from the precursors of morality in our animal ancestors.
• Animals today still have those precursors of morality.
• Our morality is deeply rooted in our natural inclinations.

What are the rudiments of morality that are found in animals?

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DeWaal's Methodology

1. largely studies animals in primate centers and zoos
2. studies them in their own groups
3. wants to avoid anthromorphism and anthropodenial
4. should avoid false positives, but also false negatives

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Empathy

A family of attitudes

• Emotional contagion--you feel X, I feel X
• Empathy--you feel X, I feel YOUR X
• Sympathy--I feel bad for you that you are feeling X
• Personal distress--you feel X and that distresses me
• Consolation--I put my arm around you because you feel X
• Post-fight consolation--bystander consoles the loser after a fight
• Targeted helping--I help you get what you need, which is different from what I need

Examples in animals

1. Empathic rats
2. Empathic rhesus monkeys--lever delivers food to me, shock to you.  About 2/3 of hungry rhesus monkeys refrain from pushing lever for many days.
3. Targeted helping -- 
• Kuni (chimp) helping bird
• Kinti Jua (chimp) saves boy -- Inside the Animal Mind
• Jakie(chimp) helps Krom with tires
• other cases in dolphins and elephants (connection to self-awareness?)
4. Post-fight consolation--proven in apes only

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Reciprocity

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Cooperation

1. Elephants, chimpanzees

Empathy

Reciprocity & Fairness

1. Chimpanzees share food more with those who groomed them earlier
2. Capuchin monkeys react negatively when paid less for equal work

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Preview

Animal Minds ---> Human Ethics

Capacities of animals, to some degree:

1. Sentience, pain, pleasure
2. Consciousness beyond sentience
3. Self-awareness--e.g. mirror self-recognition
4. Time travel--recalling oneself in past, anticipating oneself in future
5. Thinking--insight, solving novel problems, having beliefs
6. Beliefs about social status of others
7. Imitation, culture
8. Communication
9. Theory of mind--understanding minds of others
10. Precursors of morality--empathy, fairness, cooperation etc.

Do we owe more to animals, the more they have capacities 1-10

Or is sentience all that really matters?

Next time: DeWaal vs. Peter Singer on whether apes have rights

Next week: a range of views on what we owe to animals (Andrews)

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