Anthropomorphism and You

[Cool Hand]

(OK, I have insomnia)

We all read and hear from time to time that we should be careful not to fall prey to a common tendency to anthropomorphize animals. That is to say that we should not project human emotions, thoughts, tendencies, and behaviors upon animals.

I have two comments about that.

One is that humans should spend more time and thought reminding ourselves that we are animals. There is no bright dividing line demarking us versus them. We like to think that we humans are special, but we are not. We are not the final end product of an intelligent evolutionary trek that started with single cell replicating organisms. Evolution through natural selection is simply a process, and we as homo sapiens are merely one twig on one of millions of branches on the animal evolutionary tree. That tree continues to grow. Unless life itself on our home planet is snuffed out by a cataclysmic event before humans die as a species, we are likely to become extinct while the evolutionary process on Earth continues to produce more new species along our particular branch.

I blame religion most for our human-centrism. In the West, I blame the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran. Specifically, I blame the author(s) of Genesis. Why the hell did they have to assert that God created man in His own image and that He created "the beasts" to serve mankind? That hubris has caused us to continue to live with the cultural legacy that declares highly intelligent predator species like dogs and cats to be mere "dumb animals."

The other comment I have is that perhaps we should consciously and deliberately engage in more, not less, anthropomorphism than we tend to do already. I say this for two reasons.

First, empathizing more with our other animal friends--our fellow Earthlings--would likely lead to our treating them more humanely than most of us do now. This would likely lead to our inflicting less unnecessary pain and suffering upon other animals, and also to our being less cruel towards them. Perhaps we might be less inclined to be cruel towards our fellow humans as well.

Second, by gaining a fresh perspective about our fellow animals, we would likely gain a fresh perspective about ourselves as a species. We can do so by regarding other animal species as part of a broad spectrum of animal life. That spectrum arose from varying ecological conditions and from myriad opportunities to fill different niches for eating certain available foods and to avoid being eaten by members of predatory species living nearby. By appreciating the roles other animals have assumed within their respective ecosystems, we will gain a better appreciation for the role of humans on our home planet. Know thyself.

Thoughts? Comments? Differing or opposing positions?

Cool Hand

[Adora]

Originally Posted by Cool Hand

In the West, I blame the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran...

What do you blame in the East, exactly?

we are likely to become extinct while the evolutionary process on Earth continues to produce more new species along our particular branch.

So?

This would likely lead to our inflicting less unnecessary pain and suffering upon other animals, and also to our being less cruel towards them.

Where do you draw the line though? We can love and cuddle all the cute fluffy mammals on this planet, but we'll still eat the fish, and stomp on the other 95% of the total species on the planet (bugs!) without a care. Especially the bug part. We're instinctually paranoid of the little fellas, simply because they outnumber us and are such better survivors. *toasts bugs*

We can do so by regarding other animal species as part of a broad spectrum of animal life.

You assume we already don't. Just because something is understood as part of a matrix/spectrum, doesn't mean it has to be as equally valued as the rest. See comments regarding bugs.

Oh, and as my closing statement, PETA are dickheads if they think forcing the pissy amount of US clothing manufacturers who use an itty-bitty bit of Marino Australian wool to stop using it will prevent Live-Exports of sheep. I mean really, DICKHEADS!

[Godless Dave]

I think what Cool Hand is talking about is, to give a simplistic example, when one person says "My dog seems bored" and another person says "Don't try to impose human emotions on animals." The thing is, mammals, particularly pack animals like dogs whose brains are similar in structure to ours, do feel some kind of "emotion". They are not exactly the same as ours but I think it's a mistake to assume they are fundamentally alien.

Anyone who has owns a pet, or even a working animal like a horse, learns to read the animal's body language and predict it's behavior. And it seems to me that doing so is getting an understanding of what the animal is feeling.

And, yes, I do eat certain animals for food. In the case of fish I even catch and kill them myself (or try to). But that doesn't preclude some empathy for them. I'd like food animals to be treated humanely when they are alive, and humanely as possible when they are slaughtered.

The argument I've heard from the other side is that what we perceive as emotions in animals are just responses to stimuli, and their body language is just an attempt to elicit responses from humans. And I ask, how is that different from human emotion?

[Farren]

I agree with you Cool Hand. I think the term "anthropomorphising" is thrown around far too easily. I've also often seen the specious claim that we cannot know how an animal feels and therefore can't assume tossed around far too much.

Its self evident that we can't "know", as in experience the qualia of any other creature, including other humans. But we can communicate such things and can confer such things from the behaviour of others.

A previous response I've seen to this line of reasoning is that humans can communicate their feelings, providing a means of verifying their state, whereas animals cannot. Must we, then, assume our inferences from behaviour are false if we are dealing with someone who's language we can't speak? I don't think so.

What seems evident to me is that we share with a great many creatures a brain, a CNS, a heart, lungs, a stomach, skin, bones etc. To presume that their sensations are so vastly different from ours that we cannot accurately sense their joy or pain is assuming way, way more than assuming that we can empathise with them.

[JoeP]

I agree with your basic point. Activities belittled as anthropomorphising are often reasonable. I know when my dog is upset. I know when my cat is annoyed.

It's philosophically valid to question whether animals do or can possibly experience emotions like ours, and whether we can really tell what they're experiencing. But before asking this question we need to ask another: how do we know what other humans feel? The only differentiator between other humans and our household pets is language; is there any ground for assuming that language alone is a better guide to the communicator's feelings than behaviour? I think I can more reliably tell when my cat's annoyed than when one of you on this board is annoyed. I think behaviour is a big part of communicating emotinal state, and behaviour alone can indicate an emotional state. Ergo, it's not anthropomorphising (falsely ascribing human attributes) to speak about emotions in animals.

Plus, anthorpomiorhising is a damn difficult word to type out correctly.

But I don't blame religion or their canonical texts. All the religions are doing is codifying existing prejudices and creating a pseudo-independent justification for the centralisation of power (between tribes, races, genders, age groups, whatever).

[dave_a]

While I don't doubt the living things "feel" in some sense, here is somthing to consider.

While some animals may be able to 'feel' things like happy, sad, bored, angry can animals be mean or cruel / sadistic? In a morally 'bad' way I mean.

When a tiger repeatedly wounds a large animal to weaken it before going in for the kill is it "enjoying" the pain it is inflicting on the prey? It certainly seems indifferent to it at a minimum.

How about the dometic cat that plays with a mouse, it eventually dies and get's brought home to it's human and then left to rot?

Was the cat just being mean and showing it's lack of respect to the mouse or was it just some kind of instinct?

What about the male animal that gets sexual release with a non cooperative male of it's species? This couldn't be an instinct to reproduce could it since reproduction can't occur? I mean the same thing happens in prisons where men rape other men, but this seems to me to be a dominance/power thing rather than a sexual thing. Is it different for animals, even those of relatively high intelligence?

See, to me if animals can 'feel' or experience emotional states in response to external events I have to question whether or not animals can have moral judgements passed upon them for their actions.

Not that it is terribly relevant whether we can fairly pass moral judgement rather than just saying "It's instinct" and excusing it as if the animal has no sense of what it is doing, I am just curious about this is all. I wonder if explaining 'bad' animal behavior as 'instinct' tells the whole story.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by dantonac

While some animals may be able to 'feel' things like happy, sad, bored, angry can animals be mean or cruel / sadistic? In a morally 'bad' way I mean.

When a tiger repeatedly wounds a large animal to weaken it before going in for the kill is it "enjoying" the pain it is inflicting on the prey? It certainly seems indifferent to it at a minimum.

How about the dometic cat that plays with a mouse, it eventually dies and get's brought home to it's human and then left to rot?

...

I have to question whether or not animals can have moral judgements passed upon them for their actions.

Good question. First, I think your tiger and cat examples don't involve any meanness or sadism; they are parts of necessary behaviour. If we could monitor synapse activity and neurotransmitter levels I guess we'd find that the animal's "emotional state" is focused on the prospect of food, so there is pleasure there, but not deriving from the infliction of pain.

A better example might be when my male cat jumps onto the chair where the female is lying, and licks her head, and then she licks his, and they get into a hissing fight. That's just mean.

But it's still not necessarily morally judgeable. For morality you have to have a concept of how the other creature feels, and how they will feel as a consequence of your actions. Then we can ask whether you care. For all that I've claimed animals clearly have identifiable emotions, I think it's much less obvious that many species can identify emotions in others. Maybe dogs can sense how their owner is feeling, but I don't believe that any mammals apart from primates, and maybe only humans, can have a mental representation of how a fellow is going to feel as a result of certain actions. And you need this to pass moral judgements like "it shouldn't do that".

joe

[dave_a]

Originally Posted by JoeP

But it's still not necessarily morally judgeable. For morality you have to have a concept of how the other creature feels, and how they will feel as a consequence of your actions. Then we can ask whether you care. For all that I've claimed animals clearly have identifiable emotions, I think it's much less obvious that many species can identify emotions in others. Maybe dogs can sense how their owner is feeling, but I don't believe that any mammals apart from primates, and maybe only humans, can have a mental representation of how a fellow is going to feel as a result of certain actions. And you need this to pass moral judgements like "it shouldn't do that".

joe

Well I am thinking of animal rape actually which I believe was the best of the examples I gave. From what I understand (not an expert) rape among all animals including humans is a dominance/power thing. So a primate forces intercourse (or just violent sexual behavior whether intercourse occurs or not) on another primate where reproduction is impossible (cuz it's gay rape). If these creatures are capable of understanding things like a human is angry, happy etc. surely they can recognize that one of their own is in pain or seriously pissed off.

Since they continue doing it in spite of the adverse reaction I would have to conclude they don't care about how the 'victim' feels.

The reason I think animal rape is a good example to examine in trying to conclue whether animals can be held morally good or bad is because the rape thing seems to so closely parallel caged human behavior (prison rape). From what I hear (but have no actual experience or direct knowlege of) rape in prison is viewed by some inmates as a normal or at least acceptable 'punishment' to those who aren't observing the established pecking order. From what I have heard explained by folks who work professionally with animals, the rape behavior is also a punishment/retaliation for some offense to a more alpha member of the group.

This would seem to imply not only a moral decision since these animals show evidence of being able to understand emotional states in their own species at a minimum, but it would even seem to be 'revenge' of a sort and in some cases may even involve some degree of premeditation and planning.

[Socratoad]

Ah a subject very dear to my heart Cool Hand. I have come to detest that bloody term. That is one off the science type constipated concepts that has humans from understanding their fellow animals for far too long.

Time for a little story: Jane Goodall, who incidentally is the same age as me and whom I have admired for many years would not have been able to make her observations and thus contribute to more understanding about Chimpanzees than any other person if she had been afraid of the fucking mind-numbing guidelines laid down by the scientific community of her time.

Dr. Leakey knew exactly what he was doing when he chose three relatively uneducated young women to study the great apes. The recognized experts told her and the others that they must Never anthropomorphize the animals they were about to study. Under no conditions must they name them or attempt to befriend them. All apes must be referred to by using numbers just in case they might lose their objectivity.

Jane paid no attention whatsoever and went on to bring insights into the world of chimps never before dreamed of, as did the other two young women with gorillas and oran utans.

However I will stick to Jane's story. Only after she began to become well known because of her discoveries did Dr Leaky insist that she return to England to further her formal education, not because she really needed it, but because Dr Leaky was well aware that the stuffy snob-ridden "experts" in the field would not even begin to accept what had been presented right before their very eyes. Jane went on to complete a PH D. Only then did the stuffy bastards grudgingly accept the findings of a self proclaimed anthropomorphous.

And so I who have had a very deep relationship with almost all creatures great and small can barely keep my hands off the throats of those who over the years have accused me of anthropomorphizing.

Please forgive me if my posting on so many subjects are not very indepth. My fingers are becomming ver arthritic and thus my typing is very slow.
Even when they were not I would not have won any speed typing contests.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

Please forgive me if my posting on so many subjects are not very indepth. My fingers are becomming ver arthritic and thus my typing is very slow.
Even when they were not I would not have won any speed typing contests.

Thank you for the post - interesting and touching. You don't need forgiveness for posting less detail than you'd like (this post, for one, is in depth; it's not supposed to be an article after all). Although I'm sorry to hear about your arthritis. (Musing ... in the online world, arthritis in the hands, and maybe carpal tunnel syndrome, must be like partial blindness or deafness in the self-styled "real" world: slowly limiting your ability to communicate.)

Compared to you, I post in very little depth at all. I don't feel good about this but I feel worse about not posting at all if I think I can't write a "good enough" response.

joe

[Socratoad]

Thanks JoeP, I suppose it is part of the human condition that we all feel inadequate from time to time.

[Cool Hand]

Originally Posted by Adora

What do you blame in the East, exactly?

As I was commenting on "our" cultural biases, meaning those in the West, Eastern cultures are irrelevant to this topic. We didn't inherit our cultural biases from the East. Besides, I was merely ranting about where I think our modern cultural human-centrism comes from. The blame part is not really the main point of my OP.

So?

So, the point I was making is that homo sapiens is not the final product--the holy grail--of evolution by natural selection, as so many persons seem to believe. The evolutionary process will continue to produce new animal life species along our great ape branch well after homo sapiens as a species is gone. That's the "so."

Where do you draw the line though? We can love and cuddle all the cute fluffy mammals on this planet, but we'll still eat the fish, and stomp on the other 95% of the total species on the planet (bugs!) without a care. Especially the bug part. We're instinctually paranoid of the little fellas, simply because they outnumber us and are such better survivors. *toasts bugs*

That's a very good point. It would make for a very interesting discussion, but it's not what I had in mind. I agree with you that so-called "lower" animals with rudimentary brains are not likely to experience emotions resembling those of "higher" animals. I don't think many persons agree on where the lines should be drawn, or even if lines can be drawn demarking emotive animals from non-emotive ones.

I was interested in provoking discussion about regarding humans as animals, and how doing so breaks down the "anthropomorphism" barrier between humans and other animals. That barrier is one that philosophers and religious founders erected thousands of years ago, and one that scientists have helped keep firmly in place in recent centuries.

I loathe our cultural tendencies to elevate man above other Earthlings. We have no greater claim to natural resources than any other species. Nevertheless, humans certainly act as if we do. Furthermore, our Abrahamic religions teach us that God created animals to serve man. The results of those philosophical approaches have led humans to engage in environmentally damaging activities recklessly, without due regard to how they impact the surrounding ecosystem which supports other life forms. Thus we have inadvertently killed countless species of plants and animals forever, rendering them extinct. Such process occurs without human intervention, of course, but we have caused it to occur with regard to certain species that might still be around otherwise, and have perhaps hastened it with regard to others.

Modern Western scientists tend to discount emotions and "personality" in higher animals as instinctive responses to stimuli. Practically any child with a close pet friend can see and understand that mammals and birds get happy, sad, mad, and embarrassed, and experience other emotions as well. Why is that so hard for the scientific establishment to grasp and accept?

You assume we already don't. Just because something is understood as part of a matrix/spectrum, doesn't mean it has to be as equally valued as the rest. See comments regarding bugs.

I assume only that by and large as a culture, the modern West does not regard humans as animals. That's all.

Oh, and as my closing statement, PETA are dickheads if they think forcing the pissy amount of US clothing manufacturers who use an itty-bitty bit of Marino Australian wool to stop using it will prevent Live-Exports of sheep. I mean really, DICKHEADS!

I said nothing about PETA, and my OP was not inspired by or influenced by any positions PETA may or may not hold. I am not a PETA member or supporter, and I don't really care about them. That said, I don't mind your inserting a little rant about PETA here.

Thanks for your remarks. I hope I have made my position clearer.

Cool Hand

[Cool Hand]

Godless Dave and Farren,

I think both of you understood my point precisely. We agree. I like your responses; I think they help elucidate my central point very well. Thanks.

JoeP,

You make a very good point about religion's role in merely codifying already existing cultural biases. To the extent that religious texts merely codify such biases, I agree completely. Nevertheless, I think sacred religious texts help influence, refine, and sustain those same biases. To the extent that they do, I think it is appropriate to place blame upon them when those biases are harmful or counterproductive.

Dantonac,

I love your questions about morality and other animals. I've often pondered about the source of morals, and whether other animals might have some natural law encoded in their DNA. That implies that either we do, or that morals are completely a human cultural construct. I have a hard time discounting the notion of natural law entirely, as I believe that humans at least have a universal notion that murder, an unjustified killing, is morally wrong. Of course, the concept of murder begs the question about justification, which itself begs the question about the existence of morals in the first place.

I suppose this is simply another way of examining behavioral tendencies that are genetic versus those that are taught culturally. We know from some great ape studies that chimpanzees, for instance, teach some behaviors that are not instinctive. The example I can think of is the chimps who were provided potatoes by their human observers. One chimp waded in the sea with her potato and accidently discovered in the process that it tasted better with salt on it. She then taught the other members of her group the same trick, and they all adopted the practice. When new members of the group were born, the mothers taught their babies to dunk their potatoes in the seawater to season them.

Socratoad,

Thanks for your insights. Your story about Jane Goodall is illustrative of the central point of my OP. I never knew the how or why behind Goodall's majority of a lifetime spent among the chimps.

Cool Hand

[Farren]

What's interesting about Socratoad's account of observation of Chimps is how closely it parallels certain developments in human psychological studies.

In the 60's and early 70's (IIRC), behaviorists ruled the roost in psychology. Watson, et al had convinced many in the profession that "Mind" was a dirty word. One was not allowed to presume anything about the opaque internal mechanics of the mind. Instead human beings were to be considered stimulus-response machines, entirely black boxes who could only be evaluated according to their inputs and outputs.

The client-centred approach of people like Carl Rogers played a significant role in changing that, so that many contemporary psychologists view a personal and intuitive relationship with a subject as essential to understanding.

In terms of non-pharmaceutical therapy, the latter has been far more successful than the former in therapeutic psychology.

[Gawen]

I submit the opposite. I think animals should empathise more with humans. That way maybe the next colony of fireants won't colonise my front yard.
Or maybe the deer won't run out in front of a person and cause the death of said person when she turns the vehicle into a tree to avoid the unthinking animal. If only there were more Bambi's and their intelligent mothers.
Perhaps rats will take better care of themselves when concerning lice and fleas, preventing the spread of disease.
And even the lowly locust will no longer ravage the fields but instead help the subsistance farmer to weed the crops of weeds.

To empathise is to understand. To understand is to relate. When the wolf lies down with a live sheep, then I may have the guts to do the same with the wolf...but don't hold your breath.

This post is of heavy sarcasm, but the intent is meant.

[Farren]

I posted a lengthy essay on the Pate de Foi Gras thread that I think is salient to this more general discussion, so I hope no one minds if I link it here:

Empathy with other species and morality

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by Farren

I posted a lengthy essay on the Pate de Foi Gras thread that I think is salient to this more general discussion, so I hope no one minds if I link it here:

Empathy with other species and morality

Farren, every once in a while a posting or in this case an essay that so well articulates the view I hold and the values that I treasure that I, at least for the present, can think of little to add. Its all about being sentient, its all about empathy.


And you dantonac, I have come to regard you as a very intelligent person. So why are you trying to deny the very fundamentals that make you you and me me. We are in no way similar to an electronic black box that just churns out endless steams of logic without the hardware to even simulate emotion.

Such opposing argument I see presented by you reminds me of some damned high school debating society, where one just debates on one obvious point versus another point from right off the wall.

Sit back my good man and take a very deep breath .....You are beginning to sound like a cross between Rene Descartes and shyster lawyer of great cunning.

It has always amazed me that old Rene is held in such high esteem. Like yourself he never seemed to have any close relationship with any member of another species or even to have observed nature nor to have gained any sense of the interaction between every living thing on the planet. And yet by merely lying in bed most of the day, staring at the ceiling, he managed to come up with the most "logical" reasoning of the differences between himself and the "lower" animals.

I believe old Rene had the stuff that could have made him a philosopher that I would greatly respect if only instead of staring at the ceiling before coming up with profound pronouncement he packed a picnic basket with good food and a bottle of wine and went down by the Seine and fed the ducks, he just might have been brilliant. And so might you.

Good dog man, do you have any concept of how your reasoning sounds to a person whom has been observing and interacting with creatures other than human for most of his life. And yet it is logical, purely and only logical.

[Farren]

Thanks Socratoad. I appreciate your thoughts equally as much.

There's an interesting book I read a few years back called "Descartes Dream" basically examining the influence of thinkers like Descarte in our intellectual understanding of the world. The "dream" referred to was that somehow we could eventually produce logical and mathematical models that could predict all natural phenomenon, that it was just a case of having sufficient data.

The authors argued that, despite the fact that such an idea has been rubbished by science itself (Godel's theorem, complexity and chaos theory etc), its spirit lingers on in the thinking of many modern intellectuals. Its certainly evident when discussing ethics and animals.

[dave_a]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

And you dantonac, I have come to regard you as a very intelligent person. So why are you trying to deny the very fundamentals that make you you and me me. We are in no way similar to an electronic black box that just churns out endless steams of logic without the hardware to even simulate emotion.

I think this discussion would go better in the linked thread, not this one.

It has always amazed me that old Rene is held in such high esteem. Like yourself he never seemed to have any close relationship with any member of another species or even to have observed nature nor to have gained any sense of the interaction between every living thing on the planet. And yet by merely lying in bed most of the day, staring at the ceiling, he managed to come up with the most "logical" reasoning of the differences between himself and the "lower" animals.

If you have to reduce me to one who sits in bed staring at the ceiling all day to deal with my arguments then that doesn't speak well of your beliefs.

I believe old Rene had the stuff that could have made him a philosopher that I would greatly respect if only instead of staring at the ceiling before coming up with profound pronouncement he packed a picnic basket with good food and a bottle of wine and went down by the Seine and fed the ducks, he just might have been brilliant. And so might you.

I frequently pepper my posts with examples of my love for nature and my enjoyment of my interactions with it. I do this in a futile attempt to avoid these mischaracterizations. It doesn't seem to do any good. Again, if the best you can do in arguing against my position is to characterize me as someone laying in bed all day who "doesn't feed the ducks" then you have no position worthy of much consideration.

Good dog man, do you have any concept of how your reasoning sounds to a person whom has been observing and interacting with creatures other than human for most of his life. And yet it is logical, purely and only logical.

Yes, seeing as I was raised and live in farming communities and most of my free time is spent hiking, camping, fishing, going to zoos, feeding ducks/geese, gardening and the like and my friends tend to be very similar in this regard I know exactly how my reasoning sounds to such people. Generally they share the same view.

Other than a 4 year stint in the military there has never been a time in my life when I didn't surround myself with animals. As a kid I would catch frogs, turtles, salamanders, fish, and whatever else was around. As pets I have had dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, birds, rats, hamsters, snakes, fish, frogs, a couple iguanas, a savannah monitor and the list goes on. My parents figured I would grow up to work in a zoo. One of my favorite activities with my 5 year old is going into the garden and identifying the various bugs that inhabit it and explaining what they are, what they do etc. I don't use any pesticides in my garden, even organic types other than some slug killer around a particular plant that is very susceptible to slugs. That was this year. Next year I will avoid planting the same thing so I don't have to use the slug killer. I don't have much empathy for slugs, but I just don't like killing things if I can avoid it.

So, you are just so far off base with your assessment of me that I can't do much but laugh at your post (if I didn't laugh I would get angry). I like you and am not trying to be rude at all with you, but you are just completely off base and I feel that needs to be pointed out pointedly since you evidently missed all the other examples I gave that would have clued you in that your assessment is off base.

You don't like my position and that's fine. But if you wish to argue against my position I think it is fair that you argue the position instead of mischaracterizing me and thinking that it makes your position superior.

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by dantonac

I think this discussion would go better in the linked thread, not this one.

If you have to reduce me to one who sits in bed staring at the ceiling all day to deal with my arguments then that doesn't speak well of your beliefs.

I frequently pepper my posts with examples of my love for nature and my enjoyment of my interactions with it. I do this in a futile attempt to avoid these mis-characterizations. It doesn't seem to do any good. Again, if the best you can do in arguing against my position is to characterize me as someone laying in bed all day who "doesn't feed the ducks" then you have no position worthy of much consideration.

Yes, seeing as I was raised and live in farming communities and most of my free time is spent hiking, camping, fishing, going to zoos, feeding ducks/geese, gardening and the like and my friends tend to be very similar in this regard I know exactly how my reasoning sounds to such people. Generally they share the same view.

Other than a 4 year stint in the military there has never been a time in my life when I didn't surround myself with animals. As a kid I would catch frogs, turtles, salamanders, fish, and whatever else was around. As pets I have had dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, birds, rats, hamsters, snakes, fish, frogs, a couple iguanas, a savannah monitor and the list goes on. My parents figured I would grow up to work in a zoo. One of my favorite activities with my 5 year old is going into the garden and identifying the various bugs that inhabit it and explaining what they are, what they do etc. I don't use any pesticides in my garden, even organic types other than some slug killer around a particular plant that is very susceptible to slugs. That was this year. Next year I will avoid planting the same thing so I don't have to use the slug killer. I don't have much empathy for slugs, but I just don't like killing things if I can avoid it.

So, you are just so far off base with your assessment of me that I can't do much but laugh at your post (if I didn't laugh I would get angry). I like you and am not trying to be rude at all with you, but you are just completely off base and I feel that needs to be pointed out pointedly since you evidently missed all the other examples I gave that would have clued you in that your assessment is off base.

You don't like my position and that's fine. But if you wish to argue against my position I think it is fair that you argue the position instead of mischaracterizing me and thinking that it makes your position superior.

I'm sorry if I have mischaracterized you as that really was not my intention. I am quite awestruck that you and I who seem to have lived a very similar life can have come to such different conclusions regarding empathy. However I guess that is why being human makes for such interesting variations among philosophies.

Cheers dantonic, I like you too and bear you no ill-will, indeed quite the opposite.

[Farren]

OK, having gone back and read the comment Dantonac is referring to I have to concur that it comes across as more a personal judgement rather than an argument with his views.

[dave_a]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

I'm sorry if I have mischaracterized you as that really was not my intention. I am quite awestruck that you and I who seem to have lived a very similar life can have come to such different conclusions regarding empathy. However I guess that is why being human makes for such interesting variations among philosophies.

Cheers dantonic, I like you too and bear you no ill-will, indeed quite the opposite.

Apology accepted and no ill will here at all. When various positions are put at odds it leads to emotional reactions. I am frequently guilty of it myself despite endeavoring not to be. Cheers.

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by dantonac

Apology accepted and no ill will here at all. When various positions are put at odds it leads to emotional reactions. I am frequently guilty of it myself despite endeavoring not to be. Cheers.

dantonac, I've been reflecting upon just why I hammered out the offending post this morning. I am about a third way through a rather large philosophical tome on the subject of empathy and ethics. The cash advance has long along been swallowed up by all the usual expenses of living, and yet due to a fairly recent illness I fear I shall never finish this book. This weighs on my mind even more than I care to admit, and so the frustration boiled up in me and I unfairly took all this frustration out on you.
Not very objective I know.

I like this board very much and hope to be able to make some valuable contributions here. And so I'm the one who must sit back and take that deep breath.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Gawen

I submit the opposite. I think animals should empathise more with humans. That way maybe the next colony of fireants won't colonise my front yard.
Or maybe the deer won't run out in front of a person and cause the death of said person when she turns the vehicle into a tree to avoid the unthinking animal. If only there were more Bambi's and their intelligent mothers.
Perhaps rats will take better care of themselves when concerning lice and fleas, preventing the spread of disease.
And even the lowly locust will no longer ravage the fields but instead help the subsistance farmer to weed the crops of weeds.

To empathise is to understand. To understand is to relate. When the wolf lies down with a live sheep, then I may have the guts to do the same with the wolf...but don't hold your breath.

This post is of heavy sarcasm, but the intent is meant.

But what is your intent? You seem to be saying animals aren't deserving of empathy unless they give us the same. You can't mean that, so what do you mean?

I refer you to my earlier comment:

For morality you have to have a concept of how the other creature feels, and how they will feel as a consequence of your actions.

Fireants don't and will never understand the consequence of their actions on humans. Almost as certainly for the locust, deer and wolf.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Fireants don't and will never understand the consequence of their actions on humans. Almost as certainly for the locust, deer and wolf.

I guess that means we get to eat them.