Animals can tell right from wrong

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5373379/Animals-can-tell-right-from-wrong.html

by hko • 17 years ago

30 29 17 years ago

telegraph.co.uk

pj9• 17 years ago

I think this is a really important study. Humans are so arrogant to believe that other species of animals, (humans are animals, don't forget) do not have emotions or thoughts or communicate with each other in a manner more complex than what we hear as a bark or a chirp.

How do we know they aren't communicating concepts as complicated as "Be careful there is a human approaching and it looks dangerous." with one syllable?

If you look at trends in human communication, across all languages, then you'll find syllable reduction increases as the word frequency increases. There are only 9 words in the 100 most common english words that have more than one syllable, and none with more than 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English

If you look up these words in the dictionary, they are the most difficult to describe. Compare the definition of "the" to the definition of "superfluous" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superfluous

This pattern is not just found in English. Some, perhaps most, Asian languages even include tones in single syllable words to indicate different meanings.

It could be argued then, that perhaps the consciousness of animals is actually more advanced than human consciousness. Who knows? Just because we don't understand them doesn't mean they aren't complex, perhaps the very reason we do not understand them is because they are more complex forms of communication than human communication.

Why too then can't this same principle be applied to their concepts of right and wrong? Their morality?

I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it. That seems quite morally corrupt. Animals kill other animals for what appear to be rationalizable reasons, food, competition, self-preservation.

Even when fighting for mates, the loser of a battle is allowed to escape with its life. Sometimes accidents happen and the animals die of injuries, but death is not the intent. Humans intend to kill when they battle.

mrbgty2• 17 years ago

I have a chihuahua that (when left unsupervised) would kill chickens and kittens for fun.

When all its doing is breaking a neck and moving to the next one, it's hard to say that it was just hungry.

pj9• 17 years ago

Ah... that is interesting! I wonder why that is.

My first reaction is to think that perhaps the behavior you describe and that behavior in humans is the result of surplus supply of prey. In the wild, prey are difficult to find and so they are eaten when killed. When there are more prey than can be eaten, the drive to play and gain hunting experience, becomes killing for sport and a display of suitability for mating.

sjs382• 17 years ago

Quite possibly my favorite HN comment ever. :)

philwelch2• 17 years ago

"Even when fighting for mates, the loser of a battle is allowed to escape with its life. Sometimes accidents happen and the animals die of injuries, but death is not the intent. Humans intend to kill when they battle."

Usually, when human males fistfight over a woman, the loser is still allowed to escape with his life. Murder doesn't usually enter the picture outside of adultery, but a cuckolded alpha wolf will not be all too kind, either (and most cuckolded humans don't murder, either.)

Humans will fight to the death over resources, but we are not the only species that will do that.

pj9• 17 years ago

Nice one! I love this stuff. I suppose more powerful tools of battle increase accidental death in all species.

I can see an evolutionary rationale for cuckolded violence. Unfaithful mates introduce other genes that take resources the cuckolded mates could be providing to their own offspring. The unfaithful mates, once driven away, increase the probability that all raised offspring are genetic descendents and is an incentive to reduce infidelity by future mates.

anamax• 17 years ago

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

How do you know why an animal does something?

Sure, it may eat after it killed, but humans sacrifice a goat it's reasonable to say that they didn't kill it for food even if they do get around to eating it.

When a cat brings mouse butts to its owner, did it kill the mouse for to eat or just as a side effect of the offering? How do you know? Heck - what is the intent of the offering?

BTW - Writing "I don't know any animal" suggests that your knowledge of/experience with animals is comprensive enough to offer as evidence. How about describing said knowledge/experience especially wrt its range? (I've spent hundreds of hours with horses, but I don't claim to know what they're thinking; it's barely enough to make a good guess as to what they might do. I might have a clue wrt cats and dogs, at least specific ones, but I have no chance with birds, reptiles, fish, sea mammals, cattle, elephants, other primates, and so on.)

pj9• 17 years ago

Yeah, that's a good point. Kind of contradictory of me to say humans are arrogant to pretend to know what animals are thinking and then say myself that animals don't kill for sheer pleasure. So I can't say this for sure, because I don't know.

By "I don't know of" I mean, I haven't observed it, or rather more specifically, I haven't observed behavior that is similar, but I'm still a student of this field of knowledge. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. The chihuahua example above from mrbgty is a curious case. It is interesting though that chihuahuas are an invention of man, bred by man with certain personality traits that may not exist in the wild outside such human influence. Of course there could be myriad examples of it we (I) am not aware of, because we can't read their minds. I'd love to be able to read animal minds though, how awesome would that be?!

As far as my knowledge, just what biology classes I have taken and reading some books like Darwin's expression of emotions in man and animal. Good read, many versions here: http://books.google.com/books?q=editions:ISBN1417958944&...

I'm no zoologist of course. I did watch a lot of Nature on PBS and that sort of thing, but definitely no expert. Mostly I just find it a fascinating question of what really separates man and animal.

req23• 17 years ago

> or communicate with each other in a manner more complex than what we hear as a bark or a chirp.

If you're suggesting the supernatural, that's just silly. If you're suggesting linguists have been missing the bit between the formants all this time, I'm pretty sure the literature stands in opposibtion.

> How do we know they aren't communicating concepts as complicated as "Be careful there is a human approaching and it looks dangerous." with one syllable?

Because we already understand the difference between various and sundry monkey calls. In one group, one shriek means a particular ground based predator, and a doubled shriek means a particular air/tree based predator. There's no (physical) room for the nuance you seek to impute.

> If you look at trends in human communication, across all languages, then you'll find syllable reduction increases as the word frequency increases.

And yet, all those other words stick around, and we don't fall into monosyllabic speech. And yet, from monosyllabic "speech" of animals, you jump into advanced consciousness.

It's not the case that we don't understand animal communication. Very simple hypotheses explain a great deal of animal communication. Compare this to quantum physics, some bit of it that we don't yet understand, and see where the difference is found.

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

How do you measure animal pleasure? Have you studied the motivations for chimps killing other chimps? Have you examined why bulldogs attack children, or perhaps, why dingos eat babies? Aside from the fact that you stacked the question to favor your presupposed answer, the "I don't know" defense doesn't hold when you don't seem to have done any research.

(Ever watch a cat play with a mouse? Seems pretty fun. This is not an argument for an advanced cat consciousness.)

pj9• 17 years ago

I'm not suggesting "supernatural" but rather, "superobservational." For example, due to our use of human range sound recordings, we had studied elephants for a very long time before understanding that they use low frequency communication through the ground over distances of many miles.

With those monkey calls, how do you know that an increasing freqency through the life of the monkey call doesn't mean something different from a decreasing freqency? Perhaps the length of the call indicates the size of the predator?

The trend I have noticed is that as we study them more and more, some of the ideas we thought in the past incorrectly assumed that communications between animals is less complex than recent ideas. The impression of the complexity of nonhuman communication and, according to the linked article spawning this debate, even moral decision making, is increasing over time.

How do you measure human pleasure? A smile? A wink? A laugh. These same outward expressions of emotions are found in other species as well.

run4yourlives• 17 years ago

Animals have been documented killing for fun. Chimps do it often. Orcas play with seals. Hell even cats bat that mouse around before they finally take the life out of its body.

Either these animals don't know that there an issue with torturing their victims, or they simply don't care. Either way your point about humans being the only animal to kill for sport is moot.

electromagnetic3• 17 years ago

Actually very few animal species kill for fun, you pretty much mention the only two other than humans. Chimps are the one species outside of humans known to kill their own kind for sheer cruelty; they'll attack opponents to the brink of death and then leave them to suffer, usually dying days or weeks later from their injuries.

Orcas do appear to play with their food for amusement, usually it's their last catch. However, the catch seems to be donated to the youngest member who is learning the beaching techniques and the behavior is not usually seen in Orcas that don't beach, which either gives them different social and cultural mores between the two distinct groups of Orcas (nomadic and sedentary) or it serves a purpose in training the young to hunt.

The domestic cat frequently behaves in the same way as a lion or tiger cub that hasn't been taught to hunt. When any cat is taught to hunt by its mother (big or small) it's obvious that they don't play with their food. Mature fully trained Orca's seemingly play with their food, however mature fully trained cats never play with their food. All domestic cat's 'play' behaviors with its prey, are exclusively hunting tactics.

I don't exactly see how humans being the only animal killing for sport is moot, it's not wholly accurate but it's damn near so. As these are all mammals it means the behavior is exhibited on a roughly 1:1300 of species that kill for fun and species that don't.

For all the species that apparently present morality to have evolved it on their own is highly unlikely. This means that it has a biological underpinning, which means potentially every mammal on the planet could exhibit some form of morality. Which then means only 4 species (currently only 2 confirmed) out of roughly 5400 have the ability to disregard morality.

cabalamat• 17 years ago

> How do we know they aren't communicating concepts as complicated as "Be careful there is a human approaching and it looks dangerous." with one syllable?

You can look at the number of different calls an animal makes. If each different call stands alone as a meaning (i.e. no multi-syllable words) then that gives an idea of how specific the meaning of a call is.

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

You haven't met my cat. He loves killing mice and birds.

> Even when fighting for mates, the loser of a battle is allowed to escape with its life. Sometimes accidents happen and the animals die of injuries, but death is not the intent.

Nonsense. You have too romantic a conception of the niceness of nature. Nature isn't nice, it's red in tooth and claw. For example, when male lions take over a pride, they routinely kill offspring by other males.

Intraspecific killing is the cause of maybe 4% of human deaths (average over the 20th century), which I imagine is higher than most mammalian species, but I expect there are species where the number is higher.

philwelch2• 17 years ago

"Tell right from wrong" is a conjectural extrapolation. What this really tells me is that animals observe social protocol. Now, perhaps morality is no more than social protocol. But all of these "moral" behaviors have important practical consequences.

Tichy• 17 years ago

Isn't that just a matter of how one defines "morality"? I think morals are just rules that are being followed without understanding the reasons why. Even in human societies it is the same - we think we are all human and moral, but really the moral rules only serve to make us establish a specific organization of society (the moral rules are induced by society). In that way, why not consider the behavior of wolves or whatever "moral"? They are evidently following some rules.

Societies are subject to evolution - fair behavior among it's members might give one society an advantage over another society, so the fairness rule sticks and becomes inbuilt.

Not sure what is supposed to be new about this research then.

req23• 17 years ago

When in doubt, blame the journalist, not the scientist, but this is some pretty deficient evidence.

> On three occasion the male monkey picked up tokens she dropped and inserted them into the slot and allowed her to have the food.

> As there was no benefit for the male monkey, Prof Bekoff argues that this is a clear example of an animal's actions being driven by some internal moral compass.

Primates participate in a good deal of social behavior based on reciprocal exchange, e.g., social grooming. The lack of immediate obvious benefit for the male monkey ignores the benefits of e.g., greater friendship, and ignores the dangers of "stealing" food from an older, possibly more dominant monkey. This example is interesting, but no more "moral" than any other one-sided benevolent exchange that you can find in monkey societies.

> Recent research from Switzerland also showed that rats will help a rat, to which it is not related, to obtain food if they themselves have benefited from the charity of others. This reciprocity was thought to be restricted to primates.

Next paragraph...

> Those who are successful in foraging for blood will share their meal with bats who are not successful. They are more likely to share with bats who had previously shared with them. Prof Bekoff believes this reciprocity is a result of a sense of affiliation that binds groups of animals together.

(My emphasis.) The bat data has been known for over 15 years, and the lack of internal consistency is likely the journalist, but the science is still... stretching pretty far. It is not uncommon for vampire bats to find "bat buddies" with whom they predominantly share their excess food. This activity is easily traced through reciprocal altruism to selfishness.

> Some studies have shown that animals experience hormonal changes that lead them to "crave" social interaction.

Yes, like estrus, or ovulation in humans. This fact is unimportant and does not relate to morality.

> They also have three times as many spindle cells compared to humans and are thought to be older in evolutionary terms.

We know so little of the workings of the brain or of spindle /neurons/ that stating an absolute difference (without reference to the fourfold or greater size difference (sorry, no reference to whale neuron count on hand))) as if it means something is silly. They exist in whales, which is important, but in humans they have been implicated in emotion, spatial awareness, and touch. Would whales having a sense of touch be a radical notion?

> This finding has suggested that complex emotional judgements such as empathy may have evolved considerably earlier in history than previously thought and could be widespread in the animal kingdom.

So because whales are older than humans in evolutionary terms, this suggests an earlier evolution of empathy? I think the fundamental mistake is thinking that the whales did not evolve spindle neurons independently, but the whole line of thinking is somewhat muddled.

ellyagg• 17 years ago

How is this controversial? Anyone who literally thought that animals had nothing analogous to morality or who didn't understand the evolutionary underpinnings of morality was not being serious.

Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind. Also, I still like eating tasty animals.

dejb• 17 years ago

> Also, I still like eating tasty animals.

I think this is the 'logic' that has underpinned the previous dominant views of animals as mindless automatons.

I like eating animals -> eating animals is morally OK -> animals don't have consciousness

Merely trying to point out that animals do have concsiousness often causes cognitive dissonance and is quickly dismissed.

endtime• 17 years ago

>Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind.

The qualifier "most" kind of sinks your battleship on this one. I don't disagree with what you said, per se, but with its implications.

Let's say an animal's intelligence is not different in kind to ours if its intelligence is at least (1-alpha)I, where I is standard human intelligence and for some low alpha. But what about animals of at least (1-alpha)^2 * I intelligence? By this definition, they would be different in kind to us, but not different in kind to a creature not different in kind to us (one with exactly (1-alpha)I intelligence).

The point I'm trying to get at here is that while our intelligence seems different in kind to that of a dog, there might be a reasonably smooth intelligence slope via a number of other species. So I think it might be questionable to assume that our intelligence is qualitatively different.

That said, I do think there are certain emergent phenomena that occur only at higher intelligence. Which, I suppose, could be what you meant in the first place.

Animals can tell right from wrong

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