Cognitive ethologist Bekoff and philosopher Pierce combined their considerable talents to make what is for me an overwhelming case that many animals are genuinely moral actors. Not just apes, but even bats and rats. They bring together a wide range of research ranging from neuroscience to field studies to laboratory work as well as rigorous philosophic thinking to make their case. Some examples are deeply memorable, such as the rhesus monkey that, once it learned that pulling a chain to get food would lead to another monkey getting shocked, went 12 days without eating. Or a bat who, once it saw that another female bat was having trouble giving birth, acted as a midwife. They provide many such examples.
I found their analysis of play among animals, and its dependence on knowing what was fair, and how animals communicated that knowledge, one of the most insightful parts of their work. Far from being hard wired, play is how many animals learn what fairness is, and how to sanction cheaters as well as forgive mistakes. I suspect the same insights apply to play among children.
Their book is extremely valuable in its own terms, but it also ends up touching on many themes that have appeared in this blog. The authors carefully analyze the connections between empathy and justice. I could not help but compare the implications of their work with the attacks on empathy in judges by people mistakenly calling themselves "conservatives" or "moral." If they are right, such critics apparent lack of empathy means they are incapable of much understanding of justice. That would explain a lot. . .
Early on they describe initial research in the field of animal morality, giving prominent place to Peter Kropotkin's delightful Mutual Aid. First published as a series of essays from 1890-96, the book chronicles Kropotkin's scientific work in Siberia exploring evidence for the popular interpretation of Darwin as describing a nature of pitiless competition, red in tooth and claw. And not finding it. It is only recently that scientists have begun following up seriously on Kropotkin's insights, which have often proven robust.
Darwin's own ideas as to how morality could arise from evolution are also found to be supported by later research. He was an early precursor of their findings, one whose deeper theories were ignored in the general praise of one sided competition and struggle that informed 'Social Darwinists' as well as his ignorant critics to this day. Evolution has been shown to carry the value of cooperation within it, at the level of its inner logic. This is what one would anticipate discovering if the Sacred manifests immanently, and not just transcendentally.
Finally, this book shed light on an insight I have started exploring here, that systems of moral rules imposed from above lead to vastly inferior moral behavior compared to spiritual and even atheistic approaches that lead a person towards introspection, and listening to the voice within, as a guide to decency. Their work adds more evidence as to why Biblical literalists could support slavery and apparently torture to a greater degree than those who seek to discover the spirit in their own understanding.
I found their analysis of play among animals, and its dependence on knowing what was fair, and how animals communicated that knowledge, one of the most insightful parts of their work. Far from being hard wired, play is how many animals learn what fairness is, and how to sanction cheaters as well as forgive mistakes. I suspect the same insights apply to play among children.
Their book is extremely valuable in its own terms, but it also ends up touching on many themes that have appeared in this blog. The authors carefully analyze the connections between empathy and justice. I could not help but compare the implications of their work with the attacks on empathy in judges by people mistakenly calling themselves "conservatives" or "moral." If they are right, such critics apparent lack of empathy means they are incapable of much understanding of justice. That would explain a lot. . .
Early on they describe initial research in the field of animal morality, giving prominent place to Peter Kropotkin's delightful Mutual Aid. First published as a series of essays from 1890-96, the book chronicles Kropotkin's scientific work in Siberia exploring evidence for the popular interpretation of Darwin as describing a nature of pitiless competition, red in tooth and claw. And not finding it. It is only recently that scientists have begun following up seriously on Kropotkin's insights, which have often proven robust.
Darwin's own ideas as to how morality could arise from evolution are also found to be supported by later research. He was an early precursor of their findings, one whose deeper theories were ignored in the general praise of one sided competition and struggle that informed 'Social Darwinists' as well as his ignorant critics to this day. Evolution has been shown to carry the value of cooperation within it, at the level of its inner logic. This is what one would anticipate discovering if the Sacred manifests immanently, and not just transcendentally.
Finally, this book shed light on an insight I have started exploring here, that systems of moral rules imposed from above lead to vastly inferior moral behavior compared to spiritual and even atheistic approaches that lead a person towards introspection, and listening to the voice within, as a guide to decency. Their work adds more evidence as to why Biblical literalists could support slavery and apparently torture to a greater degree than those who seek to discover the spirit in their own understanding.
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Gus and Cheryl:
Your recent posts are well taken. I apologize if I seem dense or argumentative for its own sake. I assure you I am making a sincere attempt to understand, and not arguing because I can. :-)
I'm familiar with Polanyi, but it's been a while since I read a summary of his points. I'll return later after I've refreshed my memory.
For now, I'll submit this example from fiction, but from whom I hope you will find to be a reputable source: Carl Sagan. In the movie adaptation of his book Contact, there is this scene between the two characters whose interactions typify the objective-subjective divide:
Porter Goss (the metaphysicist): Did you love your father?
Ellie (the physicist): Yes. Very much.
Porter: Prove it.
Part of where I may come across as dense stems from my attempt to straddle the divide between these two viewpoints. I make a perhaps vain attempt to reconcile them. Please try to be patient with me. :-)
Franklin-
Don't be so apologetic. These are tough issues! I may be wrong - or Cheryl, or you, or all of us. The best we can do is carefully attend to one another's arguments. If we don't do that, I think we're wasting our time. (That's why I finally broke off on the left/right discussion. My arguments seemed to be being ignored.)
Your example from Sagan is a really good one. There is no way to 'objectively' prove love - but any normal person knows it is very real - in the sense of being perhaps the strongest manifestation of meaning.
As a Pagan academic I spent decades trying to somehow make a case within the traditional scientific framework of how meaning, and things that did not show up on existing instruments, such as spirits, could be shown to be credible. I finally concluded that you can't get there from here any more than I can fly using a set of dumbbells. The tools exist for completely different purposes. (The best study exploring this problem is Hufford's study of the nightmare: The Terror that Comes in the Night. It's a great book.)
I may be wrong, but that's my best shot. You can't get to perceptions of meaning using techniques that deny any need for meaning to exist and cannot pick up o subjectivity as an aspect of reality. You can't get to dimensions of reality that cannot be measured using techniques that depend on measurement for their reliability.
Now that brain imaging exists perhaps correlations can be shown, but correlation need not mean causation. As I understand it, some evidence suggests that the brain reacts to some phenomena fractions of a second before they become conscious. I have read some arguing that proves consciousness is a product of the brain. But that does not follow. For example, perhaps the brain is a receiver that enables things to manifest at the level of our normal consciousness. Different tuning of the bran opens us to different kinds of reception. (I personally am attracted to that.) Or perhaps we can 'read' the future, and in the process of becoming focally aware the brain gets involved? And so on.
So my point about the existence of other minds is that we do not first face it when looking at animals, we face it when looking at other people. Yet we know with greater reason that other minds exist than that the earth goes around the sun. Indeed, all of scientific methodology presupposes other minds who can evaluate rationally the evidence I bring to make my case! It presupposes what it cannot prove.
Thanks, Gus. On my own terms as a layman, I pursue the very same questions as a pagan. We can only apply that which we are sure will make sense to us.
Cheryl, I think the crux of our conflict here, you and I, is not that I don't believe you (indeed, I trust your written words), but that I cannot buy it. There is, for want of some term that may be better, a cognitive disconnect for me when attempting to apply human referents (as in the subject line of this thread) to animals.
In my lifetime, I have had intimate emotional relationships with animals. My dog Andy (collie/G. shepherd) helped me keep my sanity during a very emotionally traumatic period of my childhood. At the time, I swore he spoke to me in words. As an infant, my mother trusted my care (for only a few minutes at a time, of course) to our pure-bred English Setter Sam. Leashed to a tree, he kept me within the diameter of the length of that leash, including using his teeth to grab me by the back of my diaper. Right now, our cat Ptolomy (the astronomer, not the pharoah) has a meow that is distinctly "I need you" compared to every other sound he makes.
I don't need to go further than a professional dog breeder to explain the behaviors of those dogs, and that pro will readily provide it without resorting to human reasoning or any subset of it. I abstain from commenting on cats, seeing as how I'm owned by two, and one of them (Fred) is 25 lbs and likes to sit on me. ;-)
I look to Occam's Razor, especially when there is more than a little doubt involved.
Conflict? Goodness - I thought it was just a discussion! :-)
There's layers in that conflict... sorta like Shrek's onion, dontchyaknow. ;-)
Actually, you're right. I really should reserve that word for times like last night's "discussion" with my 16-year-old daughter. Ahem. Fortunately, the doors in our house don't slam very well.
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