Our Moral Interconnectedness

An article in New Scientist that was recently brought to my attention suggests that humanity may not be so special in terms of moral sense. While this is not earth-shattering news to most of us, especially those with Buddhist practice, the science behind it is compelling and will hopefully lead more people to develop a deep sense of moral value in the animal realm.

Recent overviews of research… show that empathy is more widespread among animals than science has so far been willing to recognise. They point to research that suggests non-human primates, dolphins, whales, elephants and hippopotamuses, and even some rodents, behave in ways that support the claim that empathy has deep evolutionary roots.

Ahh… I still have an unfinished paper out there for a course on ethics and evolution… Perhaps this will be my sign to return to it! In that course we discussed the umpteen dozen ways that people have tried to clearly distinguish humanity from other animals, to draw a clear line (and thus demonstrate our superiority). It was a bit frustrating for me because I felt like all these attempts were doomed from the outset, and, as it turned out, all were. Except morality, urged our professor. Perhaps not.

In the meantime, watching animals in action has convinced many researchers, myself included, that they possess the emotions upon which a moral sense is built. Chimps and monkeys, for example, seem to feel embarrassment, whales and ravens show signs of falling in love, and even iguanas register pleasure (New Scientist, 29 April 2000, p 32).

Yet the author does caution us that we cannot know that what the animals are demonstrating is genuine moral sense or not. But then we good philosophers know that we cannot know even that the person letting us in in busy traffic is demonstrating genuine moral sense. We just have to look and infer as best we can – just as with our lovely fellow humans.

And my favorite bit (it’s wonderful to know that people get paid do to this kind of research!):

My studies of infant dogs, wolves and coyotes based on careful observation and analysis of video playbacks reveal that they use a special signal to prevent misinterpretation of playful actions. They perform a “bow”-which entails crouching on the forelimbs while keeping the rear upright-when initiating play, or in association with aggressive actions such as biting, to modify their meaning.