And I think this just shows that the mathematical modeling was either lacking in honesty or complexity. … or like some of the discussion above the definition “altruistic” was twisted. Sorry but I have seen nothing to dispell my skepticism on this.
If you are skeptical of the modelling then please show me where these authors got it wrong (they show that models of “group selection” that proponents of altruism were cooking up just collapse back to the typical Kin Selection idea. Sorry, but unsupported skepticism does nothing to dispel my faith in the math here.
Kay, T., Keller, L. and Lehmann, L. “The Evolution of Altruism and the Serial Rediscovery of the Role of Relatedness.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 117 (2020): 28894-28898.
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Ok, I looked at the paper. Which says that altruism did evolve in the mathematical models. This is simply a paper by people who didn’t want to accept those results, so they came up for a rational of excuses for rejecting those results.
A more objective investigation of the subject doesn’t support their conclusion. Instead you find the overwhelming majority of the scientific community coming to the conclusion in favor of the evolution of altruism with numerous examples as well as these mathematical models supporting the conclusion.
Sorry, the authors are referring to the modeling done by the group selection proponents in which altruism appeared, but you obviously don’t understand their critique of those models. And what is the “more objective investigation” that you refer to or the “numerous examples of altruism”? You still still haven’t shown me where their math is incorrect or given a single concrete example of true altruism in animals (according to the Stanford definition that we agreed about).
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Since you feel these disagreements with you to be aggressive and personal, I suggest we simply agree to disagree. Acceptance of a disagreement is an important part of both academia and discussion. Otherwise…
What math would you be referring to? I see none in that paper.
While you have yet to answer my challenge regarding altruism in humans which is not present in animals, these are examples I would give of altruism in animals. It is true that animals don’t have the sort of religion where they can put on a show of charity calling themselves godly and worthy of heaven because of it. But they show altruistic behavior. Obviously I dispute your distinction of “true altruism” from these examples.
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Hohmann U, Bartussek I, Böer B (2001). Der Waschbär (in German). Reutlingen, Germany: Oertel+Spörer. ISBN 978-3-88627-301-0.
Robert Ardrey, African Ganesis (N.Y.: Dell publishers, 1961), pp. 80-81, 136.
Yamamoto S, Humle T, Tanaka M (October 2009). “Chimpanzees help each other upon request”. PLOS ONE. 4 (10): e7416. Bibcode:2009PLoSO…4.7416Y. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007416. PMC 2757899. PMID 19826478.
“Human-like Altruism Shown In Chimpanzees”. ScienceDaily.
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You know… there is one example of altruism found in humans that you don’t see so much of in other species. And that inter-species altruism. But not only is that extremely rare but the average behavior of humans to other species is anything but altruistic and those few examples of altruism to other species could be simply because some people accept the relatedness we see to other species because of evolution and they do not look for excuses to see human beings as being so much better and greater. Besides I think many would object with rare examples of interspecies friendships and altruism among animals.
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On Wednesday evening (3.3.2022), I attended (via zoom) a SciCafe sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and the Leakey Foundation. The subject of the talk was “The Secrets of Chimpanzee Society.” The presenter was Dr. Liran Samuni, a primatologist from Harvard University’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, who has studied both chimpanzees and bonobos in the wild. There was some time at the end for questions, so I asked her if wild bonobos ever exhibit altruistic behavior. She replied that both wild chimpanzees and wild bonobos have been observed adopting non-related infants.
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Social cooperation in nature can even lead to behavior that is rather nasty. Aged or impaired members can be actively driven from a group, by the group, when they represent a burden. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That is cooperative behavior which is decidedly not altruistic to individuals.
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You raise a very good point: cooperation per se is “amoral” and can lead to both behaviours that one would consider objectively “nice” or “nasty” to others. The Nazis cooperated very effectively and efficiently to promote the well-being (aka biological fitness) of their own group members, but one would hardly call the results of their well-oiled social machine ethically admirable.
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AND some might think that was unique to human beings also, but it is not. We see examples of cooperative behavior in the animal world which cannot be called altruistic in any sense of the word. examples can be found among those here. Some are so destructive of species survival, it is hard to see how these could have evolved. In these the advantages of capabilities and self-motivation are needed even more to explain how evolution could have produced such behaviors than to explain to altruistic behavior (rare negative side effects of things which are selected).
In any case, none of the given examples of altruistic behavior in animals are anything like them.
Yes, what a list, eh! As far back as Darwin and his parasitic wasps, people have noted examples of some pretty brutal behavior in nature. Personally, I don’t attribute moral guilt to animals, although it is a different situation for humans.
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Might that be understatement. ; - )
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I DO attribute morality to animals. They can also be social creatures with expected standards of behavior. This is not to say there is no difference. But it is not morality, or (self) consciousness, responsibility, or even spirit.
I think the difference is language with all the representational power of DNA and more by which we have abstraction and thus name such things as morality, love, and justice. AND notice this is NOT just communication which animals certainly do have.
It makes a big difference. For where you have an information tool that powerful, you can also have the phenomenon of life with all its vast capabilities and signature elements such as inheritance. What I am suggesting is that in humanity we have life of a different kind in a different information media than biological life – that which we generally refer to as the human mind. This is not Descartes or NeoPlatonist idealism, but an effective dualism which is entirely physical/natural in its substance. It is life with the inheritance of acquired characteristics and thus it learns and adapt on a time scale which is thousands times faster.
I guess it depends on how one defines morality and ethics. I suspect most philosophers would say that conscious intent (self-awareness and reflection) needs to be present before an individual can be considered morally culpable. For this reason, babies and humans with mental disabilities are considered “not guilty” in courts of law. Similarly, although animals can certainly communicate with one another, there is no clear indication they have the mental awareness to judge objectively the “ethics” of alternate behaviours.
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Language is not in your list. And I agree. Language is not a requirement for morality. But animals have all of the things you listed. They have conscious intent, self-awareness and reflection. What they don’t have is the abstract symbolization of language. They cannot talk about morality, ethics, and consciousness, but that hardly means they don’t have them. And they don’t have religion, for that too I think is a construct of language. They may have rituals and other elements of religion but those elements are not tied together with the justifications and rhetoric of religion.
Ah… there is that word, “mental”. And because you use THAT word, I certainly agree that this is a difference. But if you substitute the word neurological then that would be an entirely different matter. They have a neurological, biological, and chemical of awareness of both themselves and their environment. It is an easy thing to demonstrate, for it is a requirement of the process of life itself.
As for a court of law LOL That is DEFINITELY an construct of human language. The poor babe, puppy, racoon, dolphin, elephant, pig, horse, lion, etc… would be entirely unable to defend themselves in a court of law… wouldn’t they? In which case, it would absurd for a court of law to pretend due process and pronounce them “guilty.” Which is not to say they would not be held responsible or punished even with death. Though death has become a rather unpopular punishment for anyone and anything these days.
How do you know animals have reflection? Can you give an example? The extent to which animals have moral debates within their own minds (conscious internal debate over behavioural options available to them) is unknown for biologists. We can’t get into animals heads to know what their mental process are, and what they are really thinking, it is just speculation at this point. Thus I am not aware of any biologists (or philosophers) that would hold animals morally accountable for things that they do. I wasn’t inferring that puppies and dolphins need to defend themselves in human law courts, exactly the opposite, because I don’t think they have the mental capacity to be held morally responsible for their actions.
It is a necessity of life for all living organisms to be aware of the environment and themselves. Larger organisms require a nervous system in order to do this, so that those nerves can transmit information on both the body state and from sensory organs to a central processor for evaluation and choosing responses. Examples of this are legion and I am sure you can think of specific examples easily enough.
When you switch to terms like “debates” implicating language then, of course, you certainly muddy the waters. But you can watch animals hesitate and deliberate at length on what they should do in difficult situations. And sometimes they will even figure out solutions to complex problems like opening a cage so they can escape.
We get into animal’s heads all the time since many don’t feel that morality prohibits such things. As for “mental” processes, I already explain how I link that to linguistic activities and I have already explained that I don’t think animals have any such thing.
… which is not to say that they are entirely incapable in that area they can attach meaning to human words and phrases uttered by people, and some can imitate the sounds rather well. But despite this we have never experienced a linguistic conversation with them. Again communication sure but language no.
If you are going to insist on inserting language as a necessary components of things like morality, altruism, and reflection – then of course you will get the conclusion that animals can do no such thing, But that is practically the same as adding “human” in front of them to say that animals are incapable of human this or human that… to which we can only say… duh… Of course animals do not have human thought or human emotion… they have their own way of thinking and feeling – without language (i.e. language with all the representational power of DNA).
There is an interesting journal article that explains why the mental capacities of chimps are not capable for them to operate “morally” as do humans. Here’s a summary quote from the paper, I’ll attach a link to the article itself. “For Smith, sympathy is one natural disposition that is necessary but not sufficient for moral judgment. In addition to sympathy,
humans also have the natural disposition to develop impartiality (Kitcher 2005 p.67–8). Impartiality requires linguistic representation and metacognition of intentional mental states. Furthermore, moral judgment requires the capacity for emotion regulation and moral self-cultivation, or the ability to shape and control one’s reactive attitudes. Non-human animals do not possess these capacities, marking a qualitative distinction (or a difference in kind) between human and animal morality. Therefore, Smith’s sentimentalism does not provide de Waal with the framework he needs to argue for a gradualist theory of human morality.”
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But the fact that animals have nervous systems that respond and react to their environment says nothing about the “consciousness” of their behaviours. Many behaviors can operate on pure instinct, for example. And even if we observe animals “hesitating” for awhile before acting, we can’t know for sure what they are “thinking or consciously debating”, if anything. It could be that they just need time for their senses to gather the right amount of information from the environment before the best course of action is apparent for their brains to cause a certain action in response. It doesn’t necessarily prove they are “mulling over” the moral appropriateness of alternate actions in their minds. See the article I attached above which (I think) explains things.
Well I am NOT arguing for a gradualist theory of human morality. Quite the opposite.
I believe there was a radical transformation involving a human couple we name Adam and Eve.
I just don’t have to invent excuses for pretending and ignoring facts about animals because I the difference is a bit different than what people may have thought up until now.
The only thing I said about nervous systems had to do with communicating information in larger organisms. If you really expect me to believe animals are not aware of what they are doing then I have to wonder what you are smoking. LOL They would be incapable of their daily activities without such awareness.
So now you are not only retreating to terminology implying language but also God-of-the-gap type rhetoric. It will not fly because we can and have attached electrodes to monitor brain activity in such deliberations to see just how similar they are between human beings and animals.
Now we have found differences. We are, for example, capable of projecting ourselves much farther into the future to make longer range plans. But this is a quantitative difference. Clearly animals can plan, just not quite so far into the future as we do – at least not the animals we have made this study with so far.
You’re accusing me of God of the Gaps? How? why? I don’t understand what you’re getting at there. My claim that animals don’t have the cognitive capacity to be moral agents is based on the current known evidence (based on scientific research) of what is actually known about animal cognition and behaviour (see attached journal article). If you want to disagree with the article, please tell me where the rational there is incorrect, as opposed to just speculating about what animals may or may not be thinking.