Are you talking about the paper criticizing Waal’s gradualist theory using Adam’s sentimentalism? All that paper shows (even if correct) is that IF you accept Adam’s sentimentalism AND the definitions the paper adopts for various things, then this doesn’t agree with Waal’s gradualism. It certainly does not establish your claim that animals don’t have the capacity to be moral agents. And the argument of the paper simply drums up definitions of terms which require linguistic activities. I agree animals don’t have that kind of language. I do not agree that morality in general requires language.
So… I don’t agree with Waal’s gradualism, or with definitions used by the paper requiring language for any kind of morality. I will agree that any morality we see in animals is significantly different than our own. As for Adam Smiths sentimentalism, I agree with much of it but not anything that isn’t just as applicable to animals. Many animals ARE social. Some animals DO care about other animals, and often the circumstances of those other animals DO bring them pleasure or pain. I am sorry but I am not buying into the web of definition by which this paper concocts excuses for ignoring the evidence to prop up ideological claims which are thereby detached from the obvious meanings and experiences with animals.
It seems that we both agree that Waal’s gradualism doesn’t work. The paper explains that sentimentalism in animals (that they show emotion and caring behaviours) is a necessary but not sufficient criteria morality, i.e., that there are several other cognitive attributes that animals need besides sympathy/caring to be moral agent. So the paper reviews the known data to show that there is no evidence that chimps or other animals possess those cognitive abilities. You are, of course, free to make up your own definitions of morality and ethics if you want. However, at the beginning of Carron’s paper (yes, the one attached above), he said that his definitions conform to all three major philosophical views in the field (e.g. of what ethics entails). So, I’m not inclined to write him off as an idiot–presuming that if he got a peer-reviewed paper published in a high profile journal in “Biology and Ethics” that his expertise in the field is as least as good as mine (or probably yours) and that he’s using mainstream arguments. So until an ethics philosopher? perhaps can convince me that Carron’s definitions are screwed, or unorthodox, I’m going run with it.
I don’t know if it works or not, I just don’t believe it. There are things I believe that cannot be proven. Most of the things of religion cannot be proven. That is why opinions in religion are so diverse.
I do think that most of the difference between man and animals are rather quantitative. Though not all quantitative difference are so gradual. Sometimes a subtle difference can open a critical door like the beginning of life. We can find self-organizing processes everywhere, but only with life do we see open ended development that comes with the learning process of evolution. I think the differences that come with language are just as profound.
By all means. But to me it looks like lines drawn in the sand, amounting to nothing more than the fact that animals do not have language, which I certainly agree with. It frankly all feels like a prop for some ideology or theology that I am probably not going to buy into. I am not going to be led on a leash like that. After all, definitions are just words not reality
All knowledge is ultimately just “words”, though, and communication can’t exist without defined meanings so I think there’s no escaping it when humans discuss concepts with each other. This need not be an attempt to “lead someone on a leash”, but simply an attempt to clarify the discussion and the evidence. I do agree with you that most differences between humans and animals are quantitative and think that perhaps with enough evolutionary time, other animals might evolve a moral sense. But the current scientific literature (and philosophical logic) suggests animals are not there yet. I also believe in some things that can’t be proven but, personally, as a scientist just as a general approach to life, I’m interested in getting to the best approximation of the truth which involves believing the physical evidence out there (and not asserting that things are true where there is no concrete evidence). And since I can’t be an expert in every aspect of science myself, it also means trusting the experts and peer-reviewed information that comes from the literature. (unless there is some concrete reason to think it is flawed).
Yes, there are reports of non-kin adoptions but this can’t be proven to be pure altruism as the mothers may still be getting social benefits by adopting (e.g., they increase the size of their own social alliances in the group, and thereby gain more status and long-term access to more resources). In fact, research in chimps suggests that maintaining large social coalitions with others is important for asserting dominance when competing over resources and mates within the troop.
Hi, all the example you list here are of animals helping each other, but also of getting individual benefits to themselves by doing so, hence not true altruism. E.g. the vampire bat example you cite is explicitly “reciprocity”, or “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”. Simply googling journal articles with the word “altruism” in the title is not very efficient because non-biologists define the word differently so one must actually examine the specific behaviours that the animals are doing, and the related costs and benefits to the animals to determine whether it is really altruistic or not. So the examples you list here are examples of cooperation (both parties benefit by interacting), not altruism, which by the Stanford Definition we agreed to above, must entail a fitness cost to the individual.
Oh, and in terms of the math, you’d need to go back to the original modelling papers that Kay et al. cite in their review paper and see how those were mathematically formulated by the original authors. Kay et al. re-analyzed the models that these other authors were claiming showed the evolution of altruism, but when they looked at the parameters and how those models were constructed, in every case it led to relatedness (kin selection) and so not true altruism. For example, here is a clip from Kay et al’s paper about the math: "Again, the framing of these models obscures the underlying role of relatedness. For example, Szolnoki et al. (ref. 34, p. 2) write, “First, a randomly selected player x acquires its payoff px by playing the game with its nearest neighbors. Next, one randomly chosen neighbor denoted by y also acquires its payoff py by playing the game with its four neighbors. Lastly, player x tries to enforce its strategy sx on player y in accordance with the probability, W(sx ! sy )= wx = (1+exp[(py px )=K]), where K denotes the amplitude of noise.”
Hi, Can you please then show me the scientific study that actually demonstrated they are disadvantaged? If there is any actual evidence of this, I would be very interested in reading about it.
Yes, I’m aware (). Sensing is not the same thing as possessing awareness. In the news about Ukraine are the infrared sensing ground-to-air Javelin weapons.
And oh, that’s exactly the point about questioning the “altruism” of adoptions in humans too, i.e., many people would say that humans who adopt are not truly altruistic either, because they get “surrogate offspring” to care for them as they age.
You really need a scientific study to show that chimp mothers provide nurture and support for adopted infants instead of worrying about themselves and their own offspring?
But if they get social and physical advantages later in life by having more social offspring and allies around, then they get net benefits by investing in the offspring, not a net cost.
Again, you could make similar, cynical comments about human altruism. Maybe the reason somebody sacrificed himself was to get out of a long stay in purgatory or an eternal stay in hell. I’m guessing your seminary would not favor an undesired answer about animal altruism.
). Sensing is not the same thing as possessing awareness. In the news about Ukraine are the infrared sensing ground-to-air Javelin weapons.