“Keep an open-minded skepticism,” I recommend to my students in their pursuit of knowledge. “Open-mindedness and critical reasoning are your map and compass on your journey to knowledge, but without desire, as without a canteen, you won’t get anywhere,” I say to them.
Featured image: Be open-minded and healthily skeptical.
(First published April 13, 2014, edited February 26, 2018)
I do enjoy being kind to animals, other than humans—and I don’t need a rational justification as to why that feels right for me. I respect them for what they are and interact with them on equal terms. I don’t believe it is right to subjugate them to my will, to control them, to change them.
Yes, I do enjoy being kind to animals, as it brings a sense of harmony to my life. While I can’t force anyone to choose harmony or define it in a specific way, I can demonstrate how bullying does not lead to stability. Because of this, I find it difficult to argue with people who believe that bullying others—whether human or non-human—is acceptable. Nor can I argue with people who think it’s justifiable to hurt others in order to achieve their goals since I find such actions objectionable. I cannot discuss with people who deny or affirm a particular matter of fact to justify their moral decisions, because my mind rejects invalid, unsound arguments.
Morality and science are two separate disciplines. I may not like the conclusions and implications of some scientific studies, and I may even find their application to be immoral; yet, my responsibility as a scientist is to report findings objectively. Stating a fact does not oblige me to adopt any particular moral stance. While science does influence my perceptions, it does not dictate how I feel about that fact. Ultimately, my moral decisions are independent of scientific facts.
G. E. Moore coined the term naturalistic fallacy in 1903 in “Principia Ethica.” In 1739, David Hume described, in “A Treatise of Human Nature,” the ‘is-ought problem,’ also called ‘Hume’s Law’ or ‘Hume’s Guillotine.’ The ‘is-ought fallacy’ consists of deriving an ‘ought’ conclusion from an ‘is’ premise. We cannot deduct ‘ought’ from ‘is.’
As an ethologist, my focus is on understading what is, not what ought to be. Echoing Satoshi Kanazawa, if I conclude something that is not supported by evidence, I commit a logical fallacy, which I must correct, and that’s my problem. However, if my conclusion offends your beliefs, then that’s your problem.
With time, the rational principles that govern my mind and the ethical ones that regulate my conduct may or may not prove to be the fittest. Meanwhile, due to genetic pre-programming, social conditioning, and evolutionary biology, I do enjoy being kind to animals. I respect them for what they are and interact with them on equal terms—and I don’t need a rational justification as to why that feels right for me.
Featured image: I do enjoy being kind to other animals, respecting them for what they are and interacting with them on equal terms.
The biggest difference between humans and dogs is not that we reason, and they don’t. To observe rational behavior, look to the dog. To see an emotional response, watch the owner.
Some animals, other than humans, do reason. They have well-developed brains and are goal-seeking. They acquire, store, retrieve, and process information. Additionally, research shows that other animals, besides humans, understand rules. In other words, they know that a series of events must happen in a particular sequence to produce a specific effect.
Animals of many species are capable of solving a wide range of problems that involve abstract reasoning. The problem is that most of our research projects into animal cognition either adopt a behaviorist approach—its conditioning methods nearly turning other species, except our own, into automatons—or focus on particular human characteristics, such as speaking and counting.
The standard depiction of the ladder of nature, on which the various species occupy successively higher levels, places humans at the top. However, species exhibit distinct cognitive processes, depending on how they have adapted to their different ecological niches.
That brings us back to Darwin—the difference between humans and other animals is “[…] one of degree and not of kind.” (1871 in “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.”)
Featured image: The biggest difference between them and us is not that we reason, and they don’t (by D. Myers).
References
de Waal, F. B. M. (2016). Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? W.W. Norton & Company.
Frederick R. News feature: The search for what sets humans apart. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Jan 13;112(2):299-301. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1423320112. PMID: 25587106; PMCID: PMC4299222.
Suddendorf, T. (2013). The gap: The science of what separates us from other animals. Basic Books/Hachette Book Group.
Zentall, T. R. (2023). Comparative Cognition Research Demonstrates the Similarity between Humans and Other Animals. Animals, 13(7), 1165. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13071165.
Roger Abrantes 