animals only act morally accidentally. we attribute human characteristics to animals. for example, on many shows about animal attacks, they will reassure people the animal had no part in the attack. he did not "mean it", he is not "evil", they cannot do anything wrong. however, when an animal rescues a person, they say the animal sacrificed its life, did a really good deed, etc. if they are incapable of moral choices when they make bad ones, we cannot say they are capable of moral choices when they make good ones.
also, take chimpanzees. cute animals that we put diapers on and talk about how cute they are and how "human" they seem. yet, in the wild, they do not hesitate to steal young chimps from other tribes and rip them apart while still alive.
also, elevating animals above humans is a very dangerous game. usually it ends with humans being far less respected and the status of animals remaining unchanged.
it's definitely true that we attribute all the good things in animals to be "humanly" and just chalk the bad things to nature. It's a double standard. When animals do good things, we make a big deal out of it. But when humans do good things, we don't notice
animals only act morally accidentally. we attribute human characteristics to animals. for example, on many shows about animal attacks, they will reassure people the animal had no part in the attack. he did not "mean it", he is not "evil", they cannot do anything wrong. however, when an animal rescues a person, they say the animal sacrificed its life, did a really good deed, etc. if they are incapable of moral choices when they make bad ones, we cannot say they are capable of moral choices when they make good ones.
ReplyDeletealso, take chimpanzees. cute animals that we put diapers on and talk about how cute they are and how "human" they seem. yet, in the wild, they do not hesitate to steal young chimps from other tribes and rip them apart while still alive.
also, elevating animals above humans is a very dangerous game. usually it ends with humans being far less respected and the status of animals remaining unchanged.
it's definitely true that we attribute all the good things in animals to be "humanly" and just chalk the bad things to nature. It's a double standard. When animals do good things, we make a big deal out of it. But when humans do good things, we don't notice
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