h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Surely morality is a concept rather than an emotion, Ed? And as such, a human construct? I think your question is pointless to be honest.

Animals quite clearly feel emotions, but concepts? C'mon.....

Washoe and the other American Sign Language Chimps had a vocabulary in the low to mid hundreds, mainly verbs and concrete nouns (eat fruit) or adjectives (hungry / thirsty) which are pretty much nouns anyway (J'ai faim, J'ai soif). But concepts like responsibility, guilt, the moral imperative.... sin...? I don't think so.

B

Well the stuff I know on the subject is anecdotal and I'm too lazy right now to check sources; that many serial murderers, it later transpired, had a history of torturing animals for fun. The stories usually state that they began as children with small animals like mice, before progressing to bigger and bigger, till things like horses, and ultimately humans.
There may be something in it, but there's probably just as many murderers who never had this, um, hobby.

This might just be based on my recollection of bad crime novels and cop shows, but my gut reaction is the complete opposite. That serial killers, in many cases, were animal lovers.

B

>> they began ... with small animals like mice, before progressing to bigger and bigger

Thank bob my cat's the size of a cat....

"Leopards and Zebra"

It could be argued that leopards are acting as a natural selection pressure on zebra, they remove the weakest from the gene pool. They also might act to help evolve the social behaviour of zebra (acting together to protect the weak).

On the other hand the zebra act as a natural selection pressure on the leopard (assuming that this was their only diet - which is not true but it illustrates the point). The weakest are unable to get the food to survive. Again removing the genes from the gene pool. This might also help to evolve social behaviour of the predator (e.g. hunting in packs).

On wildlife documentaries Homo Sapiens view marauding predator cats chasing and killing prey. We tend not to see the starving Leopard (including cubs perhaps) dieing slowly in the undergrowth.

Homo Saps however tend to shoot the top individuals when trophy hunting (the top elephant bull, the top stag) removing the "best genes" from the gene pool. Farming animals for shooting is therefore to be preferred.

>>removing the "best genes" from the gene pool.<<

Now there's a thought, Stone Art.

"my gut reaction is the complete opposite. That serial killers, in many cases, were animal lovers"

It's pretty well documented that yer proper psychonutbars (technical term) often start their "careers" torturing animals.

Indeed on of my key tenants in my regular 'smug vegetarian diatribe' is that vegetarians are unlikely to be serial killers. (Oh and Hitler ate fish, so he doesn't count..).

"vegetarians are unlikely to be serial killers. (Oh and Hitler ate fish, so he doesn't count..)."

Hitler was an ideologist. Are vegetarians more likely to be ideologists than meat-eaters?

I *think* you meant "tenets", Z.

I don't know, why don't we do a survey then present the data..

sorry, er yes, I meant tenent..

That was one of the strangest comments anyone ever made to me. "You're a vegetarian? Hitler was a vegetarian! You Nazi!"

I'm *still* fairly sure you meant "tenet".

(sorry, I'm only teasing)

the comment was posed about "morality" not being an emotion, indeed it is not, however guilt certainly is, and our guilt is determined by our morality

Ben:

>>Surely morality is a concept rather than an emotion, Ed? And as such, a human construct? I think your question is pointless to be honest.

>>Animals quite clearly feel emotions, but concepts? C'mon.....


Pointless? And yet I managed to get someone to make pretty much the point I was trying to steer back to.

Yup. Concepts. Animals don't have concepts - and this takes us back to Self-Awareness, Mirror Tests, etc. So, for example, because a leopard is not able to conceptualise a Zebra's pain it cannot engage in reciprocal moral relationships and its painful killing of the Zebra cannot be called immoral. Simililarly, the alligator has no concept of pain in birds, merely an instinct to to nom these convenient flying toothbrushes. Its decision not to do so does count as moral.

Humans, on the other hand, have a 'Theory of Mind'. As Bill Clinton said, 'Ah feel your payun.' We are capable of moral acts.

Sometimes we have to make moral tradeoffs. We know that people will feel pain if we go to war with them - yet we still do. We know that we have to kill crows and rats because they are pests that might damage us in some way.

We also know that there is no good reason why we have to kill pheasants or chickens or...

... and ....?

...and...I'm talking the usual shite on h2g2. Is there meant to be some sort of higher purpose, like?

>>We also know that there is no good reason why we have to kill pheasants or chickens or...

...?

Time?