tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post9155055305756650202..comments2024-03-23T14:49:46.132+01:00Comments on Orienteringsforsøk: Animal Kindness.vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-49909438132068466232012-11-08T23:50:36.898+01:002012-11-08T23:50:36.898+01:00Thanks again, and thank you very much for that ver...Thanks again, and thank you very much for that very interesting link.<br /><br />I did read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kanzis-Primal-Language-Cultural-Initiation/dp/1403996040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352414715&sr=8-1&keywords=Kanzi's+Primal+Language" rel="nofollow">Kanzi's Primal Language</a> by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Pär Segerdahl (and also a book in Swedish by the latter), that made a compelling case for genuine trust based human-ape interaction. Maybe Lynne Sharpe's and Vicki Hearne's scepticism simply were based on reports from wrongheaded projects like the sad story of Nim Chimpsky? What they are doing at The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, seems more promising. I should really read up on this stuff.<br /><br /><i>My impression is that MR's point just is that we can ascribe moral motivation to animals without their needing to meet reflective conditions put forth by Aristotelians (and Kantians).</i><br /><br />That's my impression too. Reading the book is probably the best way to see what that amounts to, I agree.vhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-81738334671115715282012-11-08T14:11:09.594+01:002012-11-08T14:11:09.594+01:00The point about trust is important. And I've b...The point about trust is important. And I've been doing some reading and listening about primates. There were some occasions on which Washoe (one of the more famous signing primates) bit handlers. But if you want to hear a story that gives a lot of food for thought, you should listen to Radiolab's bit on Kanzi and Bill Fields (here: <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/2010/feb/19/kanzi/" rel="nofollow">http://www.radiolab.org/2010/feb/19/kanzi/</a>).<br /><br />My impression is that MR's point just is that we can ascribe moral motivation to animals without their needing to meet reflective conditions put forth by Aristotelians (and Kantians). But yes, I'll have to read the book to see what that amounts to. (And it is true that there are hard-liners who still want to deny that such ascriptions involve some kind of mistake.Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-17231944509984377212012-11-08T13:39:44.362+01:002012-11-08T13:39:44.362+01:00About expectations: While writing my post I planed...About expectations: While writing my post I planed to mentions expectations towards animals, but my post just got too long. Expectations inform many relationships with animals. Rimond Gaita states in Philosopher’s Dog that we train dogs not to make them predictable, but trustworthy -– or something to that effect. And trust is certainly connected with expectations.<br /><br />I don’t know much about primates. But I know a little about raising kids, and your comment made me think about that. Our expectations gradualy change as the kids grow older and our relationships with them take on different forms. Think of Mark Rowlands’ son, who, according to the father, tested the familiy dog’s patience by biting and poking fingers in their eyes. Biting isn’t nice, of course, so the parents would clearly be wrong not to try to prevent it. Though, it seems, it would be a mistake to expect the boy to comply or think that he was (morally) wrong if he didn’t. Babies just aren’t full members of our moral form of life yet. Some day they will be, and then we can reasonably react in these ways, but at first all we can do is try to prevent them from doing damage with hard words like NO! or STOP!, later, when they begin to understand language, we <i>explain</i> to the kids that certain things are good and others bad, and perhaps supplement our explanations with forms of reward and punishment. Trying to pin-point a date when kids are full members of our moral form of life would be misleading, because this isn’t a matter of either-or, but rather a slow and gradual process. So, maybe apes can take a similar journey too? They are highly intelligent and social creatures, after all, and the fact that we can communicate with them, linguistically, suggest that they can -- at least in some important respects -- participate in our form of life. However, Lynne Sharpe, in her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creatures-Like-Us-Lynne-Sharpe/dp/1845400178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352377258&sr=8-1&keywords=creatures+like+us" rel="nofollow">Creatures Like US?</a>, wondered why these intelligent, communicating apes were always kept behind bars, and why so many of their human interlocutors were armed when approaching them? If I don’t misremember (it’s been a while since I read her book), she suggested that chimpanzees, despite being our closest relatives, may not share the natural instincts that make <i>our</i> (as opposed to their) social life possible. To her, dogs seemed like better candidates for non-human members of this (sosial/moral) community.vhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-38447520665111921492012-11-08T13:38:36.152+01:002012-11-08T13:38:36.152+01:00Thanks for your comment.
Perhaps that distinction...Thanks for your comment.<br /><br />Perhaps that distinction deflates the entire issue. It’s hard to say without reading the book first. But I guess the answer will depend on how Rowlands uses the term ”moral subject”. I have only leafed through the book (if leaving through a book is possible on a Kindle), and at the beginning of chapter three I found this: <br /><br /><i>The primary thesis to be defended in this book is that some animals can be moral subjects in the sense that they can be motivated to act by moral reasons. These moral reasons take the form of morally laden emotions -- emotions that have moral content.</i><br /><br />At first blush, this looks similar to ideas put forward in the essay, where Rowlands more or less defines morally laden emotions as emotions directed at the wellbeing of others.<br /><br /><i>Kindness and patience seem to have a clear moral dimension. They are forms of what we might call ‘concern’ -- emotional states that have as their focus the wellbeing of another -- and concern for the welfare of others lies at the heart of morality. If Nina and Tess were concerned for the welfare of my son then, perhaps, they were acting morally: their behaviour had, at least in part, a moral motivation.</i><br /><br />Put like this, the idea that some animals can be moral subjects seems uncontroversial, except, of course, for people who keep denying that animals can ever be truthfully described as kind (or unkind) and patient (or not). However, I fail to see what Rowlands achieves or hopes to achieve by adding that such kindness is ”moral”.<br /><br />To be continued...vhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-60276787863988994182012-11-06T06:59:28.633+01:002012-11-06T06:59:28.633+01:00Good post. I've only skimmed the book (and rea...Good post. I've only skimmed the book (and read the excerpt paper "Animals that Act for Moral Reasons"). He puts a lot of emphasis on defending the idea that some animals can be "moral subjects"--which means something different than "moral patient" or "moral agent." One question is: how much air does that take out of the tantalizing suggestion that animals can "be moral"?<br /><br />Another thought: so much of this debate depends upon what we think "morality" is, or what its essential psychology is. The evidence desired by Kantians (rationalists) and Humeans (sentimentalists) will be wildly different. But if you're attracted to a kind of anti-essentialism about ethics/morality (and what good Wittgensteinian wouldn't be...), then the puzzles here will have no fully satisfying solution.<br /><br />It's a good point about expectations. But we do have expectations of some animals, too. Like dogs (or well-trained dogs). And people who've worked closely with primates, especially apes, seem to come to have various moral ("moral") expectations of the animals they work with on a regular basis and with whom they significantly communicate.Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.com