Animal morality: What is the debate about?

Abstract

Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term "morality" is to be defined than on empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define "morality", "moral cognition", and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed. 1.Introduction In recent years, there has been much interest in whether morality exists in some non-human animals (henceforth, "animals"), or, put differently, whether some animals possess a moral psychology: whether they possess the requisite psychological capacities to engage in some form of moral cognition and action-for instance, make judgments of moral approval or disapproval about others' behaviour, internalize and enforce moral rules or norms, and act for moral reasons (e.g., act punitively towards another individual because of a moral evaluation of that individual's behaviour).Such questions have been prompted by a burgeoning empirical literature on the remarkably complex and intricate social lives, particularly of our closest primate 2 relatives, but also of other social mammals like elephants, domestic dogs, wolves, whales, dolphins, and rats, and even some non-mammalian species, such as ravens.For example, chimpanzees appear to engage in third-party policing of behaviour, which seems to indicate the existence and enforcement of norms of conduct within their communities (de Waal, 1996(de Waal, , 2014Rudolf von Rohr, et al., 2012). Special place is typically accorded to infants, for instance, such that aggression towards them is met with loud protests and active intervention on the part of uninvolved bystanders (Rudolf von Rohr, et al., 2011. Many other social mammals also appear to enforce various behavioural norms. For instance, m...

Naïve Normativity: The Social Foundation of Moral Cognition

“…Recent philosophical research has raised challenges to the view that moral participation is unique to human beings, with arguments that animals can track moral truths (Rowlands 2012), or even be moral agents (Monsó 2015). While others disagree, claiming that moral agency requires metacognitive capacities that only human beings enjoy (e.g., Kitcher 2011; Korsgaard 2018), the debate between these two camps may be largely terminological and nonsubstantive (Fitzpatrick 2017). To move the debate ahead, I propose a different approach to investigating the evolution of morality.…”

Edgcumbe. 2019 - The relationship between cognitive reflection and morality judgments are mediated by thinking dispositions.

“…Morality is a set of cultural values, rules, standards and principles that are thought to have developed when our early ancestors began to live in social groups (Mithen, 1994;Bekoff, 2001). Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists posit that in order to succeed as a social group a set of common shared values are needed -namely moral judgments and values (Fitzpatrick, 2017;Pölzler, 2017).…”

“…Nonhumans and humans alike, show evidence of moral values (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene, 2012;Fitzpatrick, 2017). These moral values differ in degree rather than kind across species (Bekoff, 2004;FitzPatrick, 2008).…”

Chimpanzee normativity: evidence and objections

“…It is thus no objection to chimpanzee normativity to hold that this isn't really "normativity" in some more philosophically demanding sense of the term. Unfortunately, this point has often been lost in recent debates amongst scientists and philosophers over normative and moral cognition in non-human animals, where these psychological and meta-ethical questions have been routinely conflated (see Fitzpatrick, 2017a).…”