Can animals have morals?

[Γαητα]

Tell me your opinions.

[TheStrangest]

@ᑕᖇiᗰᔕ-ᑎ

Short answer : depends on what you base morality on but in my case no

Long answer:

For a living creature to have morals(principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour) it must first be able do define what right and wrong is, usually they all agree on

1st good is what guarantees and/or improves the chances of the survival of your species and bad is what doesn't

So they have that principle so yes in that way they do have morals(their own morality) but they usually don't care for other species' well being and can not empathise with them so if you define what is good in your morality as the improvement of well being (health, social life, happiness...) of all living beings and the prevention of unnecessary suffering then animals aren't moral in your standards

So it all depends on what things you base morality on, if you base it on something like nature (survival of the fittest) a.ka. you use natural morality then animals are moral but if you base it on utilitarianism and well being of all creatures then they are not

[NutellaBigGoat]

@thestrangest Agreed

[NutellaBigGoat]

@ᑕᖇiᗰᔕ-ᑎ Yeah why not? dabs

[Lucifer]

Morality is something that develops over time and helps the community survive.

Morals are "hard-wired" into the brains of all the animals and provide the "social glue" that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups.

Just as in humans, the moral nuances of a particular culture or group will be different from another, but they are certainly there. Moral codes are species specific, so they can be difficult to compare with each other or with humans.

Human morality was not formed from scratch, but grew out of our primate psychology. Primate psychology has ancient roots, and I agree that other animals show many of the same tendencies and have an intense sociability.

Whales have been found to have spindle cells in their brains. These very large and specialized cells were thought to be restricted to humans and other great apes and appear to play a role in empathy and understanding the feelings of others.

There have been instances which show cross species empathy as well.

Animals that live in large communities also demonstrate a sense of justice and those who deviate from the code of conduct of a group are set upon by other members as punishment.

Animals show emotions and morality, just because they show it differently than humans do doesn't mean that are deprived of morality,