This is an interesting string of discussion, which leads to the complexity of the issue. While it is true sociobiologists infer social behavior in animals such as wolves, marine mammals, etc, the concept is still a human construct. I differ slightly from David's perspective in that morals are what is right or wrong while ethics are why they are right or wrong - it still relates, however, to cultural standards as established by society. It is indeed difficult enough in humans to decide whether an ethical action is based on a deontological, utilitarian, or virtue basis. Trying to decide if an animal is expressing higher cognitive abilities by acting with beneficence, malfeasance, or prudence would still be comparing a human construct. Whether that is appropriate or not remains subjective not objective.

It is a very interesting question, but very difficult to address. I think some of the best work done approaching ethical decisions in animals has been in cooperative tasks such as the unequal pay schemes tested in primates. As far as looking into whale vocalizations, our current knowledge is very limited as to the functionality of calls. I think it would be unlikely that we would be able to gain such specific information by eavesdropping on these animals. Perhaps a different approach would be to work with captive animals, and to train a working vocabulary, such as was done by Xitco et al with the dolphin keyboard. This could be used in a cooperative task between animals, such as the unequal pay scheme or an alternative ethical dilemma.

Hi!

The question is fair off may topic, but I suggest watching the following video of a Dutch researcher explaining some of his studies on animal ethics, and if it fits what you are looking for, go for his papers.

The video is short and concise, really worth the 17 minutes it takes.

Best wishes,

Jabi

http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals

Thankyou Amanda and Jabi. These are both very helpful answers. The TED talk is delightful! I will pass this information on to the other group.

Morals and ethics are philosophical issues of what an individual (morals) or a society (ethics) thinks is "right" or "wrong." Any "thinking" requires higher cognitive abilities. It's difficult enough for one human to determine if another human has the required cognitive abilities to philosophize on any issue, never mind trying to determine their ethical opinion on any issue. So I'm not sure how one would objectively go about determining any of this in any non-human species. Has this been attempted in non-human primates?

I would suggest that the question could be usefully re-stated as, What kinds of behaviors would suggest that an organism (animal or not) is behaving ethically? After all, we do not decide that a person is ethical because they can use a word "ethics" or because they verbally state "I am ethical". We make these decisions on the basis of their observed behavior. Cooperative tasks are one way to address that, and the research of this sort has been done with multiple primate species. While designing a well-controlled study in this area is difficult, as David suggest, it is by no means impossible. After all, we are able to study conceptual learning and deductive reasoning, which once were thought to be impossible to study without language, so why not morals?

There is a danger that we, as humans, will apply our own concept of ethics on animals, which would clearly bias interpretation of the results. After all, our sense of ethics is a uniquely human-derived concept. I think a more promising, though longer and untested, route would be to begin deciphering brain-wave patterns in humans while they undertake ethically-challenging tests (an area where we are beginning to gain experience) and then to see if similar patterns can be viewed in other mammals for which we also can decipher brain-wave patterns (an altogether more challenging area), bearing in mind that comparibility of human and non-human encephalographs are still some way off.

Allow me to remain skeptical on the brain-wave patterns idea. We still have no clue as to the functional analog of the primary visual cortex in, for example, birds. This will be orders of magnitude more challenging for the issues far more complex than decomposing images into patterns. And how would someone know that a certain brain wave pattern is a functional equivalent of moral decision in an animal, if not by seeing that this brain wave pattern correlates with behavior that we would describe as moral? The converging behavioral evidence and brain wave evidence would certainly be better than behavior alone, but I am not convinced that analysis of brain activity would tell us much about morality in absence of reliable behavioral demonstration.

I found the TED talk posted by Jabi Zabala-Albizua instructive. From it I learnt that primates other than humans have a sense of right and wrong. This can be derived from the similarity of their behaviour when put in a situation which humans can easily recognize as being unfair, and in acting cooperatively (though reluctantly) even when there is no personal gain. I found David Scarfe's definition of the distinction between morals and ethics useful and adequate for the current discussion. I had not thought previously of John O'Brien's idea that analyzing brain-wave patterns might help, but Olga Lazareva's scepticism seems well-founded, unless there is some kind of wearable gear that can transmit information about 'brain waves' (I think this is possible, depending on the type of 'wave' being measured). Amanda Stansbury's proposed methods may provide results that are more instructive, however, and the idea of examining 'ethical dilemmas' is really interesting because the same dilemmas can be posed to humans and non-humans.

I posit the following. From an experimental point of view we should adopt the null hypothesis that only humans have ethics. This will drive investigators to try to falsify the hypothesis. From an operational (ethical) point of view, we should act as if other sentient beings have ethics, this being the precautionary approach. I think the evidence is sufficient for both of these to be sensible and not in conflict.

I look forward to the day when university research ethics committees ask large-brained animals for their opinion on whether proposed research on their peers is ethically acceptable! It would be far better than having human surrogates, though it won't happen in my life-time.

I found the TED talk delightful. Dr. de Waal is an excellent speaker. I do, however, want to say that I believe he tries to take in too much ground. His two pillars (Reciprocity/fairness and empathy/compassion) are some of the necessary components for being en ethical agent, but their presence (were I persuaded that Reciprocity/fairness is really demonstrated here) does not equate to the presence of ethical agency on the part of the Capuchin monkeys, the Chimpanzees, the elephants, or the Bonobos. There is much here which is interesting and very entertaining, but I think his conclusions are a bit ambitious for the evidence he offers.

I will concede empathy/compassion, because his examples give evidence of a certain level of compassion/empathy. Were I to seek to refute this, I would pursue the issue of degrees. Specifically, does the juvenile monkey attempting to comfort the young adult monkey equal the compassion/empathy, which the golfer's wife offers him when he is discouraged? Letting that issue go, and conceding that point, I do not believe his offered examples demonstrate reciprocity/fairness.

If one Capuchin monkey gets angry because the other Capuchin monkey in the cage next door to him is getting paid for doing the same task that he is in grapes rather than in cucumbers, that does not equal the monkey possessing a sense of fairness. It simply means, "I want to get what he is getting." One need not use a creature as high functioning as a monkey to verify this. If you own dogs or cats you know that they want to be fed what the other one is being fed. Try putting one dog on a special diet when you are feeding other dogs something more desirable, and see how long it takes the dog to notice. It is immediate. Were this a sense of fairness it would first have to do with a negative response to unequal treatment of two animals other than itself, then to the unequal treatment of its mate or companion, and then lastly to unequal treatment of itself. de Waal's examples all have to do with treatment of the self. He does allude to a different experiment where one monkey protests the unfair treatment of a monkey other than itself, but he has given no visual evidence of that experiment. Recognition of simple inequities does not equate to a sense of fairness. Fairness is a bit more complex than that. For all of that, it is still a wonderful and fascinating TED talk, which is quite enjoyable to watch.

This is an interesting string of discussion, which leads to the complexity of the issue. While it is true sociobiologists infer social behavior in animals such as wolves, marine mammals, etc, the concept is still a human construct. I differ slightly from David's perspective in that morals are what is right or wrong while ethics are why they are right or wrong - it still relates, however, to cultural standards as established by society. It is indeed difficult enough in humans to decide whether an ethical action is based on a deontological, utilitarian, or virtue basis. Trying to decide if an animal is expressing higher cognitive abilities by acting with beneficence, malfeasance, or prudence would still be comparing a human construct. Whether that is appropriate or not remains subjective not objective.

If whales do think ethically are we to assume that there are bad whales, immoral whales, amoral whales and even criminal whales?

Is it possible that any sentient species other than Homo Sapien Sapien can not only develop an ethical code but communicate it and punish/rehabilitate those who breach it? This is a fascinating concept and opens the way to discussing whether animals can enter into contracts or to owe a duty of care to other animals.

In the insect world it is clearly ethical for a praying mantis to kill and eat a sexual partner. Bot flies may infect a host doing it enormous tissue damage on a utilitarian ethical principal and conversely ants act as imperialist aggressors when invading the territory of other ants.

If animals have ethics then a human response to animal bad behaviour is logical. Trying and executing a pig for rolling over and suffocating its litter is a legally and ethically legitimate act.

If a goat butts the farmer on land he or she owns, should the goat be tried by the law of humans or the Civil Code for Horned Ruminants, Oh and would it be automatically unfair if the judge happened to be an arthropod?

I think what you have stated is exactly to the point Barry. I think we are attributing human capacities to creatures which are functioning on a much different level than ourselves. We attribute human-like motivations and thought processes to them by way of an anthropomorphizing process of projection.

By the way, I enjoyed your questions about whales. If we go too far down this road, like the monomaniacal Captain Ahab, we could open a door which leads to a place where human beings seek revenge against creatures who merely act out of instinct.

Indeed Bill. But might we also not run the risk of separating ourselves too much from the order of nature by too quickly appealing to the notion of instinct. Writers have been known to base the possibility of altruism in humans in an evolutionary explanation. If I do what is (morally) right and opposed to my self-interest, and I do so because I believe it is the right thing to do, and all of this has an evolutionary explanation, I'm not sure the appeal to instinct provides the distinction in principle you seem to be relying on.

While I doubt that other species are able to formulate ethics (in the sense of moral theory), I think evidence points to other mammalian species having morals (non-instinctive behavioral rules). The line between morals and ethics is not clear cut because conceptual modelling is progressive (not either absent or present). For this reason, I think that we need experimental approaches to address questions that have traditionally been ignored due to prejudicial assumptions.

One needs to always remember the difference between ethics and morals, how they are influenced, and how they change.

An ethical standard is the opinion of a social group about what is right and wrong - at any point in time. A moral standard is the opinion of one person about what is right and wrong - at any point in time. Like every other "opinion" on anything, morals and ethics are influenced by the society (social group) the individual lives in and, like everything, these change over time.

This is some interesting observational information.  Not knowing much about dolphin communication I have a question - could your echo streaming be perceived as a threat by the other dolphins whose counter actions are a threat response?  If so I would not consider the response a "breach of etiquette" from a moral or ethical perspective however you want to define the distinction between the two.  If there is a way of understanding what message your echo streaming is conveying to the other dolphins you might have the basis for validating your premise.  Thank you for the information.

Jason,

Thank you for the follow-up, the further elaboration is helpful.  Am I correct that, based on your experience and studies, you are relating threatening behavior such as posturing, tailslaps, etc, to an unethical or immoral behavior of expression of human language?  If so I have the problem that I have with  animal sociobiologists who find such behavior equivocal to human behavior from a descriptive perspective albeit I fully recognize that such comparisons are the result of not having better means of explaining the observations.  I hope you can provide some type of experimental evidence that supports this perspective.  Until then, I still remain suspect of animals expressing moral or ethical behavior - I still believe it is a higher cognitive function of social cohesion with the family or clan units.

It may very well be that the 'most intelligent' beings on the planet are prokaryotes, after al they have been here for about 3 billion years and counting.  It is almost certain that unless there is a catastrophe capable of rendering all biological life impossible on Earth that they will be here long after we have gone.

Of course we can investigate whether non human mammals have 'ethics' but why stop there.  What about a study to see if the base line is correct?  Do humans actually have them or are what passes for ethics in higher primates simply a myth?

Look to the ethics of the scorpion!

Jason,  I did not mean to imply that other animals don't have higher cognitive abilities because as you rightly point out that has been experimentally proven beyond questioning.   What I was implying I doubt that other animals have a construct of a constitutional ethic of beneficence, malfeasance , and prudence which are all human constructing and all have etymological origins and practical applications that most other humans can comprehend.  Obviously that does not obviate the possibility that other animals do not have a cognitive language or relational normative behavior that they understand and we don't.  Barry makes a good point about the baseline study - that would be interesting indeed.