Back before the day of cellphone cameras, I saw three crows play a variant of "hot potato." They'd found a crumpled up McDonald's bag, that had some bits of food still in it. One would take the bag and give it a good shake, then drop it. The next did the same and so-on. After about fifteen minutes the contents shook out, and the crow "holding the bag" only got one french fry, while his buddies got some hamburger.
Somewhere or another I watched a video of crows or ravens who had found a snow covered bank and were using it as a slide- they would hop to the top, then jump on it and slide down, repeatedly, enough to have worn a shallow groove in the snow. Sure looked like they were having a good time.
I think you're on to something important, Dad29, which we were discussing toward the end of the last post about it too. There's a difference between moral and ethical (at least as originally envisioned by the Greeks). Aristotle never talks about morality, but he talks about ethics: about virtues, that is capacities to excel. So his analysis about why lying was wrong (ethically) is that it is destructive to the trust underlying political friendship and the social order. (He may be wrong about that; some level of lying may be necessary for the social order.)
It may be wrong for another reason too. Kant locates the immorality of lying in its violation of the norms of reason, so that it is in fact an irrational thing to do -- the argument, briefly, is that if everyone lied lying would lose its value because the value of lying depends on people believing what you say. (He may be wrong about that, too: it could be, as Christian orthodoxy suggests, that everyone is in fact a liar; the lies may be wrong, but they don't lose their value as he expected because they end up being deployed in certain contexts where they don't completely undermine trust.)
You can also say that it's wrong for the simple reason that God commands otherwise. You can't be wrong about that, at least -- it's right there in the book.
So anyway, the point is -- crows may have access to the virtues (and vices), and therefore capable of ethical (or unethical) behavior.
But not moral behavior.
Of course, virtue ethics has been worked into the Catholic tradition so thoroughly that it is now proper to speak of "ethics" in that sense as fully moral.
We know a dog or a cat or various other animals are capable of emotion- I have wondered if the capacity to appreciate beauty is uniquely human. of course, if we use it as a marker there are a lot of two legged's walking around who will not make the cut......
First, I find the video mildly interesting, but I think also deceptive. The thing that makes me think so (I cannot prove it) is that the lead in to the bird's routine is 'this is the first time the bird has seen these items (i)in this arrangement(/i)' which would imply that he's seen these things before. I'm guessing that the first time he saw these all together, they were in spatial order matching the operational order. So, I'm suggesting that they trained the bird- which is by no means the same as the bird 'solving' a puzzle. Yes, I am skeptical by nature- why do you ask?
So Dad29 makes the critical point- "Lying" is not simply deception, or more accurately (as deception implies a morality) inaccuracy- it's deception or inaccuracy intentionally deployed, informed and knowingly wrong under what’s assumed to be a common moral code of conduct. That was my issue with the article linked to in the other post- what he was describing wasn’t lying- telling yourself “I can do it” in mile 18 of a marathon when your body wants to quit isn’t lying- it’s based on the knowledge that you’ve done things before you wouldn’t have thought you could do prior to doing them- and so even if it turns out that you were wrong, and you collapse at mile 20 and are carted off to the hospital (and therefore you were incorrect), it still isn’t lying. What is lying is totally dependent on what one believes the perception of what is said will be.
Lying is also not ‘not-truth’. One can speak in a way that is factually correct, and still be lying if they present those facts as to be understood in a way that the presenter knows is not truthful. It would be better to posit that lying is opposed to honesty rather than to truth. Truth is only about determining what is factual and what is not.
Animals use deception in many ways. Hiding is a simple act of deception, isn't it? It's not lying for an animal to hide, as there is no moral burden on the animal to 'tell the truth' by revealing itself. Nature doesn’t care about deception, it simply is. Nature is indifferent.
Dennis Prager has often said that lying to protect a Jewish Family in 1939 Europe could not be immoral- God did not ask us to immolate ourselves to preserve facts- but to risk our mortal beings to be good. Under the filter of morality, saying something which is not the truth- even to deceive- may be a good- an honesty not to the amoral nature of truth, but to the moral rule of a higher power.
Oddly, perhaps, I’d even suggest that one who tells untruths with some regularity can be an honest person under the right circumstances. I have a friend who often says things which simply aren’t true, or are exaggerated (one thinks of the traditional ‘fish story’). He says these things I know not why exactly, but in the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen it used for gain or malice. His actions – what he does to and for others- are as honest and good as anyone I know. Given that, I take with little seriousness what he says when it seems extreme or unlikely, and enjoy his company, and he’s been there when I needed a hand, and I for him, and our friendship is a good one. Odd perhaps, but good. I’d not call him a liar- I’d suggest others not pay too much attention to his talk of things outrageous or odd, but rather to the truth of his actions.
8 comments:
Not "lie" in the formal sense of the term, of course. That requires a morally-informed decision, and 'morally-informed' is not a property of animals.
Can they play games?
Back before the day of cellphone cameras, I saw three crows play a variant of "hot potato." They'd found a crumpled up McDonald's bag, that had some bits of food still in it. One would take the bag and give it a good shake, then drop it. The next did the same and so-on. After about fifteen minutes the contents shook out, and the crow "holding the bag" only got one french fry, while his buddies got some hamburger.
Somewhere or another I watched a video of crows or ravens who had found a snow covered bank and were using it as a slide- they would hop to the top, then jump on it and slide down, repeatedly, enough to have worn a shallow groove in the snow. Sure looked like they were having a good time.
All Corvids may very steadfast friends.
I think you're on to something important, Dad29, which we were discussing toward the end of the last post about it too. There's a difference between moral and ethical (at least as originally envisioned by the Greeks). Aristotle never talks about morality, but he talks about ethics: about virtues, that is capacities to excel. So his analysis about why lying was wrong (ethically) is that it is destructive to the trust underlying political friendship and the social order. (He may be wrong about that; some level of lying may be necessary for the social order.)
It may be wrong for another reason too. Kant locates the immorality of lying in its violation of the norms of reason, so that it is in fact an irrational thing to do -- the argument, briefly, is that if everyone lied lying would lose its value because the value of lying depends on people believing what you say. (He may be wrong about that, too: it could be, as Christian orthodoxy suggests, that everyone is in fact a liar; the lies may be wrong, but they don't lose their value as he expected because they end up being deployed in certain contexts where they don't completely undermine trust.)
You can also say that it's wrong for the simple reason that God commands otherwise. You can't be wrong about that, at least -- it's right there in the book.
So anyway, the point is -- crows may have access to the virtues (and vices), and therefore capable of ethical (or unethical) behavior.
But not moral behavior.
Of course, virtue ethics has been worked into the Catholic tradition so thoroughly that it is now proper to speak of "ethics" in that sense as fully moral.
We know a dog or a cat or various other animals are capable of emotion-
I have wondered if the capacity to appreciate beauty is uniquely human. of course, if we use it as a marker there are a lot of two legged's walking around who will not make the cut......
First, I find the video mildly interesting, but I think also deceptive. The thing that makes me think so (I cannot prove it) is that the lead in to the bird's routine is 'this is the first time the bird has seen these items (i)in this arrangement(/i)' which would imply that he's seen these things before. I'm guessing that the first time he saw these all together, they were in spatial order matching the operational order. So, I'm suggesting that they trained the bird- which is by no means the same as the bird 'solving' a puzzle. Yes, I am skeptical by nature- why do you ask?
So Dad29 makes the critical point- "Lying" is not simply deception, or more accurately (as deception implies a morality) inaccuracy- it's deception or inaccuracy intentionally deployed, informed and knowingly wrong under what’s assumed to be a common moral code of conduct. That was my issue with the article linked to in the other post- what he was describing wasn’t lying- telling yourself “I can do it” in mile 18 of a marathon when your body wants to quit isn’t lying- it’s based on the knowledge that you’ve done things before you wouldn’t have thought you could do prior to doing them- and so even if it turns out that you were wrong, and you collapse at mile 20 and are carted off to the hospital (and therefore you were incorrect), it still isn’t lying. What is lying is totally dependent on what one believes the perception of what is said will be.
Lying is also not ‘not-truth’. One can speak in a way that is factually correct, and still be lying if they present those facts as to be understood in a way that the presenter knows is not truthful. It would be better to posit that lying is opposed to honesty rather than to truth. Truth is only about determining what is factual and what is not.
Animals use deception in many ways. Hiding is a simple act of deception, isn't it? It's not lying for an animal to hide, as there is no moral burden on the animal to 'tell the truth' by revealing itself. Nature doesn’t care about deception, it simply is. Nature is indifferent.
Dennis Prager has often said that lying to protect a Jewish Family in 1939 Europe could not be immoral- God did not ask us to immolate ourselves to preserve facts- but to risk our mortal beings to be good. Under the filter of morality, saying something which is not the truth- even to deceive- may be a good- an honesty not to the amoral nature of truth, but to the moral rule of a higher power.
Oddly, perhaps, I’d even suggest that one who tells untruths with some regularity can be an honest person under the right circumstances. I have a friend who often says things which simply aren’t true, or are exaggerated (one thinks of the traditional ‘fish story’). He says these things I know not why exactly, but in the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen it used for gain or malice. His actions – what he does to and for others- are as honest and good as anyone I know. Given that, I take with little seriousness what he says when it seems extreme or unlikely, and enjoy his company, and he’s been there when I needed a hand, and I for him, and our friendship is a good one. Odd perhaps, but good. I’d not call him a liar- I’d suggest others not pay too much attention to his talk of things outrageous or odd, but rather to the truth of his actions.
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