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Morality In Non-Human Animals

While I haven't done much research in "animal morality" I did observe moral behaviour among one of my favourite species, the Emperor Penguins. While watching "March of the Penguins," I was moved to tears when one of them realized that the egg he was incubating was a lost cause. He was having trouble holding the egg in place and covering it to keep away the extreme cold. The way he reacted to the loss of his offspring made me cry. I could feel his pain. The next thing he did seemed a very irrational reaction to such a loss. But then again he must have been very distraught. He tried to replace the egg he lost to the elements by stealing one of the other penguin's eggs. A horrible thing morally but when the other penguins who were nearby realized what he was trying to do, they all fought him off. They just knew that this was wrong and it looked to me that he was being reprimanded for it by the others. He backed off when confronted by the others, and yet he looked so sad to me that I felt incredibly sorry for him. Obviously incubating the egg while the female went foraging for food, which could take months, a bond is formed with the incubated egg and the loss is devastating. The Emperor Penguins only breed once a year under the harshest conditions.

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These are just my interpretations but I find it incredible and very suggestive of human beings, that morality comes from a natural source. No religion, no God, nothing supernatural about it. I don't know where it comes from but I'm fairly sure it does not come from above.

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1 comments:

AIGBusted said...

Hi AB,

If you like reading about the evolution of mind, you should see one of my latest posts called "Good Bad Adaptations" which talks about the possibility of Depression and Morning Sickness During Pregnancy both being evolutionary adaptations. Kind of sad, but this is because evolution is ultimately a blind process. Here it is:

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com

-Ry

While I haven't done much research in "animal morality" I did observe moral behaviour among one of my favourite species, the Emperor Penguins. While watching "March of the Penguins," I was moved to tears when one of them realized that the egg he was incubating was a lost cause. He was having trouble holding the egg in place and covering it to keep away the extreme cold. The way he reacted to the loss of his offspring made me cry. I could feel his pain. The next thing he did seemed a very irrational reaction to such a loss. But then again he must have been very distraught. He tried to replace the egg he lost to the elements by stealing one of the other penguin's eggs. A horrible thing morally but when the other penguins who were nearby realized what he was trying to do, they all fought him off. They just knew that this was wrong and it looked to me that he was being reprimanded for it by the others. He backed off when confronted by the others, and yet he looked so sad to me that I felt incredibly sorry for him. Obviously incubating the egg while the female went foraging for food, which could take months, a bond is formed with the incubated egg and the loss is devastating. The Emperor Penguins only breed once a year under the harshest conditions.

Photobucket


These are just my interpretations but I find it incredible and very suggestive of human beings, that morality comes from a natural source. No religion, no God, nothing supernatural about it. I don't know where it comes from but I'm fairly sure it does not come from above.

1 Response to "Morality In Non-Human Animals"

  1. gravatar AIGBusted Says:

    Hi AB,

    If you like reading about the evolution of mind, you should see one of my latest posts called "Good Bad Adaptations" which talks about the possibility of Depression and Morning Sickness During Pregnancy both being evolutionary adaptations. Kind of sad, but this is because evolution is ultimately a blind process. Here it is:

    http://aigbusted.blogspot.com

    -Ry