It started to dawn on me that I, and most of us with a keen sense of right and wrong, were actually wrong, insofar as attempting to isolate morality as a concept to humans alone, when it does actually exist as the most basic and utterly common quality of all members of the so called “animal kingdom”, to which I will specifically refer as to all those possessing a living soul, to the various degrees provided by the possibilities existent within their own kind. Because against all the odds upheld by defendants of the existence of morality, theists, atheists and agnostics alike, morality does exist within the display of behavioural characteristics, throughout the animal realm.
How otherwise would anyone want to categorise the loving tenderness of mating rituals, the soft touch of a lionesses’ fangs when moving her cubs, or the unwillingness of some primates to let go of their dead ones?
Haven’t we become biased – under influence or not – by our own, perceived superiority, which seems to be nothing more than the exclusive place we have atop the “food chain”?
Oh, how blinded we have become by our computer aided intellects, that we have come to believe that our “social interaction” is in any way more complex and developed compared to other species, when actually history seems to be proving at every turn of it, that we are so much more inferior and degenerate than any other ones…
Who else in the world would think to expand their “lebensraum” to the genocidal detriment of closer or even remote neighbours?
No “inferior” hoards of any animal would “unite” under the sceptre of a megalomaniac poised to “rule the world”!
Do you want me to give you some examples from our own “superior” history, or I better leave you to quietly lick the fresh, bleeding wounds of your humiliated egos?
The more I think, the more I found examples of species which could by their aptitudes and abilities, try conquering all beneath them, forcing them into some privately peculiar forms of “development”, through international monetary funded rackets – otherwise known as slavery -, or “domesticate” them into cheap labour force; yet besides their nutritional needs, these species don’t organise “crusades” in the name of salvaging their own version of what social coexistence should be.
I have never heard of the “great ant bible” in which ant-Solomon the Great gave antlings advice such as “consider the humans for their…”; while we, humans, in one of mankind’s greatest pieces of “wisdom” literature, find ourselves needing to mind the wisdom of ants…
We pride ourselves to have reached the stars, yet we have no idea what gravity truly is, and gaze in awe at the geometrical ingenuity of spiders and bees.
We fight over who’s right and wrong over philosophical ineptitudes, but fail to understand that a full stomach on a summer evening’s breeze under one’s own roof, should cause us to sing happier than the most humble of birds at the top of everybody’s trees.
We have lost the global count of starving children, yet still uphold stupid laws against “bigamy” and “polygamy”, not to mention the “moral” upheavals about gender-intimately where some people fancy their sexual fulfilment…
Have further fun, my friends. I’m mentally out of this stupid incarceration of my dignity. I’m in no way neither better, nor worse than the rest of my other, soul owning neighbours.
I’ll still eat my commonsense dictated, morally wrong BBQ steaks, with commonsense dictated morally right mashed potatoes, enriched with lots of commonsense dictated, morally questionable butter…
And oh, I’ll stay away from both lions and ants, as I don’t really want to become neither one’s meal, nor the other one’s dwelling place.
Because that’s just simple commonsense…
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY 
Hear, hear.
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This has been succinctly put.
I see many times people write that animal- I mean non human- behavior is guided by instinct while those of men by reason and one wonders why if this is true do we have such unreasonableness around. It is like they posses reason as a trophy to be displayed but never to be used.
No ant that I know has attempted to research into how man builds homes but I know that men have undertaken to study ants ways just so they can achieve the same comfort naturally at a lower cost. Who is clever now? Let the reader decide
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I cannot do any better than absolutely agree☺
Moshe Ben Yehuda On 17 Mar 2014 12:02, “Defiant Hopelessness” wrote:
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“Who is clever now? Let the reader decide.”
*snickers*
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Very diplomatic, our friend Mak, is…;-)
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Indeed. He knows how to insert the knife, do a 180, and do so with much eloquence. 😀
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That’s why I am so hopelessly addicted to be friends with him…☺
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Hahah — ditto. There are some ‘good’ addictions.
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you guys are so generous in your compliments. Am the better for knowing you guys.
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Ditto, my friend, ditto.
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What other creature seems so Hellbent on it’s own destruction, through over-reproduction, and over-consumption of the earth’s resources? We ain’t that smart, bub! — YUR
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Nope! We ain’t…
Have you seen “Idiocracy”?
That’s about what we’re looking at…:-P
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I agree with you in that if naturalism and evolution are true we would have no reason to think our moral inclinations are any better than those of non-human animals. (assuming they have any as judged by their behavior)
But there is certainly nonhuman animal behavior that I think contradicts my understanding of morality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_(zoology)
Of course infanticide happens among humans as well. Its just that we seem to have a sense that it wrong where often it seems the animals don’t give this sense.
On the whole though I agree. If naturalism and evolution are our solely responsible for our creation there seems little reason to think that our moral instincts are more accurate than those of other animals.
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I’m not sure naturalism/evolution are to be necessarily considered when discussing animal morality. I also believe that any evaluation should be attempted only as if from within the target group/species. Animal infanticide is survival forced pragmatism. Contemporary humans avoid openly practising it for fear of punishment if caught, even if in ancient times unwanted children were simply “put out” in garbage pits, where they died or some merciful “adopted” them. Today, humans resort to abortion or the widely practised in some Asian cultures, gender selection, especially against female children, or on a socio-politico-economic government scale as in China… And it is actually a higher degree of emotional attachment than morality, present especially in humans, which makes the whole difference… It seems nevertheless, that this isn’t the case in the aforementioned cultures. So I guess my common commonsense theory’s still valid…
Moshe Ben Yehuda On 17 Mar 2014 17:58, “Defiant Hopelessness” wrote:
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I haven’t seen it. But, it looks like a hoot, with more than a touch of: Uh oh! I’ll see about seeing it. Thanks, Mo! — YUR
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☺
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Well said! 🙂
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Thanks René, I’m glad you agree☺
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Beauuutifully written!
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Sorry dear John, just seen your kind comment!
Thank you ever so much!
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