What a silly question, I’m sure you’re thinking. Of course they don’t have a conscience, they’re just animals! They’re entirely motivated by instinct and nothing more.
But surely it’s not that simple - humans are animals too.
Are we just anthropomorphising when we see a cat acting guiltily after being up on the kitchen bench licking the spilled milk? Or is the cat truly aware of the wrong it is doing?
Is there any way to know for sure what animals are truly thinking?
It seems to me that animals do have a limited awareness of what is allowed and not allowed, and when they are doing one or the other. They do seek approval and dislike disapproval, and act accordingly. Is that not a conscience?
An interesting question. I would say that animals can understand that e.g., jumping up on the table and taking food when the family isn’t home will result in punishment, and thusly cunningly conceal their sin by dragging the food into the next room, but I would anthropomorphize such behavior no further than a child attempting to escape punishment.
Dogs seem to be aware of the rules. I’ve seen a beagle sneaking over to do something, casting sideways glances at me to see what I’m doing. If I make it obvious I’m looking it will behave differently than if I’m paying attention. Catching a dog breaking a sacred rule–say, digging a hole in the yard–will cause the dog to slink away with its tail between its leg without me having to say anything. I’ll just push the offending dog inside while making growling noises. They already know I’m pissed. Loud displays of anger are more than enough to convince them I’m serious. It’s all a big bluff, but they think I’m a badass.
Sometimes they don’t agree with the rules. I have to keep enforcing certain ones over and over (Bleach!, poo eating). Other times they totally agree with the rules, to the point that my German shepherd dog will enforce the rules on the two beagles. If the puppy is jumping on me, preventing me from getting my socks on for a walk, she’ll cue in to my saying “get down” and pounce on the puppy and pin her to the ground, as I did to her as a puppy and I do to the puppy now. Not in a mean way, just enough to make it clear that the socks don’t go on unless you stop biting them. She’s helping me enforce the rules, I have little doubt.
Over time they will obey most of the rules if you are a reasonable ‘alpha.’
I agree as well. Dogs convey some pretty convincing body language that certainly looks like guilt. Of course I can’t prove that they actually feel the emotion of guilt, but then I can’t actually prove that other humans do, either. Obviously it’s not the same level of emotional maturity as a human adult, but I think it’s there. Maybe more like catching a 7-year-old child with his hand in the cookie jar. Is he really feeling sorry for what he did, or just sorry that he got caught?
My pup will destroy things, cushions on outside chairs, ferns, smee bike seat…
I always know, the ears are folded back.
sidenote This or last weeks newsweek had an artical about how the scientific community is doing a 180 on the subject of animals being capable of love. I am sure a conscience is poss. as well.
I will relate an amusing incident,of a fewyears ago: I am in the habit of waking up in the morning, and going downstairs toturn the TV news on. One morning,I couldnot find the remote control…and my dog (Chip) was behaving strangely…she was slinking away, with her tail down. Then I saw it-the chewed-up remains of the remote control! She was obviously guilty as hell! And she would not comewhen called…or look mein the eye!
A case of canine guilt?
Submissive behavior may look like guilt, but I don’t believe that it is. Your dog’s reaction is to try to placate Alpha Dog by assuming a submissive posture. He’s not necessarily feeling bad because he chewed your shoe-- he’s reacting to your reaction.
No, I don’t think animals have a conscience, but then again, I’m not really convinced that humans do, either. The more complex a society, the more rules that it has governing behavior. In my opinion, what we think of as a “conscience” is our minds comparing our behavior to the societal ideal, and guaging how society will react to what we have done. Based on wherger the reaction is positive or negative, those who are eager to obey the rules (those with a “conscience”) will try to modify their behavior or make amends. Those who do not care–those abberant folks who we say are without a conscience-- will shug off social dissaproval. What we call “conscience” is merely our minds reminding us that a certain act is against society’s rules and that we could potentially face punishment.
I’m not convinced that the conscience is a seperate mental entity, like, say, a “soul.” In my opinion, it’s simply a mechanism for coping with our society and its rules. All social creatures have the ability to determine whether their behavior violates the rules of the “pack” and what the consequences may be. In humans, those rules are simply more complex, and we also have the ability to justify our behavior in our minds. Whereas an animal may act somewhat impulsively, deciding to violate the rules on a whim, humans have the ability to weigh the act against what the consequences may be and then decide what to do. Animals don’t really have that clarity. They are creatures of the now, not really planning ahead.
A dog does not see chewing on a shoe as being wrong for its own sake. He sees it as wrong because the humans will yell at him. Humans, on the other hand, can see the far-reaching effects of their behavior, and can pinpoint why a behavior is forbidden in society.
That I do disagree with. I don’t see any evidence that there is a total dividing line between humans and animals with that regard. It’s more likely a matter of degree. Humans are certainly capable of acting impulsively, and I don’t think we do have the absolute ability to weigh consequences and base our actions on it. Is an alchoholic capable of weighing the consequences of his drinking and simply deciding not to? Many times he is not.
Dogs are certainly far more impulsive than humans, but I wouldn’t say our species is not impulsive at all, and all other species are 100% impulsive.
While human behavior is certainly much more complex than animal behavior, I don’t see it as an absolute, on-off type of situation.
A conscience is knowledge of the rules and guidelines and your choice in following them. I think. I suppose the deeper you look at it, the more complex it gets, making it hard to correlate that pets could really be reasoning out and defining within themselves what is ‘morally right or wrong’.
Then again, maybe animals are just as complex thinkers as humans, but don’t have the physical capability of proving that to our own satisfaction. They can’t speak, gesture, or have a language that we can comprehend…
I agree with Lissa in that I think some here are confusing submissive behavior with a conscious.
Humans have an astounding abiliyt to understand that other people may have thoughts different from their own. It’s easy to take this for granted and not realize that other animals cannot do this. Chimps seem to be able to do so to a very limmitted extent, but nowhere near the level of humans. I think that this process is where a sense of “guilt” comes from in humans.
Hmmm…what evidence do you have that there is a difference? Why is a dog who feels guilt over breaking the “rules” different than a human who feels guilt over breaking the rules? Evidence suggests that humans are just as much “pack” animals as are dogs, with the same tendency to bow to authority. In the infamous Milgram experiment, http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm
a shocking number of subjects ignored their own ethical principles and did what an authority figure told them to do. I think the idea that human behavior is somehow divine is just wishful thinking. We are only capable of acting according to whatever motivation is strongest. We may act out of empathy, self-gratification, or deference to authority, depending which motivation outweighs the others.
And what of animal behavior that is not explainable as simple dominance/submission? Animals certainly are capable of caring for and showing affection to their young, and stories abound of animals risking their own lives to save humans or other animals. These kinds of incidents are clearly examples of true empathy, and can’t be explained by a simple dominance/submission model. What is the justification for calling the same thing “instinct” in animals, while calling it “empathy” in humans?
I think the subjective experience of guilt is a result of the conflict between motivations. For example, we do something in our own self-interest, but that goes against our need to bow to authority, and we subsequently feel guilty. I see no reason to automatically assume that animals don’t experience the same emotion under the same circumstances.
But how do you know they can’t? Verbal language is not the only way to communicate thoughts. Humans also communicate through facial expressions, while dogs tend to communicate through body language. Pets are certainly able to understand certain things that are important to their master, like don’t poop on the floor, don’t chew up important stuff, don’t lie on the good couch, etc. These things aren’t necessarily important to the pet, but the pet realizes that they are important to the master. And ask any pet owner if their pet can sense when they are distressed. To say that animals know these things because they are only “trained”, while ascribing human knowledge to supposed lofty inspiration seems rather arbitrary. Again, I think it’s more likely a matter of degree rather than a complete disconnect between species.
Do I think animals have a conscience? No. But then, neither does a 2 or 3 year old human child.
An adult human is capable of feeling terrible about something he she did a long time ago, something for which there is no danger of future punishment. An adult human is quite capable of kicking himself/herself, and thinking “How could I have done a terrible thing like that? What kind of horrible person am I?”
For a dog or for a small child, however, “morality” is little (perhaps nothing) more than a set of rules for pleasing the big people… or at least, for avoiding their wrath. A dog or a toddler is smart enough to know that certain things it likes to do will make the big people mad.
And if it gets caught, it will try to show submission and deference to avoid a whipping (the dog will cower, and tuck its tail between its legs; the child will cry, or offer a pathetic “I love you, Mommy!”).
But does either the dog or the child really believe it’s done something bad? Not really. So, I wouldn’t say either has a conscience. The child will PROBABLY develop one eventually. But for a dog, “conscience” will never be more than the little voice that says “the people will be really mad if I do this.”
What I actually meant was chimps ability to understand what another chimp is thinking, but their ability to do so would probably be portable to understanding human thoughts to some extent as well. There have been a muber of experiments performed on chimps that show they can tell, to a limmited extent, that another chimp (or human) may not know what that particular chimp knows (eg, where food is hidden if Chimp A saw where it was hidden, but Chimp B did not).
This is all conjecture, of course, but I see guilt as being able to understand that what you’ve done to someone else could also been done to you. And knowing how you would feel if you were in the other person’s place. Caring for young (as someone mentioned above) has nothing to with guilt or a “conscience”.
