I’ve been debating this question with a psychology student who believes conscience does not differentiate human beings from other animals.
To make his point, he has put forward the following cite from a lecture delivered by one of his professors:
I am flabbergasted. Can a professor really teach this? Do you think this quote describes reality?
Well, it’s beyond insane to say that there’s no difference in brain structure between humans and animals…if the animal in question is a wasp or fruit fly or moray eel or rattlesnake.
But…I’m pretty sure that dogs do have consciences. They know right from wrong. It comes with being social animals. So, there are some similarities in the brains of humans and some of the other mammals.
Dogs also have a sense of humor, very useful when living in a hierarchical social order.
Indeed. The comparative examples I’ve been given so far teem with mammals actually. I for one consider the cases when it takes a judge to trial or sentence an animal simply ridiculous, but apparently there are a lot of people who find other animals as morally accountable as humans, which for me is an exaggeration and a distortion of facts.
Conscience is a sort of extra-momentary affect. I cannot regret a thing that I cannot remember, or be concerned about the effects of an action if I cannot imagine those effects. Animals mostly do not seem to have any extra-momentary perception, their existence is fundamentally in the present, so they have no capability for complex morality or conscience, at least in the sense that we understand it. Extra-momentary perception is a side-effect of the kind of abstraction that our complex language gives us access to, that is the only real difference between us and the creatures most similar to us.
On the other hand, there have been some instances of animals showing what looks like unbidden kindness to other animals or to humans (like the toddler who fell into the gorilla exhibit and ended up being helped by the gorillas), and there have been humans who abuse animals and other humans, so it looks like there is no clear-cut way to answer this.
And a big one too. This argument (which I embrace as well) does not make a lot of difference for the student I’ve been debating with. He says that although dogs and crows live exclusively in the present, they know they are doing something wrong when they’re stealing food which they know belongs to someone else. Therefore, animals and humans are basically the same in this respect.
It’s not our conscience that’s unique; it’s our conceptual consciousness.
The OP’s quote of a quote seems to leave a lot undefined and seem to be unrealted to the assertion. You can substitute adult for the word ‘human’ and child for the word ‘animal’ to create:
But that does not prove that children do not possess consciences. In fact it sort of proves that they do, although they may have less to work with due to limited experiences, but the process that creates conscienceness is obviously there.
Going back (younger) there is less and less for the conscience to use, but that does not and can not negate that the process exists.
By the substitution the second sentence is revealed to be also flawed by using the word ‘people’, which excludes animals in the original but includes children in the modified version.
The big question is, do we differentiate between conscience and deference/submissiveness to other members of the herd?
I do NOT believe dogs are capable of feeling guilt. On the other hand, they’re certainly capable of perceiving when their people (or the other members of their canine pack) are angry at them, and they know how to express submissiveness and deference to the angry party.
That is, I don’t think dogs feel any remorse over peeing on the rug, chewing up your shoes, or knocking over the garbage can. But they CAN read your body language, they can tell when you’re mad at them, and will quickly give all the signals of submission (lowered eyes, tail between the legs, cowering) that we read as guilt.
Little children are the same way. A two year old doesn’t feel guilt over disobeying Mommy, but she can tell when she’s made Mommy mad, and will make a big show of remorse.
I think most humans eventually develop a conscience that means MORE than “I don’t want the rest of my pack to be mad at me.” I don’t know if any animals ever do.
While there is, of course, always the risk of anthropomorphizing, my observations are that some dogs are capable of feeling guilt, shame, remorse, and regret.
No way to prove it, however…
True enough.
But to repeat my comparison, I don’t think a 2 year old feels “guilty” about drawing with crayons on the wall. Oh, he/she can see that it made Mommy mad, and will immediately start trying to appease Mommy (“I love you, Mommy!”). But it isn’t until MUCH later that we’re capable of feeling guilt over a sin nobody else is even aware of.
And that, to me, is what defines guilt. If a dog doesn’t get caught peeing on the rug, does it feel bad about doing it? Of course not! Can PEOPLE feel bad about things they didn’t get caught doing? Yes. That’s what guilt is.
I’d say something like this.
I think a dog can feel guilty about doing something he doesn’t get caught at. Dogs can have a sense of pride and feel guilty even about what they perceive to be a misdeed though they probably don’t lose a lot of sleep over it. Just like humans they don’t have to understand why what they did is wrong to feel guilty. Certainly the human conscience can be more complex and abstract than other animals but isn’t always so even in humans.
I’ve been met at the door by a dog who is acting like he feels guilty, even before I enter the house and see the mess made in the living room or whatever. They feel guilty (or whatever you want to call it, but it’s similar enough to human guilt to make a different term hard to justify) even before they’re caught.
Now, could you say that humans have a more highly-developed conscience than animals? Sure, but that’s no surprise: Most of our cognitive functions are more highly-developed than animals’ are. But it’s a difference of amount between us and the smartest animals, not a fundamental qualitative difference.
I side with sociobiologists, that we evolved a “moral sense” that is deeply involved with our emotions, producing effects such as feelings of shame, embarrassment, unfairness, and many other emotions that help a society work well (or rather, help individuals prosper in a tightly knit group). This is at odds with the “tabula rasa” crowd (including Stephen Gould!) who believe that the stuff of human brains has little in terms of instinct or natural inclination. (IT was a big thing in the mid 20th century, especially among liberals. It doesn’t hold up well to later scrutiny.)
IMHO, any sufficiently intelligent social animal will have a “moral sense,” though (probably) none would be as sophisticated as a human’s.
If there’s a difference between “conscience” and “moral sense” I’d like to learn just what the distinction is. There is a BIG difference between “moral sense” and “morals,” though, and maybe that relates to the former. Morals (or ethics, I won’t argue any distinction) are what we choose to rule our decisions, and may contradict what our evolved moral sense says.
Our moral sense may tell us it’s perfectly legit to kill our spouse’s lover, but hopefully our morals prohibit it.
This distinction, between rationally chosen basis for behavior, versus evolved emotional guides, might indeed be unique to humans. If that’s what the professor means by “conscience”, well, he’s assuming a lot in his use of words, but that’s a semantic objection only.
Why do you assume there’s no emotional response that coincides with the behavior?
You could be right. When we assume a correspondence between behavior and emotion, we can only do so by analogy (“I feel that way when I do that, and they say they feel that way when they do that, so perhaps we feel similar things.”)
But at least we have a basis for making that analogy. What basis do we have for dismissing it, for ruling it out? The smart skeptic would not take a position.
I suspect that when dogs show what looks like emotional behavior, they have corresponding emotional experiences. I suspect that from analogy, so I can’t be very confident. But I’m curious why anyone would feel any confidence that it’s not so.
Emotions are powerful evolutionary tools for sculpting behavior in ways that promote fitness. Why would evolution eschew them for dogs (actually, wolves) and their version of remorse? Other than sophistication, why would wolves be different from apes?
Do you believe that when a dog expresses joy, it’s just a physical expression without emotional content? How does that differ from remorse?
Admittedly, a dog’s equivalent of remorse would likely be far less textured than a human’s. It might not even understand the reason for the feeling – but how often do we humans have feelings despite not understanding the reason?
Not to argue with anyone but why does the question matter? Do humans have more complex/evolved cognitive and emotional capacities than animals. Yes, certainly they do. Do some animals at least have rudimentary emotions and thought patterns that would be labeled human? Probably but we can’t tell for sure. Does that mean that humans are more important than animals. Not in an objective sense. There is no objective reason why humans are better than animals. I think we just look to protect our own species first. I’m not a vegetarian or a big animal rights person but I still feel guilty for mistreatment of animals and even eating them at diner.
I can give anecdotal evidence on this. Sometimes my dog walks out of the kitchen and immediately hides under the dining room table. On inspection, she got into the garbage. She knew that we would be upset with her without any scolding on our part.
To respond in reverse order: yes, yes, and I’m flabbergasted that you’re flabbergasted.
(emphasis mine)
Just about word-for-word what I was about to say. It would be astounding if it was otherwise – that is, if there was any animal on this earth, including the kind that opine on the Internet, that was fundamentally and qualitatively different than any other.
The OP seems to be about psychology. In that area it’s difficult to prove anything and there’s constant debate on subjects like this. There are other people who find a need to distinguish humans from other animals for political and religious reasons. And it is just something people can be curious about, especially people who have pets or otherwise deal with animals on a regular basis.
I take it you think it’s a fact. I mean, your opinion is that conscience does not distinguish us from other animals. Shouldn’t there be, then, legal consequences? For example, I know kangaroos are a protected species, but shouldn’t the law be changed so that the individual that tried to claw a toddler to death can be charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter and sentenced accordingly?
You’re ignoring the important fact already stated that significant differences of degree exist in the cognitive functions of humans compared to those of other animals, or even between adult humans and children – which is why the transgression of children are treated in an age-dependent manner and not like those of adults. This doesn’t disprove the fact of structural commonality, and indeed there is more commonality than differences in the cognitive functions across many species including homo sapiens, hardly surprising since we all have common origins.