The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165196   Message #3961095
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
10-Nov-18 - 11:27 AM
Thread Name: BS: Symposium: Exemplary disagreement
Subject: RE: BS: Symposium: Exemplary disagreement
It is also necessary to define what a human is and clearly distinguish between human attributes and evolutionary traits in the animal kingdom that may cause confusion. I think we can be certain that the three wise monkeys at no point sat down and discussed aesthetics, logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. If not capable of discussing a concept and understanding it, how can actions be controlled by it.

Again, No. You can't put humans above everything else on all matters such as behavior and morality. This isn't just about human language - communication and behavior extend beyond humans. And that philosophy site you linked to is tilted toward xtian philosophy. It is necessary to step away from the religions and get into the philosophers who aren't tethered to one particular creation story.

Crow shares food

Swan feeds fish

Swans feed fish

Orangutan sharing with chimps (you can discuss the morality of humans placing such animals in zoos and such awful enclosures)

Monkey's cooperating to get food.

This just touches the surface - you can look for animals helping injured comrades, you can find all sorts of inter-species cooperation and play, you can find combinations of animals with humans that set aside their "worst" instincts and live harmoniously. These would portray that it doesn't require language to understand cooperation and sharing, or brainstem communication levels that are present in vertebrates across the animal kingdom. Philosophers can discuss this but they can't own it, nor can a religion.