Question

Which experiment investigated the question, “Do animals have morality?”

Answer 1

Animals have this to a degree. And it depends on the species. For example, any socially sentient species will not go to another rival of the same species’ herd, pack, you name it. They generally will not trespass, steal, or kill the group member except out of desperation. A pride of lions will not go to another pride’s lands and kill there, nor take their catch. However the starving or near starving hyena will attempt to ambush a lioness as she tries to bring her catch home for her offspring’s dinner. Animals may not understand what ethics are, but they practice it without the base knowledge. Never underestimate an animal’s life just because they are not AS intelligent as we are. Remember some of these animal’s ancestors have lived here longer than us, and are smarter than we think.

The book, "Can Animals Be Moral?" (Oxford University Press, October 2012), suggests social mammals such as rats, dogs and chimpanzees can choose to be good or bad. And because they have morality, we have moral obligations to them, said author Mark Rowlands, a University of Miami philosopher.

"Animals are owed a certain kind of respect that they wouldn't be owed if they couldn't act morally," Rowlands told LiveScience.

But while some animals have complex emotions, they don't necessarily have true morality, other researchers argue.

Some research suggests animals have a sense of outrage when social codes are violated. Chimpanzees may punish other chimps for violating certain rules of the social order, said Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-author of "Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals" (University Of Chicago Press, 2012).

Male bluebirds that catch their female partners stepping out may beat the female, said Hal Herzog, a psychologist at Western Carolina University who studies how humans think about animals.

And there are many examples of animals demonstrating ostensibly compassionate or empathetic behaviors toward other animals, including humans. In one experiment, hungry rhesus monkeys refused to electrically shock their fellow monkeys, even when it meant getting food for themselves. In another study, a female gorilla named Binti Jua rescued an unconscious 3-year-old (human) boy who had fallen into her enclosure at the Brookline Zoo in Illinois, protecting the child from other gorillas and even calling for human help. And when a car hit and injured a dog on a busy Chilean freeway several years ago, its canine compatriot dodged traffic, risking its life to drag the unconscious dog to safety.