I'm guessing animal rights activist Reyes in the video I posted below is referencing this experiment by Masserman, Wechkin and Terris, in which Rhesus monkey do seem to exhibit the ability to reason, to empathize and, most importantly, to act altruistically.
These are truly significant findings. Not that I feel animals have to possess these kinds of faculties to be deserving of compassion, to be protected from needless suffering. I agree more with the quote by Jeremy Bentham; the important question is simply whether animals can suffer. If they can, we owe them the same consideration we give to other creatures who can experience pain or anguish.
But for those who wish to deny the continuum of consciousness between those animals and the human animal writing these words or the human animal reading these words, well, that experiment should give them serious food for thought. But then those Rhesus monkeys might be more likely to exhibit compassion than many humans, going by how upset many people get when you try to discuss animal rights with them.
Is that altruism due to the fact that these are social animals? I think it's very telling that the monkeys who had been shocked before seemed to be the ones most likely to be able to empathize and act altruistically, to refrain from delivering that shock to one of their fellow creatures. It's very tempting to extrapolate from that to human behavior and how empathy generally works in that animal population.
And about that test: I'm not a proponent of shocking monkeys. Yes, I do realize the terrible Catch-22 and irony in that this experiment was science causing pain to animals in the name of advancing human knowledge (which here might benefit animals).
These are truly significant findings. Not that I feel animals have to possess these kinds of faculties to be deserving of compassion, to be protected from needless suffering. I agree more with the quote by Jeremy Bentham; the important question is simply whether animals can suffer. If they can, we owe them the same consideration we give to other creatures who can experience pain or anguish.
But for those who wish to deny the continuum of consciousness between those animals and the human animal writing these words or the human animal reading these words, well, that experiment should give them serious food for thought. But then those Rhesus monkeys might be more likely to exhibit compassion than many humans, going by how upset many people get when you try to discuss animal rights with them.
Is that altruism due to the fact that these are social animals? I think it's very telling that the monkeys who had been shocked before seemed to be the ones most likely to be able to empathize and act altruistically, to refrain from delivering that shock to one of their fellow creatures. It's very tempting to extrapolate from that to human behavior and how empathy generally works in that animal population.
And about that test: I'm not a proponent of shocking monkeys. Yes, I do realize the terrible Catch-22 and irony in that this experiment was science causing pain to animals in the name of advancing human knowledge (which here might benefit animals).
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