Animal morality: are humans merely animals?

[Rían]

[EDIT: This thread was split from the original Animal Rights/Dissection debate since it veered into a new direction that deserved its own thread. (And a perfect time for me to try out this splitting tool, yay.) The topic of this new thread is to discuss morals or morality in animals. -Eärniel]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

... (which is what we are... whether rÃ*an thinks so or not )

In the sense of the merely physical, of course we are animals That's why animal research is so valuable. And our sense of morality, that we as humans have given to us by God, tells us that we need to think about what is right and wrong when conducting animal research, as this thread shows.

What I disagree with is the opinion that we are MERELY animals.

how do you know?

I don't, for sure, but from all indications, carnivores don't seem to hold seminars on moral issues like "10 ways to humanely kill a wildebeast", or "Grief management for carnivores", or "Should we really determine pride leadership by killing off rivals?", or even "Rainforest management - watch how much you eat!"

As I said, it's my OPINION that we are not merely animals, and I think the evidence points this way. I wanted to point out that it is also an OPINION that we ARE merely animals.

carnivores very rarely kill their own kind... why is this do you suppose?

Instinct.

Do you think it's because of moral issues?