In article <1qlettINN8oi@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes: |> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes: |>  |> >>>Explain to me |> >>>how instinctive acts can be moral acts, and I am happy to listen. |> >>For example, if it were instinctive not to murder... |> > |> >Then not murdering would have no moral significance, since there |> >would be nothing voluntary about it. |>  |> See, there you go again, saying that a moral act is only significant |> if it is "voluntary."  Why do you think this?  If you force me to do something, am I morally responsible for it?  |>  |> And anyway, humans have the ability to disregard some of their instincts.  Well, make up your mind.    Is it to be "instinctive not to murder" or not?  |>  |> >>So, only intelligent beings can be moral, even if the bahavior of other |> >>beings mimics theirs? |> > |> >You are starting to get the point.  Mimicry is not necessarily the  |> >same as the action being imitated.  A Parrot saying "Pretty Polly"  |> >isn't necessarily commenting on the pulchritude of Polly. |>  |> You are attaching too many things to the term "moral," I think. |> Let's try this:  is it "good" that animals of the same species |> don't kill each other.  Or, do you think this is right?   It's not even correct.    Animals of the same species do kill one another.  |>  |> Or do you think that animals are machines, and that nothing they do |> is either right nor wrong?  Sigh.   I wonder how many times we have been round this loop.  I think that instinctive bahaviour has no moral significance. I am quite prepared to believe that higher animals, such as primates, have the beginnings of a moral sense, since they seem to exhibit self-awareness.  |>  |>  |> >>Animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily, but  |> >>they don't. |> > |> >They do.  I and other posters have given you many examples of exactly |> >this, but you seem to have a very short memory. |>  |> Those weren't arbitrary killings.  They were slayings related to some  |> sort of mating ritual or whatnot.  So what?     Are you trying to say that some killing in animals has a moral significance and some does not?   Is this your natural morality>   |>  |> >>Are you trying to say that this isn't an act of morality because |> >>most animals aren't intelligent enough to think like we do? |> > |> >I'm saying: |> >	"There must be the possibility that the organism - it's not  |> >	just people we are talking about - can consider alternatives." |> > |> >It's right there in the posting you are replying to. |>  |> Yes it was, but I still don't understand your distinctions.  What |> do you mean by "consider?"  Can a small child be moral?  How about |> a gorilla?  A dolphin?  A platypus?  Where is the line drawn?  Does |> the being need to be self aware?  Are you blind?   What do you think that this sentence means?  	"There must be the possibility that the organism - it's not  	just people we are talking about - can consider alternatives."  What would that imply?  |>  |> What *do* you call the mechanism which seems to prevent animals of |> the same species from (arbitrarily) killing each other?  Don't |> you find the fact that they don't at all significant?  I find the fact that they do to be significant.