Mankind is different from the animal world in this small example in that animals have no sense fairness. No real sense of "right" or "wrong". We may teach our pets accepted and nonaccepted behavior, but they will never grasp the concepts of why.
“Didn’t C.S. Lewis make the point in Mere Christianity that if you step on a cat’s tail, she may let out a yelp and run but she wouldn’t have any way of knowing your intentions.”
Yes, exactly. If men were not able to understand right and wrong, without someone teaching them, they could never be responsible for their actions, and everyone understands that we are all responsible for what we choose and do.
The comparison to animals is very apt. Thank you for that illustration. I have always appreciated Lewis whom I regard a first class thinker.
Hanki
That's because cats are not social animals and lack the mental capacity or interest to determine intent (I say this as a cat owner). It's why you can't train a cat like a human or a dog. A dog, on the other hand, is a social animal and has a rudimentary understanding of intent. Here is a video of a fairly famous series of photographs that is worth watching in this regard. Here are two animals, assessing each other's intent, and instead of fighting and killing each other, playing with each other. In fact, if you want to see Chimpanzees exhibiting a fairly sophisticated understanding of the intentions of others of exactly the sort that CS Lewis was talking about, you should watch this video that I posted a link to earlier in this discussion (see Chapter 5, "Mind Reading"). There is also evidence of dogs reading the intent of humans in a fairly sophisticated way.
Mankind is different from the animal world in this small example in that animals have no sense fairness. No real sense of "right" or "wrong". We may teach our pets accepted and nonaccepted behavior, but they will never grasp the concepts of why.
This is not accurate. Watch the show in "Ape Genius" that I linked to above. Chimpanzees demonstrate an understanding of fairness and right and wrong. So do other social animals. Cats aren't sufficiently social to understand or appreciate pleasing their owners but dogs are to some degree (see also this video). Watch the program about apes above. I think it will challenge some of your assumptions about animals.