... Tahlequah, also known as J35, a 20-year-old female orca... gave birth to a female calf, who lived for just 30 minutes... Tahlequah kept the body at the surface, supporting it on her head or holding it in her mouth... [for] 10 days and counting, on what social media observers and orca researchers call a “tour of grief.” ....Is Casey saying that anthropomorphism is "right" because it's useful in winning support for doing something that needs to be done for reasons disconnected from the animal's resemblance to a human being? If anthropomorphism is a substituted false reason that works in one case, what will you do about other things that need to be done that do not happen to make sentimental humans think that animal is like me?
While we can never hope to fully grasp another species’ experiences, orca behavior and neuroanatomy point to a complex inner life.... So orcas feel emotions, however exotically, which in turn strikes an emotional chord in us.....
Heartbreak for Tahlequah is an appropriate starting point. In a way, it’s the easy part. What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the dwindling southern resident orca population....
What if another orca was so smart that it made noises that translate to "I'll never let go, I promise"...
... and then let the baby drop down into the depths of the waters because it understood that never letting go means never letting go of the memory of the life that no longer exists? That more human Tahlequah would not create a heart-tugging visual of its similarity to humans. The orca must showboat its resemblance to us — to our idea of who we are — to get the anthropomorphism. It's so inaccurate. And yet, ironically, it's this absurd inaccuracy that make us human.
Speaking of inaccuracy, an orca is not a whale. It's a dolphin. I wonder if the author of a book about the "Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins" is troubled that at one point the phrase "These whales" is substituted for "orcas." I presume the editor is to blame, and my heart goes out to Susan Casey... but my heart will go on.
ADDED: The oldest meaning of "anthropomorphism" is imagining God with human characteristics. The OED gives an example from 1668: "To say a man is the express image of the Person of God the Father, is to depress the glory of God by Anthropomorphism." Using the word to mean seeing human characteristics in animals only goes back to the mid-19th century.
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Xenophon says horses greatly appreciate courtesies.
Yes, an Orca is like many women lawyers we encounter. It's not for nothing they are called Killer Whales.
> "Speaking of inaccuracy, an orca is not a whale. It's a dolphin."
Actually, it is a whale. A sort of Octavo whale:
BOOK II (Octavo), Chapter IV (Killer). -- Of this whale little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage -- a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio Whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.
She was looking for a whale of a coffin, but the Chinese had destroyed them all.
I just had a Tuna fish sandwich with mayo and relish. The chicken of the sea special...
Obligatory thoughts and prayers, blah blah blah.
Quick before someone else gets it
I presume the editor is to blame,
Editor did it on porpoise.
Toothed whales (otherwise known as odontocetes and including all species of dolphin and porpoise).
I saw a PBS show where a group of orcas choreographed a sequence of dives under an ice sheet on which a seal was huddling for safety. The waves broke the ice up smaller and smaller, and then they ate the poor seal. Sorry if I'm not sympathetic.
Speaking of ...
Congressional investigators know that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign, kept supplying allegations to the FBI after the 2016 election — and even after he was terminated as a source by the bureau for giving confidential information to the media.
Because he had broken his agreement with the FBI, bureau procedure did not allow agents to keep using Steele as a source. But they did so anyway — by devising a system in which Steele spoke regularly with Bruce Ohr, a top Obama Justice Department official whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, which hired Steele to search for dirt on Donald Trump in Russia. Ohr then passed on Steele’s information to the FBI.
In a highly unusual arrangement, Ohr, who was the fourth-highest ranking official in the Justice Department, acted as an intermediary for a terminated source for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe. His task was to deliver to the FBI what Steele told him, which effectively meant the bureau kept Steele as a source.
FBI corruption. No problem for Joy Behar media
I don't understand the virtue signaling - hasn't everyone walked around for 10 days or so with a dead baby on their head? I don't think we should be picking on this whale just because of the "holding it in her mouth" part, since she doesn't have hands; that's ableism.
The world's biggest O-ring is a whale of a seal.
"O-ring, where is thy sting?"
I have seen a pet exhibit sadness and what appear to be mourning behaviors over a dead friend. To the extent that scientists are saying that is different from our own mourning over the loss of a child or a close friend, that’s understandable. But some scientists appear to be going farther and saying instead that the behaviors are not really happening and we are only anthromorphizing, and to them I say open your damned eyes and look at what's happening right in front of you.
I hypothesize that practically all of the world's supply of this sort of writing is the creation of women whose ethnic backgrounds trace back to the British Isles.
Any normal person who has ever had pets or spent much time around animals will naturally anthropomorphize,or project human feelings and motives onto the animals.
The earliest clue that you have psychopath or sociopath on your hands is the inability to empathize with others and the mistreatment of animals.
Our pets show happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment and even shame (well, except for cats who have no shame). At least we like to think this is so. Prove it isn't otherwise.
What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the dwindling southern resident orca population....
Technically, this isn't called anthropomorphism; it's calling WHORING
in other news; The Saddest Story Ever told, about the dog that would go to his master's grave EVERY DAY for 12 years..... was apparently a hoax, fake news
"What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the dwindling southern resident orca population...."
So, how often have orcas shared humans' sense of grief and turned it into an impetus to solve our problems? Or might this one-way sharing be a sentimental fabrication and anthropomorphism bullshit (time for a new tag?) and its invocation just another prog tool?
Anyway, the Althouse BS detector was working today:
"Is Casey saying that anthropomorphism is "right" because it's useful in winning support for doing something that needs to be done for reasons disconnected from the animal's resemblance to a human being?"
Actually, yes. Not quite sure if this falls under the Universal Theory of Progressive Instrumentalism, but that would be the working hypothesis.
Vicki Hearne _Adam's Task_ is a whole book about anthropomorphizing and against the idiocy of science on the matter.
Ignore cover blurbs on all of Hearne's books, all written by a women's book editor who doesn't understand Hearne at all.
While we can never hope to fully grasp another species’ experiences, orca behavior and neuroanatomy point to a complex inner life.... So orcas feel emotions, however exotically, which in turn strikes an emotional chord in us.....
Why do we believe that we have any inkling of what goes on in the mind of animal? They are not rational beings. What exactly is it within the mind of an orca that "feels emotions"? Does it think of the lost potential of the dead whale?
When we suffer grief at the death of a loved one, we know that we shall never experience the real existence of that person again in our life. Anecdotes aside, animals can't conceive of their own mortality or the mortality of others.
One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy, startled. But hopeful? And why not?
A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his master will come the day after to-morrow?--And what can he not do here?--How do I do it?--How am I supposed to answer this?
Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who have mastered the use of a language. That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes of this complicated form of life. (If a concept refers to a character of human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write.)
- Wittgenstein
We spend thousands of years domesticating animals, purposely breeding them for traits that makes them act in ways humans find congenial, and then we say "Gosh! Nature made those animals behave in ways that are just like people!"
Hmm would this anthropomo-y stuff maybe help yesterday's Zoe understand her dates a little better?
cats who have no shame
In his old age, our family cat would walk into the middle of the room whenever we had company, raise his leg, and wash his butt. It was his way of putting people at ease, that and vomiting at their feet.
But he was embarrassed when his ass was bare after an anal gland abscess.
Empathy is big in our culture of nothingness.
The study of animal behavior is not science but a Mutual of Omaha offering for consumer consumption. " As the lioness cares for her young, Mutual of Omaha cares for............"
If you want to be dogmatic , it is the lowest form of science.
Applying the concept of "anthropomorphizing" is going down the wrong path. It assumes an outdated view of animals as being some kind of Cartesian automatons, all different in kind rather than degree from us, no matter where they fall on the taxonomic tree relative to us.
Why would you not think that a mammal with a complex brain and a complex social life would have emotions, if not the exactly the same as ours, akin to ours, and derived from the same evolutionary sources?
Doesn't mean they wouldn't eat me and I wouldn't eat them, though.
P.S. Dolphins (porpoises) are whales. As others have pointed out.
My cat sees me as 175 pounds of cat food on the hoof.
There was a great deal of BS about porpoises having large brains and therefore being as intelligent as humans. In fact, porpoises have no frontal lobes. That is where planning and what we call intelligence is located. The motor areas of their brains are what make them large.
In fact, they may be less "intelligent" than other mammals.
Sophisticated cognitive abilities appear to play no role in the evolution of large brain size in cetaceans, indicating that alternative theories of large brain size evolution in cetaceans should be considered in more detail.
The notion of anthropomorphizing animals ties into face tattoos.
Face tattoos can and often do make people look like things. One ceases to be a person, and becomes a piece of the social construct to which the tattoo points. It makes the tatooed subject less individual, not more. It's sad when someone realizes, too late, that they have put a wall up that deflects people from knowing their person.
That wall is useful, however, to behavioral scientists so that their observations are as uncolored as possible by personal prejudice. So, in that limited context, avoiding anthropomorphism is a good thing. But I have no problem feeling sympathy for animals, or inferring that what I see in their behavior is like what I experience in some way. Empathy goes a little too far, however. I can't know what it's like to be a dolphin.
“A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest but poor.” —Bertrand Russell, “Human Knowledge: It’s Scope and Limits”
Michael K: There was a great deal of BS about porpoises having large brains and therefore being as intelligent as humans. In fact, porpoises have no frontal lobes. That is where planning and what we call intelligence is located. The motor areas of their brains are what make them large.
The popular attitude toward dolphins *is* one area where "anthropomorphizing" does apply - it's those cute "smiles" that aren't smiles. And the behaviors that looks so "playful" when actually what they're doing is limbering up for their next gang rape. Dolphins are real assholes, from what I hear from people in the know.
Walt Disney is to blame for a lot of this.
If animals had minds like ours, we could communicate with them.
We see the universe the way we do because we classify things. Individual, species, genus. We can form individuals, species, and genera into abstract aggregates. We can do all this with non-living, living, and completely imaginary things. That is how we conceptualize the "real" universe we live in. Animals don't have language.
Animals aren't stupid, odd-shaped people. They fill their universes as much as we fill ours, but their universes are not our universe.
But hopeful? And why not?
A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his master will come the day after to-morrow?
In my observations; Dogs are SO enthusiastic when they believe their master is at the door, because they believed that when the master left that morning: that the master left, FOR EVER.
When you leave in the morning, watch your dog; and tell me if you think that the dog thinks it will Ever see you again?
Now, on the other hand; When my ex-girlfriend left for the day (and the dog was sad), the dog cheered up pretty much immediately after ('cause what's done is done)...
(and this is the important part)
Then! about 3:45 or so (the GF would get back from Professoring at 4pm), the dog (which had lounged all day watching telenovelas with me) would get up, and pace through the house; before sitting at the window by the driveway, watching for the car.
I wouldn't have believed this if i hadn't seen it; but the dog Knew what time she's get home (which, of course, didn't stop the dog from being SURE the next day, that she was leaving: to NEVER return.
On the assertion that dolphins are whales, I'm seeing Whale...
"Families considered whales
Parvorder Mysticeti
Family Balaenidae
Family Balaenopteridae
Family Eschrichtiidae
Family Cetotheriidae
Parvorder Odontoceti (excluding dolphins and porpoises)
Family Monodontidae
Family Physeteridae
Family Kogiidae
Family Ziphiidae
Also, under "Dolphin"
"In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species,[9] while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'.[10] The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.[11] There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae and qualify as dolphins.[12] Though the terms 'dolphin' and 'porpoise' are sometimes used interchangeably, porpoises are not considered dolphins and have different physical features such as a shorter beak and spade-shaped teeth; they also differ in their behavior. Porpoises belong to the family Phocoenidae and share a common ancestry with the Delphinidae."
What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the dwindling southern resident orca population....
Maybe the orcas know this? Thus, if we impute human emotions and instincts the orca, carrying around that baby is more like Billy Zane’s Titanic character Cal Hockley who grabbed a child to get on a lifeboat in order to save himself.
Capitalist orca!
Speaking of killer whales, my wife found a fossil from an extinct dolphin the other day, that was supposed to be about the size of a small Orca:
Macrokendrotrion
It might be the find of the year, unless we get that big meg we've been looking for.
It figures that when it comes to taxonomy, Althouse would be a splitter.
Dolphins are whales.
"The popular attitude toward dolphins *is* one area where "anthropomorphizing" does apply - it's those cute "smiles" that aren't smiles. And the behaviors that looks so "playful" when actually what they're doing is limbering up for their next gang rape. Dolphins are real assholes, from what I hear from people in the know."
What is your porpoise in life? To be a real jerk and Deplorable Disgraceful Trumptard (DDT). You in a white coat are a cause for alarm. Humans are destroying the world, and you dare call dolphins "assholes." Takes one to know one, as my late mother was fond of saying. She died at the malevolent hands of a medical doctor. You've been on trial for medical malpractice, so I'm aware of your disgraceful history of incompetence. Magnificent dolphins inspire, and enthrall children and adults alike with their intelligence, beauty, and gracefulness. You scare children by your very presence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Walt Disney is to blame for a lot of this.
And Beatrix Potter and A.A. Milne.
Walt Disney is to blame for a lot of this.
And Beatrix Potter and A.A. Milne.
And Aesop.
Funny that the heir to the French throne was the Dauphin, and the English, the Prince of Wales.
When you leave in the morning, watch your dog; and tell me if you think that the dog thinks it will Ever see you again?
Juliet gets depressed when she sees me getting dressed in other than my usual shorts and tee shirt.
She knows that means I'm going out as I don't like old men in shorts and have no intention of being seen as such.
In the winter, I will often take her as she loves the car. Now it is far too hot.
I see trumpit has not yet begun therapy,
"In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species,[9] while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'.[10] The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.[11] There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae and qualify as dolphins
Of course, the thing to Remember is that People in the Know; Know that these mammals are FISH
I happen to know this is true; i've read The Book
the whale is a "spouting fish with a horizontal tail".
His use of the word "fish" here, however, is not meant a denial of the mammalian characteristics of the order Cetacea, but rather simply as an ad hoc definition as an animal that dwells in the sea. Borrowing an analogy from publishing and bookbinding, he divides whales into three "books", called the Folio Whale (largest), Octavo Whale and the Duodecimo Whale (smaller), represented respectively by the sperm whale, the orca (which he calls the grampus) and the porpoise. Each such book is then divided into "chapters" representing a separate species.
In France he's called "Flipper" but in England he's called "Pinball Wizard".
He's got crazy flipper fingers
Never seen him fall
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball
Fritz: It figures that when it comes to taxonomy, Althouse would be a splitter.
Dolphins are whales.
If it walks like a whale and quacks like a whale, it's a whale.
Ralph L: Funny that the heir to the French throne was the Dauphin, and the English, the Prince of Wales.
Brilliant.
Dr K points out that porpoises have no frontal lobes. But the question still seems to be unanswered whether some of the Marine mammals may have some sort of intelligence, and that our proble with communicating with them is that our brains work differently than theirs do. That maybe we are too stuck in our own linear thinking to understand them. The Orca showed grief here, maybe even more grief than a human would in this situation. (Elephants also apparently show grief). They also communicate and plan, maybe even better than our closest ape relatives do.
This is one of those things that science fiction has been playing with for decades. Will we be able to communicate with (space) aliens? We probably have to assume higher intelligence, if they have space flight. But if not? Up until several millennia ago, we might not have seemed all that bright, at least in comparison to where we are now. If we can use our own linear metrics to determine this then fine. But what if their thought processes were less linear, and more 3 (or more) dimensional?
whether some of the Marine mammals may have some sort of intelligence
Dumb Marine is redundant -- heard from a Navy Captain.
Order: Cetacea (dolphins, porpoises, and whales)
Suborder: Odontoceti (toothed whales)
Family: Cetacea:Odontoceti:Delphanidae (dolphins, killer whales, pilot whales)
Family: Cetacea:Odontoceti:Iniidae (river dolphins)
Family: Cetacea:Odontoceti:Phocoenidae (porpoises)
Family: Cetacea:Odontoceti:Physeteridae (sperm whales)
Dolphins are a toothed whale. By the naming, dolphins have more in common with sperm whales than sperm whales have with right whales (Cetacea:Mysticeti:Balaenopteridae)
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Cetacea/classification/#Cetacea
Two great sexes animate the world.
Put gender at the top of live classifications.
The simplest explanation for the orca's behavior is that she didn't know the calf was dead and kept expecting it to start surfacing on its own. What looks like grief to us is just normal behavior that can't quite adjust to an unusual event.
Will we be able to communicate with (space) aliens?
I liked that final scene in "Close Encounters" where they figured out an alternative method of communication.
It is a childish fantasy that persists into adulthood.
There is some reason for it no doubt, but its not likely to be a nice reason.
The persistence of immaturity is a marker for decadence.
An interesting case is that of the Viennese writer of "Bambi", Felix Salten. He also wrote a slew of other "animal" stories and novels in a similar vein. But he is also known for having written a notable erotic, pedophiliac novel, still apparently taken seriously as a work of German literature. There was something very wrong there.
Althouse, you might be amused by Terry Pratchett's take on anthropomorphic personifications. In his amusing Discworld novels he had Death anthropomorphized as the classic skeleton in black flowing robes with a scythe, for example. Then he has Death explain his lack of emotions due to his lack of glands, being only a skeleton.
There are unintended consequences to our beliefs, in other words.
"Why do we believe that we have any inkling of what goes on in the mind of animal? They are not rational beings."
Of course many non-human animals are rational beings! How do you define rational? The capacity to conjugate sentences or work mathematical equations?
Wittgenstein's point, as with most things when he says language game, is that there's no actual present hope. It's a marker in an account. It's made real by text, even if it's text you give yourself.
J.L Austin and Stanley Cavell have the same idea, that words aren't the things they're pictured as being by analytic philosophy.
That it's text creating present life would be Derrida's point, where presence was supposed to be the guarantor of truth and text its substitute in analytic philosophy.
Curiously, Cavell and Austin, vs. Derrida, think themselves opposed.
Wittgenstein:
575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing.
(believing is a marker in an account, the reality being no thought at all.)
So there are some things that animals can't do owing to not having textual accounts, but they are not things that we actually do either.\
The animals are missing the textual delusion.
"Anecdotes aside, animals can't conceive of their own mortality or the mortality of others."
Really? Tell that to elephants who stay grieving by the side of other dead elephants they knew, touching the body with their trunks, passing by, one by one, as in a funeral procession. Tell that to the cows and pigs screaming in terror as they know they're about to be slaughtered in a slaughter house. Humans have placed themselves at the apex of the animal kingdom, based solely on our more developed capacity for language and tool-making. This does not mean non-human animals lack consciousness, intelligence, and awareness.
Read UNDER THE SKIN by Michael Faber to see this perspective played out with we humans being the "dumb" animals. (It was made into a movie starring Scarlet Johansson.)
Blogger Etienne said...
I just had a Tuna fish sandwich with mayo and relish. The chicken of the sea special...
You gotta try the chunk light low sodium CotS tuna. It's pricey, but the fish is almost as firm as chunk white while it can has all the good vita-mineral karma from the darkness. White meat is for suckers
https://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Sea-Chunk-Sodium-5-Ounce/dp/B003EYXUXS?th=1
Relish? Must be your German side. Finely chopped celery, easy on the mayo, dash garlic crystals, dash citric acid, dash pepper, splach tamari sauce.
To think that other mammals whom we are descended from do not have traits we tend to think of as human is a silly holdover from the creationist myth
I said this before and it bears repeating: we anthropomorphize humans too much. This is the problem with the Irish lady whom desires to chatter non-stop about nothing.
Animals are more rational than humans. It is irrationality where greatness and progress is maid.
Robert Cook:
Tell that to the cows and pigs screaming in terror as they know they're about to be slaughtered in a slaughter house.
I suppose modern methods of slaughtering are a lot more humane than many of nature's way (though Islamic and Jewish methods don't sound so nice).
Lots of pigs, cows and sheep get to experience life because they are tasty.
And, no one gets out of here alive. It's simply the brutal, natural order. I don't think there is much point in hand-wringing about it.
Tell that to the cows and pigs screaming in terror as they know they're about to be slaughtered in a slaughter house.
How many slaughter houses have you been in, Cookie ? Or do you just read vegan books?
When I was in grammar school, the nuns took us all on a field trip to the Armour Co slaughter house.
I cannot imagine a school doing that now but the animals were caught by a hook in one hind leg, hoisted up and had their throats cut a few second later as they passed a guy with a knife. The blood drained into a big tank below.
Armour had a motto that they used every part of the animal but the squeal.
How about those African Painted dogs and the 2 year old who fell into their habitat? Was their ripping the child apart justified because he was white? Asking for a friend.
My father used to buy beef from a feed lot in Indiana.
The cow was driven into the slaughter house and a bullet was fired into its ear.
It dropped like a sack of cement.
I doubt you know anything about slaughtering animals for food.
Of slaughterhouses, pigs are by-far the worst. They sound almost human, which helps stimulate anthropomorphiliziation induced guilt. Fortunately bacon, pulled pork and carnitas taste so good, you can easily get past the screams of terror.
NYT, huh.
Deny Stork Her sacrifice. Reject #CecileTheCannibal.
Stop the torture. Save a baby. Anthropomorphize a human fetus, a couple's offspring today.
#HateLovesAbortion
Whether or not a dolphin or any other animal is a person, scripture tells us that every human being is an image of God. So when you look into the face of another person -- ANY other person -- you are looking into the face of God.
Sure, Genesis 2 was probably based on folk tales from a time when people had an "anthropomorphic" idea of God, but if you think of your fellow human beings as images of God (and not just yourself), it could make a big difference, don't you think?
Perhaps the momma orca was mourning the death of her baby because its birth had been foretold for ages in whale-lore; it was conceived and born in secret orca-ceremonies in the Deep, and was destined to lay waste the world of men and turn the dry-land world to ashes, until it got a plastic bottle stuck in its blow hole or whatever.
If so, I am glad it is dead.
"The simplest explanation for the orca's behavior is that she didn't know the calf was dead and kept expecting it to start surfacing on its own. What looks like grief to us is just normal behavior that can't quite adjust to an unusual event."
No, that is you reaching for an alternative explanation. The simplest explanation is to see it for what it appeared to be: that she either knew her calf was dead and was acting out of grief, or that there was something wrong with it and she was hoping she could stimulate the calf into reviving.
From a woman who won’t even anthropomorphize Trump voters.
anthropomorphic global warming is dead, but the left still carries it around
The simplest explanation is to see it for what it appeared to be: that she either knew her calf was dead and was acting out of grief, or that there was something wrong with it and she was hoping she could stimulate the calf into reviving.
This is the anthropomorphizing explanation, not "the simplest explanation."
There is nothing “anthropomorphizing” about it. It is, rather, to recognize that many animals do have emotions. To call such recognition “anthropomorphizing” is, rather, to assume without basis that they don’t, that only humans do or can. That is ignorant and self-serving, the same thinking that leads to racism and the assumption that other races (sic) and cultures are inferior: less intelligent, less feeling, “less human,” than one’s own.
Ann Althouse said...If anthropomorphism is a substituted false reason that works in one case, what will you do about other things that need to be done that do not happen to make sentimental humans think that animal is like me?
Animals, human fetuses, whatever.
When the people in charge want you to agree with them regarding animal rights it's "look how similar these animals are to us! We must act accordingly." When the people in charge want you to agree with them regarding abortion rights it's "look, that thing that you think is similar to a baby is in truth just a clump of cells and has no standing nor moral weight. We must act accordingly."
Anthropomorphizing is a tricky thing. I don't really agree with those who say the way critters really feel or think has no relation to how we interpret their behaviors. But then, I don't believe there is an exact 1-1 matching between what we think they're feeling/thinking and what they're actually feeling/thinking. I prefer to think it's much more of a difference in degree rather than kind most of the time.
I also notice that nowadays it's mostly positive sorts of feelings that we attribute to critters, rather than in the (not too distant) past when we described (mostly) predators as mean, vicious, hateful, etc., when they were just being predators (or reacting as prey for us). I mean, when a gang of Orcas surrounds and kills a baby grey whale I don't see people saying "OOooo they are so mean and hateful killing that poor, cute baby whale".
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