Talk:Emotion in animals

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Here is some terminology from the Animal Rights community. I think some of it would provide a good contrast to the other terminology. Anthropocentrism could be used in conjunction with anthropomorphism within the intro to the article.

HELPFUL TERMINOLOGY

Anthropocentrism: This is routinely defined as: 1.Regarding human beings as the central element of the universe. 2.Interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience. It is worthwhile to compare this definition with Ethnocentrism, which is usually defined as: 1.Belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group. 2.Overriding concern with race. Anthropocentrism can then also be redefined as: Belief in the superiority of one’s own species. (sometimes referred to as Speciesism, Human Chauvinism, Spiritual humanism, Secular humanism)

Human Supremacy myth: the conviction that human beings as a species or group, are superior in value to all other life, based upon arbitrary or subjective criteria conveniently determined by those who stand to benefit from the discrimination.

Anthropocentric myopia: This may be defined as the condition demonstrated when the ethical and practical arguments used in an attempt to ethically justify the harm caused to non humans, fail to address and counter the effects these very same arguments would have if applied fairly and equally to situations involving humans.

Taken from here: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/FAQs/weeblerFAQ.htm --Steele the Wolf 21:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Not Objective

Other than the first paragraph, this article is fairly biased towards the position of animals having emotions equatable to human emotion.


True this article is not objective - it is fairly antropocentric (ie humans are a priori more important and complex than animals).Arnoutf 08:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


I concur with this, I think this article should be labeled as Not compliant with the NPOV policy. The "animals have no emotions" POV it's not present.

Under the section "Approaches to studying animal emotions" the quote from "When Elephants Weep" seems to me like a classic example of begging the question; assuming in advance the animal emotion as a fact rather than the matter in discussion. Therefore, I think it should be deleted, it's logically flawed. Alexander Baez 05:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Emotion vs. Instinct

Aren't emotions simply instincts given depth with human intelligence? For instance, fear is a survival response, as is the bond between mother and child that we humans call love. --M.Neko 08:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Animals Have Feelings!!

Animals have feelings!! Why don'tsome people understand this?! User:Mitternacht90

I have had many pets, and I can see from the way they act that they have distinct personalities. The fact that we don't have a common language with animals makes it hard to prove scientifically that they have feelings.

From Vegetarianism in Buddhism: "Those are humans, elephants, horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, leopards, bears and hyenas because these animals can be provoked by the smell of the flesh of their own kind or the eating of such flesh would generate a bad reputation for the Sangha."

To the extent that this is correct of some animals (not all in the list, and probably more than this), this would indicate certain emotional responses that are analogous to such in humans (though humans, and all animals [even herbivores] can be cannibalistic under certain circumstances or in certain cultures). If animals in fact do have emotions, whether these are fully analogous to human emotions (and which ones are, in which circumstances) is the real question.


"It is curious that the study of animal behavior should demand that its practitioners turn themselves into alexithymics." -- I think this is actually an artifact of the abstract empirical (not, per say, scientific) method. --24.16.251.40 23:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

What does that mean? FT2 (Talk) 00:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


This comment (Uppercase mentioning piggies) seems spammy (it's repeated at the end of this page). If there's no objection i will delete it. Alexander Baez 05:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed Alexander Baez 05:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

The paragraph starting "For example, an animal may make certain movements and sounds"... was tagged as a reference. I think it probably needs a reference, but it isn't one. I've kind of fixed it,[1] but it still needs more work. The sentences starting "Put crudely, the behaviorist argument is,"... and "Publishers description states that the book:"... were also marked as references.[1] It might be worth the editors of this article having a read of wikipedia's verifiability policy[2] and references style guide [3] - this is the sort of article that really needs references if it's to avoid turning in to an essay from one point of view.[4]. I've referenced this paragraph up because I thought it might be a useful example of Cite.php references[5] - I find them the easiest way to add sources. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 18:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  1. ^ a b diff
  2. ^ Wikipedia:Verifiability
  3. ^ Wikipedia:Citing sources
  4. ^ Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
  5. ^ Wikipedia:Footnotes


This article needs a lot of work. The references are not by true emotion researchers. Important authors (Frans de Waal; Panksepp) are lacking, furhtermore we should at least mention "The expression of emotions by animals and Humans (1871)" By Charles Darwin as this is a seminal work on emotions by a biologist. Arnoutf 08:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Then add these :) Or describe them here for those who aren'taware of the major researchers you're thinking of. Who were they, and what were the main points they made? That sort of thing, in summary.
On a more down-to-earth note -- that said, I don't get the impression there are such things as "true emotion researchers" as opposed to "false emotion researchers" or "spurious emotion researchers". There will be credible researchers and notable parties in the debate, who approach from different angles, and with different conclusions. A good article presents and summarizes them all. If we're presently missing or understating a major credible viewpoint, then it's worth reviewing that lack. FT2 (Talk | email) 14:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IF ANIMALS TRUELY CAN FEEL...

THEN THAT IS EVEN WORSE IT'S REALLY BAD

THAT MEANS WE HUMANS ARE WAY WORSE THAN ANIMALS , IF WE KNOW THAT THEY CAN FEEL EVEN IF WE DO KNOW WE STILL KILL AND CHOP AND CONTROL THEIR BODY PARTS LIKE THEY DON'T EVEN FEEL SO IT MEANS WE ARE TRULY MONSTERS WE ARE LESS THAN ROBOTS AT LEAST ROBOTS CAN'T FEEL WE CAN. SO WE KEEP RIPPING CONTROLLING AND EATING THEIR BODY PARTS EVEN IF WE ARE KNOWING THAT THEY CAN FEEL HOW CRUEL AND SAD IS THAT? IT'S GONNA BE BETTER IF WE JUST KILL THEM ALL FAST AND QUICK AT ONCE INSTEAD OF SLOWING CHOPPING THEM OFF AND THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS WE ARE DISGRACE TO WHOLE UNIVERSE

THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER KINDS OF FOODS WE CAN EAT FOREVER(ENOUGH AMOUNTS FOR EACH AND EVEYRONE OF HUMANS LIVING IN EARTH) LIKE COOKIES AND CHOCOLATES AND NOODLES, AND WE DO NEVER EVEN NEED FURS (THEY ARE EVEN WORSE THAN ANIMAL EATERS THEY DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE) SO WHY WE KEEP TALKING IF THEY CAN FEEL OR NOT WHEN WE ARE NOT GONNA STOP KILLING THEM????HUH!?

I WOULD BE GLAD IF THEY CAN'T FEEL LIKE ROBOTS, I REALLY HOPE THAT THEY DON'T FEEL A THING

YOU LITTLE SICK PSYCHOTIC PIGS(NO PIGS ARE BETTER THAN YOU PEOPLE)

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