Can morality be applied to dolphins?

[An Enemy Spy]

Dolphins I believe are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans. They also have been know to do some pretty horrible things to each other like raping, kidnapping, killing babies. My question is, are doplphins intelligent enough that they are capable of understanding concepts like right and wrong, and if so, can a dolphin who partakes in violent acts be considered bad? Speaking as a shark, it would be great to have the moral high ground on those jerks.

[JNAProductions]

Short answer? Yes.

Long answer? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssss.

Least in my opinion, anyway.

[Razade]

The answer is no, you're anthropomorphizing them. Even if they had a moral system it would be alien to ours and judging them from our perspective makes no sense.

[Murk]

The answer is no, you're anthropomorphizing them. Even if they had a moral system it would be alien to ours and judging them from our perspective makes no sense.

Isn't judging something you should always do from your own perspective, not someone else's? If you judge a criminal from their perspective, no one would ever be in jail (or at least, a lot less people).

[Razade]

Isn't judging something you should always do from your own perspective, not someone else's? If you judge a criminal from their perspective, no one would ever be in jail (or at least, a lot less people).

Those are still human, they're judged by human morality because they're part of our civilization. No matter how crazy they are, they live in our society and thus have to be live and die by the majority's moral barametor. That's life. If a dolphin killed a man, intelligent or no, we're not going to arrest them, we're not going to throw them through court. No matter their intelligence, they don't understand those sorts of consequences. You'd look a fool, for the proper reason. An alien eating a human wouldn't see eating them as wrong, it's a food source. Obviously if they were intelligent one would hope they'd listen to another sapient being saying "please don't do that" but there's no moral guideline they're working with, hypothetically, that says they'd have to. Their values are alien to ours. And vice versa. Same with dolphins. Great Douglas Adams quote


"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

[aspi]

Isn't judging something you should always do from your own perspective, not someone else's? If you judge a criminal from their perspective, no one would ever be in jail (or at least, a lot less people).
I would argue that the entire point of having laws and a judicial system is to make judgments more objective and less subjective. I'd say that most (innocent) people would prefer to be judged based on some fixed set of criteria (the law) rather than the judges personal perspective.

For morality in general, this does not apply, simply because there is no single set of accepted rules that apply - not even "just" to all humans due to cultural differences. Trying to apply our human moral values (if there even is such a thing) to another species seems futile in my opinion.

[Razade]

I would argue that the entire point of having laws and a judicial system is to make judgments more objective and less subjective. I'd say that most (innocent) people would prefer to be judged based on some fixed set of criteria (the law) rather than the judges personal perspective.

For morality in general, this does not apply, simply because there is no single set of accepted rules that apply - not even "just" to all humans due to cultural differences. Trying to apply our human moral values (if there even is such a thing) to another species seems futile in my opinion.

Not even every court has the same system across a single country let alone across the planet. The law, and we can't really talk too much about it, isn't applied equally to everyone every time.

[Murk]

I would argue that the entire point of having laws and a judicial system is to make judgments more objective and less subjective. I'd say that most (innocent) people would prefer to be judged based on some fixed set of criteria (the law) rather than the judges personal perspective.

For morality in general, this does not apply, simply because there is no single set of accepted rules that apply - not even "just" to all humans due to cultural differences. Trying to apply our human moral values (if there even is such a thing) to another species seems futile in my opinion.

While that is true, I was trying to argue that judgement is always given from the moral values of the judge (not just the person - in some cases "society" is the judge), not the judged - otherwise you wouldn't ever be able to judge someone who thinks s/he is right.

I agree that, in practice, judging dolphins would be futile. The dolphin probably wouldn't understand, and even if they understand, they probably wouldn't care. To me, that doesn't change that (as the OP phrased it) "morality can be applied to dolphins", or any creature that is aware of its actions. It wouldn't be of any use, but it can be done. Should it be done? Nah.

[Monaliz]

This really hard to make dolphins

[Professor Gnoll]

This really hard to make dolphins
Monaliz has pretty much nailed it here.

[Gravitron5000]

This really hard to make dolphins

Have you tried pseudo make dolphins?

[Cespenar]

Let's start with these questions instead for tutorial:

-Can the same morality be applied to other cultures than the one we're living in?

-Can the same morality be applied to other time periods than the one we're living in?

Etc.

[Aedilred]

Dolphins I believe are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans.
After mice, shurely?

That aside, assuming that dolphins actually are as intelligent as the premise suggests, I think that they could in principle be held to some kind of moral standard. But not a human moral standard. All our moral, ethical and philosophical constructs are at some point built on a common foundation of our understanding of the human condition. Once you remove humanity from the situation, everything else has to be reconsidered.

[Murk]

By saying that "this [morality] makes it really hard to dolphin", Monaliz of course asks the existential question: if you apply morality to dolphins, are they still dolphins????
I think that's a very good question. It would be very hard to just dolphin if you have a sense of morality.

[Strigon]

Answering this question would require finding a consistent, perfect definition of morality, and deciding whether it was subjective or objective.
Such a thing is something many very clever people have been working on for millenia, and they've yet to reach a consensus.

[Winter_Wolf]

To the thread title question, yes. Yes you can apply morality to dolphins.
But the follow up then has to be, what is the point? Dolphins are not humans. This is scientific fact.

We don't cohabit naturally, they don't appear to have much choice about living in our land based cities and I'd be very much impressed to find out about aquatic dolphin cities.

If the two species ever normalize mutually intelligible communications and live together in (probably) aquatic settlements, then there might actually be some basis for a common moral code. But I'm going to need to see the former part before I care about the latter part.

[Vinyadan]

It depends on how the dolphins were grown.
I apply morality - my morality - on my dog. Don't steal, don't attack people, that sort od things. The dog does learn. It learns to please me, sure, but he also learns consequences. But this isn't telling right from wrong: it is telling what I want from him and what I don't.

Dolphins are unusual in that they understand distress in humans and work hard to help them. So they do understand that they aren't the only ones to suffer, that other creatures wish not to suffer, and they can make this distress stop.
However, if a dolphin at the same time wanted something else, would he still diverge his attention to help me? This question is at the base of the rape thing. A dolphin that is about to rape could end the suffering of the one he's following any moment, but he probably won't. A dolphin understands suffering and helping, but he might not read them exactly as good and bad, instead he might read his world and base all his choices on "I want to" and "I don't want to".

So I would apply morality on a dolphin, if he were some sort of domestic dolphin, because I could give him myself as moral compass. On a free dolphin, nope.

Of course, if applying morality means "punish and call a bad dolphin".

[valadil]

More importantly, can dolphins be applied to morality?

[No brains]

Nuke the whales. Or cetaceans, whatever.

[veti]

You know what else is approximately as intelligent as a dolphin?

A pig.

So let's spend a few minutes thinking about how we treat pigs, before we get too sanctimonious about dolphins.

[AnachroNinja]

Would it be appropriate for dolphins to force their morality (whatever it may be) on humans? If your answer is no, then you probably shouldn't be forcing your morality on anyone else.

[An Enemy Spy]

I really hope nobody thinks I'm suggesting we should put dolphins on trial and punish them for any crimes they've committed. This is just a thought exercise.

[Spanish_Paladin]

Perhaps dolphins have morality, it´d be cool if biologist discover that someday. But, yes, their morality doesn´t need to be the same or even similar to our morality and it has no sense to mix the two concepts.

[Mister Loorg]

no you cant

[Shamash]

Isn't judging something you should always do from your own perspective, not someone else's? If you judge a criminal from their perspective, no one would ever be in jail (or at least, a lot less people).

An entire race/culture is different from an individual.

I mean it was ok for a guy to marry a 15 year old girl in the middle ages and ok for a samurai to kill himself.

Because, that’s was morally ok for that culture at that time.

[Murk]

An entire race/culture is different from an individual.

I mean it was ok for a guy to marry a 15 year old girl in the middle ages and ok for a samurai to kill himself.

Because, that’s was morally ok for that culture at that time.

Well, of course, but I can still say it was wrong from my modern perspective, right?
Do the dolphins find it wrong if they rape? Probably not. Do I blame the dolphins for raping? Not really. Do I want to punish the dolphins? No.
But my moral code says rape = wrong, so raping dolphins are wrong. Whether or not they find it wrong doesn't really matter.

This is, as others have said, the age old debate of universal vs relative morality. However, I think it is possible to universally look at things from a relative morality, i.e.: to apply my personal opinion (relative as that might be) on all creatures equally.

Doing this in English is harder than I thought it would be.

[Xyril]

Isn't judging something you should always do from your own perspective, not someone else's? If you judge a criminal from their perspective, no one would ever be in jail (or at least, a lot less people).

Two things:

First, legality and morality are two different things. Certainly, a lot of our most fundamental laws are strongly influenced by old ideas of what is or is not immoral, but they're not the same thing--and in fact, I'd say most of us in more pluralistic and libertarian-leaning countries tend to look down on the sorts of countries that try to criminalize immorality. For most countries, the purpose of criminal law is to protect rights and to provide a basic framework for an orderly society--murder is illegal because it is immoral, but also because most people don't want to live and work in a country where you can get randomly murdered at any time and the government won't care. When you're judging a criminal, you should be doing so not from his perspective, or your own perspective, but instead from the perspective of the law.

Second, you've clearly been fortunate enough to avoid contact with a lot of criminal defendants. There are a shocking number of defendants who don't dispute either the immorality or the criminality of whatever they're accused of, and in fact get pretty indignant about being the victim of crime themselves. My ex actually prosecuted a burglar who stole previously stolen stuff from another burglar. The first guy was caught and threw the second guy under the bus to avoid getting blamed for a few more serious burglaries. When the second guy found out how he was caught, he was pretty pissed that someone broke into his place, so I think it's fair to say that even judging him by his own sense of morality and fair play, he's still a bad guy.

[Aedilred]

Second, you've clearly been fortunate enough to avoid contact with a lot of criminal defendants. There are a shocking number of defendants who don't dispute either the immorality or the criminality of whatever they're accused of, and in fact get pretty indignant about being the victim of crime themselves. My ex actually prosecuted a burglar who stole previously stolen stuff from another burglar. The first guy was caught and threw the second guy under the bus to avoid getting blamed for a few more serious burglaries. When the second guy found out how he was caught, he was pretty pissed that someone broke into his place, so I think it's fair to say that even judging him by his own sense of morality and fair play, he's still a bad guy.

I honestly don't know how criminal lawyers do it, at least when they're starting out. Very early I wrote off criminal law as something I wanted nothing to do with, not because it's not important, but because it's unutterably depressing. And, unless you can get some lucrative private cases (hard at the start of your career) it pays terribly. I think I saw one too many dead-eyed stares, or heard stories about friends' parents who were in criminal law bursting into tears at the dinner table.

It makes me worry sometimes about the state of the criminal justice system. But I don't think anyone ever won any votes with the campaign slogan "better working conditions for lawyers".

[Xyril]

I honestly don't know how criminal lawyers do it, at least when they're starting out. Very early I wrote off criminal law as something I wanted nothing to do with, not because it's not important, but because it's unutterably depressing. And, unless you can get some lucrative private cases (hard at the start of your career) it pays terribly. I think I saw one too many dead-eyed stares, or heard stories about friends' parents who were in criminal law bursting into tears at the dinner table.

It makes me worry sometimes about the state of the criminal justice system. But I don't think anyone ever won any votes with the campaign slogan "better working conditions for lawyers".

The problem is that most people don't have the attention span to recognize that the word "lawyer" covers a pretty wide range of people and jobs in terms of how well they're paid, the demands of the job, their motivation for doing so, and for that matter what the job actually involves doing.

Maybe a better way to phrase it: "Unless you're very rich, the only person there to make sure that you're not presumed guilty until proven innocent will either be an overworked idealist or a lawyer without the talent to find a slightly less terrible job. Maybe we should figure out how to change that?"

[Jormengand]

No, at least, not if morality is to mean anything with any point to it.

So, first, to answer the question, we need to work out what it means for something to be moral or immoral. Irrespective of what moral paradigm you use, it seems relatively clear that a moral action is one which is in accordance with the rules of that morality and an immoral action is one against it*. If you're a Kantian, it's obvious that lying to someone for the benefit of others is immoral, and if you're a utilitarian (or at least an act utilitarian) it's obvious that it's moral.

What does that help you do? It does two things: it allows you to make moral decisions on your own, and it allows you to advise others how to make moral decisions. Why you would want to do either of those things is a question in its own right, but we can generally assume that anyone who cares about this kind of meta-ethics was probably a moral enough person anyway to do moral things just because they're moral. Mostly.

How does that apply to dolphins? It doesn't. You aren't a dolphin, you can't communicate with dolphins. Maybe if you had prepared speak with animals this morning we could find the relevance. You haven't; we can't.

The other thing that we routinely apply the words "Moral" and "Immoral" to is people. I however maintain that this is a dreadfully dangerous pursuit unless we're vitally clear about what the words mean when we do apply them, and what we expect to gain from this knowledge. Do you mean "Benevolent" and "Malevolent"? Are there malicious dolphins? Do they have the capability for malevolence? Are there dolphins which truly despise their fellow creature so much as to actively wish to harm them? I doubt it, and as we have no way to tell dolphins' intentions I don't think we can get much from that even if it is possible.

Do we mean "Likely to do moral actions" and "Likely to do immoral actions?" That seems difficult to judge. Or do we mean "Having done moral actions mostly in the past" and the opposite? That seems irrelevant at best; why we should wish to know the moral history of a dolphin or even a human escapes me, except as informs the future - which again is essentially impossible to judge. Or do we mean "Intent on moral actions" and "Intent on immoral actions"? Again, can we judge a dolphin's intent? Perhaps we mean whether it's likely to fulfil the kinds of results we might wish of moral actions or be wary of in the case of the inverse, but that seems unlikely and impossible to measure.

But I think when we talk about good people and bad people - and therefore by extension one supposes good or bad dolphins - we talk about it in an exceptionally retributionist way. Oh, he's a bad person, let's ruin his life. Oh, he's a good person, let's give him a present. Worse, we rarely judge whether people are good or bad on genuine moral grounds. I don't think that seeing dolphins in that way would really help us; honestly it's something we need to stop doing to humans anyway.

*For the purposes of this argument, I'm going to assume that moral and ethical mean the same thing, irresprective of whether or not they really do.

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes it can.

Morality being relative doesn't stop you. On the contrary, it gives you permission to ignore anyone who says it would stop you.

Morality being fixed or objective doesn't stop you either. Untill the time such morality is found out, any incomplete moral theory is fair game. If you can't think of such a moral theory which could say something about dolphins, you lack imagination.

Likewise if you think dolphins not being human, or us not being able to communicate with them, have any bearing on the question, you lack imagination and have not familiarized yourself with enough moral theories.

[Murk]

First, legality and morality are two different things.

I'll just respond to this one sentence because I think it addresses all the other things you said:
I indeed meant "judge" as a moral judge, not a legal judge. My example might have been a legal one, and that was not a wise example, but I do mean judging in the moral sense ("deciding if it's wrong or right"), not in a way of law.

[Velaryon]

I'm reading a book (https://www.amazon.com/Bonobo-Atheist-Search-Humanism-Primates/dp/0393347796) right now in which a primatologist makes what more or less boils down to the following argument:

1. Bonobos (a type of ape closely related to the chimpanzee, and therefore to humans) have what appears to be their own morality in their society.
2. This suggests that morality is, to some extent at least, biologically-based rather than handed down from outside/above.

Though I haven't yet finished the book, it seems to me a reasonable extrapolation that other fairly intelligent social animals probably have their own (perhaps rudimentary) morality based on what's good for their society. I'm certainly no expert on primates, morality, or dolphins, but they are social animals and have the reputation of being among the more intelligent species on our planet, so I think it likely that dolphins have some sort of morality of their own. It certainly wouldn't be the same as human morality (especially since there isn't any universally agreed-upon human moral code), but there is certainly a possibility that it exists. I've no idea whether this particular question has been studied, though.

[Themrys]

An entire race/culture is different from an individual.

I mean it was ok for a guy to marry a 15 year old girl in the middle ages and ok for a samurai to kill himself.

Because, that’s was morally ok for that culture at that time.

Um, newsflash: It is still morally and legally okay for a samurai to kill himself. Even moreso, in fact, as most countries don't punish suicide attempts anymore.

You are really comparing apples to mice here.

Some guy killing himself only harms himself (usually, though widows and orphans might suffer, too) so one needs an extremely weird thought construct to see it as something that should be punished, and an even weirder one to punish it with death.




And no, male dolphins don't get a free pass for raping because it is "their culture" or somesuch nonsense.

I am pretty damn sure female dolphins consider it morally wrong.

But do not be too quick to throw the first stone - if dolphins could walk on land, they'd also be of the opinion that humans rape and kill a lot and are not any better than sharks.

[Frozen_Feet]

We don't really know what female dolphins think. Of course, us not knowing is not the same as the question being moot, or not having an answer.

That's really at the root of this thread. A question being hard to solve is not the same as the question being inapplicable. Equating those would be akin to saying that a Travelling Salesman problem has no solution because the solution can't be computed efficiently.

Observations like "dolphins aren't humans" or "we can't efficiently communicate with dolphins" make the question of how to apply morality to them hard. Even if the answer to the question of whether morality can be applied is trivially a yes,

[LughSpear]

They mostly rape other males anyway. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardRapeMaleOnMale) :smallconfused:

[Jormengand]

That's really at the root of this thread. A question being hard to solve is not the same as the question being inapplicable. Equating those would be akin to saying that a Travelling Salesman problem has no solution because the solution can't be computed efficiently.

Observations like "dolphins aren't humans" or "we can't efficiently communicate with dolphins" make the question of how to apply morality to them hard. Even if the answer to the question of whether morality can be applied is trivially a yes,

I mean, you can apply morality to them - you can say some of their actions are moral or others immoral - but you're not really going to achieve anything more than armchair-philosophical self-satisfaction from doing so.

[Dodom]

We don't really know what female dolphins think. Of course, us not knowing is not the same as the question being moot, or not having an answer.

That's really at the root of this thread. A question being hard to solve is not the same as the question being inapplicable. Equating those would be akin to saying that a Travelling Salesman problem has no solution because the solution can't be computed efficiently.

Observations like "dolphins aren't humans" or "we can't efficiently communicate with dolphins" make the question of how to apply morality to them hard. Even if the answer to the question of whether morality can be applied is trivially a yes,

I agree with that.
I think that:
1) it's not useless to discuss things we can't apply right now as a thought exercice because if nothing else it can help us sort notions in our own mind,
2) it might eventually become more practically relevant, given that we could eventually figure out how to communicate with more species efficiently.

Right now we lack data about dolphins' mind to pass a definite judgement. Being intelligent doesn't guarantee they have enough self-control to go against their instincts*, or how the behaviours we see as cruel actually affect their mental well-being. We know that the males have shortened life span because of the injuries they get constantly fighting, and stress can be physically measured, so physically their lifestyle is harmful, but then, eating too much sugar is also harmful and we'd fight to keep doing it. We need to remember that any moralty applying to them would have to center on their own interest, they owe us nothing.

If we end up able to communicate with them in a clear and unambiguous way, then we'll have to take decisions about whether to intervene if they ask us. After all, they seem intelligent enough to figure out that having a tool using species as a friend could come very handy. What if the females request fenced areas along their migration routes to take breaks from the males while their babies are still weak? It would be feasible, but how would it affect their social interactions in the long run? Are they flexible enough to adapt to a sudden culture shift even if the starting elements of it were something they wanted? What if it worked perfectly as desired, but then they came to expect us to implement solutions to their other problems? That certainly would be a possible consequence!


*: Lets remember that humans and other great apes have a unique brain area called the cingulate gyrus, which is a specialised structure managing behavioral inhibition. Other animals don't have it, so independently from their intelligence, their ability to sort between contradictory drives is nothing like what we take for granted.
A rather cute example of this difference I've seen live was a young male iguana who had specially strong territorial instincts. The poor thing couldn't see a reflection without fighting it, and in captivity reflective surfaces abound. But he learned how to pass mirror and glass without being forced to fight: he walked in front of them with one eye closed, making the stimulus weak enough to ignore. So he had the desire to avoid fights he had learned to be unrewarding, and enough intelligence to predict what caused them and how to avoid it, but "just don't do it" was not part of his mental toolbox.

[Stryyke]

Morality is an arbitrary designation created by humans. Only humans are subject to the laws of morality.

[erikun]

I am not sure if I want to common on the morality of dolphins - and am not sure that I would make a new point, even if I did - but I did want to bring up a point regarding the problems of anthropomorphizing dolphins for the sake of a morality discussion.

If I were to take your iPod and throw it into the river, in such a manner that it breaks over a rock and so is unusable, it would be reasonable to consider me a bad person in doing so. I've taking something away from another person, and prevented them from being able to use it. I've damaged something belonging to another person, to the point where it can likely not be repaired. Even if it was bothersome to me in some manner (say, the song was annoying) that doesn't make it right for me to do such a thing to another person. I certainly would not want something like that to happen to me, even if another person did not like whatever the object was. And so, it would be reasonable to claim that I was morally wrong in taking and destroying another person's property.

If a dolphin were to take your iPod and smash it in a river, though, I think you would have a more difficult time claiming that the dolphin was wrong in doing so. Even if the dolphin could be communicated with and told that humans consider it wrong to take and destroy personal property, it might not mean much. The dolphin doesn't have any personal property. It's questionable if a dolphin even could have any meaningful personal property. It certainly can't carry something on its own for very long, and it certainly can't store anything in any reasonable way. Dolphins can't make tools, can't use tools, and don't require tools to do what they do. It is questionable if the idea of personal property has any meaning, conceptional or moral, to a dolphin. And if that is the case, then what moral rule has the dolphin violated if it takes and destroys an object?

To make a human-ish comparison: if a person ties down an annoying branch because it is thwacking a window in the wind, is that considered a morally wrong action to take?

This is the problem with attempting to anthropomorphize a dolphin: with attempting to assign human traits to the distinction non-human dolphin and assume everything is valid. Dolphins have different needs, (supposedly) different mindsets, and (supposedly) different outlooks at life. And while the breaking-iPod situation might not end up entirely valid, it does highlight a problem that some of those basic differences can show differences in what a theoretical "dolphin morality" would look like.

And it does point out that went we talk about a moral outlook or morality, we are specifically discussing human morality, as it applies to humans. Attempting to apply them to thing other than humans is going to start running into problems, both in the non-humans properly conceiving of the moral rules and in the idea that non-humans would even conceive them in the same way. We might run the risk of anthropomorphizing whatever non-human we are attempting to apply moral guidelines to, which could not only makes the application invalid but bring up a whole host of problems as a result.

[AnachroNinja]

Most of the responses that say yes seem to focus on, as noted by the poster above me, applying human morality to dolphins in a way that seeks to control what we would consider negative behavior if it were applied to us. IE: "I'm sure female dolphins think being assaulted is morally wrong." Type of view.

That's not really something we can claim with any sort of accuracy. We have no idea how female dolphins feel or think about it. For all we know we could be watching a version of BDSM play with prior consent from all involved. That's unlikely, especially since it's still applying human style feelings, but the point is just because we can say "This dolphin seems to be in distress." Doesn't mean we actually understand anything about the situation.

To me, the really interesting thing is that we tend to be in a hurry to say other species shouldn't do things we consider to be negative, especially if it could possibly involve a human on the receiving end like with dolphin assault, but we aren't especially concerned about applying our morality for the protection of other species. People breed animals for profit, attach cows to milking machines, artificially inseminate animals, brand/mark/tag animals, slaughter them for food.... The list of things that would be considered at least some form of assault of both parties were human it's endless.

Now I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't do those things, but it's sort of one of those "People who live in glass houses should shut the hell up." type of things. Rather then whether we are capable of applying our morality to other species or not, I'd say it's more accurate to say we do not have the right to do so.

[warty goblin]

To me, the really interesting thing is that we tend to be in a hurry to say other species shouldn't do things we consider to be negative, especially if it could possibly involve a human on the receiving end like with dolphin assault, but we aren't especially concerned about applying our morality for the protection of other species. People breed animals for profit, attach cows to milking machines, artificially inseminate animals, brand/mark/tag animals, slaughter them for food.... The list of things that would be considered at least some form of assault of both parties were human it's endless.

Now I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't do those things, but it's sort of one of those "People who live in glass houses should shut the hell up." type of things. Rather then whether we are capable of applying our morality to other species or not, I'd say it's more accurate to say we do not have the right to do so.

Always remember, to a chicken are Lovecraftian horrors.

[aloysius]

sure why not.

[Simetra Irertne]

Not human morality. Morality is subjective *cue angry outbursts*, so what is wrong for us is not necessarily wrong for them. We can't apply our values to another very different species. It would be like aliens coming to Earth and insisting we were amoral for messing with evolution by saving the lives of those with "inferior genes". We don't have the right to dictate what is or is not wrong for dolphins.

[Jormengand]

Not human morality. Morality is subjective *cue angry outbursts*, so what is wrong for us is not necessarily wrong for them. We can't apply our values to another very different species. It would be like aliens coming to Earth and insisting we were amoral for messing with evolution by saving the lives of those with "inferior genes". We don't have the right to dictate what is or is not wrong for dolphins.

We absolutely have the right to, much like we have the right to insist that humans not murder each other irrespective of whether or not they come from a culture where that's considered acceptable. However, with dolphins, it is not the right but the ability to insist (at least comprehensibly) that they behave a certain way that I would call into serious question.

[Simetra Irertne]

I would argue we do not have the right (or the ability. That provokes an interesting mental image of a man standing on shore yelling at dolphins). If we consider them an intelligent species, barring the obvious communication barrier, we cannot consider ourselves morally superior enough to dictate their society, whatever that may be. We can ask other cultures to avoid murder because whatever their culture or location, they are still human. There are too many problems with ordering another species to follow our rules. Why don't we ask deer or bulls not to fight? We cannot ask a completely different kind of creature to follow us. If the dolphins came to us, asking us to help enforce their version of morality we could enforce their rules. The moment we try to enforce our laws in their society, we are effectively invading them and putting them under a dictatorship without consent. And that, as proven many times in history, is against human morality.

[Donnadogsoth]

Can the dolphin understand why it is being punished? Then it should be punished. If it can't understand why, it should merely be neutralised.

[warty goblin]

Consider turning things slightly on their head, and reading with tongue slightly in cheek.

If dolphins are close to humans in intelligence and understanding, and one considers morality to be portable across species lines, then we really should consider whether we should be judging dolphins, or the other way around. Seems to me that the only case for us judging dolphins rests in some sort of human superiority, which clearly requires proof. So far as I'm aware, dolphins may kill and rape each other on occasion, but they don't seem to perpetrate genocide, terrorism, publishing raw data in PDF format, torture, slavery, or telemarketing. While ascribing a specific ranking of wrongness to each possible action is deeply fraught, it seems pretty obvious that if humans do horrible things unknown to dolphins, and dolphins only do horrible things also done by humans, we are almost certainly a less moral species than dolphins.

Now the natural objection to this is that it simply doesn't make sense, because we're smarter than dolphins. Which is probably true in some general sense, but is also irrelevant. If Bob is a supergenius who hates his neighbor, and comes up with an extremely clever way to kill him using only Facebook Messenger and 5 pounds of thermite that lunkheads like you or I would never have thought of, we don't acquit Bob just for being brilliant. No, we get a copy of his code, then lock him up, because our neighbors are also annoying as hell, and deserve to be incinerated next time they send a selfie - I mean, because Bob is very very wrong. A certain level of intelligence may be necessary to understand morality, but past that point, is there any reason to assume a positive correlation between morality and intelligence, particularly across species? Again, the comparative morality of the dolphin would suggest not. The only question is whether we're smart enough to figure this out, or we're so dumb and intellectually fragile as a species that we can't believe we aren't the bestest at everything.

So really we should be submitting ourselves for judgement before dolphin courts. But surely, you ask, just our criminals? Wrong! We, not having obtained dolphin levels of morality, cannot assess whom among us is truly criminal. Therefore we all need to proceed - in orderly fashion - to the nearest dolphin. As soon as we work out how to explain PDFs to them, I expect we'll all be directed to drown ourselves forthwith.

[Donnadogsoth]

Consider turning things slightly on their head, and reading with tongue slightly in cheek.

If dolphins are close to humans in intelligence and understanding, and one considers morality to be portable across species lines, then we really should consider whether we should be judging dolphins, or the other way around. Seems to me that the only case for us judging dolphins rests in some sort of human superiority, which clearly requires proof. So far as I'm aware, dolphins may kill and rape each other on occasion, but they don't seem to perpetrate genocide, terrorism, publishing raw data in PDF format, torture, slavery, or telemarketing. While ascribing a specific ranking of wrongness to each possible action is deeply fraught, it seems pretty obvious that if humans do horrible things unknown to dolphins, and dolphins only do horrible things also done by humans, we are almost certainly a less moral species than dolphins.

Now the natural objection to this is that it simply doesn't make sense, because we're smarter than dolphins. Which is probably true in some general sense, but is also irrelevant. If Bob is a supergenius who hates his neighbor, and comes up with an extremely clever way to kill him using only Facebook Messenger and 5 pounds of thermite that lunkheads like you or I would never have thought of, we don't acquit Bob just for being brilliant. No, we get a copy of his code, then lock him up, because our neighbors are also annoying as hell, and deserve to be incinerated next time they send a selfie - I mean, because Bob is very very wrong. A certain level of intelligence may be necessary to understand morality, but past that point, is there any reason to assume a positive correlation between morality and intelligence, particularly across species? Again, the comparative morality of the dolphin would suggest not. The only question is whether we're smart enough to figure this out, or we're so dumb and intellectually fragile as a species that we can't believe we aren't the bestest at everything.

So really we should be submitting ourselves for judgement before dolphin courts. But surely, you ask, just our criminals? Wrong! We, not having obtained dolphin levels of morality, cannot assess whom among us is truly criminal. Therefore we all need to proceed - in orderly fashion - to the nearest dolphin. As soon as we work out how to explain PDFs to them, I expect we'll all be directed to drown ourselves forthwith.

A good guide to dolphin justice might be a study as to what sorts of persons in distress dolphins save and what sorts they laughingly ignore.