ANIMAL PASSIONS AND BEASTLY VIRTUES: COGNITIVE ETHOLOGY AS THE UNIFYING SCIENCE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE SUBJECTIVE, EMOTIONAL, EMPATHIC, AND MORAL LIVES OF ANIMALSIn this essay, my response to four papers that were presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in a session devoted to my research on animal behavior and
cognitive ethology, I stress the importance of interdisciplinary research
and collaboration for coming to terms with various aspects of animal
behavior and animal cognition. I argue that we have much to learn
from other animals concerning a set of “big” questions including who
we are in the grand scheme of things, the role science (“science sense”)
plays in our understanding of the world in which we live, what it
means to “know” something, what some other ways of knowing are
and how they compare to what we call “science,” and the use of anecdotes and anthropomorphism to inform studies of animal behavior.
I ask, Are other minds really all that private and inaccessible? Can a
nonhuman animal be called a person? What does the future hold if
we continue to dismantle the only planet we live on and persecute
the other animal beings with whom we are supposed to coexist? I
argue that cognitive ethology is the unifying science for understanding the subjective, emotional, empathic, and moral lives of animals,
because it is essential to know what animals do, think, and feel as
they go about their daily routines in the company of their friends and
when they are alone. It is also important to learn why both the similarities and differences between humans and other animals have
evolved. The more we come to understand other animals, the more
we will appreciate them as the amazing beings they are, and the more
we will come to understand ourselves.