Are other animals "ethical"?

Question

Does any species other than ours concern themselves with perceived right and wrong behaviour?

Answer 1

Yes to an extent.

Many mammals have emotion -they know what hurts and does not hurt. They feel love and hate and jealousy.

  My dogs know that they are not suppose to eat out of each other bowels and yet I have caught them  sneaking around and doing it. You should see the sheepish look on their dogie faces (they are medium Small -medium to a large dog -so the size of the dog does not matter ) I am the Alpha Bitc.. any way. And I know they love and  "respect" me as well.

Answer 2

I would have to be that animal to know the answer. If you think about it, our knowledge of animal behavior is actually 'perceived' anyway since we are not the animal.

Answer 3

ya definitely we have cow which has ethical values

Answer 4

Yup, The anthopolgist Jane goodall has been studying monkeys behaviours for years, she has noticed in one of her videos that monkeys are very aulteristic, there very careing, sometimes they accept other monkey outcasts into the group and protect them.

Answer 5

None that we are aware.

It has been argued that whales and porpoises and perhaps dolphins might, but humans have little if any evidence of thought patterns or behavior which could prove this.

No amount of observing behavior will tell you anything about the thought pattern (if any) for the behavior.  Just because birds and monkey preen one another does not reflect on the motivation to do so.

To perceive right and wrong a being must be able to judge based upon a standard.  A porpoise saving a drowning human might imply this.  An ape helping out a hurt ape in the tribe does not (what is good for the tribe is good for the self).  Ants do this.

Answer 6

In some ways animals can be said to behave with ethics.  An example would be male baboons that take great care of the young.  It is a highly desirable trait and makes them more likely to mate.  I sort of doubt that baboons are making plans to get the babes so it seems likely that some of that behavior could be innate.  Gorillas and chimps on the other hand are probably high enough on the evolutionary scale where they can actually understand what they are doing.  They have their selfish reasons too but they probably have a perception of right and wrong.