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.

Spoiler: Longer Answer?

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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.