Canine morality? What about the humans?

On the one hand I am sympathetic to researchers who see echoes of morality in the way dogs play.

I also see how much projection takes place among so many dog owners who believe Fido feels every emotion in the same way that they do.  A few even project their religious preferences on their dogs.

Two humans will often disagree on both how to think about morality and how they feel in response to a set of events, and we are the same species.  I'll grant dogs, and many other mammals, a wide variety of emotions but they must be, to a varying degree of extent, alien to our own. 

Yet, if we keep all this in mind I still remember the day we brought home Maybelle and our coon hound at the time, Zeke, saw the new puppy he looked at us, looked at the puppy, looked at us and then promptly raised his leg and peed in the middle of the living room floor.







I never knew he cared.

Still, more harm is done treating our animals as if they interacted with the world in the same way we do than in adhering to basic principles of operant conditioning and remembering that however our dogs interact with the world, we have the larger frontal lobes and are responsible for greater insight. 

The degree to which canines experience emotion in the same way we do is an interesting academic problem.  Some will feel the need to integrate this knowledge into their choices what meat, if any, to eat.

But the real threat to pets is over-indulgence and short-term thinking on the part of their humans.

Yes, your dog will beg for food but that is not necessarily because he needs to eat.  Obesity is a problem not only for about one-third of America's human population but one-fourth of American dogs as well.  That is the result of the actions of human beings and it decreases the quality of life for animals who can not be expected to exercise self-control in relationship to their diet. 

Dogs probably experience emotions.  They may have something akin to a morality but I know humans do and therein are the problems we should really be addressing. 

People do not like to be told that they are killing their pet slowly, and feeling good about themselves while doing it, through over-feeding.  They like to be told that Fido loves them in the same way that they feel love.  They like to think of their dogs going to heaven, though it is hard to find evidence that the God of Jacob and Jesus cares nearly as much for them as the modern American.

But then again we do a lot of projecting of ourselves when it comes to the divine as well, don't we? 

Rules

The rules that govern our social life together need to be carefully suited to meet the ends in question. 

An active duty soldier was subject to more rules than other citizens.  Handwashing rules to be followed in a hospital are not be appropriate to a home.  A home with small children will have different rules than one without.

The rules we make for ourselves operate in a similar fashion.  I have one life.  I have made a decision about the scheme I want to follow for that life.  I have named the game I will play in my years on earth so I develop the rules for my behavior to guide me toward winning that game.  The rules are a way of staying focused and putting aside distractions. 

Games, and the rules that govern them, can also help us maintain our own sanity and good humor in times of trial.  Children have much to teach us in this respect as evidenced by games of "Slug Bug" on long car trips or "Jinx" around the house.  Some members of the United States Navy seemed to have applied this lesson to submarine deployments.

Our aspirations for our own lives are revealed in the rules we apply to ourselves.  If you have not thought about the rules that govern your life, this does not mean that you do not have rules, only that you are playing a game someone else has named and rules they have named.  This is how we all start our lives but at some point we become responsible for ourselves and must decide whether or not to continue the game we were given or name our own.

Changing rules that do not work toward out own goals is just good sense.  These are the kinds of changes that mark progress.  Breaking rules, however, rarely grants the promised benefits.  The distinction includes a degree of discretion of the individual but there is a quick and dirty trick to get a good idea to hold ourselves accountable.  If you are negating a rule for momentary gain, you are probably breaking a rule and need to ask yourself difficult questions about the trade-off in question. 

Differences between people in the rules they keep are merely differences of opinion, regardless of whether such differences are minor or major, complimentary or a source of conflict. Is life lived better this way or that?  What is the nature of the good which is worth living for.  What cost are you willing to undergo in order to achieve that good? 

If you are willing to undertake the cost of smoking for the perceived benefit of the pleasure of the act or to avoid the cost of breaking the addiction, what is that to me?  I will make a decision for myself as to whether you will be allowed to smoke in my house or my car.  We may both be willing to kill for the perceived benefit of our nation.  There we share the same rule but differ in terms of loyalty and with deadly impact.  Regardless of the rule or people at questions, no one has an automatic claim on the other.  Each of us bears the cost as well as the benefits of our decisions.  There can be mistakes.  People do suffer, often unjustly.  There are winners and losers but there are no victims. 

It is my life that I am living and I am seeking ot live it well.  I will live it by my rules and you should live by the rules you have laid down to help you live well.  When they conflict, well those are the interesting days that give us fodder for the stories that we tell when we are old and looking back on life.  Even amidst those conflicts, if we are wise, we remember the lessons evidenced over and over again through out history but rather pointedly over the last few decades at the Tour de France.  Winning the race is not the same thing as living the life of a winner.  You can make a deal with a demon and still not get the result you think you bargained for.

Make your rules, live by them, die by them, and, if necessary, lose by them but so long as you are playing the same game, so long as the rules serve to guide you in your scheme of life, embrace them.