Why do humans have such strong emotions towards other animals?

I love my dogs and I’m not really sure why. Probably because they love me unconditionally, or at least they are very attached to me because I am the source of food!

They seem to like each other, but I have never had any who grieved for another when one was rehomed or died.

It’s very difficult to gauge the emotions of human beings.. let alone other species. We are bound to see some cat and dog lovers out there who will insist that their pets are emotionally attached to them. I’ll bet they are right, however, it is near impossible to determine what level of self actualization those pets have.

Mirror neurons could play a key role.

Humans are unique in the animal kingdom in that they domesticate other animals for their own use. Dr. Jared Diamond in his outstanding book “Guns, Germs and Steel” even goes so far to argue that the presence of the “big 5” of domesticable animals was the reason that civilization developed the way it did, with the beginnings in the Fertile Crescent in what is now called the Middle East and spread outward from there.

We are social animals, capable of empathy and I would say that these two characteristics, though definitely not exclusive to our species are very important to us and at the core of our survival set. It seems logical to extend that empathy to other objects and creatures.

You should however not too easily conclude that strong emotional feelings to other species are predestined to manifest in all people. There is for instance a strong cultural component.

As illustration: our word ‘animal’ is derived from the latin word for soul: ‘anima’. The Chinese word for animal loosely translates to “thing that moves” and their approach to animals is definitely different.

Personally, I feel that empathy may be scaled from basic to higher, somewhat as follows:

empathy for people, part of your family and similar to you (eg gender, status)
empathy for people, part of your family or similar to you
[... ...]
empathy for other people fully outside your group and dissimilar to you

parallel to that empathy human-to-human scale, I’d recognize:
empathy for other species close that we can bond with as individuals (furry, mammal pets)
[... ...]
empathy for other species not like us at all without individuality, such as lice or fungae.

We might all want to strive to develop our humanity by trying to climb up these empathy scales from the basic position to the higher: caring for other people that are not part of our group and totally different and for the well-being of species that look less like us such as fish and reptiles.

@mattbrowne mirror neurons? Uhh? Help…

Most people eat animals. I would say they really have no emotional attachment other than to their own pets.

In my opinion we are not the only ones who do it. Animals have breast fed and raised animals outside of their species. Dogs will walk through fire for the owners, alert them to epileptic seizures, are companions to people who are blind. I once heard that the dogs who are used to seek out dead bodies are given “breaks” during catastrophies when there are many who have died, because their masters perceive the dog as going through emotional stress witnessig the loss. I think the dogs can be emtionally attached to us.

@PapaLeo You may have a fair point saying that we are the only animal that domesticate animals for our own use, but have you looked at for instance ants?

Ants will domesticate and raise other species or even other ants. They will plunder other nests and steal eggs to hatch and raise slaves as a workforce for their own colony. They will “keep” caterpillars as a sort of cattle. Taking them out during the day for foraging under their protection and bringing them in at night to feed on the honeydew these caterpillars excrete. Now, I’d doubt that these ants have a lot of emotion tied into these symbioses, but they certainly match us at domesticating other species. And they likely did that long before our species even was around.

@whitenoise This is a good example of one living species using another for its own ends. There are many many more, including plants and all manners of animal species.

However, domestication is different. In domestication a species adapts the breeding and control of another species, subjugating it totally for its own ends. This is not the case between ants and catepillars (ants don’t breed catepillars in captivity for their own ends).

Animals represent innocence to us. Just as small children do.

I do think animals can have affection for other animals. This amazing story is one example. Look at those photos!

I have always found that interacting with animals is more rewarding than interacting with MOST people. I have always trusted my dogs in a way I can’t trust people because I feel that the chances of them hurting me emotionally (apart from losing them because of death, which they can’t help!) is far less then the chances of a human hurting me emotionally.

I have seen animals (other than humans) nurture other species before. We used to have a sheep who became very attached to the dogs and would spend as much time as possible with them (even to the point where we once found her asleep in one of the dogs beds) and the dogs never turned on her. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world for them.

@Zendo, you are wrong. I am a meat eater, but I have profound empathy towards other animals. You are simply generalizing about meat eaters. When I hear of animals being mistreated by people that should know better i.e. Michael Vick, I get mad. I am also a realist. Some must die that others may live. the lion eats the antelope, the owl eats the rabbit, the hawk eats the squirrel, the coyote eats the mouse.

I have an affection for a lot of different creatures, not just my pets. I like spiders and will go out of my way to not kill them, and to help them stay safe. Humans have always had a pretty close relationship with animals, read a little history. It’s only today that there is a separation between people and animals. Some people never see a real animal, and have never witnessed any wildlife beyond the falsehoods created by Disney cartoons. Animals and humans are closely related, genetically speaking.

There is a lot of misinformation about animals, and people eat it up (no pun intended) because they don’t know any better, or they haven’t seen animals IRL. PETA, ALF, and that lady who claims to be the pet whisperer or pet psychologist comes to mind. They are preying on people’s ignorance and emotions.

Life with animals is a lot more complex than the ‘either-or’ scenario most people would have you believe.

@whitenoise the mirror neurons that @mattbrowne referred to are possibly the neurological basis for the empathy that you’re talking about. These neurons appear to allow us (and some other animals) to observe other beings and, to some extent, put ourselves in their place. They’re called mirror neurons because they cause our own brains to mirror what we observe in others, modeling their experience as our own.

This mechanism is what makes us laugh when we see someone else laugh hysterically even if we have no idea what they’re laughing about, and it’s what makes us feel the pain of a suffering animal and so want to alleviate its suffering. To a degree, we experience the pain and pleasure of others as our own pain and pleasure because of the mirror neurons. We feel good when we stroke a cat on our lap, because it shows such obvious signs of pleasure and we mirror that. When the dog shows such obvious delight at our arrival home, we literally share his joy. By making animals happy, we make ourselves happy.

Mirror neurons are most active when we’re observing creatures that are easily analogous to ourselves, which is what you’re saying. It’s harder to look at a snake and understand its experience. This requires that we generalize the lesson that the mirror neurons teach us. In other words, we come to an understanding that even if we can’t read the body language of some other species, there’s at least the possibility that it has a capacity for pleasure and suffering as we do. Once we make that generalization, then our desire becomes to minimize suffering for any creature.

I love my dogs so much and humans probally care for them alot because a dog is like a best friend and will never let you down :P

I don’t understand how anyone can call themselves an animal lover and still eat meat… maybe fish, crustacean, and chickens aren’t so bad…. but pigs and cows? These animals raise and care for their young, have the capacity to love and form bonds with other animals, and are very sensitive creatures. How selfish it is to demand that they die just so that you can have a few minutes of tasteful pleasure, especially when we do not need it to survive in the first place.

@evelyns_pet_zebra So you just pick and choose the animals you have compassion towards?? How convenient that must be for you. Do you not realize that animals that are mass produced for the meat industry are severely mistreated a lot of the time? Just as much as any dog you have seen.

@evelyns_pet_zebra “you are wrong. I am a meat eater, but I have profound empathy towards other animals.”

Apparently not for the animals you are eating.

@BBSDTfamily…Chicken care for their young.

@Zendo ?? I thought they sat on their eggs, and then the chicks eat millet along with the parents. I have never seen a chicken lash out in angst when eggs are plucked from her nest, but I have seen a cow scream in agony when it’s calf is pulled away. But, I believe you and will research it.

It’s pretty difficult to determine if an non-human animal is experiencing emotion. How do we tell? Look at YouTube. Animals interact with other animals all the time.

@BBSDTfamily After the eggs hatch, there are baby chicks to be cared for. Perhaps you are so used to the idea of farmers taking the eggs before they hatch thaqt you have forgotten that the eggs hatch into young chicks.
Many places have free ranging chicken where the mothers actually care for their young.

@tinyfaery You truly bel;ieve cats snarling and/or purring and loving a good petting are not experiencing emotions? Or a dog clamped to a burglar’s leg is not experiencing emotion?

@Zendo No not really used to either way, I’ve only seen it a few times when I was a kid. I’m aware that many hatch into chicks but didn’t know that mother hens took any care at all after their chicks. Thanks for the info though.

Emotion or instinct? And even if it was an emotion, how am I to determine? My cat uses the same behaviors to exhibit affection and aggression.

@BBSDTfamily do you even know where I buy my meat? Do you go to the places I shop and watch me buy meat? I like how you assume to know where and how I buy my meat, and that you can judge me from high up on your pedestal. You really crack me up with your holier-than-thou attitude.

@Zendo yet when my Native American ancestors killed animals for meat, they said a little prayer, thanking the animals’ spirit for their sacrifice so that the people could eat. I’m sure you have no concept of their empathy for the food they took from the animals they killed either. I am a meat eater, and I am really tired of having to defend my lifestyle choices to a couple of people I don’t even know, and more importantly, who don’t know me, but enjoy projecting their worst ideals onto.

I’d say that without you two Fluther would be a much better place, but that would be mean and thoughtless, so I won’t say it.

Life is about choices, your results may vary.

@BBSDTfamily so you eat fish and crustaceans, even though fish can feel pain? Hmm, I think you might want to rethink your levels of compassion. At least before you decide to judge me.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Unless you raise and kill your meat yourself, you have no clue how it is really treated. Pretend to know if it makes you feel better though. Oh and for your second question, no I have never eaten any seafood in my entire life. You are the one making the assumptions.

From Wikipedia: A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another animal (especially by another animal of the same species). Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and other species including birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. Some scientists consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in the last decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neurons

@evelyns_pet_zebra I don’t want to get into the arguement of whether it is morally correct to eat meat but I just wanted to say that I had to give you lurve for your answer defending your choice to eat meat. Whatever my personal beliefs (and again, I would rather not get into that on this particular thread), I respect the answer you gave.

Not just humans

i really like this one