Can animals.....

Post Reply New Topic

I don't agree that "reasoning" has to include "a moral factor."

There are highly intelligent psychopaths who have excellent reasoning skills in the sense of "deduction" yet they are without morals in regard to devastating consequences of their acts.

Reasoning to me strictly means the ability to deduce, plan, figure out that certain results arise from certain actions, etc.

I was not meaning to insist it must, just taking it beyond something such as an animal using a stick to get ants out of a hole in the ground. Also, there are people who catch monkeys by placing food in a jug tied to a tree...and then the monkey does not have the sense -- no ability to "reason" -- to open its fist so it can release itself from the jug.

I think most mammals, octopus and some birds have reasoning abilities. Great apes and monkeys certainly do, as do dolphins and killer whales.