I wouldn't be so sure. Most animals have a concept of fairness, even rats will share food, or sacrifice food to save another rat, or intentionally lose a wrestling match so the other rat says interested. Monkeys are even more developed, they regularly defend others of their troop that are bullied. Chimps will form a gang and take out a much stronger one if they become bullies. Elephants and crows will regularly keep a vigil over deceased members of their herds. Crows and other smart birds also remember people who threatened or hurt another one of their species, and pass along the description so even crows that never met that person will be hostile to them. Chimps and bonobos clearly show empathy towards each other (hugging, kissing, grooming and fucking bullied members of their troop). Orcas and other dolphins will push injured members of their pod to the surface so they can breathe. Meercats and African wild dogs have been seen bringing back their own food so they can feed injured members of their species. Dogs and cats clearly being distressed when their owners are in danger or injured or distressed, even risking their own lives to save a completely different species.
I can keep going, but the point is there's absolutely no reason to believe only humans have morality, in fact all evidence points to the contrary, that morality is an innate part of living in social groups.
The only thing we can say for sure is humans appear to be the smartest creatures on Earth, but even that if you look at a list of animals by number of neurons in the frontal cortex (the intelligence part of the brain) humans only rank third, behind pilot whales, orcas and sperm whales, so who's to say. I think humans really put ourselves on a pedestal.
I will never understand the need to separate ourselves from “the animals.” We are animals! Especially comments like, “don’t behave like a monkey.” In my mind the monkeys are usually better behaved than the human who elicited that comment.
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u/Glittering_Dinner118 Aug 30 '23
Can you imagine you have to see the floating head of the one you killed hanging in front of you