Tool use and animals

[jwalker <jwalker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The discussion of whether animals *truly* use tools, or use them like we
do, or use the kind of tools we use, strikes me as odd. Naturally there
are things we do that other animals don't. We build cars, tell jokes, and
do the foxtrot. Animal rights advocates acknowledge this.

Furthermore there are wrongs humans can suffer that other animals can't.
Alienation may be one of them, depending on how one conceives of that
notion.

What's funny is that it's not obvious how any of this is relevant to the
moral status of animals. Our ancestors made antler-stumps, as Adam Rose
points out. But so what? If we want to know whether we have moral duties
to animals, we need to ask fundamental questions about what the basis of
our moral duties to humans is.

Marx's moral perspective was developed as a result of examining wrongs
done to humans in the course of capitalist industrial production.  So it
seems to me that Marx isn't going to help us much here.


John D. Walker
jwalker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



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