Wild Justice - Honor and Fairness Among Beasts at Play

This essay challenges science’s traditional taboo against anthropomorphizing animals or considering their behavior as indicative of feelings similar to human emotions. In their new book Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, the authors argue that anthropomorphism is alive and well, as it should be. Here they describe some activities of animals, particularly animals at play, as clear signs that they have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence. Based on years of behavioral and cognitive research, the authors discuss in their book that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including empathy and cooperation, but here they concentrate on the fairness and trust so essential to any kind of play, animal or human. They contend that underneath this behavior lays a complex range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, they find, are incredibly adept social beings. They rely on rules of conduct in their play, just as do humans, which in turn, helps prepare animals for dealing with the intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. The authors conclude that there is no moral gap between humans and other species. As the play of animals helps to make clear, morality is an evolved trait humans unquestionably share with other social mammals

Wild Justice Redux: What We Know About Social Justice in Animals and Why It Matters

Social justice in animals is beginning to attract interest in a broad range of academic disciplines. Justice is an important area of study because it may help explain social dynamics among individuals living in tightly- knit groups, as well as social interactions among individuals who only occasionally meet. In this paper, we provide an overview of what is currently known about social justice in animals and offer an agenda for further research. We provide working definitions of key terms, outline some central research questions, and explore some of the challenges of studying social justice in animals, as well as the promise of the work we’re proposing. Finally, we suggest why continued research into animal cognition and social behavior has significant ethical implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals