Solución a la Casuística Nº1

which never responds to the attacks of his mate » Reptile species are

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similar» When Kitzler and Lorenz painted a female emerald lizard in male colours, and introduced her into a male's territory, she elicited

immediate attack, and he rushed at her with the obvious intention of biting» "Then," recalls Lorenz, "he perceived the female smell of the painted lady and checked his attack so that he turned a somer­ sault over her» The he examined her carefully with his tongue and took no more notice of the fight-eliciting colours - a considerable achievement for a reptile," The same author goes on to note that the female emerald lizard does not take advantage of the male's inability to attack but will, on the contrary, fall in submission before the youngest and lightest male.

Inhibitions against aggression toward juveniles

I have pointed out in the case of the chicken's aggression ag­ ainst small creatures moving in the vicinity of the brood that the maternal behaviour of some species depends upon ad hoc mechanisms to suppress aggression. This seems to be true in many species; Europ­ ean dogs almost, never attack puppies, and infantile behaviour is used in many dog varieties as an appeasement gesture which prevents com­ bat or ends it immediately» The same sort of inhibitions occur in non-mammals, such as the night heron, for example, where an adult male makes aggressive moves towards any juvenile which has invaded his territory, an attack checked immediately by the characteristic

'begging calls' of the young bird»

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It is also hypothesized that certain characteristics of young mammals make them attractive to adults, eliciting maternal behaviour; such characteristics include the proportions of head to body, puffed- up cheeks and body -characteristics which are used by human illustrat­ ors to create 'lovable' characters» Of course it may be that our af­ fection for these general characteristics is transferred from our specif i c love 6'f human infants, rather than the other way around ; but the widespread nature:of the characteristics in mammalian species sug­ gests that this is a simple and general response in all mammalian par-

entSo Furthermore, whatever the source, it seems that the relevance of this set of examples for human morality is that animal species simply do treat infants differently from others, and just do treat members of the sexes differently; and that there is a biological reason why this should be soo So we must question the assertion, which some moral­ ists have thought that they could take for granted, of equality of

treatment as a moral ideal. Given the function of dissimilar treat­ ment, which we can see in animals species, this question must be raised; and it will be discussed more closely during later chapters

Other examples of inhibitions

It would be verging on vacuity to say that aggression is effect­ ive in animals except when it is ineffective. Nevertheless, there are many instances in the animal world where intraspecific aggression is

checked by inhibiting mechanisms or where it does not occur » Such in­ stances are of interest to philosophers because they are strikingly analogous to situations in human societies where traditional, received morality says that actions similar in form to the animal behaviour pat­

terns that are exhibited in those cases are appropriate in the human situation. One such case is the deep inhibition against a predatory animal taking a member of its own species as prey. Such a restraint is of clear importance in those pack animals, like wolves , where ad­ ult members of the species have advanced natural weaponry. Most ani­ mals will not eat the flesh of a conspecific, and this is true in the human situation also (except for some very limited cases of cannibal­ ism, most of which is practised for ritual reasons and is not engaged in without strong ceremony )» Some birds of prey will consume con­ specifics in captivity but probably not in the wild; herring-gulls

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will consume chicks which wander on to their territory, it is true, but they will ^Iso attack any small predator... Gulls never attack their own chicks»

Inhibitory mechanisms are many and varied; baboons of eithe^r-...'' sex will often ward off an attack by presenting the hind-quarters, a sign of sexual submission, and it has been noted by at least one

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popular author that similar, if less extreme, practices reduce ag­ ression in human societies» Another, completely different, inhibit­ ory mechanism seems to be that of individual distances, a phenomenon common in mammalian and avian species (but not reptiles) in which the members of the group, like gulls or starlings sitting on a wire, keep -

just outside pecking range from each other. Human society considers • it 'impolite' to intrude too near to another person; and the lines drawn across the floor of the House of Commons, over which no member is allowed to tread while apeaking, are exactly two sword-lengths apart»

Parental conduct in animals

Parental conduct is ah example of a pattern of behaviour in which one individual cares for the welfare of another, often for a period of many years » Its position as an-explicitly ' m o r a l relation cannot be doubted in human beings, even though we usually think it impossible that any normal parent would act in any other way than to care for her offspring just as long as was necessary» The same type of behaviour can be seen in a great many animal species, except those such as fish

and reptiles » Of course, the examples most strikingly similar to the | human all occur in mammals.

The function of parental behaviour is, of course, the protection of the infant until it is able to fend for itself; although the ob­ servation that some animal species are quite able to take care of themselves at birth suggests that a long period of parental care may have some further, group-uniting function, and a function to allow

the education of species members in those species where instinct has a smaller role in social life»

When nursing young, as shown by studies of post-natal activity in mice, cats, monkeys and many other species, the mammalian parent

changes her behaviour towards others, not only the infants them­ selves, becoming much more defensive about the nest» Then, as the young develop and begin to explore their world, the parent typ-

ically becomes more vigilant and certainly more actively engaged in restraining them. Retrieval has been studied in many different mam­ malian species by a number of investigators, and work on this and other similar phenomena associeted with parent-infant relationships reveal the similarity between much animal behaviour and parental con­ duct in human beings. In our own and other mammalian species, the

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