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I agree with Kara, that while our research shows that female mice can show empathy for another, I don’t necessarily believe that it is because they feel as though that is what they should do because it’s moral. They simply do not have the brain ‘power’ to understand if something is right or wrong. While I would still say that empathy is a part of morality, the mouse (and other animal) forms of empathy are not based on moral principles, but more likely empathy has evolved because of its adaptiveness of what an animal can learn about the environment from the other animal it is empathizing for and protect its relatives and social group. Empathy may simply be an understanding of another’s emotional state, and if that is the case, can then be modulated by the relationship of one animal to the other.

These same mice that show empathy will eat another cagemate if there isn’t enough food or water. When this happens in humans, we are quick to be disgusted by the person who ate their friend because there was no other food since we see it as immoral. Some people in this situation won’t eat their friend, but many do. While we view this as wrong, it is simply the individual attempting to survive. It seems that even in humans, when it gets down to survival vs. death, morals can go out the window and we return to a state where survival is all that matters.

It seems, from this return to a survival mode, that morality is indeed formed by our social group. Since our group tells us that it is wrong to eat another human, we don’t do it unless we are in survival mode. Even something as grotesque as this, was at some time in some cultures still seen as a normal way of life. These people were not immoral, since that is us putting our moral code on their society. Someone, however, who ate a human in the USA in modern times because he wanted to, he would be immoral. I’m actually surprised that I’m arguing this since I do feel so strongly that not killing (or eating) another human is incredibly immoral, but our discussion made me realize the constraints of morality on us through our societies.