Is it correct to say that animals have feelings? Or are they behaviors recognized as human feelings, instincts

Answer 1

yeah, that's like some alien comes here and tells you that it's not fair to call yourself cognitive being.

Answer 2

From both an observable-behavior standpoint, and a neuroanatomy standpoint, many animals (notably all mammals) are absolutely the same in terms of emotional capacity as human beings. The full "affective palette" (the basic repertoire of human emotional states recognized in cognitive theory, which in some accounts is two emotions, love & fear/anxiety, and in others is a slightly larger handful--sadness, love, fear/anxiety, anger, etc.) present in human beings is observable in at least mammal species, and in some other species as well. This is not a crackpot theory; it is mainstream animal behaviorist science.

To the extent that any cognitive process has been suggested recently to be distinctively human, it is in the symbolic repertoire of cognition (self-reflexive thought, complex symbolization, etc.), not the affective or emotional repertoire.

So, yes, it is correct to say that animals (some animals, anyway) have feelings.

Answer 3

Emotions are natures way of getting an animal to act out instinctive behaviour. Animals have also developed learned behaviour, which can change if the situation changes (instinctive behaviour is fixed). Animals feel pain and hunger and rage and it is the same feeling that you get, triggered by the same chemicals inside your body and registered by the same nerve endings. Adrenaline is adrenaline, you can take adrenaline from the bloodstream of a horse and it would give you the same adrenaline rush as if you'd made it in your own body. Animals do what they do because they feel like it. We are animals.
We do what we do because we feel like it.
Humans add verbal language, and this confuses the issue; we think we do what we do because we thought of it...

Answer 4

We can tell the difference between a human and a robot, can't you tell the difference between Rover you raised from a pup and those "robo- dogs"?
Humans just feel the need to be better, not animals. "I think therefore I am" OK then how do pack animals plan hunting parties without comunication and rational thought? We use tools; so do birds, otters, and monkeys to name a few. We have language; somebody did research on prarie dogs and they can even make up new 'words' for things the researchers do. Its just plain arrogance to say animals don't have feelings, they do.

Answer 5

All animals respond to stimulii. The question is the extent to which the response as just an automatic reaction, or whether feelings as humans know them are involved is difficult to say without becoming that species.

It is fairly safe to say that insects etc have zero potential to feelings, but with mammals, the closer you get to humans, the more likeleyhood their ability to feel in a similar way to humans.

Answer 6

i think animals other than humans have feelings, but they don't have the ability to question those emotions or try to change them. humans tend to question their feelings (rational thought) and maybe try to understand how and why we have them. animals other than humans just go with the flow. an animal might be lonely but it won't necessarily try to change that feeling or question why.

so ... maybe you could say that emotion is an instinctive response to something? whereas rational thought is an applied activity. and as animals other than humans rely mostly on instinct for survival, it would therefore be natural that they experience emotions and have feelings.

Answer 7

Off course they have feelings, if you have animals around you you will see that yourself. Animals can get depressions just like us if they miss a beloved one, they can be angry, happy, feel love, feel hate, fear, joy and so on.
It is very typical human to think that we are the only ones who feel, as if animals are just some mechanical creatures.

Answer 8

of course they have feelings. they are mammals like humans!! they only difference between animals and humans is that humans have choice! animals go on instinct and instinct alone.

Answer 9

they must have some kind of feelings otherwise why would an elephant cry real tear's over a dead baby for day's and day's on end even loosing it's way from a herd elephant's run in and live in a huge family for life so they must be greeving, other animals like dogs fret for there owners, after they have died so they must have feelings,

Answer 10

Depends on the animal. Some animals cry, like dogs. I've heard that elephants cry actual tears and bury their dead! Now that's feeling, perhaps even some rational thought too...

Answer 11

I would imagine that all higher lifeforms have feelings: not always the full range that we have, but certainly primative ones like fear.
The smaller the brain though, the less likely I would imagine it is to incorporate the regions for processing feelings eg insects probably don't.