If animals don't have emotions, then why does my cat love me so much?

Answer 1

Hi there perhaps this website will answer your question best as to why cats may or may not have emotions: http://www.messybeast.com/emoticat.html


....excerpt from this website:

Do cats (and other higher animals) have feelings? Can they respond emotionally?

According to many pet owners, the answer is "yes". Cats display a range of feelings including pleasure, frustration and affection. Other feline behaviour is attributed to jealousy, frustration and even vengefulness. Owners base their answer on observation of feline behaviour, but without an understanding of what makes a cat tick, they risk crediting a cat with emotions it does not feel as well as recognising genuine feline emotions. Owners who veer too far into the "Did my ickle-wickle fluffy-wuffikins miss his mummy then?" approach may not understand (or not want to accept) that a cat's emotions evolved to suit very different situations to our own.

Cats and humans are built much the same way and share many of the senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch - as well as having additional "senses" which are adaptations to our particular environments and lifestyles (e.g. the Flehmen taste-smell reaction in cats). Though humans have better vision, cats have better smell, taste and hearing. Like us, cats feel heat, cold, pain and other physical sensations. Physical stimuli may lead to physiological responses, some of which are termed emotions. If humans and cats have similar responses to, for example, the smell of enticing food, they may share certain emotions e.g. happiness at the prospect of a satisfying meal.

According to many scientists, however, the answer is "no". They argue that humans like to anthropomorphise (attribute human qualities to non-human animals) and regard pets as surrogate children. We interpret their instinctive behaviours according to our own wide range of emotions. We credit them with feelings they do not have. Some scientists deny that animals, including cats and dogs, are anything more than flesh-and-blood "machines" programmed for survival and reproduction. Others, such as pet behaviourists, credit animals with some degree of emotional response and a limited range of emotions (limited in comparison to humans, that is).

Many researchers' scepticism is fuelled by their professional aversion to anthropomorphism, but others have a more sinister motive. Those who deny animals any feelings at all may do so in order to justify animal experiments which others consider inhumane. This denial of animal emotions allows them to conduct experiments with little regard for their subjects' physical or mental wellbeing. The denial of animal emotions is their own hidden agenda rather than a conclusion based on study of behaviour.

Some religions teach that man is superior to animals and, by extension, animals do not have feeling. Some cultures do not recognise animals as thinking, feeling entities, for example the Chinese term for animal equates to "moving thing" and animals in food markets are treated as though they are no more than unfeeling, moving, vocalising vegetables. Politicians and those opposed to "animal rights" believe that according animals emotions would accord them rights (possibly rights equal to humans), changing the whole human/animal relationship and making pet-keeping, farming, hunting and experimentation unacceptable (many people already argue that hunting and experimentation are unacceptable on grounds of unnecessary cruelty). They argue that humans would be reduced to animal status with all that entails: culling, enforced sterilisation, selective breeding etc and pretty soon the word "Nazi" gets bandied about (ironically Hitler banned hunting).

Are either of these polarised views correct or do cats also share certain emotions, perhaps a limited subset of the emotions we feel? To find out, we must observe our own and our cats' responses to situations and analyse what an emotion is.

Answer 2

Turn the question inside out: you're an animal, as are we all. You can feel love and other emotions. Therefore, other animals can too. Now your ability to feel may or may not be more profound than other animals, but since you are an animal you'd have to at least grant the chance that other animals can feel what you feel. The difference may be only a matter of degree, not of kind. Humans are very closely related to other mammals, and especially primates. But we're not nearly as related to fish, and even less related to bacteria. Therefore, the feelings you have are probably more closely related to mammals rather than fish or bacteria. Indeed it is an interesting question to ask when love, as we might define it, comes into play.

Answer 3

I think all animals have some type of emotion. I believe that it would be impossible to live without it. If it has a brain, it has emotion. All things can show emotion in some way or another. I am not a specialist in animals or anything, and this is purely my belief.

Answer 4

Hi Orange, I don't no what A S S told you animals have no emotions. They have feelings and emotions just like we do.You should know that, the way your cat loves you. Get real and enjoy your cat.

Clowmy

Answer 5

my cats have every emotion,they are very sensitive and show all their emotions.they get,happy,angry some time the fur will fly.sad,the other will get sad and lonely when the other needs to be at the vets,
the younger cat got very depressed and wouldn't eat or sleep much,and was constantly searching the house and making a crying sound when the older one had to be hospitalized for two weeks with a sever lung infection(hes perfectly healthy now)

my one cat hes a little priss,and the other is a mommas boy.

Answer 6

Whoever said "animals do not have emotions" doesn't know much about animals at all. Put that quote in the useless myths category.

Answer 7

Love, dislike, fear, sadness, mourning, anxiety - animals have all of these. They are emotions. I have also experienced my cats giving sympathy to one of their housemates when one has had surgery, is ill, or otherwise in need of support. One cat stopped eating when his littermate had to be put down because of an incurable physical condition. He almost died too. They not only have emotions, but can sense ours.

Answer 8

Animals do have emotions. The love,cry, and they have all the emotions that we do.

Answer 9

Animals do have emotions. They get sad, happy, angry, they may not feel it to the extent of humans but they do have emotions. They even get stressed. Who ever said they dont have emotions are sadly mistaken.

Answer 10

Your cat loves you because you take care of it, feed it, and treat it well. My cat shows love/affection by purring and sometimes gives those "love bites" when I pet her, which is cute.
I do think cats express some emotion though, because they can seem angry or afraid as well as happy or content and loving.

Answer 11

Wherever you got that information is sorely wrong. My sister's cat has emotions and is quite intelligent. When I was crying, I locked myself in the room. I was in the dark crying for awhile and finally looked up to see that he (cat) snucked into the room with me and was sitting besides me. He was being sympathetic my sister said. She had told me that he would be with her whenever she cried. I love him so much for caring.