Are these valid counterarguments?

Question

Argument: A dog is not ethical because the dog only knows what gets rewarded with a treat and thus concludes to do the desired action.

Counterargument: According to an article in the earliest level of "moral" development the child defines right and wrong in terms of what authority figures say is right or wrong or in terms of what results in rewards and punishments. What makes this any different from what a dog does? Therefore a dog is moral according to this synopsis.
in other words what makes
"Sit"
"Fetch"
any different from
"Don't kill people"
"Don't steal things"

Our ethical systems may be more complex and higher evovled but the basic psychological principals are still there.
How are these any different?

Answer 1

There are different stages of ethical development. We start with simple rewards and punishments (like a dog) but we humans can achieve a higher level of ethics than that, namely doing the right thing for its own sake, and seeing the wisdom of doing so.

Answer 2

the counter-argument works off of too many presuppositions about the nature of ethical relationships to be a valid counter-argument.

the counter-argument uses the "argument by analogy" to assume what it is trying to prove, that is that if it can be demonstrated that qualities that belong to a non-human agent can be analogous to qualities that belong to a human, then these qualities somehow become validated.

The counter-argument has not demonstrated that a dog responding to "sit" is the moral equivalent to a person acting out the moral axiom "don't kill people." it works off of the supposition that we define morality in terms of commands from authority figures. knowing what is socially acceptable is different from having a sense of morality or ethical duty.

the initial argument also sets up the argument with the premise that ethical duties have to be known outside of a reward system. it would be simple to show that "ethical " duties can be performed within a reward system, but because this is true it doesn't necessarily mean that dogs will in turn have a sense of ethical duty. if both humans and dogs both respond to ethical duties (responding to notions of right and wrong is what i mean by ethical duty in this context) it does not therefore follow that dogs necessarily are ethical.

if i were to make a counter-argument to the initial argument, i would respond by saying that the argument sets up a definition of "ethical" that is too narrow and is limiting in scope. the way that the argument utilizes "ethical" assumes that for something to be ethical it must be an agent that makes decisions outside of a reward and command basis. i would argue that this is an inaccurate acocunt of what makes an agent ethical.

Answer 3

The dog acts based on which actions will get him rewarded - ethical egoism.

The child acts based on either egoism or based on Authority (not sure of the world for this).

There are other ethical systems which do not depend on either of these.
-Consequentialism judges moral actions based on their consequences.
--Utilitarianism is a form of this that says "do whatever maximizes overall human happiness and minimizes overall human suffering." (e.g. Sidgwick)
-Deontology is morality from duty - judging the moral worth of actions themselves (e.g. Kant)
-Virtue ethics focuses on morally worthy characteristics or virtues that are to be exemplified (e.g. Aristotle)

Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics all have a sense of "morally right" that is separated from an individual's immediate emotional/physical reaction to a stimulus. So I'd say they're pretty different.

Answer 4

No difference. Neither have a moral code.
But, there comes an age when the child develops sympathy. Later, empathy. At this point it has what's called a conscience, where it knows a certain action will cause pain upon another, and pain = bad without having to be told so.
However, they can be trained to override their conscience with enough violence in their early life.