Originally Posted by Leinator

What partial judgments? Does a pack of wolves have a little moral talking circle to decide whether or not it's right to hunt a pack of bunny rabbits? No, they just do. We, however, have actual differences between each individual person. We have individualism. We have advanced society, We have creativity. All things that come with being sentient. Most of all, however, we are aware of ourselves. We can have rational thought, and choose what to do in situations based on judgement. Any animal, however, when presented with the same situation, will do the same thing as another animal of it's race. They're programmed by instinct, so to speak.

Animals fight over female animals. Animals fight over the territory of other animals in their species. Animals "greedily" fight over food. Animals often fight over things they "want" rather than "need" as well. Just like we do. They're not doing anything wrong, however, because they're instinctive. We've got reason though, and many people have realized that killing another human being is simply wrong. This is the moral difference between animals and creatures with higher thinking.

A dog learns tricks because you repeat movement so many times that it becomes mechanic. He learns the tricks to get a treat, which is just instinct. A dog will never create a tool though. A dog won't learn to communicate other than feral signaling techniques that are also instinctive, and proven so. A dog will never develop any new skill unless it's programmed instinctively or programmed by a human. Assuming Darwinian evolution is true, they may someday evolve self-consciousness and learn to....learn, but it doesn't change the fact that they can't now. If you raise a dog as if it was a human, it will still always act like a dog.