I’m always mildly concerned about how shocked people are about animals being conscious beings with feelings. Do people really think we are mentally that different from other animals with brains?
To be fair, with academic types running experiments like this, the question is usually more along the lines of “At what point does instinct become empathy as we would recognize it?”, and depending on how high the criteria is set for empathy there, the level of premeditation may be geniunely surprising in some animals.
I’m always mildly concerned about how shocked people are about animals being conscious beings with feelings. Do people really think we are mentally that different from other animals with brains?
To be fair, with academic types running experiments like this, the question is usually more along the lines of “At what point does instinct become empathy as we would recognize it?”, and depending on how high the criteria is set for empathy there, the level of premeditation may be geniunely surprising in some animals.