Nice cherry picked definition there. Lets go with a quality sources:
(...)
To explain it with a venn diagram...
View attachment 633377
Yet nothing you posted did anything to claim that "shame" is a natural, rather than an artificial "feeling". You can keep posting your definitions, I can keep agreeing with those definitions, yet they don't prove your point of being a "natural" feeling. Still waiting for the proof there.
The two leading sources of the English language, Oxford and Cambridge do not equate shame with Humiliation. While I would agree that humiliation requires shame, shame does not require humiliation.
Just as how shame requires guilt, but guilt does not require shame. One can understand that they did something wrong and feel guilt without being ashamed of it. But one cant feel shame without thinking they at fault or guilty of doing something wrong.
I agree, so far.
Guilt is cognitive understand, that is the base, for Shame. Shame is the emotion, one feels from the understanding of guilt and grows out of fear of negative external consequences. Humiliation is a stress based on external pressure from others responding to your guilt/shame. Humiliation requires other people. shame in and of itself does not require anyone else. You can be ashamed of something you did that no one else knows about. But you cannot be humiliated about something that no one else knows about.
Likewise... You cannot feel shame for something if you do not feel guilty about it. However you can feel guilty without feeling shame. There are many examples of murders who are well aware that they did something wrong, but do not feel any shame... and thus do not feel any humiliation.
Right again, so far. I don't have anything to object with what you said here. Yet, this still doesn't say anything about the origin of shame as a feeling. I'll quote something else here, from:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7040959/
Shame is thought to promote the maintenance of social hierarchies (Gilbert, 1997; Fessler, 2004), whereas disgust is believed to encourage disease avoidance (Curtis et al., 2004; Oaten et al., 2009). Although shame and disgust are often treated as orthogonal emotions, they share some important similarities. Both involve bodily concerns, are described as moral emotions, and encourage avoidance of social interaction.
Social hierarchies, as well as the description as "moral" emotions should give you a hint where and how those emotions got aquired. The article later (in the conclusions) also delves into this:
If future experimental evidence validates the causal relation between disgust and shame (i.e., if disgust causes shame), these types of disgust reduction therapies may prove to be effective treatments for shame-related psychological disorders. Additionally, if shame is experienced as disgust with the self, it may help shed light on broader issues such as stigmatization (i.e., stigma may be experienced as self-contamination).
Shame seems to be a particularly malleable response, which suggests and hints at not being as deeply rooted as you described it earlier. If anything it heavily hints at shame being an aquired trait. While we are hardwired to feel a response like the fear of rejection, which would eventually become a type of shame in order to blend in and not to be considered outsiders in our communities, the things we are feeling shame about are results of conditioning and are developed from experience and peer influence. You can easily see this in kids growing up in vastly different types of society, while both of them may aquire a feeling of shame in life, both of them might feel ashamed about entirely different aspects of life and might not even developing those particular types of shame if growing up under entirely different conditions. Sometimes those differents can even be spotted in the same culture.
For example with toilet habits:
- Some people don't care as much and leave the door open when they are going to the toilet, even when family or guests are around.
- Some people close the door behind them.
- Some people prefer to lock the door behind them.
- And finally, some people even lock the door behind them, when they're all alone in their home.
So, some people don't care if they're being walked in on, others are terribly afraid of this happening, to the point, that they can only relax behind a locked door, even when all alone. Which means, some people would be ashamed when being walked in on, while others wouldn't be, even if they can feel ashamed by other, entirely different things. If a particularly type of shame was natural, there shouldn't be any kind of variation. Shame here is similar to an irrational fear or phobia. While the fear-response is a natural one, a phobia is usually the result of a traumatic or otherwise quite unpleasant experience or might even be inherited from other, fearful family members. The same would go for shame. We both may share the same feeling of shame about some aspects of our lives, but we may also differ and feel differently about other aspects of our lives. In the case of differences, no response is more "right" or "wrong" than the other. They're both genuine experiences, one no more or less natural than the other, which would hint at shame not being this kind of objective constant as you make it out to be.
You've cherry picked a definition to support your statement. If you properly use the meaning of the words, then yes, animals can feel shame. And I would also argue that they are capable of humiliation, although the expression of it is somewhat different than in humans.
I still disagree, as shame and humiliation are quite human experiences that arouse with modern societies and culture, something that animals don't possess.
Burden of proof is on me? You're the one denying what countless studies on pack animals in their natural habitat have been observed doing in their behavior with each other.
And you're the one who claims that animals have a very distinct kind of emotional response that you have taken from human psychology and applied to animals in the wild, anthropomorphizing them in the process. You make this claim, not me. So you have to back it up with evidence or at least a factual foundation.
The burden of proof is on you, since you're the one claiming animals are dumb and incapable of intelligent thought.
Oh no, please don't even start constructing strawmans now, because this is a total misrepresentation of what I said, yet you're still in the wrong here.
Let me start by quoting Carl Sagan with "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". You have claimed animals can feel shame and humiliation. I doubt this. Me doubting this is not a claim, just a rejection of your claim, as you did nothing to support it. If you want to convince me that animals can feel shame and humiliation, you have to support that claim. That's how it works. Therefore the burden of proof lies within your court.
There's the saying "You can't prove a negative", which is hotly debated, since it's in itself a negative and would be invalidated when proven "true". Therefore, I'd like to rephrase and adapt that by saying, that it's impossible to prove that something specific doesn't exist, when it may exist but just always is in some place else. It's similar to looking for an object and always finding it in the last place you'd look for it, no matter where you decide to look for it, only that in this case you'd never find it. But it is more easy to prove that the thing you are looking for exists by simply finding it, which is what I ask you to do, which is what the burden or proof is.
You don't get to say "I say this thing exists, try to prove me wrong!", you have to say "This thing exists and here is why I know this to be true (...)", that's how it works. The burden of proof would only lie on me, when our positions were the opposite.
So all I can do is asking you for irrefutable evidence, that animals can feel the rather specific feeling of "shame" and/or "humiliation", proven by a reputable source. You could just throw it out claiming "I feel in the depths of my soul for this to be true", sure, but you can't expect to convince anyone with this kind of argument.
As for the big straw-elephant in the room: Please show me where I claimed that animals are dumb and/or incapable of intelligent thought, because this is the polar opposite of something I have believed my whole life. I have always thought that animals are intelligent enough to survive in their natural environment and defended this position even against heavy opposition. While I like some of René Descartes' ideas, I always hated (with passion) his particular stance on animals, that animals were soulless (= mindless) automatons, only capable of emotional mimicry only able to emulate emotional responses rather than being capable of feeling them. That always felt wrong and quite anthropocentric and arrogant to me. I always was of the impression that animals don't differ that greatly from humans, apart from their unique perspective and kind of awareness. Therefore I was quite thrilled, when finding the
Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, as it proved my previously unsubstantiated feelings right. That said, I of course wouldn't claim that animals were "dumb" or "not intelligent", as it is contrary to anything that I always believed and knew to be true.
That said, there are still pitfalls people make. I've seen it in the Furry Fandom (naturally) but also among many Zoos, and it is the constant attempts to anthropomorphize animals, applying complex human emotions which arouse out of cultural developments to animals. I can mention a few examples:
- The assumption, that animals experience sexuality the same as humans. This is especially evident in bestiality-exploitation porn, when you see someone fondling animal genitalia in a way a human might be aroused by or by violently rubbing an animal penis, while the particular animal would have an entirely different mating and masturbation style and would react better to a different kind of stimulation.
- Also the assumption, that animals share romantic qualities and would reciprocate romantic feelings.
- The assumption, that animal can consent (to pretty much anything), which they can't in a legal sense, as the definition for consent in humans requires a specific knowledge about consequences, obligations, liabilities and commitments which an animal has no concept of. Therefore, an animal may be able to consent in a way of communicating wants and needs or refuse to consent to show a disinterest in something, but they can't consent in a legally binding kind of way.
- The (rather common) assumption that an animal has an actual understanding of something their owner expects from them, down to the last detail.
- The assumption, that an animal which bonded with a person might experience the same kind of feeling toward the human as the human feels toward the animal, which should be obvious not to be the case, as humans may think about vet visits, about feeding their companion, feeling a whole lot of responsibility for the animal, which the animal (obviously) wouldn't feel towards the human they have become dependent on.
So it's no surprise, that people might also assume that some behaviors, if they just appear similar enough might automatically mean that the animal would feel the exact same way. And as I already mentioned in my last reply, animals don't feel even the slightest bit ashamed about many things that humans commonly feel very ashamed by. That's because we humans have cultural baggage, something that animals don't have. It should be fairly obvious that their life-experience is entirely different from our own. Especially when we already can see clear differences in behavior between domesticated animals and their wild counterparts.
All one has to do is observe animals in a natural environment to see their natural behavior.
I agree so far.
Wolves, the closest remaining branch of the ancestor of dogs exhibit and understanding of allowed/disallowed behavior within their pack. And when they go outside that accepted window they behave submissively until such time that pack treats them normally again. This has been see not only in packs of wolves, but in prides of the big cats as well.
There is a difference between "accepted" behavior and a sense of shame though. Expecially when dominance, submission and the likes play a role. Wolves, as social animals, communicate with each other. Their behavior involves a lot of body language. From rolling on their back and exposing their neck to communicate submission to other types of behavior. This is all correct and entirely natural. Yet there is no evidence for humiliation or shame to be involved. An animal doesn't think "Oh shit, I did something shameful, I should feel bad about that now, I can't show my face here ever again!", this is entirely human reasoning and may as well not exist in this form in animals at all. An animal can show apologetic behavior, it can show fear, insecurity, excitement, arousal, enjoyment, aggression, watchfulness and a whole plethora of natural emotional states, but shame, or the opposite of it, pride, won't be part of this. Because those emotions require lines of reasoning animals not necessarily (if at all) follow.
Also our understanding to this day is still imperfect. For example, the concept of the "alpha wolf" is simply false. David Mech, who came up with the concept of the alpha wolf, later rejected the notion and now teaches against it. It is easy to get caught up in wrong assumptions about the natural world, especially when you consider how easy it is to convince others of wrong things about nature.
Like all cats love milk. All mice love cheese. All rabbits love carrots. All monkeys and apes love bananas. Those are all stereotypes, in some cases they aren't even true, yet they persist and get repeated and spread by people who have no prior knowledge about the subject matter at hand. That's why it's so important to make sure that claims about nature are supported by evidence and facts. Otherwise they may remain theories. As such I wouldn't object as hard, if you'd say, for instance, that you consider animals to feel humiliation or shame due to how you interpret their behavior. But if you claim they certainly have those feelings, you need to support this position with something a bit more substantive.
No I'm not. I make a great effort to not do that with my dog or any dog. I've put quite a lot of time into studying dogs behavior. In fact I'm not the one defining emotions that animals do have in humans terms which is what you are attempting to do.
But you do, as you clearly state that animals feel certain emotions you want them to possess, without any evidence supporting this position. I instead simply reject those assumptions and don't anthropomorphize animals.
This is the second time you absolutely misrepresented my arguments and standpoint (the first one being your statement, that I allegedly claimed I considered animals to be dumb and not intelligent).
I'm starting to wonder if you even care about a proper discussion, because twisting my position really doesn't help your cause here.
You are trying to define emotions so you can then claim them exclusively for humans and deny that animals have them.
Well, two can play this game:
You are trying to define emotions so you can then claim them mutually for humans and animals to possess, even if those emotions might require cultural components to work properly that animals clearly lack.
You're effectively claim that animals are dumb and aren't capable of emotion and understanding of good and bad behavior based on what is acceptable in their group.
This is now the third time now that you twist my position into something that just plainly is not true. Of course you don't know me, but if you knew me, you'd know how absolutely wrong your own claim would be, because I absolutely don't hold this position and in fact hold the opposite position, as clarified above, which is something pretty much anybody knowing me also knows about me.
I'm starting to think that you want to equate having a culture and society with being intelligent, which is a connection I wouldn't draw in your case. Yes, cultures and societies are emergent properties of human intelligence, but a lifeform can also be intelligent without having developed a culture and/or society with set in stone rules and regulations and without being stressed out to culturally conform to a specific societies standards.
Let me point this out once again: Intelligence doesn't equal having a society and/or culture of ones own. Animals have no society, yet can be social, animals don't have a culture, yet can and most species (if not all, to a certain degree) are intelligent.
No argument here. I agree, wholeheartedly so. I hope I now made myself clear on my position on this particular topic.
And anyone who's owned an animal for a long period of time and actually observed it would understand that.
I sure do hope so. I've owned an animal, several in fact, for long periods of time, even cared for free-roaming animals, so to me this never has been in doubt.
Just because sniffing butts is normal doesn't mean they don't feel shame when their behavior goes outside the accepted norm.
Yet you fail to show any evidence for this claim. I'm still waiting, in case you want to provide it yet.
Shame is more than sexuality.
True. Yet I focussed on this particular aspect specifically, as the topic of this thread still is "Spirituality and Sexuality" and I didn't want to derail it with philosophical discussions on unrelated tangents, which unfortunatelly happened by now.
So I must ask, why would I talk about a subject outside of sexuality, when the topic is sexuality? I don't go into a thread about car maintenance to discuss the recipes of my favorite pies from my childhood, I similarly don't go into a thread about sexuality to discuss anything but sexuality there. Where would be the point of doing that?
You are ignoring every situation where animals do show shame because you want to claim that shame is only around sex stuff.
No, I am ignoring a hollow claim of this happening when you can't even be bothered to provide evidence and try to shift the burden or proof on me. You claimed it happens, you gonna prove it. Or don't, but a refusal wouldn't help to support your position though.
Yes this thread is about spirituality and sexuality, but that doesn't mean you can reject everything else in the world that disagrees with your argument.
I can if it's either off-topic or an unsupported claim.
Look, I also don't go around and claim that a dog winning first place in some dog show is prideful and would expect for everybody to believe I'm right and would expect for anybody else to prove that I'm wrong. If I were to make this claim, I would have to have strong evidence to support this claim, otherwise I couldn't expect people to believe me. Similarly, if I were to claim that an animal does feel ashamed in the same way a human can feel ashamed, I'd have to support this claim either. Luckily I don't have to, since it is not me who made this claim, but you. Therefore you have to support it with evidence.
But so far you just claimed it repeatedly without providing evidence to support your position, accused me of cherry picking, twisted my position repeatedly and tried to construct a strawman because of it.
There were plenty of other areas in your reply where you have made completely incorrect claims, but honestly, I'm not going to waste my time addressing them because you aren't worth the effort. I just hope no one on the forum listens to you.
Thanks, it was a pleasure dealing with you as well.
As I also have other things to worry about by now, I would have gone offering an olive branch to you, agreeing to disagree and to move on from this topic, but I feel that you burned this bridge by the end of your post.
I also really don't want to let those many falsehoods you spouted to stand in the room undisputed, therefore I still responded to you, even though you showed your true colors and have shown to not care about an intellectually honest discussion. Due to the way you argued here you have proven not to be worth this effort yourself.
I'll let my response stand here even though you yourself may not care to read it anymore, but I prefer for others to judge for themselves. At least this (partially) derailed thread can return on-topic now.
