Arts & Sciences

Horses, apes, and dogs use mockery to create their own politics.  These animals pranksters play deceptive tricks on their superiors bringing down the alphas.  Their high stakes games of status and power do not show evidence of abstract moral thought, but they do enact an ancient political ethics that predates human exceptionalism and is common across species human and nonhuman.Cynthia Willett is an American philosopher who is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University,...

Horses, apes and dogs use mockery to create their own politics. These animals pranksters play deceptive tricks on their superiors bringing down the alphas. Their high stakes games of status and power do not show evidence of abstract moral thought, but they do enact an ancient political ethics that predates human exceptionalism and is common across species human and nonhuman. Cynthia Willett is an American philosopher who is Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of Philosophy at Emory University,...