The Tiger and the Ape

A parable on objective morality

Once, there was a clever talking ape who went down to the pond to drink some water. As he crouched down by the shore, a tiger crept from out of the trees behind him, slinking up so quietly that the first the ape knew of his peril was when he felt the tiger’s hot breath on his neck. The ape whirled around and screamed out “Don’t eat me,” in his terror.

“Why not?” asked the tiger, who enjoyed playing with his prey.

The ape could see he had no hope of escape, unless perhaps he could persuade the tiger to spare him. So he paused a moment, to set his thoughts in order. Observing that the tiger was wise enough to speak and reason, the ape resolved to make the best case he could for his own survival.

“Eating me would be wrong,” said the ape. “I am a thinking creature, an agent. As a fellow thinking creature, you can see that you and I are alike. We both feel pain, and desire to live as happily as we can. Surely you would wish to be spared if our positions were reversed. We ought to treat each other as we ourselves would like to be treated. It would be unreasonable to do otherwise, and I can see you are a very reasonable tiger.”

“I am,” agreed the tiger lazily, “a very reasonable tiger. But I do not think you are such a reasonable ape. How I treat others is: I eat them if I can. And that is also how I expect to be treated. Fortunately for me, I am very large and fierce, so I am not in much danger. There is nothing inconsistent or irrational in believing that each may do what they can and suffer what they must.”

“Well, we agree, at least, that you will not eat me if it would be unreasonable to do so?” asked the ape, hopefully.

“Yes indeed,” said the tiger with a purr.

“You are well fed,” began the ape “and if you let me go you would not starve. You could catch another animal later, one who is not smart like I am.”

“I could,” agreed the tiger.

“And surely you would prefer to spare another agent, a moral agent like yourself, given the option.”

“No,” said the tiger, “Actually I prefer to eat other moral agents when I have the opportunity.”

“That’s horrible!” said the ape without thinking.

“I’m sure it seems that way to you,” growled the tiger. “We are different animals, naturally we have different preferences.”

“It’s not just a matter of preferences,” said the ape hastily. “Your preferences are wrong. You ought to change them to objectively correct ones.”

“Wrong how?” asked the tiger with a smile.

“Well, certain things are objectively wrong. Intuitively, we can agree that at least some things are objectively bad. Torturing an innocent, for example.”

“You will have to look harder than that to find agreement. I enjoy seeing others in pain. When I see the nightingale writhe in the hawk’s talons, I am pleased at her suffering.”

The ape furrowed his brow, thinking. “You are being rationally inconsistent. You hate your own pain, but love that of others. But from your own experience, you know pain is a bad thing. You can’t want bad things. Whatever you want, you conceive as good. So you are conceiving a bad thing as good.”

“Nonsense,” hissed the tiger, its tail lashing. “My pain is bad for me. Whether it is bad for you I rather doubt. Your pain is good for me, because I enjoy it. I seek my own good. The good of others I rather dislike. I am most consistent in my selfishness.”

“You would prefer to live in a world where other moral agents suffer agonies?” asked the ape, astonished.

“Of course,” replied the tiger, puzzled. “Wouldn’t you? It makes my own pleasures all the sweeter.”

“Alright,” said the ape, “I suppose you can’t help being a tiger. Nevertheless, you should recognize that your preferences are immoral. You ought to try to change them if you can, and in any case it would be irrational for you to act on them.”

“Why would it be irrational of me to try to fulfil my preferences?” asked the tiger, quite amused.

“Because they are wrong,” said the ape. “We have no reason to prefer our own good to that of others: you and I are alike in our moral agency, and your preference of your own good to mine is unjustified from an objective perspective.”

“How oddly you argue,” said the tiger. “What could be more obvious than that I have a perfectly objective reason to prefer my good to yours? I am me, and not you, after all. Each of us may rationally prefer our own good to that of others. I am tempted to insist we ought to prefer our own good to that of others, but perhaps that is merely an intuition of mine you do not share.”

“I think,” said the ape “that you are confusing your subjective preferences with the objective demands of morality. We may easily be torn between our duty and our selfish desires. A rational agent understands that they ought to obey moral rules.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said the tiger. “I enjoy hurting others. Morality, according to you, demands that I not do so. Why ought I to pay any attention to these supposed rules?”

“That is what moral rules are,” said the ape. “They are rational requirements on any thinking creature. So you should obey them, even if you would rather not.”

“Ah, I see I have been ignorant all this time,” said the tiger. “I have enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering wherever I go. And that is contrary to the demands of objective morality. I see now that I have been acting wrongly.”

The tiger paused, enjoying the ape’s hopeful expression.

“But I still don’t understand something,” the tiger continued. “You say that it would be unreasonable of me to act immorally. Morality, you say, forbids me to follow my own preferences. But how do you know what morality demands? Rational creatures must avoid inconsistency, but my selfishness is not inconsistent. How do you know that it is incumbent on all thinking creatures to avoid eating other moral agents if they can?”

“Well,” said the ape, “that’s symmetry again. If you didn’t know you were a tiger and were just generally thinking about what would be best for rational beings generally, sparing each other would obviously be better for everyone.”

“You’re wrong twice,” the tiger snarled. “You forgot that I like it when rational creatures other than myself suffer. So I would prefer a world where moral agents attack each other because that includes more lovely suffering. But, anyway, I do know that I am a tiger. I am interested in a morality that could motivate me personally, not some hypothetical being that isn’t me.”

“With the utmost respect,” said the ape solicitously, “I think your love of suffering is just wrong.”

“I’m sure you do,” said the tiger, “but you seem to be short on arguments to that effect.”

“How could it be rational to disobey objective morality?” the ape retorted. “The whole point of it is that it is required of all rational agents.”

The tiger crept closer, its burning gaze transfixing the trembling ape. “I must not contradict myself. Other than that, I am free. We both know you cannot derive your moral rules from pure logic. So I have no rational requirement to accept them. You have made your intuitions into a system, and you call it morality and say to reject it is evil. But what you call evil seems good to me.”

The ape began to reply, but the tiger sprang upon him, and neither spoke to the other any further.