If we humans are subject to the same deterministic laws as other animals, why do we judge ourselves differently?

Many believe this is because humans have a sense of morality, and other animals do not. (I'm entertaining your question, but keep in mind it is uncommon to include humans as animals.)

If we humans are subject to the same deterministic laws as other animals, why do we judge ourselves differently? For example, when a lion conquers its environment we consider it to be natural, but when a human does so we consider it to be evil. Is it because we consider ourselves to transcend nature at some level? Is it because of the idea of the immaterial soul or free will?

Please don't say that we judge ourselves differently because we are rational. Rationality is also subject to determinism.

I think you've put your finger on some good issues. I wonder whether lions experience moral feelings in regard to territory?

Determinism is an invented concept. I find it somewhat persuasive but not completely convincing. Hume made a strong argument against causality.

Just because the sun always has risen in the morning doesn't mean it always must. The law of gravity is just a mathematical description of what has been observed. We project it into the future by means of the induction of induction.

Quantum physics puts determinism into question, I think, but I'm no expert on the matter.

I do think we like to think that we transcend nature. In some ways, we true. But that hinges on what one means by certain words, including transcendence and nature.

Anyway, I like the issues. It's one of the kinds of philosophy that matters to us super-chimps.

The human organism is so much more complex than anything else in biology. We create biology to begin with. And man is such a cultural-conceptual animal that we must be careful to avoid reductive interpretations of him. (ourselves...)

For you must also criticize the "biological" motive of your interpretation of biological motives....

I still don't see how that justifies the prejudice. Our sense of morality can be reduced to emotional responses to environmental stimuli. Animals also have emotional responses to environmental stimuli, and even though they do not articulate it the way we do, they also have preferences for certain behaviors based on their consequences.

It's uncommon to include humans as animals in some fields (like this one) but not in biology. I suppose that we have the tendency to separate ourselves in such a way due to convenience and vanity.

What makes you think that morality is simply emotional responses to environmental stimuli?

Science should be most skeptical about its self, for that is the weak spot of the scientist, his own arrogance as priest of objective reality. I like Feyerabend's Against Method. I also like the neo-pragmatic conception of "truth."

If you are just asking "why" then I think this is an evolutionary psychology question. Morality evolved at some point and was useful in furthering the species. Our tendency to see ourselves as distinct from the rest of the world probably evolved at some point as well.

If you are asking "should we", well, that's a harder question. But probably it is still to our benefit to do so.

Judgments of goodness and badness (pleasant or unpleasant) are based on determined physiological/psychological responses to stimuli.

Morality, as a concept, is mostly a result of social and cultural convention.

Well every behavior evolved. Even things that have no survival utility evolved as by-products of something that did have survival utility.

Some say that moral judgments evolved as a social convention to keep a certain order. Now that's probably true, but such an order could be what we now consider to be immoral, such as slavery, racism and the suppression of women. The moral order could also be used to keep a certain class of people in power. I believe that we should question our societal conventions, but we shouldn't reject them strictly on the principle that they are conventional constructs.

As for the prejudice of judgment goes, I think we should seek to understand before we condemn, just like we do with other animals. However, I don't think that we should dismiss moral judgment.

Why is it, then, that humans can change what they think is good and what they think is evil? For instance, I may think the killing of another human, no matter what, is evil. A few years later I may reconsider this and believe that the killing of another human in X situation is not evil. It seems to me that what we think is good and what we think is evil is not solely based on determined responses to stimuli.

I don't know what you mean by this.

Humans can change what they think is good or evil for the same reasons that we change our stance on other things. Historical developments deliver information to the brain that causes it to change its beliefs depending on an inherited social or biological bias.

I mean that morality, as a formal concept, is a result of social and cultural convention versus morality as an epiphenomenon of physiological/psychological processes.

Humans have a semantic capacity far greater than non-human animals; we demonstrate this with our language. Humans also have a more profound sense and understanding of emotion than non-human animals. So, even if you're going to boil down morality to some strict biological process (which I find to be a destructive perspective), we still have a greater sense of morality than non-human animals.

But even if morality is an epiphenomenon of physiological/psychological processes (you could really say this about practically anything), this does not imply that it is the same epiphenomenon that is occurring in non-human animals. Many think it is not, and that is what I meant by the very first sentence I typed in this thread.

I'm not saying that non-human animals have a sense of morality. I'm saying that non-human animals have a sense of emotion, and emotion is the foundation of moral perspectives. I'm also saying that our behavior, which we often attribute to morality, can be attributed to same deterministic regularities that other animals are subject to.

All you seem to be saying is that humans have similar physiological makeups as other mammals. Who would disagree with that?

But your question, the one you wrote in your OP, is answered. It is because humans have a sense of morality that we hold them to higher standards. Whether you think the answer is justified, I don't really know how to begin to discuss with you. I don't think, however, that our having similar physiological makeups with non-humans discredits any difference in judgment of the actions of humans and non-humans (like you seem to).

I'm saying that we are equally subject to deterministic regularities and that we should be on an equal footing in terms of judgment.

I'm not quite sure you what you mean by "deterministic regularities", but I'm going to go on a hunch and say that most, if not all, life-forms are subject to deterministic regularities. This said, why do you think that just because we are all subject to the same deterministic regularities, that we should judge our actions the same? One thing has nothing to do with the other.