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What is the difference between people and other animals?

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Perhaps you think that the big difference is that we are more intelligent or that we speak a language, which is true.

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But there is also a very important difference between animals and people, and it's the moral aspect of human action.

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Human beings are moral beings.

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We can freely decide what to do, unlike animals that behave instinctively.

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That's why some philosophers say that morality is part of our constitution, our essence, what we really are.

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For example, the French philosopher Sartre thought that human beings are forced to be free.

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You're choosing what to do all the time.

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Now you're choosing to listen to this video.

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You can stop watching the video, of course, but if you do that, then you're choosing to stop seeing it.

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So whatever you do, you are deciding.

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That's why Sartre said that human beings are forced to be free.

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We have no option but choosing what to do all the time.

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But we don't call everything that we do a free action.

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Free actions are those that are conscious and volunteer.

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So when you know what you do and you do it because you want, then you're doing a free action.

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You're exercising what philosophers call your free will, your ability to decide how to behave.

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In this sense, animals are different.

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Animals behave instinctively.

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They might have very complex behavior, for example, a bird building a nest.

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But this behavior is genetically structured and it is fixed and it's based on instinct.

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So only human beings can do a complex action because it is something that we decide and something that we are conscious of.

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Free actions imply responsibilities.

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Human beings are responsible of their actions because we have chosen to do them.

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Animals are not.

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It wouldn't make any sense to put a lion into jail because it killed a person.

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Well, if the animal is hungry and it is a wild animal, it will kill to it.

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We cannot blame the animal for doing that because the animal is following its instinct.

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But people are different.

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If I kill someone, I know what I'm doing.

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I do it because I want.

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It is a free, conscious, deliberate action.

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So I can be punished for choosing to do that because I could have done otherwise.

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That is the meaning of responsibility.

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We are responsible of those actions that we consciously and voluntarily take because we could have done them differently.

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What is the meaning of the word responsibility?

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Responsibility comes from respond.

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It means we have to respond of our actions.

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Meaning that we have to give a justification, an explanation about why we chose to do that and not something different.

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We need an argument to support our choices.

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And responsibility also means that we must repair the damage that our action might have caused to other people.

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That's why we say that only people have a real action.

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We are only capable of action if we are human.

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Animals also have different and complex behaviors.

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We call those behaviors conduct.

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There is a difference between conduct and action.

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Action is free and it's volunteer.

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So, which are the different faculties, the different abilities of human beings that take place when we carry out an action, a voluntary action?

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First of all, the intelligence.

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Because whenever we do something, we do it because we want to achieve a certain goal, an objective.

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Everything you do, you do it for a purpose.

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You do it with an objective.

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Philosophers call this intentionality.

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They say that human action is intentional because every human action has an objective.

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The second faculty, the second ability that is implied in action is our decision, our free will, our capacity to decide what to do.

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And the third one is the will, the determination to do it.