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by araneae
3783 days ago
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They're not, actually. The former statement uses rodents and humans, the latter humans and animals. You can see that there's a set of traits that are common among all animals, a smaller set common among mammals, an even small set common amongst primates, etc. And then each species has its own set of unique trait. Rodents aren't like humans and humans aren't like rodents, rodents and human share traits that are likely common among many mammals. |
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One just uses "animals" as the universal (generic) thing we all participate in (as a continuum), while the other uses "humans" (or "humanity") for that.
Sure, we're animals too, but not "just another animal", but (what we know of as the) pinnacle of the thinking/empathy/etc spectrum".
We can think of being human-like in this sense as the top degree in that scale that animals can participate too.
(So, "human-like is used a stand-in for "empathetic/thinking/conscious", not as "like an actual human person" -- as it doesn't concern other human attributes -- physiology, looks, etc, only emotional and cognitive ones).