“Most of us would agree that cats and humans are vastly different. We tend to think of ourselves as more developed, as a higher species, not just because of our superior intelligence but also because we gave ourselves the gift of morality and ethics. Unlike cats, weknow about what’s good and evil, right and wrong, and we aspire to transcend our animalistic tendencies to improve morally and make the world a better place. Cats, on the other hand, don’t care about morals. They don’t have ambitions to improve the world either, nor themselves.
Most of the time, cats come across as utterly indifferent. They don’t seem to care about other cats and aren’t too attached to their owners. But does this mean that cats are immoral, heartless creatures? Are cats, from a philosophical viewpoint, devoid of ethics and virtue? According to philosopher John Gray, author of the book Feline Philosophy, Cats and the Meaning of Life, cats have ethics and are also capable of love and affection.
Even if cats indeed have an indifferent, careless demeanor; they do care deeply about some things but mainly if it suits them. In contrast to humans, cats don’t have religions, moral philosophies, or any other external system that provides them with ethics or rules to live. And they don’t need such things to live a fully-fledged feline life. A cat’s ethics (or philosophy, if you will) come from within, as it already knowshow to live. So, we could see a cat’s philosophy as an antiphilosophy, as it challenges traditional philosophy and offers a more primal (or perhaps more feline) approach to life instead.
The book ‘Feline Philosophy, Cats and the Meaning of Life’ explains feline philosophy using John Gray’s interesting insights supplemented with theories and views by other philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, Michel de Montaigne, and Plato. Based on myinterpretations of Gray’s ideas, this piece explores what we can learn from cats.” Go to the Source: What Cats Teach Us about Happiness | A Cat’s Philosophy – Einzelgänger
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