Responce to Jenna: Love

At the end of Jenna's post she asked "Do you think it is possible our pets can or do love us in the same way we love them? Can animals love at all?"


Unfortunately I don't think that our animals could ever love us as much as we love them. Love is a complex concept and a secondary emotion. I believe that animals can acquire primary emotions but they are not able to, or are less able to experience secondary emotions. Primary emotions are: fear, guilt, happiness, and anger. Secondary emotions are: love, jealousy, resentment, etc.
The frontal lobe is the center for emotions, memory, and ideas. Since humans have a more developed frontal lobe it makes sense that we can feel more complex emotions.
Most people (especially pet owners) don't want to hear this sad truth because they don't want to believe that their animals don't love them as much as they are loved. But, believing this would be anthropomorphism.
There are different kinds of love, like friendship love and romantic love. To a slight extent I do believe that your pets can feel friendship love, yet they cannot feel romantic love with another of it's kind. There are certain species that are known to be able to love, like penguins. Yet it shows in animals that do not stay with the same mate, that their is no romantic love within that species. So yes, some animals can love and others cannot.
The caudate and the ventral tegmental are the parts of the brain that have been scientifically proven to be the parts that stimulate the feeling of love. Do animals have such brain structures? If so does that mean that they have the capacity to love?