On Being Simple Minded

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Volume 41, Number 3, July 2004 ON BEING SIMPLE MINDED Peter Carruthers The question ‘Do fishes think?’ does not exist for belief, or a reason for action, can count among our applications of language, it is not as possessing beliefs or engaging in inten- raised.—Wittgenstein tional action. And Searle (1992) says: you need consciousness. Only creatures that have 1. ON HAVING A MIND conscious beliefs and conscious desires can count as having beliefs or desires at all. How simple minded can you be? Many Such views seem to the present author philosophers would answer: no more to be ill-motivated. Granted, humans speak simple than a language-using human be- and interpret the speech of others. And ing. Many other philosophers, and most granted, humans weigh up and evaluate cognitive scientists, would allow that mam- reasons for belief and for action. And mals, and perhaps birds, possess minds. granted, too, humans engage in forms of But few have gone to the extreme of be- thinking that have all of the hallmarks of lieving that very simple organisms, such consciousness. But there are no good rea- as insects, can be genuinely minded.1 This sons for insisting that these features of the is the ground that the present paper pro- human mind are necessary conditions of poses to occupy and defend. It will argue mindedness as such. Or so, at least, this pa- that ants and bees, in particular, possess per will briefly argue now, and then take for minds. So it will be claiming that minds granted as an assumption in what follows. can be very simple indeed. Common sense has little difficulty with What does it take to be a minded organ- the idea that there can be beliefs and de- ism? Davidson (1975) says: you need to sires that fail to meet these demanding con- be an interpreter of the speech and behav- ditions. This suggests, at least, that those ior of another minded organism. Only crea- conditions are not conceptually necessary tures that speak, and that both interpret and ones. Most people feel pretty comfortable are subject to interpretation, count as genu- in ascribing simple beliefs and desires to inely thinking anything at all. McDowell non-language-using creatures. They will (1994) says: you need to exist in a space say, for example, that a particular ape acts of reasons. Only creatures capable of ap- as she does because she believes that the preciating the normative force of a reason mound contains termites and wants to eat them. And our willingness to entertain such 205 206 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY thoughts seems unaffected by the extent to These considerations give rise to an ar- which we think that the animal in question gument against the very possibility of non- can appreciate the normative implications linguistic thought, which was initially of its own states of belief and desire. More- presented by Davidson (1975). The argu- over, most of us are now (post-Freud and ment claims first, that beliefs and desires the cognitive turn in cognitive science) are content-bearing states whose contents entirely willing to countenance the exist- must be expressible in a sentential comple- ence of beliefs and desires that are not con- ment (a that-clause). Then second, the ar- scious ones. gument points out that it must always be It isn’t only ordinary folk who think that inappropriate to use sentential comple- beliefs and desires can exist in the absence ments that embed our concepts when de- of the stringent requirements laid down by scribing the thoughts of an animal (given some philosophers. Many cognitive scien- the absence of linguistic behavior of the tists and comparative psychologists would appropriate sorts). In which case (putting these agree. (Although sometimes, admittedly, two premises together) it follows that animals the language of ‘belief’ and ‘desire’ gets cannot be said to have thoughts at all. omitted in deference to the sensibilities of The error in this argument lies in its as- some philosophical audiences.) There is sumption that thought contents must be speci- now a rich and extensive body of litera- fiable by means of that-clauses, however. For ture on the cognitive states and processes this amounts to the imposition of a co-think- of non-human animals (e.g., Walker, 1983; ing constraint on genuine thoughthood. In Gallistel, 1990; Gould and Gould, 1994). order for another creature (whether human And this literature is replete with talk of in- or animal) to be thinking a particular thought, formation-bearing conceptualized states that it would have to be the case that someone guide planning and action-selection (beliefs), else should also be capable of entertaining as well as states that set the ends planned for that very thought, in such a way that it can and that motivate action (desires). be formulated into a that-clause. But why True enough, it can often be difficult to should we believe this? For we know that say quite what an animal believes or de- there are many thoughts—e.g., some of sires. And many of us can, on reflection, Einstein’s thoughts, or some of the thoughts rightly be made to feel uncomfortable of Chomsky—that we may be incapable of when using a that-clause constructed out entertaining. And why should we neverthe- of our human concepts to describe the less think that the real existence of those thoughts of an animal. If we say of an ape thoughts is contingent upon the capacity of that she believes that the mound contains someone else to co-think them? Perhaps termites, for example, then we can easily Einstein had some thoughts so sophisticated be made to feel awkward about so doing. that there is no one else who is capable of For how likely is it that the ape will have entertaining their content. the concept termite? Does the ape distin- The common-sense position is that (in guish between termites and ants, for in- addition to being formulated and co-thought stance, while also believing that both kinds from the inside, through a that-clause) belong to the same super-ordinate category thoughts can equally well be characterized (insects)? Does the ape really believe that from the outside, by means of an indirect termites are living things which excrete and description. In the case of the ape dipping reproduce? And so on. for termites, for example, most of us would, ON BEING SIMPLE MINDED / 207 on reflection, say something like this: we Action Percept schemata Motor do not know how much the ape knows about Body termites, nor how exactly she conceptual- states izes them, but we do know that she believes of the termites in that mound that they are Figure 2: An Unminded Behavioral Arcitecture there, and we know that she wants to eat them. And on this matter common sense and The crucial components of this account cognitive science agree. Through careful ex- are the beliefs and desires. For it is unlikely perimentation scientists can map the bound- that possession of perceptual states alone, aries of a creature’s concepts, and can where those states are used to guide a suite explore the extent of its knowledge of the of innate behavioral programs or fixed ac- things with which it deals (Bermúdez, tion schemata, could be sufficient for a 2003). These discoveries can then be used creature to count as possessing a mind. to provide an external characterization of Consider the architecture represented in the creature’s beliefs and goals, even if the Figure 2. The innate behaviors of many concepts in question are so alien to us that mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects can we couldn’t co-think them with the crea- be explained in such terms. The releasing ture in the content of a that-clause. factors for an innate behavior will often What does it take to be a minded organ- include both bodily states (e.g., pregnancy) ism, then? We should say instead: you need and perceptual information, with the per- to possess a certain core cognitive architec- ceptual states serving to guide the detailed ture. Having a mind means being a subject performance of the behavior in question, of perceptual states, where those states are too.2 (Consider a butterfly landing neatly used to inform a set of belief states which on a leaf to lay her eggs.) But engaging in guide behavior, and where the belief states a suite of innately coded action patterns in turn interact with a set of desire states in isn’t enough to count as having a mind, ways that depend upon their contents, to even if the detailed performance of those select from amongst an array of action sche- patterns is guided by perceptual informa- mata so as to determine the form of the be- tion. And nor, surely, is the situation any havior. This sort of belief/desire architec- different if the action patterns are not in- ture is one that humans share. It is repre- nate ones, but are, rather, acquired habits, sented diagrammatically in Figure 1. learned through some form of conditioning. This paper will assume that it isn’t enough for an organism to count as having a mind, either, that the animal in question Practical Belief reason should be merely interpretable as possessing beliefs and desires. For as Dennett Desire (1987) has taught us, we can adopt what Action Percept Motor he calls ‘the intentional stance’ in respect schemata of even the most rigidly pre-programmed Body of behaviors. No, the architecture repre- states sented in figure 1 needs to be construed realistically.

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