Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

Willem A. Landman University of the Western Cape South Africa

standing. The capacity to experience pain was not sufficient to confer moral standing. But should one nevertheless have had doubts about animals' cries of agony and writhing in pain on the experimenters' boards, there was always Deseartes (1596-1650) to comfort one. He argued that animals only had bodies but no minds. They were machines without conscious mental states and incapable even of feeling pain. Humans, however, comprised two separate entities, not only a machine-like body but also an immaterial mind, and were therefore capable of thought and feeling. Today a Cartesian view of animals as feelingless Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged automata might seem completely counter-intuitive or all the springs of feeling in this animal to the contrary to common sense. But why would we, who end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that have much the same physiological evidence for animal he may be incapable of suffering? pain as our seventeenth-century predecessors, bold more Voltaire (1694-1778) humane views? First, between about 1500 and 1800 an alternative, more humane, tradition to that of 1. Introduction Aristotelian-Thomian rationality and the Cartesian machine model ofanimals emerged in England and parts In the 1600s physiologists were beginning to ofwestern Europe among lay people and scientists alike. understand the functioning of the major organs of the So it would be wrong to think that our modern body and the circulation of the blood. James Rachels sensibilities towards animals and the natural world had tells us how these rapid and exciting advances were no historical roots in the very time that the tradition of achieved by experimental procedures which subjected typically human rationality and the machine model were animals to excruciating tortures: "Dogs, for example, at their height.2 Second, between Descartes and us came would be restrained by nailing their paws to boards, Darwin (1809-1882) wbo lowered humans from their and then would be cut open so that the working of their pedestal of uniqueness and dignity and demonstrated innards could be observed. This was long before the development ofanaesthetics, and the dogs' vocal cords would sometimes be cut so that their shrieks would not disturb the anatomists." 1 Many thought that nonhuman animals (hereafter simply 'animals') did not deserve any sympathy because .PHILOSOPHY traditional morality, grounded in Aristotle and Aquinas, made typically human rationality the criterion ofmoral

Summer 1993 143 Between the Species Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

the continuity between humans and animals.3 Thus, sympathy. His argument for this conclusion can be since the 1850s our knowledge of animals certainly summarized as follows: increased, but far more significant was that all this old and new knowledge could now be located coherently PI: A mental state (such as an experience, including in the context of a background theory of evolution. A pain, a desire, belief, or thought) is either rigid divide between, on the one hand, feeling and conscious or non-conscious. rational humans and, on the other, feelingless and non· rational animals became utterly implausible. P2: A mental state is conscious if it can be Still, even after Darwin science has often ignored consciously thought about, that is, consciousness or denied animal consciousness, especially in the that one has a particular mental state is a heyday of behaviorism-a new Cartesianism-and necessary condition for that mental state being logical positivism.4 Consciousness remains an conscious as opposed to non-conscious. embarrassment to biologists because of the success of neurophysiology in explaining behavior in terms ofthe P3: Human beings, but notanimals, have the ability physical activity of brain cells which appears to leave consciously to think about their mental states. no useful function for conscious feelings.5 Behaviorist psychology aside, cognitive psychologists too are Cl/P4: Human beings have non-conscious as well suspicious of animal consciousness, even when they as conscious mental states, but animals only recognize that itmust be assumed to explain all sorts of have non-conscious mental states. complex animal behavior, and in fact turn out to be methodological behaviorists.6 PS: Having the capacity for conscious mental states, But what about the philosophers? They also have such as the capacity for conscious experience contemporary neo.Cartesians among their ranks. One of of pain, is a necessary condition for being an them is Peter Carruthers, professor ofphilosophy at the object ofmoral concern that makes claims upon University of Sheffield. In 1992 Carruthers published a our sympathy. book entitled The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice. Having assumed that animals have conscious C2: Animals are not objects of moral concern that mental states for the sake ofthe argument in the preceding make claims upon our sympathy. chapters ofhis book, Carruthers argues in the final chapter that animals are not deserving of our sympathy because This argument is valid, but I believe that C2, the all their mental states-experiences (including pain), main conclusion, is false and that the argument is desires, beliefs, and thinking-are non-conscious. unsound. In support ofthis view I shall analyze critically Animals have again become Cartesian machines. Like each of the five premises on which C2 rests.8 the Port Royal followers of Descartes one could, on But before I do this I wish to make a general Carruthers's view, torture animals with the confident comment about the kind of argument that Carruthers conviction that their cries ofagony were comparable to puts forward. It is an argument that draws a moral the noises from machinery.' Or, less dramatically, the conclusion from facts about mental states. I believe that family veterinarian, who advises a dog owner that the this is correct. Intrinsic moral value is aflirmative value paramount consideration in the decision to euthanize or assigned by valuers (the sources of value) to certain not is the dog's suffering, is simply the latter-day things (the loci of value) in virtue of their possessing equivalentofa flat-earther, both holding irrational beliefs. specific kinds of characteristics. More specifically, In this paper I wish to set out and assess critically mental states, which are objective features of some Carruthers's argument. living things, ground intrinsic value. Put differently, living things with mental-state interests, in the sense 2. A philosophical argument against animal that certain things matter to them subjectively or consciousness and moral standing experientially, have moral standing or are objects of direct or non-instrumental moral concern which makes Carruthers believes that animals are not appropriate them direct beneficiaries ofmoral obligations. I believe objects of moral concern that make claims upon our that this is neither a case ofderiving an 'ought' from an

Between the Species 144 Summer 1993

Between Between Species Species the the 145 145 1993 1993 Summer Summer

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Suffering Suffering Animal Animal and and Minds Minds Animal Animal About About Folly Folly Educated Educated Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

the linkage between sign and what is signified (such as not for less intellectual cognitive abilities such as ostension) prior to the acquisition oflanguage; otherwise thinking about an experience. the entire process would never get off the ground. Inshort, What should Carruthers have done? Clearly, be language requires a peg ofnon-linguistic experience on should at least have considered the different kinds of which to be hung."19 evidence for animals' ability to be self-conscious in both the reflective sense and in the sense of having a 4. Self-consciousness in animals concept of self. The kinds of evidence I have in mind are animal communication, language-using ability in In P3 Carruthers makes two factual claims. First, animals, animals' ability to recognize mirror-images humans have the ability to thinkconsciously about their of themselves, and animal behavior in experimental mental states. Second. animals lack this ability. I shall conditions as well as in field research. Weighing such discuss the latter claim in this paragraph and the former evidence is a task in its own right. My point is simply in paragraph 5. that unless this is done we have little reason to accept Do we have evidence that animals can think Carruthers's a priori argument. Only if Carruthers consciously abOut their own mental states? Carruthers insists that thoughts be expressible in human language, believes that it follows with very little further argument which he does not, would itbe implausible that animals that animal experiences are non-conscious.20 He can think things consciously. I shall argue (in believes it unlikely that birds, mice, dogs, cats, sheep, paragraph 6) that we have overwhelming reason to cattle, pigs, or chickens might be thinking things believe that animals are conscious, understood in a consciously to themselves, in which case the way that does not collapse consciousness into experiences of all these creatures are non-conscious reflective self-consciousness. on his analysis. Carruthers makes a little more effort It is instructive to note that Rosemary Rodd, who is investigating the possibility that higher primates, such both a biologist and philosopher, puts forward five kinds as chimpanzees, have conscious mental states.21 More of consideration in favor of self-consciousness in specifically, he asks whether chimpanzees can think animals, a term which she defines as the ability to form about their own thoughts. Having considered one mental concepts about the self and/or to reflect about example, namely, that of a chimpanzee gathering one's feelings. 24 First, recognition ofexternal or mirror eighteen pieces of food from a field where be bad images ofoneself, as by chimpanzees, is evidence for a previously observed the food being hidden in various sophisticated ability to think about the self from places, Carruthers concludes that although the 'outside' or to displace the concept of self beyond the chimpanzee has a cognitive map of the field, there is physical body. Second, it is reasonable to believe that not a shred of evidence to suggest that he is capable members of several primate species other than of thinking about his thinking. Carruthers then chimpanzees possess some ability to have ideas about suggests "that human beings are unique amongst their own knowledge because they appear to have ideas members of the animal kingdom in possessing about the knowledge which is available to others or conscious mental states."22 about others' attitudes and personalities, or they appear It is clear that Carruthers dismisses the possibility to form hypotheses about the behavior of others and ofanimals having the ability to think about their mental about the relationships between them and others. Third, states in a rather cavalier a priori manner. First, he animals must constantly receive information about their declines to consider empirical studies of non-primates bodies, and to assume that they can have no concepts like cats, dogs, and the like. Second, he considers only about this seems implausible since information about a single case study of higher primates. Third, be the self as physical entity must have at least as much considers only a single species of higher primates, survival value as information about the external namely chimpanzees (and possibly only a single environment. Fourth, the imitation of voluntary chimpanzee, but that is not clear). Fourth, he considers behavior of others, such as an orphaned kitten reared only a single piece of chimpanzee behavior since he is with and imitating dogs, is one kind of behavior which confident that "(h)ere is about the most intelligent thing seems to be explicable only in terms of some degree of that I know of that a chimpanzee can do."23 Fifth, he consciousness of self. Fifth, self-consciousness seems considers only evidence for thinking about thinking and to evolve gradually, starting from simple beginnings,

Between the Species 146 Summer 1993 Educated About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

and probably develops gradually as we grow up. And of living in compliance with it. This argument fails if self-consciousness is a matter of degree, then a because it could at most only be contingently so that sudden break, rather than a continuum, between excluding non-rational human beings from direct moral humans and animals in respect of the possession of considerability would lead to social instability. There self-consciousness is implausible. have been highly civilized and stable societies which practised infanticide or euthanasia of the aged. 5. Non-conscious humans Conversely, social stability need not be confmed to rules about human beings, and in future-if it is not already The second factual claim made in P3 is that humans the case-there might very well be societies in which have the ability to think consciously about their mental the denial of moral standing to animals, or senseless states. Carruthers suggests "that human beings are destruction of the natural environment, would lead to unique amongst members of the animal kingdom in social instability. possessing conscious mental states."25 He should Elsewhere Carruthers presents a third moral however have qualified the term 'human beings' with argument for why non-rational humans should be 'some' or 'most'. On his analysis the 'pain' of certain included in the sphere ofdirect moral concern. 27 Unlike humans-like young babies, severely mentally animals, non-rational humans share human form and defective people, and the very senile-must be a non­ many human patterns of behavior with those humans conscious mental state just like that ofanimals because who are rational agents. And since we have a natural they cannot think about it. impulse ofsympathy for the sufferings ofall who share Earlier in his book, when he still works on the human form, indifference to the suffering of a non­ provisional assumption that animals have conscious rational human is wrong because ofwhat it reveals about mental states, Carruthers uses two moral arguments in one's character. Apart from the notoriously problematic support of an extension of contractualism (the moral issue of what is natural and what is acquired in human theory which he favors over utilitarianism) so that it nature, I cannot think of any reason why indifference would include in the class of holders of direct moral to the suffering of an animal could not also be wrong rights human beings who are not rational agents or because it reveals a bad character. Surely, higher rational contractors since they are not normal, adult primates, for example, share a considerable part of human beings.26 Now it seems to me possible that human form and also many typically human patterns someone could attempt to use these arguments, not so of behavior. Why then would torturing them not reveal much to show that non-rational humans are holders of something about lack ofsensitivity which is part ofwhat moral rights while animals are not, but to show that it means to have a bad character? humans who lack the capacity for conscious experience I conclude that if these three moral arguments fail, on Carruthers's analysis (being unable to think about as I think they do, to establish adequate grounds for their mental states) should be treated as if they were including non-rational human beings in the class of conscious while animals should not be so treated. Given holders of moral rights while excluding animals, then this possibility, I wish to show that these moral arguments they would likewise fail were they to be used in an fail because they have false empirical premises. attempt to include, on empirical and moral grounds, First, the slippery slope argument states that the non-conscious human beings in the class of conscious denial of moral rights to human beings on the ground human beings while excluding animals. that they are not rational agents may land us on a slippery slope leading to all kinds ofbarbarism against 6. Analogy, evolutionary theory, and animal those humans who are rational agents. This argument consciousness fails because there is no a priori reason why excluding animals from direct moral consideration would not There is a very strong argument for animal likewise throw one on a slippery slope. consciousness. It is a common-sense empirical Second. according to the social stability argument, argument by analogy from human behavior issuing a rule that withholds moral standing from non-rational from conscious mental states to animal behavior human beings is likely to produce social instability similarly issuing from conscious mental states. The because many people would fmd themselves incapable analogy is considerably strengthened by a mass of

Summer 1993 147 Between the Species Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

scientific fact about neurophysiological and neuro­ problematic examples. But he fails to provide us with chemical similarities between humans and animals. And an explanation of what it would be like to interact in a when this analogical reasoning is located in the context complex way with the environment, perform tasks, of the theory of evolution-which postulates physio­ adapt, learn, and the like without any conscious logical and anatomical continuity, or evolutionary experience at all or ever feeling anything.31 kinship, between humans and animals-an opposing Is all animal behavior simply reflex or instinct? Are argument that denies any animal consciousness faces animals automata? Is animal behavior better explained fonnidable odds. in terms of the workings of machines or 'hard-wired' Before I elaborate on this analogical argument, let mechanical devices, albeit with the input of non­ us frrst consider what Carruthers is able to muster in its conscious mental states, than in terms of conscious place for his conclusion that animals are non-conscious. mental states, that is, mental contents which are Ultimately one has to weigh whether Carruthers's immediately present to their minds? Does no animal mechanistic explanation of animal behavior is better behavior issue from conscious mental states, such as than the analogical argument which claims that conscious experiences, desires, beliefs, or thoughts? consciousness plays a causal role in, or is implicated in There is a very strong analogical argument which the explanation of, some animal behavior. concludes that the best explanation for complex, In P4 Carruthers states that whereas human beings adaptive, flexible animal behavior is that it issues from have non-conscious as well as conscious mental states, consciousness. Before expanding on this analogy, we animals have only non-conscious mental states .. We saw need to ask why Carruthers's implied mechanistic (in paragraph 3) that he cites three examples of non­ analogy between animals and machines breaks down. conscious experiences in humans. Now, presumably, The obvious answer is that there is no strong physical these examples illustrate the non-conscious nature of analogy between animals and machines. Machines are all animal mental life from which issues animal behavior artifacts, animal species are natural kinds. Machines and in terms of which animal behavior is to be contrast with the structural and functional continuity explained. But there are problems with regarding these between humans and animals. The intentionality, examples as exemplars in this way. First, the examples plasticity, and flexibility of the behavior of machines, of driving a car and washing dishes without being which are suggestive ofchoice, are only apparent since consciously aware ofdoing so involve complex habitual they are in reality parasitic on, or derivative from, such actions without being aware ofthem. However, we were descriptions which are given ofhuman behavior which consciously aware ofthese actions in the first place and issues from consciousness and choice. 32 this made it possible to learn how to perform them and One could of course make the machine model of to concentrate on, or to be distracted by, something else animal behavior more sophisticated by using a modem while performing them.28 Second, the example of computer rather than a clock, as Descartes did, as an blindsight is of people who previously had the ability example ofa machine. The non-conscious mental states to see, and Evelyn Pluhar argues that it makes no sense of animals would then be analogous to software and in a context where no conscious experience has ever animal brains analogous to hardware. Animals occurred.29 Blindsight, it will be recalled, is the ability conceived as computers would be non-conscious in the to catch balls or identify objects without having any same way as the most advanced artificial intelligence conscious experience of seeing because of lesions in has no conscious mental states. Computer-like the visual cortex. In this regard Bernard Rollin remarks manipulation by animals of data in terms of logical or as follows about Gallup's account ofanimal conscious­ formal sequences would have syntax but would lack ness which also makes use of the phenomenon of any semantics or referential meaning for the animals blindsight: "Why accept a rare, flukish oddity like blind themselves. The semantics of a computer program is sight as a metaphor for the multitude of apparently fully conditional upon the intentionality of the conscious animal behaviors? There is a huge functional programmer or other human beings. A computer can discrepancy between blind sight and a great deal of, if forecast the weather or calculate the inflation rate but not most, animal behavior."30 only in a purely logical or formal way without knowing So, Carruthers asks us to believe that animals are what the content of that activity is or what in the world non-conscious machines on the basis of these it is about.

Between the Species 148 Summer 1993 Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

What reason do we have then for rejecting a mediating similar human behavior in similar circum­ machine or computer model of animal behavior in stances. This commonsensical analogical inference is favor of the belief that conscious mental states mediate considerably strengthened by growth in scientific some animal behavior? Or are conscious animal knowledge, not only of animal behavior but also of the mental states redundant theoretical postulates devoid similarities between human and animal bodies. Thus, of explanatory value? After all, conscious animal since mind presupposes body, or at least certain bodily mental states are vague and cannot be directly known, structures such as the central nervous system, these and animal minds are mysterious and unfathomable similarities make the common-sense analogy all the to us. A quick response would be that conscious human more plausible, certainly more so than a machine mental states could likewise be vague and incapable analogy. Bodily similarities involve enzymes and of being known directly notwithstanding human proteins, physiological and anatomical structures, and beings' capacity for natural language. The mind of a organic functions. In the next paragraph I shall elaborate Serb ethnic cleanser, raping a mother and gouging her on the neurophysiological and neurochemical similarities son's eyes, could likewise be incomprehensible. Also, between humans and animals in respect of feeling pain. we have very good reason to accept the causal or Here I am simply stating the elements of the analogy. explanatory role of inferred conscious mental entities Why is this a good analogy? Rollin gives an account in much the same way as we do with inferred physical ofthree objective criteria for the ascription ofmentation entities such as electron shells in the minutest provided by the nineteenth-century Darwinian scientist. constituents of the physical world and quarks in the George Romanes.36 First, the activities must be of a enormity of outer space. 33 living organism. Second, the activities mustbe ofa kind But there is a better response. There is a widespread to suggest the presence of consciousness and choice, common-sense belief that animals have conscious two elements which we recognize as distinctive mental states which play a causal role in their behavior characteristics of mind. Third, another criterion is and serve as better explanations of their behavior in needed because what seems like intentional or conscious many specific instances than reductionist accounts choice may in fact be automatic or reflex action. It is which exclude explanatory mental categories. Our possible that mechanisms of the nervous system could everyday speech and the way in which we treat animals produce, without the mediation or intervention of that we know reflect this common-sense belief. We conscious mental states, highly coordinated and make an empirical inference or postulation by analogy apparently intentional muscular movements. This third from the complex causal connection between our own criterion then is the ability to adapt to new situations mental states, such as desires and beliefs, and our own and to learn from experience. Not only 'intelligent' actions to the existence of animal mental states which behavior but also mental states like emotions and pain play a causal and explanatory role in animal behavior. have value since they elicit variable, appropriate So, our common-sense understanding across cultures behavior, depending on the circumstances. These, then, analogically ascribes mental properties to animals. Why are three objective methods ofdetermining the presence is this? Rodd suggests that the "central reason why we of subjectivity. Indicators of intentionality, plasticity, believe that other people and animals have experience flexibility, and choice are objective signs of subjective is that we are conscious and we have an innate tendency awareness. Studying animal consciousness means to ascribe consciousness to entities which act in ways beginning with the facts of our own consciousness and which we recognize as signs of sensation."34 We know extending them on the basis of analogy. that we can fmd out what animals prefer if we present What is the alternative ifone refuses to accept that them with a choice ofalternatives.35 Ourcommon-sense many of the subjective mental states of humans have knowledge ofanimal behavior is the cumulative wisdom analogies in the conscious mental states of animals? It of centuries of sharing this world with them. is to accept that-in spite of all the similarities of In essence, we believe that the complexity, plasticity, behavior, structure, function, and the like-of all the adaptability or flexibility of animal behavior in animals on the phylogenetic scale, consciousness is only situations of choice give us good inductive reason to present in humans. Of course it is possible that only believe that animals have mental states which mediate human brains have developed the capacity to produce their behavior analogous to human mental states subjective experience over and above non-conscious

Summer 1993 149 Between the Species Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

information processing and behavior control, but in the members of the same species. Which pet owner cannot light of the analogical argument for animal mental tell some tale or another, such as the difference in the states, this is an arbitrary assumption. That only the ability ofindividual cats to learn how to use a trap door? human brain, and no brain of any other species, has Apart from addressing the last premise in Carruthers's precisely the level of development at which conscious­ arguments, in the next paragraph I shall move beyond a ness becomes possible seems like an anthropocentric general assertion of evolutionary continuity of assumption.37 It is far more plausible to believe that consciousness by looking at the behavior of animals in consciousness in all its manifestations forms a situations that humans would fmd painful or stressful continuum across species lines. and asking whether we have reason to believe that There is, however, one crucial consideration which animals actually feel pain or experience distress. puts the arbitrariness of an anthropocentric assumption beyond question. If we locate the common-sense understanding ofanimal consciousness, scientific fact, and the argument from analogy within the context of a background theory, namely, the theory ofevolution, we have overwhelming reason to reject a mechanistic model of animal bebavior.38 The theory of evolution is a well-confirmed, respectable scientifiC theory ofgreat simplicity and wide explanatory power. It postulates evolutionary continuity or kinship between humans and animals and shatters the traditional divide between the two. Humans are part of the animal kingdom, and precisely the same forces which shape animal nature are at work in the shaping ofhuman nature, even though humans have attained a kind ofmental capacity which is a considerable advance upon thatofanimals. Humans and animals alike are genetically shaped in a complex and slow process ofinteraction with theirever-changing external environment in such a way that they can best be adapted to survive. The theory ofevolution explains 7. Animal pain, distress, and suffering biological phenomena, and it tells us why consciousness has survival valne. And if having a mind bas survival Carruthers's P5 says that having the capacity for value for humans, then, given the physiological conscious mental states, such as the capacity for preconditions for mind as well as evolutionary conscious experience of pain, is a necessary condition continuity, having a mind would likewise have survival for being an object ofmoral concern that makes claims value for animals. upon our sympathy. (A sufficient condition of moral So, common sense, scientific fact, the logic of standing for him bas to be understood in the context of argument by analogy, and the theory of evolution a Rawlsian agreement or contract among rational agents combine to make the ascription of conscious mental and encompassing only human beings.) The capacity states to animals far more plausible than Carruthers's to experience pain could quite rightly be said to be a machine hypothesis. Of course, what I have said is still kind of bottom-line mental capacity for grounding moral very general. One would have to look at particular case standing. But consistently with his denial that animals studies to make specific inferences about particular can have conscious mental states, Carruthers denies that animal mental states in particular circumstances. But animals can feel pain. this can be done, and is being done, with varying degrees Carruthers claims that pain, like any other mental ofsuccess.39 Some animals behave in ways that are quite state, admits of conscious and non-conscious varieties.40 different from the ways in which humans behave in He concedes that there are no uncontroversial examples similar circumstances, and there are behavior variations of non-conscious pain in humans which are parallel to among different kinds of species and among individual our everyday examples of non-conscious visual

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Species Species Between Between the the 1993 1993 Summer Summer 151 151

of of component component third third (the (the pain pain to to response response emotional emotional suggests. suggests. paper paper this this of of title title the the under under Voltaire Voltaire from from tion tion

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46 46

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and and pain, pain, for for be be necessary' necessary' to to appear appear that that mechanisms mechanisms strong strong a a for for elements elements the the that that insist insist could could one one Carruthers Carruthers

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45 45

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44 44

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41 41

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feeling. feeling. or or sensation sensation a a than than more more non­ of of case case however, however, is, is, Pain Pain imaginary imaginary this this that that concludes concludes Carruthers Carruthers

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42 42

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1 pain). Similarity of these neural prerequisites for pain cognitive processes are likely to have a greater permits the possibility of pain sensation in all influence on their experience of pain. Human beings vertebrates, but there are qualitative and quantitative differ from animals in the cognitive modalities ofpain differences in pain sensation grounded in rapid sensory­ perception, cognition being a major determinant of discriminatory ability and in the greater influence of their pain perception. In short, the neurophysiology, cognition (made possible by the third component of neurochemistry, and behavioral repertoire of pain pain). Third, endogenous pain-control or pain­ support the thesis that many if not all vertebrates modulating mechanisms are constituted by both experience pain.48 complex descending pain-control circuits and the Pain and suffering are related but not identical opiate system (endogenous opioid peptides, such as concepts. I may be in pain (that is, have a nociceptive endorphins). These mechanisms probably exist in all response to a knife thrust into my arm, have a hurtful mammals, and there is even evidence for them in sensation, and have a cognitive and emotional response invertebrates such as earthworms. Fourth, there is stress­ to both this action and hurtful sensation) without induced analgesia consisting ofan opioid-dependent and suffering. Suffering, unlike pain, is not a sensation and a non-opioid system, both ofwhich can be activated by is not locatable in particular body parts.49 When does nociceptive stimulation and by various psychological the experience of pain involve suffering? Suffering stresses, such as exposure to a novel environment It could be defined as the unpleasant emotional response involves supra-spinal mechanisms, but available data to more than minimal pain or distress.5° Emotions are is limited. In sheep, for example, the non-opioid system thus implicated in pain as well as suffering, but the predominates. emotion induced by suffering is the result of pain with The third component of pain is motivational­ a raised level of intensity or duration. affective, involving cognitive and emotional Suffering is, however, not only caused by pain but capacities.47 Noxious stimuli or sensory inputs are not also by distress. Distress is a state in which a human or only felt or sensed, but are cognitively evaluated or animal is unable to adapt to an altered environment or interpreted and result in emotional behaviororaffective to altered internal stimuli.51 Distress can take different response. Hence pain is defined not merely as sensation, forms, such as anxiety, fear, or boredom. Anxiety, for but as unpleasant sensation. Both evaluation and example, can be defmed as "an emotional response­ behavioral response require a certain level ofcognitive typically unpleasant, typically involving heightened ability which in tum is grounded in, or made possible arousal and attentiveness to the environment, and by, the cerebral cortex. The motivational-affective typically inhibiting action-to the perception ofa threat component may assume greater complexity and to one's well-being or to one's ego (sense ofself)."52 It importance in the pain perception of animals with a is not clear whether anxiety is, like pain, always felt, developed cerebral cortex. The minimal level of but in the context of animal welfare felt anxiety is of cognitive development for pain perception remains most interest. In this definition 'perception' of threat speculative. It is suggested that only the most allows for cases where no real threat exists, and threat rudimentary level is required, and on this basis pain is to 'ego' accommodates typically human cases. Anxiety recognized in all vertebrate species. causes people to feel more pain given a particular Given these three components of pain, as well as stimulus;53 the experience of pain can be attenuated or pain-associated behavior, we have solid grounds for accentuated by emotion.54 Clearly, then, the concepts believing that all vertebrate species are capable ofpain. of pain, distress (anxiety and the like), and suffering This is not the case with imputing the capacity for pain are located in the same conceptual field. to invertebrates, but evidence of pain-associated Are animals capable of experiencing anxiety? behavior in some invertebrates should give one reason There are good reasons, based on analogical inference to pause. It is not known what the capacity for from observable facts, for believing that they do. motivational-affective modulation of pain is in less Anxiety in humans as well as inferred 'anxious' states complex vertebrates such as fish, amphibians and in animals are accompanied by typical anxious reptiles. In mammals, pain sensation is modulated by behavior, are modulated in the same way by drugs, emotional and cognitive modalities. Great apes have a and produce neurophysiological and neurochemical level of cognitive development which indicates that changes. Symptoms characteristic of states ofanxiety,

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Species Species Between Between the the 153 153 1993 1993 Summer Summer

sentient sentient that that evolution-is evolution-is of theory theory the the and and reasoning reasoning their their and and response, response, emotional emotional unpleasant unpleasant an an having having

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62 62

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60 60

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physiological physiological the the and and stimulus stimulus inducing inducing 61 61

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59 59

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58 58

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56 56

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55 55

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Suffering Suffering Animal Animal and Minds Minds Animal Animal About About Folly Folly Educated Educated Educated About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

animals, that is, animals that are capable of pain and 2 See Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A suffering, have moral standing and, as such, set limits History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon to our actions in virtue ofwhat they are in themselves. Books, 1983). On this alternative conclusion practices like factory 3 See Rachels, Op. cit. farming cause unspeakable suffering. To claim that expending time and energy on this moral issue diverts 4 See Bernard E. Rollin, The Unheeded Cry: Animal attention from the needs ofhuman beings is to suggest Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). that one can only properly pay attention to one thing in one's life-plan, or that animal welfare and human 5 See Rosemary Rodd, Biology, Ethics, and Animals welfare are mutually exclusive. These are not the case. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 42. Life is indeed too short to pursue all worthwhile causes 6 See Donald R. Griffin, Animal Minds (Chicago and at once. But one could argue persuasively that London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. vii, 8. domesticated animals are part ofhuman communities and are owed duties of care and gratitude. Regard for 7 Ibid., p. 248. animals is not an invention of a decadent moral 8 There are critical discussions by Edward Johnson 64 society, but is a human moral sense which has deep ["Carruthers on Consciousness and Moral Status," Between 65 historical and social roots. Moreover, vested the Species, 7(4), 1991, 190-2] and Evelyn B. Pluhar economic interests, structural political power, and ["Arguing Away Suffering: The Neo-Cartesian Revival," human wickedness are far more fundamental and Between the Species, 9(1), 1993,pp. 27-41] ofan earlier article pervasive causes of a failure to address human by Peter Carruthers ("Brute Experience," The Journal of suffering than the animal rights (animal welfare; Philosophy, 86, pp. 258-269), in which he first put forward animal protection) movement. But this is another issue. the argument of the last chapter of his book. In conclusion, Carruthers, having argued that 9 See Rachels, Op. cit., p. 93. animals have only non-conscious mental states, 10 cautions that his argument is controversial and Peter Carruthers, The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), speculative, and that it may well turn out to be p. 171. unsound.66 Consequently, it may be wiser, he says, to continue to respond to animals as iftheir mental states 11 Ibid., p. 173. were conscious ones until a consensus emerges 12 Loc. cit. amongst philosophers and psychologists concerning the nature of consciousness, and among ethologists 13 Loc. cit. over the cognitive powers of animals. The good news 14 Ibid., pp. 170-3. is, however, that consciousness is being regained in both psychology and ethology and that philosophy has 15 Ibid., pp. 174-183. long ago dumped logical positivism, the bedfellow of 16 See Rollin, Op. cit., p. 140. behaviorism, which denies consciousness. A lack of consensus on animal consciousness may very well be 17 Ibid., p. 263. explained, in part at least. by the vested interests of 18 Carruthers, The Animals Issue, p. 201 note 10. researchers who do routine science within a scientific paradigm which denies animals consciousness.67 19 Rollin, Op. cit., p. 138. Biology has unfortunately been slow to follow physics 20 Carruthers, The Animals Issue, p. 184. in accepting inferred unobservables as respectable explanatory concepts. 21 Ibid., pp. 184-6. 22 Ibid., p. 186. Notes 23 Ibid., p. 185. 1 James Rachels, Created from Animals: The Moral 24 Rodd, Op. cit., pp. 64-73. Implications of Darwinism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 129 25 Carruthers, The Animals Issue, p. 186.

Between the Species 154 Summer 1993 Educated Folly About Animal Minds and Animal Suffering

261bid., pp. 110-8. 42 David DeGrazia and Andrew N. Rowan, "Pain, Suffering, and Anxiety in Animals and Humans," Theoretical 27 Ibid., pp. 163-5. Medicine, 12, pp. 193-211.

22 See Pluhar, Op. cil., p. 37. 43Thisconceptual and scientificdiscussion ofpain andrelated 29 Loc. cit. notions leans heavily on the commendable work by DeGrazia and Rowan (Op. cil.) and Margaret Rose and David Adams, 3° Rollin, Op. cit., pp. 263-4. "Evidence for Pain and Suffering in Other Animals," inAnimal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes, edited by Gill 31 Pluhar, Op. cit., p. 37. Langley (New York: Chapman and Hall, 1989), pp. 42-71.

32 See Rollin, Op. cit., p. 46. 44 See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., pp. 47-9, and DeGrazia 33 See Rodd, Op. cit., pAS. and Rowan, Op. cit., pp. 194-6. 4 34 Ibid., p. 62. SSee Rose and Adams, Op. cit., pp. 49-55, and DeGrazia and Rowan, Op. cit., pp. 197-9. 35 Ibid., p. 109. See also Mary Stamp Dawkins, "1be Scientific Basis for Assessing Suffering in Animals," in In 46 See DeGrazia and Rowan, Op. cit., p. 199. Defence ofAnimals, edited by Peter Singer (Oxford: Basil 47 See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., pp. 55-62. Blackwell, 1985), pp. 27-40. 48 See DeGrazia and Rowan, Op. cit., p. 198. 36 Rollin, Op. cit., pp. 42-6. 49 Ibid., p. 200. 37 Rodd, Op. cit., p. 59. 50 Ibid., p. 199 .. 38 Rollin (Op. cit.) locates historically and socially the argument that grounds the continuity of human and animal 51 See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., p. 47. mentation in the theory of evolution. Rachels (Op. cit.) argues 52 elegantly for the importance ofCharles Darwin's The Origin of DeGrazia and Rowan, Op. cit., p. 202. Emphasis by Species for the collapse ofthe purported factual and moral divide DeGrazia and Rowan. between humans and animals. See Rodd (Op. cil.) for an informed 53 Ibid., p. 201. discussion of the relationship between biology and ethics. 54 See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., p. 56. 39 Griffm [Op. cit.; The Question ofAnimal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience, revised and 55 See DeGrazia and Rowan, Op. cil., p. 203. expanded edition (Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, 1981); 56 and Animal Thinking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., p. 57, and DeGrazia and Press, 1984)] and Dawkins [Op. cit.; Animal Suffering: The Rowan, Op. cit., pp. 203-5. Science ofAnimal Welfare (London and New York: Chapman 57 See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., p. 57. and Hall, 1980); "From an Animal's PointofView: Motivation, Fitness, and Animal Welfare," in Behavioral and Brain 58 See Rollin, Op. cit., p. 155. Sciences, 13, pp. 1-9; and Through Our Eyes Onl:y?: The Semr:h 9 for Animal Consciousness (Oxford, New York and Heidelberg: S See Rose and Adams, Op. cit., p. 57. W.H. Freeman, 1993 )] present case studies about animal mental 60 See Rollin, Op. cit., p. 204. capacities and analyses of methods ofknowing animal minds. Case studies are woven into Rodd's ( Op. cil.) argument. Rollin 61 Carruthers, The Animals Issue, p. 192. (Op. cit., p. 271) makes interesting observations about the 62 manner in which Jane Goodall does cognitive ethology through Ibid., p. 196. the observation and interpretation of animal behavior. Griffm 63 Loc. cit. (Animal Minds) points out that modern ethology need not let 4 consciousness function in explanation of animal behavior and 6 See Rodd, Op. cit., p. 239. that it could therefore turn out to be a form ofmethodological 65 behaviorism, a position which be emphatically rejects. See Thomas, Op. cit. 66 40 Carruthers, The Animals Issue, pp. 187-9. Carruthers, The Animals Issue, pp. 192-3. 67 41 Ibid., p. 189. See Rollin, Op. cit.

Summer 1993 155 Between the Species