Animal sentience

 

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Sentience vs. Sapience

Sentience -- root word means "feeling"

1. Having experiences of any sort, being conscious
2. Having valenced (good vs. bad) experience 
• pain (bad), pleasure (good) 
• positive emotions: fun, love, excitement
• negative emotions: fear, anxiety
3. Living in a particular "sensory bubble" 
• seeing, smelling, hearing, etc.
• other senses in other animals

Sapience -- thinking of various kinds  (could be unconscious)

1. self-awareness
2. awareness of past and future
3. reason, rationality, intelligence
4. morality
5. communication, language

Today and Monday: sentience

Wed and Fri: sapience

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Today's reading -- "Animal Sentience," Heather Browning and Jonathan Birch

Background

• There is already some animal welfare legislation protecting some species
• Question: should more species be protected?
• Is there sentience in fish, octopuses, lobsters, insects, etc?
• They focus on pain mostly
• But we will be interested in all sorts of sentience

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Butterfly field trip

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Sentience in fish 

• what is it like to be a salmon swimming upstream to spawn? Is it exhilarating? Exciting? Do they feel tired? -- VIDEO
• what is it like to be farmed salmon? Do they feel crowded? Frustrated? (zugunruhe in birds)

• to think of fish as a "subject of a life" (Regan's term) it would be helpful to understand all their feelings
• but the study of sentience tends to focus on one feeling: pain

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What is pain?

1. starts with nociceptors--peripheral neurons that respond to damage; in skin, many areas of body -- thermal, mechanical, chemical, polymodal (wikipedia)
2. nociceptors lead to brain, where pain is felt

Nociception without a feeling of pain

• body damaged while you're focused on playing a sport

Price DD. Psychological and neural mechanisms
of the affective dimension of pain. Science. 2000

Do animals have nociceptors? 

Do they have pain experience?

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Lynne Sneddon articles; Victoria Braithwaite, Can Fish Feel Pain?

1. nociceptors (22 in face alone) -- trout dissected
2. pathways to brain -- dissection, study under microscope, electrical stimulation
3. after vinegar/bee venom injection (nociception) do they FEEL pain? 
• they rub snout on gravel on sides of tank
• elevated heart rate and respiration and reduced hunger 
• altered behaviors -- less avoidant of novelty
• they seek painkillers
• morphine changes these behaviors

Area of uncertainty

1. But a very different brain--does that matter? 
2. Just a few species studied

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Invertebrates--a totally different kind of nervous system

• Cephalopod molluscs--octopuses, squid
• Evidence of pain similar to fish
• but does the pain signal go to the animal's central brain or just to local brain in one arm?

• Decapod crustaceans--lobsters, crabs

• "The presence of nociceptors has not yet been conclusively established, though there is evidence of the detection of extreme heat" (Browning and Birch pg. 3)

• Insects

• "Insects will continue normal feeding and mating behaviours even when severely injured" (Browning and Birch p. 4)

• "We should be open to the possibility that the traditional focus on pain in this literature

  does not serve insects well. There are, of course, affects other than pain. For example, bees will show a ‘pessimistic’ judgement bias after being shaken" (Browning and Birch p. 4)

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Ethics when there's room for doubt

• "precautionary reasoning about sentience" (Browning and Birch pg. 5)
• if the lobster might  feel pain, don't throw them in boiling water
• Boiling lobsters alive to be banned in UK, already banned in some countries
• "might" is enough to justify laws protecting animals at "the edge of sentience"

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Next time: sentience beyond pain ... what are animals sensing and feeling? 

Beyond the west

 Animal Ethics camps

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Beyond the west: animal ethics in Ancient India

• Ancient Indian ethics associated with 3 religions: Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism
  
  
  
• Who is the author, Peter Adamson?
• Another article on animal ethics in Ancient India
• A podcast on animal ethics in Ancient India

Adamson's opening issue 

• cultural relativism: whatever another culture sees as right really is right, but just for them
• often countered by citing some moral abomination in another culture -- "The Aztecs sacrificed human children!!!!"
• implication: out standards are right
• better option: "point to moral beliefs of other cultures that are better" (p. 49)

Indian animal ethics

• better because more concern for animals
• better because more vegetarians in India
• better because a better basis for vegetarianism

Singer & Regan's basis for vegetarianism

• Singer: animals have interests, which we have to take into consideration
• Regan: animals have rights, which we have to respect
• Both: animal-centered ethics

Indian animal ethics

• ethic of ahimsa (non-violence)
• it's better for me to be non-violent -- through non-violence I flourish, make spiritual progress, become a better person
• note: violence towards animals is considered violence, so in that sense animals are elevated

Connection to eudaimonistic ethics (Aristotle)

• eudaimonia--flourishing, happiness in an elevated sense
• the ethical person has eudaimonia because they have a set of virtues

"Within this eudaimonist framework, what is wrong about harming animals is not that one infringes the animals' rights or interests. Rather it is that the harmful action would be an expression of a disruptive, violent mindset, one bent upon destruction rather than harmony with the world.  Vegetarianism, and more generally non-violent action, was really just a by-product of a peaceful, contented effortlessly controlled inner state, one that required years of practice to attain." (p. 51)

• note: Aristotle does NOT think of non-violence as a virtue!

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What exactly does non-violence involve? When am I being violent toward animals?

• monks vs. laypersons
• Buddhists vs. Jains vs. Hindus
• Different sects within each religion

Which practices are prohibited under an ethic of ahimsa?

1. Personally killing an animal for food 
2. Having an animal killed for food -- the animal is killed for you
3. Accidentally killing an animal 
• Jain monks: will avoid killing insects by sweeping ground, avoiding fire, wearing face masks
• Us: drive carefully on a road where there are deer or squirrels
4. Eating meat that wasn't killed by you or for you (more debateable)
• mendicant monks eating donated meat 
• eating meat on an airplane -- you ordered the vegetarian meal
• eating roadkill

Does ahimsa always rule out participating in killing?

1. Adamson discusses examples from the Bhagavad Gita
• participating in a just war 
• performing a ritual animal sacrifice
2. Can these things be done with a "non-violent state of mind"?

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Is it really better to take a human-centered approach to animal ethics?

One advantage of ahimsa approach

• animal-centered approach: must worried about whether giving up meat actually saves animals
• human-centered approach: ahimsa makes you better off, regardless of the impact on animals

The rights approach

Announcements

• I need your field trip preferences
• No office hours today
• I randomly picked dates for pop quizzes.  Beware!
• Next time: non-western views of animals.

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Peter Singer recap

Apply his view to the Icelanders

Singer's view of these practices

1. Puffins are sentient (they have pain and pleasure)
2. So they have interests
3. Their interests should receive the same consideration as comparable interests of non-puffins (e.g. humans or other birds)
4. We shouldn't dismiss their interests out of speciesism

But what is the bottom line? What should the Icelanders DO?

Peter Singer accepts

Utilitarianism -- we should maximize total happiness, taking into account all affected by our actions without regard for race, sex, species, etc.

1. Do the Icelanders maximize total happiness by saving puffins? Yes, probably.
2. Do the Icelanders maximize total happiness by killing and eating puffins? No, probably not.

What we should DO depends on the facts.

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Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (1980) Article is a precis of the book (1985) Article, annotated

• Note that some of the language and topics are a bit outdated.

Contrast with Singer

1. Singer: we owe animals equal consideration -- if we give them that we might still use them in some ways in some circumstances
2. Regan: We must recognize that animals have rights -- this will completely stop us from using them as resources

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I. Other views and why they're wrong

1. Indirect duty views (pg. 2-3)
2. Contractarianism (pg. 3-4)
3. Cruelty-kindness view (pg. 5)
4. Utilitarianism (pg. 5-7)
• The cup objection
• The Aunt Bea objection

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II. Argument for animal rights (pg. 7-10)

Premises, conclusion

P1 Humans have inherent value (pg. 7) -- value in themselves, and not just to others or based on what they "contain."

P2 All humans who have inherent value have it equally--regardless of "talents or skills, intelligence and wealth" (pg. 7), regardless of usefulness to others, etc.

P3  Humans have that inherent value because we are all not merely sentient, but "experiencing subjects of a life." (pg. 8)

P4 Based on the equal inherent value of all humans, all humans have an equal right to be treated with respect. 

P5  But animals are experiencing subjects of a life too, which means they also have inherent value. (pg. 8)

P6 Animals don't have less inherent value because of their lower intelligence, considering that less intelligent humans don't have less inherent value. "All who have inherent value have it equally, whether they be human animals or not." (p. 9)

CONCLUSION Animals likewise have an equal right to be treated with respect.

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III. Implications

Right to be treated with respect --> right to life, right to liberty, right to not be treated as a resource

1. Abolition of commercial agriculture
2. Abolition of using animals in research--"Lab animals are not our tasters, we are not their kings." (pg. 10)
3. End of hunting and trapping

Animal liberation

FIELD TRIP SIGN-UP

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PRACTICE QUIZ

1. We will have 7-8 pop quizzes over the course of the semester.
2. They will be randomly scheduled 
3. The quizzes should be very easy if you have done the reading!
4. They will take various forms.
5. Your lowest quiz score will be dropped.
6. You can also drop one score based on missing class with an acceptable excuse.

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1970s -- surge of interest in treatment of animals.  During the same period...

1. The women's liberation movement
2. The civil rights movement
3. Children's liberation, The "Grey Panthers"
4. Peter Singer -- Animal Liberation
   

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Main ideas

Chapter 1 -- "All Animals Are Equal" (reading, annotated)

That's exactly what he's arguing--humans, dogs, cats, lions, puffins, rats .... all equal

(1)  What "equality" does not mean

"Equality for children" -- doesn't mean children get to vote or will be drafted during time of war

1. "equal" doesn't mean "factually just alike"
2. "equal" doesn't mean "must always be treated exactly the same"
3. "equal" doesn't mean "all rights exactly the same"

(2) What "equal" does mean

• READ passages A, B, C

The principle of equality: when A and B have the same interests, their interests should receive the same consideration, regardless of their race, sex, species, etc.

(3) When do individuals or groups come under the "principle of equality"?

• When they have interests
• And all it takes to have interests is the ability to suffer 
• Bentham understood this -- READ E, F, G

Clarification: suffering is a prerequisite for having any interests at all, but there are other interests besides avoiding suffering

(4) How (more precisely) to apply the principle of equality

• After a natural disaster people and animals "come under" the principle of equality but they may not always have exactly the same interests
• clean water 
• transport in lifeboats 
• medical attention for same injury
• evacuation with family 

Where humans are give such-and-such consideration based on their interests, and animals have the very same interest, animals should be given the same consideration.  We apportion consideration based on interests, not based on who has the interest.

(5) We are resistant to equality because of biases

1. racism
2. sexism
3. ageism
4. specieism READ D

(6)  But can animals actually suffer? (If not they don't have interests.)

• there is abundant scientific evidence that they can suffer
• absence of language is beside the point
• where to draw the line? We will discuss next week.

(7) What does "consideration" mean?

• Utilitarian approach--we should maximize total happiness, with each affected individual taken into account
• no discounting based on race, sex, species; no inflating anyone's importance based on race, sex, species
• next time: another view on what consideration means

DISCUSSION (WORKBOOK)

Duties to animals?

 Field trips

1. instructions
2. field trip brainstorming

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Humans and animals: classics

1. Bible
2. Aristotle (4th century BC)
3. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) [day-CART]
4. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) [rhymes with "font"]
5. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
6. Peter Singer (wrote 1970s onward)
7. Tom Regan (wrote 1970s onward)

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Another word about Descartes

1. Does Descartes think animals have ... reason, emotion, sensation?
2. Are they any modern Cartesians or is this an outmoded view of animals?

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Kant's Ethics

The Categorical Imperative (the one moral principle we must abide by)

I. Never treat persons as a means only, but always also as ends in themselves.

II. Act only on a policy that you could and would want all other persons to follow.

Why must we treat persons this way? they have a special dignity because of their 

• self-awareness
• rationality
• capacity for morality

Thus, persons are owed respect. This is the basis for all our specific duties.

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Do we have any duties to animals?

• No, they don't have these features, don't have dignity, aren't owed respect.

"Baumgarten speaks of duties towards beings

which are beneath us and beings which are

above us. But so far as animals are concerned,

we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-

conscious and are there merely as a means to an

end. That end is man."  (para 24)

"Our duties toward animals are merely indirect duties

toward humanity. Animal nature has analogies

to human nature, and by doing our duties to

animals in respect of manifestations of human

nature, we indirectly do our duty towards

humanity."  (para 24)

• Our apparent duties to animals are actually duties to humans.
• They're indirect duties to humans because the action involves an animal

This woman has no duty at all TO THE CAT
She has a duty TO HUMANITY that involves the cat.

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Why do we have a duty TO HUMANITY to be kind to animals? 

"Thus, if a dog has served his master

long and faithfully, his service, on the analogy

of human service, deserves reward, and when

the dog has grown too old to serve, his master

ought to keep him until he dies. Such action

helps to support us in our duties towards human

beings, where they are bounden duties." (para 24)

"If a man shoots his dog because

the animal is no longer capable of service, he

does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog

cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and

damages in himself that humanity which it is

his duty to show towards mankind." (para 24)

"If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice

kindness toward animals, for he who is cruel to

animals becomes hard also n his dealing with

men. We can judge the heart of a man by his

treatment of animals. Hogarth depicts this in

his engravings. He shows how cruelty grows

and develops. He shows the child’s cruelty to

animals, pinch the tail of a dog or a cat; the

then depicts the crown man in his cart running

over a child; and lastly, the culmination of

cruelty in murder. He thus brings home to us in

a terrible fashion the rewards of cruelty, and

this should be an impressive lesson to children." (para 24)

Hogarth's prints 

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 Did Kant care about ANIMALS at all?

"The more we come in contact with animals and

observe their behavior, the more we love them,

for we see how great is their care for their

young. It is then difficult for us to be cruel in

thought even to a wolf. Leibnitz used a tiny

worm for purposes of observation and then

carefully replaced it with its leaf on the tree so

that it should not come to harm through any act

of his. He would have been sorry—a natural

feeling for a humane man—to destroy such a

creature for no reason." (para 24)

Bottom line (end of para 24)

1. Should care for your dog, even in old age
2. Vivisection can be justified
3. "cruelty for support" cannot be justified

But all duties toward animals are actually (indirect) duties toward humans.

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We'll talk about Bentham next time, since Peter Singer quotes him.

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Animal Ethics Camps

• Demoters -- give animals very low status
• Humane traditionalists -- we have limited duties to animals but do owe them some consideration
• Animalists -- raise the status of animals, possibly to human-animal equality

White board

 

Animals as machines

RR feedback

• Most people who submitted RR3 met all requirements
• A few people didn't meet all requirements...you didn't have paragraph numbers...you were over the word limit.  Still "complete" because I'm still grading leniently.
• A few people talked about Kant, when questions were about Descartes.  Those graded "incomplete."
• Use the 5 requirements as a checklist. Go through them all before submitting!
  
  
  

Preview: 

• Monday we will talk about field trips
• and go on to our next classic authors

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Rene Descartes (1600s)

• ra-NAY day-CART
• possessive: Descartes's (Day-CARTS)
• Animals in western thought (reading)
  
  
  

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Back up to some fundamental questions

Suppose I am in a room full of people and animals and I ask....

1. Am I conscious? (easy)
2. Are the other people conscious? (harder)
3. Are the animals conscious? (harder)

How can we make progress on 2 and 3?

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Reflecting on "automata" (self moving things)...robots (para 15)

• But wait...why is Descartes talking about robots! 
• Based on mechanical garden statuary, he was able to imagine some day people creating robots!

Robot reflections (para 15)

1. Imagine robot-dogs with the "same organs and outward form"
2. "We could have no means of knowing they were in any respect of a different nature from these animals" (para 15)

1. Imagine robot-humans, with the "same organs and outward form"
2. There would be two tests whereby we could know they were not really human

• The language test

para 15

• the general intelligence test

para 16

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Descartes's robot arguments (hinted at)

1. If animals can be perfectly simulated by mindless machines, then they ARE just mindless machines.
2. But they could be perfectly simulated by mindless machines.
3. So animals ARE just mindless machines

1. If humans can be perfectly simulated by mindless machines, then they ARE just mindless machines
2. But they could NOT be perfectly simulated by mindless machines.
• humans pass the language test, but mindless machines will always fail it
• humans pass the general ability test, but mindless machines will always fail it
3. So we can't draw the conclusion that humans are mindless machines

What is open to question here?

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Now let's set aside robots...how are animals and humans different?

Para 17 -- "by means of these two tests we may likewise know the difference between men and brutes"

The language difference -- all humans have SOME language, but  animals have NO SIGNIFICANT language, even the most impressive animals lack language

• exceptions that are insignificant: parrots, barking dogs, singing birds...true language gives you the liberty to express a wide range of thoughts whenever you wish ... in this sense there is no true language in animals 

The second test:  the general intelligence difference (para 21)

• the extreme abilities of some animals don't carry over to other things, which shows they aren't based on "reason"
• the extreme abilities of humans do carry over to other things, which shows they are based on "reason"

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The bottom line

• I have consciousness, reason...I know it introspectively
• You do too, because you pass the two tests
• But animals fail the tests
• Therefore...
• animals have no reason at all (para 19) .... they are "destitute of reason" (para 21)
• the soul of animals is different than ours (para 23)
• Descartes's contemporaries interpreted him as saying animals were unfeeling machines like clocks, so you could do anything to them. 
• They used his ideas to defend vivisection -- experimentation on live, awake animals

Aristotle and the Bible

Doing RRs

• If you did RR2 you got a "complete" but I gave you comments saying whether you actually met all the requirements. Also other feedback.
• Set up your notifications in Canvas so you receive your comments by email!
• Please don't include questions in your submission!

AI policy

• "You may not use AI to bypass the readings or generate any work you turn in."
• Honor code and AI policies at Canvas  
• You do not need AI to do well on the RRs! 
• Stick with what's literally in the reading; otherwise I'm going to wonder "is this AI?"

Attendance policy

• you will not normally submit excuses -- just use your 5-absence allowance (wisely)
• if you must miss an exam or presentation (etc) you do need to submit an acceptable excuse to reschedule the exam

Pop quizzes

•  7-8 over the semester (randomly scheduled)
• there will be a sample quiz that doesn't count before there are any that do count
• lowest quiz score will be dropped
• if you miss a quiz you can have the grade waived if you submit an acceptable excuse

Reading philosophy

• guide at top of blog
• important: don't get bogged down. you won't understand every line.

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Three questions raised by the Icelanders dual relationship with puffins

• What is the basic relationship between humans and animals?
• equals, unequals?
• obligations to them, no obligations to them?

• Can we eat animals and use them in other ways?

• If we eat and use them, does it make sense to also care about them?

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Module 1-- classic views on these questions -- all still influential

1. Ancient world -- Aristotle, bible passages
2. 1600s -- Descartes
3. 1800s -- Kant, Bentham
4. 1970s -- Singer, Regan
5. beyond the west -- Hinduism

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Animals in western thought (reading)

Who was Aristotle?

• 4th century BC Athens (4 centuries after Homer wrote the Odyssey)
• student of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great
• From the Politics, Book I chap. 5 & 8

Aristotle, Book I chap. 5 (we will read passages)

• ruler-subject built into the "constitution of the universe"
• soul-body, reason-passion, men-women, humans-animals, masters-slaves
• rule of ruler over subject is better for the ruler AND the subject
• implications: using animals for labor

But what about eating them? Book I chap. 8 (we will read passages)

1. Nature provides food for newborns (oviparous, vermiparous, viviparous)
2. Likewise it must provide food for all living things
3. So it must be that plants are food for animals; animals are food for humans

Should we care about animals?

• they do have feelings on Aristotle's view (see Aristotle's De Anima)
• our rule should be "better for both"

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Bible passages...who wrote them, when, how exactly to interpret, what kind of authority does the bible have? (not this class!)

For each, compare to Aristotle...

1. Gen 1, creation 
2. Gen 1, 2, dominion 
3. Gen 1 and then 9 on eating animals 
4. Gen 9 on covenant 
5. Isaiah prophesy

The Peaceable Kingdom, Edward Hicks

Introduction

INTRODUCTIONS

• what is your favorite kind of animal encounter? 
• e.g. interacting with your cat, spotting an animal in the wild, riding a horse, being at the zoo, etc.

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BLOG TOUR

CANVAS TOUR

• Home/schedule page
• instructions, policies at top
• Scroll down to each day to to find readings and assignments
• Simple syllabus, basis for grade
• Attendance policy

MORE 

• End of today: we'll discuss reading responses
• Wed: the AI policy
• Fri: more about field trips

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WHAT IS THIS CLASS ABOUT?

THE PLAN: 7 MODULES

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OUR CONFLICTING ATTITUDES TOWARD ANIMALS

ICELANDERS AND PUFFINS

WESTMAN ISLANDS: LOVING PUFFINS

Watch up to 8:00 -- "Every puffin counts"

GRIMSEY ISLAND: KILLING PUFFINS

Hunting article
the lundaveiðar (summer puffin hunt) tradition

THE SAME PEOPLE SAVE & KILL/EAT

• the hunters on Grimsey are from the Westman Islands
• they bring the puffins back for a summer feast everyone participates in (Thjóðhátíð)
• so the same people save and eat puffins  

OTHER EXAMPLES CLOSER TO HOME

POSITIONS

1. SAVE & KILL. Makes sense to love, save AND kill eat...no confusion, no conflict
2. SAVE, DON'T KILL.  
3. KILL, DON'T SAVE. 

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NEXT TIME: Classic views

1. Aristotle
2. Passages from Bible
3. What would they say about the Icelanders?
4. Descartes
5. Kant
6. Bentham
7. Singer
8. Regan
9. Hindu views

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READING RESPONSES