Animals as Machines

1
Animals as Machines
2
Descartes

• René Descartes (1596-1650 )
• French philosopher, mathematician and scientist
• Discourse on Method (1637)
• Part 5 discusses the nature of animals

3
Animals are machines

• Physically animals are very much like people
  same basic design, same organs
• But all mechanical function of the body, e.g.
  heart, lungs, muscles, can be explained as purely
  mechanical, like clocks or wind-up toys
• The body is a machine, the soul is immaterial
• Animals are bodies without souls pure machines
• Nor will this appear at all strange to those who
  are acquainted with the variety of movements
  performed by the different automata, or moving
  machines fabricated by human industry such
  persons will look upon this body as a machine
  made by the hands of God
• Because it is possible to have bodies without
  souls, mechanical functioning without rational
  intelligence, we can see that the soul is
  something extra, given to us by God.
• God only gave rational souls to people

4
Evidence that animals are not rational

• 1) Animals are not flexible in their behavior.
  They can be very good at one type of task, but
  cannot apply their ability to a different type of
  task (e.g. a spider can spin a web better than
  any human, but it cannot use its abilities
  creatively)
• 2) Animals cannot speak
• Even though they sometimes have the right organs
  required for speech, e.g. parrots
• Even human idiots can speak, so speech does not
  require a high level of intelligence
• Even humans without speech organs can develop a
  language of communication (sign language)
• Animals that are more capable in other tasks than
  idiots, but nevertheless cannot learn to speak
• Animals can still run around sometimes when their
  heads are chopped off
• There are no men so dull and stupid, not even
  idiots, as to be incapable of joining together
  different words, and thereby constructing a
  declaration by which to make their thoughts
  understood on the other hand, there is no
  animal, however perfect and happily
  circumstanced, which can do the like
• This proves not only that the brutes have less
  reason than man, but that they have none at all
  for we see that very little is required to enable
  a person to speak

5
A Turing Test for Animals?

• Descartes reliance on language to prove
  intelligence is a kind of Turing Test
• Turing Test
• Proposed by Alan Turing in 1950
• We would know that a computer was intelligent if
  it could converse with people in a way that was
  a indistinguishable from a human being (i.e. if
  the computer were hidden, a human being could not
  determine if they were talking to a machine or a
  person)
• Some animals (e.g. Koko the Gorilla) have been
  taught
• sign language.
• But grammar still very primitive, vocabulary
  very restricted.
• Could not pass the Turing Test
• However, the Turing Test is only a sufficient
  test for
• intelligence, not a necessary test

6
Implications

• Descartes concludes that since animals are not
  rational, they are machines. As machines, they
  have no feelings, no consciousness.
• If animals are machines
• They dont feel pleasure or pain.
• They have no interests.
• By most accounts then, we have no direct ethical
  duties towards them
• Indirect duties still possible (i.e. because of
  the instrumental value of animals)
• Duty to respect private property (animals that
  belong to someone)
• Duty to avoid cruelty because it encourages a
  cruel nature in us, which might then be expressed
  towards other people)
• Duty not to hurt the feelings of people who love
  animals by abusing animals
• Duty to maintain the health of biosystems and
  nature in general, for our own good
• Duty to preserve beautiful creatures, for the
  enjoyment of others and future generations
• Duty to preserve species that may be sources of
  other instrumental goods, e.g. medicine

7
Is Descartes Wrong?

• How do we know that animals are conscious?
• The problem of other minds
• Argument from analogy
• Animals are like us physically
• Animals act like us in response to hunger, pain,
  comfort, etc.
• Very weak argument
• who knows at what point in our evolutionary
  history consciousness evolved perhaps it evolved
  only in hominids as a result of our ability to
  reflect on our own thoughts (i.e. to have
  higher-order thoughts)
• sleepwalkers can exhibit pain response and pain
  avoidance behavior without consciousness (as can
  amoeba and robots)

8
Readings

• Required
• Singer, Peter, All Animals are Equal, available
  at www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02
  .htm
• Regan, Thomas, Animal Rights, Human Wrongs in
  Zimmerman (edit) Environmental Philosophy, p.
  33-48,handout
• Des Jardins, Environmental Ethics, Ch. 5
  5.3-end and Chapter 6, handout
• Optional
• Dennett, Daniel, Animal Consciousness What
  Matters and Why in Brainchildren, p. 337-352, on
  reserve in Philosophy Department (highly
  recommended for cognitive science students)