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Animals as Machines

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Title: 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)
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