Can some non-human animals be considered persons?

[Gareth Southwell]

Some philosophers (e.g. Peter Singer) have argued that some non-human animals possess sufficient characteristics to be considered persons. For instance, certain chimps have been said to have recognised themselves in a mirror, whilst dolphins, gorillas, and even parrots have been taught to use language. Does this mean that we should respect them as persons?

Discuss!

By the way, if anyone has any specific examples that they want to discuss (e.g. scientific experiments), then it would be great if you hunt down somewhere that describes the case, and then post a link to it.

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

What does 'respect them as persons' mean and what is it trying to establish?  That we shouldn't eat them or experiment on them (these are the two issues jumping out at me, there might be more that i can't think of) or grant them certain rights in a kind of expanded constitution?  I don't mean to trivialize, but it seems a simple appeal to pain would be more effective than to the speech of parrots...

Chimps and Bonobos especially do have some things common with us at the micro and macro levels: most DNA, some tool use, social teaching and learning, ability to learn and use language (of course, there are  major controversies here: how much researchers read into the responses, the fact that apes need to be taught by humans and aren't innately linguistic, the severe limitations on what they are able to be taught).  Even if more research comes in over the years and we keep adding up these discoveries and abilities, does it come out to a person?

What about animals who lack these abilities?  Should we treat a dolphin as a person, but not a chicken? 

Does it matter that these new people cannot reciprocate and treat us as people too?

What about severely neurologically damaged individuals who lack speech and fall below the normal human range of ability in any list of 'sufficient characteristics' for personhood?

[Gareth Southwell]

You make a number of good points here, but I won't try to answer them all, but simply see if I can move the debate along a little.

Firstly, to clarify, "Respect them as persons" does in fact imply according them the same rights as human persons (which would include not eating them or experimenting up them). For instance, to draw an interesting parallel, there is a controversial suggestion that medical students should use patients in states of irreversible coma to practise operating on (as opposed to cadavers), because it is closer to 'real' operating conditions. We might justify this move by saying that the coma patients are 'ex-persons' and so no longer possess rights (or not the same rights). So, whether you are a person or not (animal or human) determines what rights you have.

Secondly, you seem to suggest that there is a problem with the notion of 'sufficient characteristics' for personhood - is that right? Perhaps we could focus on that. Does this lead us to reject the usefulness of the notion of 'person'? If, as you also suggest, the ability to experience pain is a more important criterion than the ability to speak, then perhaps we don't need all the other criteria (language user, rational, etc.). However, pain is felt by a wide range of living creatures (even if they aren't always conscious of it - arguably) - but wouldn't this provide us with too wide a criterion? Should the fact that something experiences pain determine how we treat it?

What do people think?

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

you seem to suggest that there is a problem with the notion of 'sufficient characteristics' for personhood

Within the forum this topic is found in, there is another topic asking for something like a definition of person: a set of these sufficient characteristics.  I don't think there is a problem with having a notion like this.  My problem was in coming up with sufficient characteristics.

Should language count?  To what degree?  Obviously infants don't have language, but certainly rights.  Some people due to some kind of congenital biological damage ('retarded' to use an unfashionable word) don't develop language, but it would seem wrong to deny them certain rights.  It also hard to determine to what degree a self concept is present in these cases.  (These were the two main points in your original post on Singer).  Rationality?  What about schizophrenics?  Do they cease to become people for a time? Did Nietschze cease to become a person sometime after that famous embrace?

It was difficult because in an everyday, taken for granted sense, it's an unproblematic concept.  "Persons" are just that: the individual people/human beings around me.  I realize that for other people today this is not the case, nor has it been in the past.  What counts for a person?  In the early days of the slave trade there was a certain spanish or portugese monk who laboured hard for his contemporaries to view the newly captured people of Africa and America as people with souls.  Wilberforce fighting like mad to abolish slavery in England comes to mind.  Blacks in the American south being counted as a 1/2 or 1/3 of a white person in post revolutionary America so as not to over represent it vs. the north in state representation or something like this.  The Jews in Nazi Germany or the other genocides of the past 100 years.  The abortion debate. 

Actually it seems like there's a lot of problemss for humans just fixing and applying the concept to other humans, nevermind animals!

(sidebar: this 'unproblematic' person concept seems like quite an interesting topic after all.  What about in the ancient world? What about the history of women and their status as persons?  The concept across cultures?  But now i'm getting too far ahead of myself!)

Roger Scruton in "An Intelligent person's guide to philosophy" has a chapter entitled 'Persons'.  He writes statements like: "Our relations to one another are not animal but personal."   "...negotiation, compromise, and agreement form the basis of all successful human communities.  The concept of the person should be seen in the light of this."  He lists 5 characteristics that show what 'persons really are':

1. Both parties must be rational
2. Both parties must be free (to make choices, act intentionally)
3. Each must desire the other's consent and make sacrifices to obtain it
4. Each must be accepted as the ultimate authority over matters concerning his existence as a freely choosing agent
5.  Each party must accept and understand obligations

Just prior to this he says matter of factly that 'persons are human beings', but it seems that this list is going to exclude some who we would clearly describe as human beings!  The poor guy in an irreversible coma is obviously still a human being, but can't lay claim to any of these.  Nor is it clear that all humans are going to meet all 5 of these criteria at all times assuming that is his intention (i'm thinking that prisons are full of people who have problems with #3). This is certainly a way of framing the debate to the complete exclusion of animals.

I have nitpicked this list, but for now it seems very compelling.

Should the fact that something experiences pain determine how we treat it?

Yes.  Unequivocally.  This doesn't mean that eating (i do eat meat) or even experimenting (i slow as i type the last and these words... what kind of experiments?  what is important enough?  who decides?) are ruled out, but that certain a certain decency or at the very least sheer speed is brought into the process.  On a ligher note, cockroaches in your box of breakfast cereal have forfeited any rights they might have!

wouldn't this provide us with too wide a criterion

it is wide, but i think (or more accurately, i feel) good quality.  Perhaps i'm just too sensitive on this point.  I really don't like to see people get hurt outside of media or i must devilishly admit, my imagination.
 

so...i have no problem recognizing human beings as persons in everyday life.  There are some difficulties fixing the 'persons' concept.  I don't think it's necessary to accord animals the same rights as humans, though i think that at least one of our similarities (pain) trumps all the others in terms of regulating our conduct.

feel free to poke holes, etc.
and i apologize for any bad form on my part like not having connected my thoughts well, or argued weakly.   

[Gareth Southwell]

Thanks very much for your long post (!). You make some very interesting points, I think. If I can just condense what you've said down to a few points to aid further discussion (feel free to correct me!):

1. There are some problems with defining what a person is (differences in cultures, historical periods, some 'harsh' consequences, etc.).
2. However, overall, we a list of such criteria does 'work' at some level.
3. This said, the ability to experience pain is a more important factor in deciding how we treat people and animals than personhood.

I agree that we should maybe keep discussion of whether the concept of persons can be sucessful (though, obviously, the relevance of non-human persons is relevant).

Perhaps, however, we could focus on #3: you say that you aren't vegetarian, and aren't anti animal experimentation - but if we take pain into account, wouldn't we be forced to treat all things which feel pain (e.g. animals), the same as humans? Or else to allow human experimentation...?

Perhaps you could (briefly) expand on what you mean.

Thanks once again.

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

but if we take pain into account, wouldn't we be forced to treat all things which feel pain (e.g. animals), the same as humans?

I don't see a way around this.  Pain is pain.  We would have to.

Now I'm being inconsistent.  I said that pain trumps all the other considerations in terms of regulating our conduct, but I eat meat and do allow for some kinds of experimentation (it is arguable that the experiments do not have to be harmful.  We do allow experiments, even possibly harmful ones, on humans, BUT only by consent.  Since it's impossible for animals to give this consent, we don't have grounds to experiment on them and it turns out i'm being inconsistent on this point too).
 
This is just telling me that in terms of determining what a person is, i really think the most important thing is to have been born to rational language users.  I think Scruton makes his point about the way we live determining what a person is.  With negotiation, etc. as the foundation of our communities, animals can't be integrated into them in a meaningful way.  We can recognize certain rights based upon their ability to feel pain: laws prohibiting animal cruelty or regulating their slaughter in the food industry (and being upheld!), but that is as far as we can go.  Ultimately animals are not persons...(shielding myself) Sometimes they are a resource.

I've tried to be brief and to the point, but so far my rough notes on your last post run to 3 pages.  Rather than the facts simply tilting to one side or the other, i'm finding the set of scales is sinking!

I'm having a kind of "know thyself" moment.  The question i want to answer is this: Does my choice to (indirectly) kill animals say anything about what kind of person i am? 

[Gareth Southwell]

3 pages of notes! Thanks for keeping it short (it helps discussion).

Firstly, what sort of person your attitude to animals makes you is a moral problem, and perhaps better suited to a discussion of ethics (I know the two are related, but we should try to keep the topics distinct, I think).

Secondly, just because something feels pain, or is due respect for some other reason, is not a reason to treat it as a person. After all, there is a good case for saying that plants feel pain, and we can't really say that they are persons.

So, I think we should distinguish between what rights something has and its possession of personhood. For instance, Kant argues that animals are not rational, and therefore cannot be respected as moral agents. However, he also argues that the way we treat animals reflects on us, and so we have a duty to animals in as much as being needless insensitive or cruel are not moral traits that we should wish to practice. (You could say this is to do with indirect moral obligations).

Coming back to pain, however, I remember a debate about fish: do they feel pain? Or, more precisely, are they conscious of their pain? We might argue that they aren't, and therefore their pain is of a lesser sort (just a reflex without any thought behind it). If we thought this of animals also (as Descartes did), then this might justify your attitude to eating meat and experimentation.

So, are we saying that animals are not conscious (in the same way as humans)?

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

Just a couple of questions while i continue to check out available resources (one of them is a very interesting debate between Singer and Posner: http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110109/) to put my amateurish sleuthing of these questions on a bit firmer ground.

A. What is the good case for establishing that plants feel pain?  This is completely new to me and though perhaps a bit of a tangent, it has some relevance:

Plants feel pain, but are clearly not persons, so pain is not a strong enough consideration for personhood.  Therefore whether or not animals feel pain is irrelevant to their status as persons.

B.

are we saying that animals are not conscious (in the same way as humans)?

This brings us into the murky waters of the distribution and phenomenological questions: 

1.  Can we know which animals beside humans are conscious?

2.  Can we know what, if anything, the experiences of animals are like?

You say of fish that "we might argue that they aren''t, and therefore their pain is of a lesser sort."   What would that argument look like?  It seems your analogy argument from human phenomenal pain awareness to animal pain awareness (from the talking clocks paper in the resources section) works well as a defence in this case and would need a strong counter argument.  Here with fish pain, we just might not be as moved by it because they can''''t express it vocally or ocularly. 

So, are we saying that animals are not conscious (in the same way as humans)?

How are we defining ''conscious''?   We can come up with a list, but if we try to pin personhood on attributes, won''t we end up admitting some animals?   I find myself siding with Posner in the second letter from the link above.  He simply points out that we just know that people are people and animals are not, and act accordingly (he''s a bit more eloquent).  Doing this just makes me a low down, dirty speciesist though!

[Gareth Southwell]

Sorry for my extreme delay in responding to this. I wish I could say, "I've been thinking!", but that would just be a lie: I've just been lazy (I blame television).

As regards your two questions:

A. This is quite a sound point I think. If plants feel pain, and we ignore that, then it seems that pain cannot be a defining feature of being a person (or else our notion of a person is confused, speciesist, etc.). I think the argument for plants feeling pain is simply based on their pain behaviour (please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong): we see them reacting in certain ways to harmful stimulus, and their behaviour can be understood in terms of its similarity to our behaviour when in pain (it's like the argument from analogy, but concerning plants). Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird wrote a now-famous book on this: "The Secret Life of Plants". Plants, allegedly, not only experience pain, but also can remember those who inflict it. Now, I'm just repeating this, so it obviously requires some investigation, but if this were true then we can add "memory" to the list of criteria that plants share with human persons.

B. Knowing what animal consciousness is like would, I think, alter our attitude to them. However, we don't even know what the consciousness of other humans is like! (The problem of other minds.) What we do, as mentioned with plants in the previous point, is use the argument from analogy: this person shows pain behaviour, talks, intends things in the same way that I do, therefore they must be experiencing similar things. Now, if we look at animals (and plants), there are some similarities, but there are many dissimilarities. To take Descates's point, if animals had human-style consciousness, then they would have human-style language; they don't, therefore they don't! Note: this is a separate question from how we should treat animals (an "is" is not an "ought").

To sum up my own views, I think the problem we face here is partly conceptual, and partly moral. Conceptually, the notion of personhood seems to rely on being able to identify a distinct set of features which persons possess and non-persons don't. I think this is problematic (some non-humans have more of these features than some humans, yet we still don't allow for this in our treatment of the two cases - we don't give chimpanzees the vote, and we don't eat coma victims). The problem then is that our concept is a bit shaky - we can try to shore it up, point out that in the main we have no problem in differentiating between persons and non-persons, but ultimately the concept is ultimately a cultural construct. The problem is the lack of evidence for the soul: if we had one, and animals, plants, etc., didn't, then the personhood debate would be simpler. However, without it (or without clear evidence for it), then a distinct divide seems impossible (personhood is always a matter of degree).

Secondly, we face a moral problem: should we accord moral rights depending on the degree to which something is a person -  is it OK to eat chips but not chimps? (Sorry!) I think this is a more problematic aspect of the debate, because it is much more about value than fact (to put it simply). Do we value animal life for its own sake? What about plant life? The problem of degree is once again present: if we value certain animals over others (chimps over sheep), then how do we justify that? Because they are more like us? This seems to come back to a question of what we want, and if some will defend this view (e.g. vegetarianism), others can easily go against it on the same basis (we can eat animals because we want to).

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

SOUTHWELL!  What are you doing to me?  As though i hadn't offered up enough of my (work emaciated and ravaged) free time chasing Nietzsche up and down mountains, stopping now and then to observe all the fascinating and hitherto undiscovered flora and fauna.  Now you ressurect the persons discussion!

A.  Give me some examples of plant pain behaviour which is analogous to human.  (As an aside i've been slowly downloading the film version of 'the secret life of plants' and should have it soon)

The conceptual problem is an interesting one.  As you say

some non-humans have more of these features than some humans,

Why is human so unproblematic?  Why or When does the seperation of human and person happen?

Maybe person is just a sticky concept with no individually necessary conditions, but many sufficient ones when taken together.  Certain of these conditions entail certain rights, but not others (so no votes for the chimp, and no marinade for the coma victim).   Or it's just that the moral issue is so contentious.  'Games' as a concept is very straightforward, but what is it about things as disparate as chess, ice hockey, and tetris that makes us consider them related as games?

The move to include non humans creates a lot of difficulties.  Perhaps it is better to scrap it and simply admit that certain characteristics might mean more thoughtful treatment, even where the outcomes are the same, namely consumption and experiments.  I don't think the appeal to speciesism really works.  Even the talk of  granting animals 'personhood' smells of subtle speciesism, a way of privileging our style of consciousness: we are so different, sensitive, advanced, other, that we have to behave towards animals differently from the rest of nature - we should not even eat them! Or because they are similar to us in certain respects this means we should treat them similarly.  Short of including everything, we are going to be privileging some species over others.

I think that by the time we get to plants the concept has become pretty meaningless.  This is not to single out plants, but just to wonder where any justifiable stopping point is going to be once we get going.  Okay, humans. What about great apes? Okay, great apes too then.  Well, what about monkeys? Monkeys, fine.  Dolphins?  Sure!  Well what about....

Do we value animal life for its own sake? What about plant life?

What about human life?  Are we to value these others at the expense of human lives that might otherwise be lost due to lack of food or disease?  Are we not to value human life for its own sake then? 

if we value certain animals over others (chimps over sheep), then how do we justify that?

We do value certain animals over (and under) others: as pets and companions, as sacred, as helpful, as beautiful, as dangerous, disgusting, as pests, as teachers, inspirations... There is a whole constellation of ways we value animals.  Now, what justification does any of this need?

The problem is the lack of evidence for the soul: if we had one, and animals, plants, etc., didn't, then the personhood debate would be simpler.

Ah, but then what kind of soul would it be?  What if some of us had evil or doomed souls?  Would we be lower than soul-less animals?  And then discovering that we have souls might just mean we didn't have a way of detecting animal and plant souls which may be different or greater.  Or the debate might be made more difficult in the way you mentioned Kant earlier - perhaps how we treat other organisms reflects on our soul or changes it...
(what weird stuff to think about)

I find it very difficult to express myself on this issue (or take a side), so sorry if any or all of the above is unclear.

[Gareth Southwell]

I'm very sorry, but my mother always told me, "Always engage people in discussion on two fronts simultaneously. That way you will confuse and disorient them." Bless her. 

A. Examples of plant pain behaviour would all be "external". However, our understanding of the significance of other people's behaviour is also based on external cues. Examples would therefore be similar: curling up or away from painful stimuli, protecting itself, affected organic functioning, etc. The general point is that pain (as an external phenomena) is not a strictly human thing. The question is whether there is also anything going on "inside".

Persons: I think we're singing from the same hymn sheet here, except perhaps that I would question why certain features seem sufficient. (Games? I sense the ghost of Wittgenstein here...?) I take your point that the difficulty of defining a stopping point may lead us into farce, but I'm primarily interested in what causes us to stop. I believe that it is for non-conceptual reasons (i.e. for questions of value or other non-rational factors). I also think your point about speciesism is particularly well made - especially that we one consequence of accepting it is that we are "too sensitive/different" to behave LIKE animals (e.g. eat each other). So, in conclusion, I'm not denying that the notion of persons isn't important or useful, but merely pointing out that we draw the boundaries for reasons outside of the need for impartial definition of concepts (where does that need spring from anyway?).

I'll skip your next two points, because I think you are agreeing with me here in proposing that we make such calls on the basis of what we - as humans - value. However, you do ask, "what further justification do we need"? This sounds like "we have our values, why should we justify them?" I'm not against this, but perhaps you could elaborate on this point?

Ah, yes, the soul. I think you are right here. In one sense, it would be simpler if the soul were the deciding factor, but you rightly point out that this simply begs the question as to how we treat "non-persons". Also, of course, in the human sphere, the soul can be used for conflicting purposes (coma victim: they are still alive, they have a soul; they will never again be conscious, we must free their trapped soul). So, I concede this point.

Now, back to Nietzsche on the western flank...

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

I apologize for the bad form on my part of not mentioning where i had agreed with you in your just prior post (the same hymn sheet) and proceeding to just think out loud.

A.  I don't think the cues themselves are what is significant, but that they are grounded in what is going on inside, in other words, a lot of background assumptions or knowledge: that the person has a nervous system, that it works, that they are not drugged, that they've experienced something which might or must be painful, that they are or aren't pretending, etc.

I'm not sure that 'pain as an external phenomena' makes sense or that the analogy from our pain behaviour = experiencing pain to another organisms pain behaviour = their experiencing pain works without the smuggled in premises that the organism is like us in other ways (is conscious, has a working nervous system, etc). 

I'm not denying that the notion of persons isn't important or useful, but merely pointing out that we draw the boundaries for reasons outside of the need for impartial definition of concepts

But there are so many we's: animal activists, research scientists, meat eaters, vegetarians, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, Corleones, Tattaglias, and so on.  If we aren't drawing the boundaries impartially, drawing our own boundaries based on our values, doesn't this make the concept damaged goods? 

you do ask, "what further justification do we need"? This sounds like "we have our values, why should we justify them?" I'm not against this, but perhaps you could elaborate on this point?

I'll dodge this one for a little while longer (this is a horribly busy work period), though i'll admit that my question needs to be cleaned up and perhaps posted in a different thread.  I didn't mean it so much as  "why should we justify them?" as how can one position be more justifiable than another? (perhaps especially because there isn't an impartial persons concept)

[Gareth Southwell]

Well, once again, we're partly agreeing here. I was arguing that pain is MORE than external behaviour (what is going on inside is most significant). The other things you mention - the working nervous system, the possibility of pretence, etc. - are external forms of evidence that we may use to work out the internal reality. However, there is a problem here. We don't know what it is like to be a plant or an animal. We can see external signs of pain, but we can't be sure - with animals we can be more sure (because they are more similar to us), but what is it like to be a plant? Are we to assume that there is nothing 'going on inside'? We can't know that, so our position would seem to be an assumption. The same for animals. Therefore, perhaps where we are not agreeing is as to whether pain is a sufficient criterion - I think it isn't, and I think that is what is revealed by appeal to the experience of non-human creatures.

I suppose my main theoretical point is that if we identify certain features as central to what a person is, then we do that based on choice. So, even if we can prove that plants or animals do not feel pain as we do, we are still choosing pain as a defining feature. However, what about cases where humans don't feel pain - which does occasionally happen, due to some genetic anomaly or neurological damage - are they then no longer persons? I would say not - as, I suspect, you would as well. So, potentially, we are left with a complicated network of conditions, some which are met by most cases, but borderline cases which aren't so clear (some can reason but not feel pain, some can feel pain but not reason, some have volition but not consciousness, and so on). How do we decide between these borderline cases? I think we make what has been called a "decision of significance" - i.e. a value-based judgement.

Now, you quite rightly point out that this leaves it open to abuse or change - if our values change, so do our concepts. I agree, but I'm not sure that we can avoid this. Our concepts are linked to our values, and so we must somehow defend our values (as opposed to ignoring those values and pretending that we are being strictly logical or objective). So, we COULD treat the concept of persons as "damaged goods", but then any number of other concepts would also be.

If I can sum my position up: we should resist the idea that there are objective, necessary and sufficient conditions that define concepts (such as personhood). We should also admit that our values shape these concepts, and that to defend them we must appeal to shared values (otherwise we can't move forward).

Hey, I think we're getting closer to identifying the crux of our disagreement! Don't work too hard, now - remember the work-life balance (or is it work-sleep balance? life-sleep? eat-sleep? sleep-tv...?) [fades off into incoherent mumbling]

[LostInAShaftOfSunlight]

The other things you mention - the working nervous system, the possibility of pretence, etc. - are external forms of evidence

So i just questioned your mention of external cues with... more external cues! Bad move on my part!

I don't really think we're disagreeing so much as i'm throwing you pitches and watching you hit them (and it is great fun and massively instructive).   Pain is problematic and i pretty much gave it up as a defining criterion in my 04/12/08 post.  However, the points i find acceptable in that post also have their exceptions and problems.

For me the central difficulty is what you've summed up as your main theoretical point:

if we identify certain features as central to what a person is, then we do that based on choice

I don't think i'm wrong in calling this perspectival.  Forget trying to defend it to other people for the moment.  For me perspectivism is a thoroughly personal problem.  So here i am, this biologically, culturally, experientially, historically, and intellectually limited being.  When i think about it i find i can't get to the bottom of my beliefs or values or why certain arguments for them are enough for me to accept them; and here are these concepts defined by what we believe and value! (this is bad enough without adding on the idea that i am not any kind of enduring substance, but a collection of competing drives or wills being expressed here)

Maybe this is the kind of courage Nietzsche is about: facing up to this, creating and defending our values, trying to harness these wills.

Now we are way off topic and i do apologize.  I think i need some kind of philosophical rehabilitation.

[Gareth Southwell]

Philosophical rehab! Now, what form would that take? 

Yes, I think we've arrived at pretty much my own position as regards concepts (which, as you've guessed, is fairly Nietzschean). I think the next step is to recognise that we don't have to give up on defining these types of concept - just because they involve value doesn't mean we have to leave them alone. However, it seems to me that we are starting out on a different type of philosophy here - one that recognises that we cannot ignore these drives and values (as a lot of philosophy does), but rather looks to 'critique' them in an artistic way.

I think we've more or less reached the end of this particular thread, haven't we? We're broadening out now, and perhaps we can take it somewhere else in a new one.

I now have this wonderful image of myself as a sort of Babe Ruth of philosophical enquiry!