1463rd Meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (CAAS)
January 10, 2018
The Whitney Center in Hamden, Connecticut
Chelsea Harry, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University
Animal Cognition: Capacity for the Good Life and How Humans Can Help Non-Humans Flourish
The president of CAAS convened the meeting and immediately and turned the meeting over to the Vice President for Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), Professor David Pettigrew who organized the meeting.
Professor Pettigrew introduced the following new members from SCSU:
Maria Diamantis, Ed.D., Professor of Mathematics Education
Joel M. Dodson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English
Cassi A. Meyerhoffer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology
Natalie R. Starling, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Counseling and School Psychology
Robert S. Prezant, Ph.D., Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
The above were approved as members of CAAS by voice vote.
Professor Pettigrew introduced the speaker: Chelsea Harry, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University
And her topic: “Animal Cognition: Capacity for the Good Life and How Humans Can Help Non-Humans Flourish.”
Left: Professor Pettigrew
Right: Professor Harry
Professor Harry opened her talk by showing a collage of photographs of animals. She asked the audience: what doesn’t belong if anything?
She pointed out that we tend to interpret our human-non-human relationship by reviewing various positions from both philosophic thinkers and scientific traditions.
She referred to two alternate schools of thought: (1) that humans and non-humans are fundamentally different or (2) not fundamentally different from humans. The idea that non-humans can feel pain and thus are owed compassionate treatment by humans is typically described as the utilitarian position, which maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain.
Traditionally, and this is made explicit by David Degrazia, Aristotle is the beginning of unfair and immoral treatment of non-humans.
It is held to be fact that Aristotle thought both that humans are fundamentally different from non-humans; that non-humans should thus be used as fodder for human needs and desires, and that this is true regardless of whether or not non-humans feel pain.
However, Professor Harry questioned that this belief is necessarily true of Aristotle. So, she puts him with a question as to whether non-humans and humans are as different as we may think.
Professor Harry pointed out that in Aristotle’s case, there appears to be a disparity between what he says in his political work about the relationship between human and non-human animal and what he says about non-human animal capacity in his psychological and biological works.
Physics book 2 is Aristotle’s most general work about natural philosophy and science. In book two Aristotle covers topics as wide ranging as the meaning of nature and his famous and robust system of causal explanation. We see in this passage specifically that Aristotle believes that every species or kind has a specific inherent principle by nature, toward which the organism is directed in life. Therefore, it seems that non-humans may have some sort of cognitive capacity or psychic capacity that they are designed by nature to pursue. Perhaps, by pursuing such an activity, these organisms could even be said to live life well.
Professor Harry offered an interpretation of what non-human animal cognition or psychic capacity could mean. She suggested the Latin word cognoscere, means “getting to know”. Getting to know can happen by way of various means, not just reason!
In order to address what these non-human animal capacities could be, the speaker touched on diverse philosophical and scientific traditions from various eras, ending with a discussion of souls, again referring to Aristotle and his description of souls and their capacities as well as subsequent Christianized versions such as the “great chain of being.”
In the great chain of being, the best outcome for a non-human is to exist high enough on the chain so that they are considered to feel pain; this then provides them compassion. However, circling back away from the contemporary chain of being, and returning to Aristotle’s original proposal for psychic function, Professor Harry argued that we have forgotten an important part of cognition. It is not simply a leap from reason to feeling; sense perception is between the two, and it is in fact by way of sense perception that non-human animals get to know the world, others, and themselves.
Scientists are also able to gather information about non-human animal cognition from specialized equipment like functional MRI scanners, which provide information about areas of the brain and hopefully how they work.
Professor Harry then refers to some examples of Aristotelian naturalism from his works “History of Animals, Generation of Animals.”
Aristotle’s examples to indicate non-human animal sensing typically come from his own or an associate’s experience with hunting these animals, as they are generally stories of humans introducing or preventing sounds in order to trap, catch or confuse them.
Contemporary experiments in non-human animal science confirm that dogs have superior olfaction, so much so that we regularly exploit their capacities for our own benefit. Examples of this include using them to detect explosives, drugs, cancer, chemical stimuli, among other substances and diseases at the micro level.
In fact, research as recent as in the last year has produced experiments that have shown that dog olfaction is not only how a dog knows others and the world but themselves as well!
Professor Harry made brief reference to Yale’s Canine Cognition Center : studying human-dog relationship, eye-contact, how dogs think.
She finished by discussing the necessary companion question regarding how we can then treat non-human animals fairly. Her proposal is that we move away from always trying to protect non-human animals from pain, and move away from a paradigm of paternalism.
Professor Harry returned to her opening collage. She urged the audience to note that these photographs look quite similar to the ones introduced as evidence of the “great chain” as being true. Here, however, we have two photographs that seem out of place: the dog lying on the couch, and the dog out for a run on a beautiful day with his or her human parent. But, given what we have just covered, I would like to suggest that these non-human animals are not being well taken care of. Their greatest cognitive capacities, that by which they get to know the world, others, and themselves, is retracted as a consequence of the environment in which they are being raised. This happens because we do not as always consider non-human animal cognition as a means by which non-human animals have the capacity to flourish.
QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD
Question: What about zoo keepers of America
Answer: There are people trying to use large balls. But, keeping animals in a pen, especially migratory animals, is not keeping them in a natural situation. There are concerns.
Question: Will we be closing zoos? We have seen the closing of circuses.
Answer: I don’t want to be glib. But, I don’t think animals in zoos are flourishing.
Question: My son has a two-way door where his cats flourish by bringing home dead birds, and other dead animals. So, the cats flourish, but the other animals are not flourishing.
Answer: The issue of death is a whole other issue. The birds may have flourished before death.
Question: I am a biologist. Darwin would love to talk with you. How has Darwin influenced your thinking?
Answer: I always get these types of questions. Some domestic animals play with toys. I’m not sure what to say about adaptations in domestic animals who play with toys. We know from studies that fox populations in Russia can be domesticated.
Question: I’m curious about the question of personhood. How do you look through your lens to see this question of personhood?
Answer: It seems to make sense that efforts are going on. I propose going in a different direction. Don’t look at it from our perspective. More reverence of non-human animals.