Are Animals Self-Aware?

Philosophy is interested in animal self-awareness for several reasons; philosophy asks, if humans have a place in nature, then we must ask what relation, similarities, and differences humans have with other things that exist in nature. The second reason is that if it were determined that animals possess self-awareness, then the boundaries of scientific knowledge and methodology would become more open and expansive. The third reason is that if animals do not possess self-awareness, then one can no longer raise ethical objections against medical and biological researchers who experiment on animals, or even against farmers and poultry producers for raising them in the most unethical conditions.

The fourth reason is that if it turns out that animals also have self-awareness, then one can challenge the validity and correctness of research on self-awareness that has ignored animal self-awareness. Despite all these questions, the issue of animal self-awareness is still a matter of debate and dispute. One could even say that this issue is taboo among scientists. Although many people believe that animals have conscious experiences. Sooner or later, science or philosophy must determine its position on this issue. The answer that science or philosophy gives to this question could transform our picture of the world. In this program, we will address the arguments that support animal self-awareness. And in the next program, we will examine the arguments that claim animals do not have self-awareness.

The Argument from Similarity

If we look at domestic animals, we might find similarities between the behavior of these animals and human behavior. But scientific ethological and neurological research has also found similarities between animal and human behavior. The reactions that many animals, especially mammals, have to painful events lead many people to think that animals can also understand pain and suffer from it.

Animals, like humans, produce distinct and specialized vocalizations, react to fear, nurse injured animals, learn what is dangerous and avoid it like humans do, and suffer from visual disorders like humans; all of these increase the suspicion of similarity between animals and humans.

Even in the field of neurology, animals share commonalities with humans; the brain anatomy of all mammals is very similar and also shares many similarities with the brain anatomy of vertebrates. Even if there were fundamental and structural differences between their brain anatomies, we could still claim that animals are capable of having self-awareness.

Countless studies have been conducted on the conscious state, using animals as proxies for humans to measure the relationship between self-awareness, neural activity, and behavior. Most of this research has been related to the issue of pain in the human body. This research can only be considered valid if there are similarities between humans and animals.

But the existence of such similarities still cannot be proof that animals are sensitive like humans or to the same degree as humans. Humans possess a characteristic that even animals close to humans lack; among all creatures, it is only humans who can play chess. Playing chess is an example of self-awareness. The similarities between humans and animals do not justify saying that the cognitive and perceptual principles of animals and humans are the same.

Inference to the Best Explanation

Now that we have understood that the argument from analogy between humans and animals is very flimsy and weak, we can cobble together a theoretical foundation to link the observable (behavioral and neural) characteristics of animals to consciousness. In order to study consciousness, we must be able to identify behavior, because only a conscious being can perform the act of explanation or interpretation, not an unconscious one; a conscious being can arrive at the best explanation and interpretation through a strategy of inference.

If a being knows what purpose consciousness serves, then it can use that knowledge to infer the existence of that consciousness and apply it. Research has shown that animals can communicate with one another and solve problems. Nevertheless, some critics believe that there is no systematic and organized connection between these behavioral examples in animals and consciousness.

On the other hand, proponents of this theory say that perhaps the consciousness found in animals serves to compensate for the deficiencies of their nervous systems. That is, perhaps consciousness is more valuable for a bee than for a human.

The mental capacity that animals have for correcting their perceptual errors could be a reason to think that perhaps animals also possess consciousness. Of course, error correction itself is not proof of consciousness; if an animal can use the rule or principle obtained after correcting a perceptual error for a subsequent situation, then we can say that animals have consciousness.

The Interpretive Approach

Some philosophers say that the consciousness of non-human animals is not related to inference, but rather to interpretation. John Searle says, "When I enter a room, I do not infer that my dog is a conscious animal, rather I assume that the individuals in the room are conscious. I interact with these individuals in a way that is appropriate for a relationship with a conscious being. I simply treat these individuals as I treat conscious beings."

Although from a psychological perspective, Searle's statement may be correct, it lacks sufficient competence and is not justified from a legal, ethical, or scientific standpoint. On the other hand, this statement by Searle leads us toward the hermeneutics of animals; understanding the mental state of animals is related to human perception and interpretation. Familiarity and interaction with a dog can make a person a sensitive interpreter; an interpreter who is more sensitive to the dog's emotional and cognitive state than other interpreters.

Nevertheless, even among scientists who are sympathetic to this subject and sensitive to the topic of animal mental richness, a lack of empirical research is felt. To understand whether the imprisonment of tigers in a zoo causes them distress or not, to understand whether fish feel pain when they are caught or not, we need empirical criteria.

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Are Animals Self-Aware?

Author: Hamid Parnian

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