noumenal animal
It struck me, yesterday, as I revelled in my delights about Kant’s critique of pure reason finally clicking for me (well, as much as it is going to for now), that I had actually been putting forward, what I think is, a Kantian argument for some years now.
It revolves around the question of pain in animals. My argument being that we cannot even being to use the word “pain” when talking about animals. Pain is a purely subjective, a priori condition of the human mind which it makes no sense for us to associate with animals. I guess, metaphorically, I could say that Kant would have included animals as part of the noumenal realm. Apart from seeing their reactions (scientifically measuring them) we can never comprehend anything more. The only way we can say anything about them, is via the use of human terminology, comparisons with human reactions, and by the use of human understanding. I regard as a pretty anthropocentric take on the world.
When we try to define pain we don’t define it as “ouch, that hurts”; because this could apply to an infinite number of things, and then there is also the whole pain/pleasure aspect. However, what we can define it as “I don’t like this experience, and I want it to stop happening to me”. Can we conceive of an animal going through the same thought processes? Can we conceive of animals being able to think of “me”, themselves, think about their identity, and how pain is related themselves?
No we cannot possibly conceive of this, as we don’t have access to what is like to think in such a way. However, this is in no way a denial that animals can feel pain, but rather a critique of the way humans impose their phenomological view onto the rest of the world.
For humans, we have self-consciousness, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the individual, yet we have no way of assessing this in animals. Yet we claim that an animal feels pain in the same sense that we feel pain, and this seems problematic.
The is along the lines as saying that a dog is happy when it wags its tail, we can measure certain chemicals in that dog, but I think this is a question of self-consciousness rather than a science lab.
It revolves around the question of pain in animals. My argument being that we cannot even being to use the word “pain” when talking about animals. Pain is a purely subjective, a priori condition of the human mind which it makes no sense for us to associate with animals. I guess, metaphorically, I could say that Kant would have included animals as part of the noumenal realm. Apart from seeing their reactions (scientifically measuring them) we can never comprehend anything more. The only way we can say anything about them, is via the use of human terminology, comparisons with human reactions, and by the use of human understanding. I regard as a pretty anthropocentric take on the world.
When we try to define pain we don’t define it as “ouch, that hurts”; because this could apply to an infinite number of things, and then there is also the whole pain/pleasure aspect. However, what we can define it as “I don’t like this experience, and I want it to stop happening to me”. Can we conceive of an animal going through the same thought processes? Can we conceive of animals being able to think of “me”, themselves, think about their identity, and how pain is related themselves?
No we cannot possibly conceive of this, as we don’t have access to what is like to think in such a way. However, this is in no way a denial that animals can feel pain, but rather a critique of the way humans impose their phenomological view onto the rest of the world.
For humans, we have self-consciousness, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the individual, yet we have no way of assessing this in animals. Yet we claim that an animal feels pain in the same sense that we feel pain, and this seems problematic.
The is along the lines as saying that a dog is happy when it wags its tail, we can measure certain chemicals in that dog, but I think this is a question of self-consciousness rather than a science lab.
posted by lisa | 4:52 AM
1 Comments:
Ever played with a hamster? Or any other rodent? They never sit still! Can you imagine being so nervous all the time as well as anxious and restless? Of course you can... it's interesting the way we lay our own consciousness over everything we confront - some things more than others. People more than dogs, more than hamsters. The AI and neuroscience community are at the moment, puzzling over how, if they ever achieved their goals, how to tell if a machine was conscious. Their best guess is, "if you think it is, it probably is!"
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