Philosopher Rene Descartes, adopting the mechanistic view of the world, infamously described creatures other than humans (lacking, as he saw it, the body-mind duality which made humans uniquely conscious) as “animal machines”, while in the nineteenth century the Zoological Journal declared that all behavior which appears to resemble characteristics of consciousness were actually little more than reflex actions. Often, people who exhibit violent or unreasonable behaviour are described as behaving like an animal, with specific creatures – asses, mongrels, pigs and so on – functioning as pejoratives. All of this can be seen as an effective way in which humans have historically absolved themselves of responsibility for the manner in which they have historically exploited the animal kingdom for their own ends – the reluctance on the part of the scientific community to acknowledge that animals are indeed conscious can be viewed as a continuation of a willful collective blindness. Yet the study of emotion in animals should have cleared up the question of consciousness in animals some time ago. As the dictionary defines it, emotion is: an affective state of consciousness in joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:05:06 +0000
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