Chimpanzees and other apes are wonderful animals, fully worthy of ethical treatment and protection. But they are not human beings. They are not 98% human; they are not even half human. They are 100% animals on their own terms. The desire to see animals as human is unbearably strong. But if we are going to consider closing down AIDS and hepatitis research and giving “human” rights to chimps, we had better be certain we are not just giving in to a natural but base less, anthropomorphic tendency without solid evidence to back us up. I am not disappointed that the attempts to find human-like consciousness in apes have failed. On the contrary, I find it profoundly exciting and liberating. We are surrounded on this planet not by things-like-people dressed in fur and feathers, but by myriad beings, each with its own unique psychology. As an animal psychologist, I can’t think of any challenge more exciting than trying to understand animals in their own right and not just as dumber versions of ourselves.
This guy wants really badly to believe that animals aren’t people, so he’s likely biased.
His arguments are:
Recognizing one’s reflection and self-awareness are poorly correlated; chimps can be trained to pass theory-of-mind tests but there’s no evidence they’re using theory of mind to do so. Plus there are humans who definitely are people who still have trouble with self-awareness and theory of mind. So those tests prove nothing.
Animals pay attention to different things from humans, so they don’t have humanlike consciousness.
The latter is obviously a confusion between senses of “conscious” as “a valuable mind” and “aware of something”. The former is true, but doesn’t cover Cambridge’s main argument about emotions (states that lead to similar brain activity and behaviors in humans and animals and are described as emotions by humans, and are disrupted in similar ways by hallucinogens).
Clive Wynne, Do Animals Think?, November 1999.
See also Humans in Funny Animal Suits by EY from July 2008.
This guy wants really badly to believe that animals aren’t people, so he’s likely biased.
His arguments are:
Recognizing one’s reflection and self-awareness are poorly correlated; chimps can be trained to pass theory-of-mind tests but there’s no evidence they’re using theory of mind to do so. Plus there are humans who definitely are people who still have trouble with self-awareness and theory of mind. So those tests prove nothing.
Animals pay attention to different things from humans, so they don’t have humanlike consciousness.
The latter is obviously a confusion between senses of “conscious” as “a valuable mind” and “aware of something”. The former is true, but doesn’t cover Cambridge’s main argument about emotions (states that lead to similar brain activity and behaviors in humans and animals and are described as emotions by humans, and are disrupted in similar ways by hallucinogens).