Can Animals Be Persons?

233 Pages·2019·2.185 MB·English

by  Mark Rowlands

Can Animals Be Persons?

Can Animals Be Persons?
Mark Rowlands
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For Emma

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
1. Animals as Persons: The Very Idea 1
2. The Ghost of Clever Hans 26
3. Consciousness in Animals 47
4. Tracking Belief 64
5. Rational Animals 85
6. Beyond the Looking Glass 107
7. Pre- Intentional Awareness of Self 127
8. In Different Times and Places 146
9. Self- Awareness and Persons 165
10. Other- Awareness: Mindreading and Shame 176
11. Animals as Persons and Why It Matters 194
Bibliography 201
Index 211
vii

Preface and Acknowledgments
Animals, Claude Levi- Strauss once suggested, are both good to eat and
good to think. I assume he had nonhuman animals in mind, and I shall adopt the
common practice of using the word animal to refer to the entire swathe of living,
non- sprouting, nonhuman forms of life. Some find the idea of categorizing such a
large segment of the earth’s biota solely in terms of their not being humans to be
a little egotistical on the part of humanity. They may well have a point. Moreover,
it can be the source of various logical confusions. Descartes once argued that an-
imals could not have immortal souls because if we granted that one species of
animal possessed such a thing, we would have to grant souls to all species— the
humble sponge was the animal he cited as a reductio of this idea. I assume there
is no need to point out how ridiculous is this argument. “Animal” does not pick
out a natural biological kind— any more than “living things that have been in my
kitchen” would pick out such a kind. However, as conceited, logically pernicious,
and biologically gerrymandered as it may be, I cannot think of any other label that
will get through the sheer amount of work as the word animal. Thus, in this book,
I shall use animal in the way explained above.
I agree with Levi- Strauss: the living, nonhuman and non- sprouting segment of
the natural world can be both good to eat and good to think. The former pleasures
have long been denied me: essentially by myself— a protracted, occasionally un-
successful exercise in self-d enial. In reality, I have little choice. You write a book
ix