Peter Carruthers and Brute Experience; Descartes Revisited

FLSF 15, 2013

Rene Descartes is considered by many philosophers of ethics as the main figure of the view that animals do not feel pain, so we can inflict pain to them by killing, eating and experimenting. However, in this paper, I will give an interpretation of Descartes’ arguments concerning this issue and will conclude that on the contrary to the orthodox view, he gives credit to the idea that animals do feel pain. By means of this, this paper is going to deal with the issue of natural automaton, ‘language argument’ and the mind-body issue concerning sensations. Ultimately, I will show that, according to Descartes animals have sensations and they feel pain.

Science and Christian Belief, 2016

Considerable effort and ingenuity is expended on developing theodicies in response to the problem caused by evolution in terms of pain and suffering in creation and the fact that God is good and His creation is good. From a physiological and neurological perspective, it is clear that many creatures experience pain. However, pain is an essential part of the evolutionary process being clearly adaptive, potentially preventing a worse outcome for a creature, namely death. A more difficult question is that of suffering. It will be shown that the question of animal suffering is identical to the issue of sentience and the “hard problem” of consciousness. After reviewing the evidence for animal consciousness and then suffering, we conclude with a brief reflection on why Christians should treat animals well.

Between the Species: An Online Journal for the Study of Philosophy and Animals, 2002

According to a famous story, a Cartesian scientist (sometimes recognized as Descartes himself) once kicked a pregnant dog and when his companions berated him of his actions, he replied that the dog’s whimpers are only like the rattling of gears. This story, at least when connected to Descartes, does not seem to have historical evidence, but it sums up rather well the overall understanding contemporary laymen and philosophers alike have of Descartes’s conception of animals: that animals are merely unfeeling and non-sensing machines, incapable of emoting, sensing or even feeling pain of any kind. In this paper, I will challenge this common understanding of Cartesian animals and instead, based on Descartes’s correspondence and comments on animal behavior, argue for a more nuanced view where, despite not having a soul, animals still feel, sense and perhaps even have some rudimentary conscious states according to Descartes.

t is a common misconception that Descartes held the view that because animals cannot think, they have no feelings and do not suffer pain. In 1952, this view was described by the Scottish philosopher and psychologist Norman Kemp Smith as a ‘monstrous thesis’ (Cottingham 1978: 554-556). In this essay, I intend to examine two questions – firstly, whether Descartes actually held this view and secondly, whether this view is entailed by his other views about animal minds. My answer is essentially that whilst the text references are somewhat unclear on this specific point, it is unlikely that Descartes held this view or that it was entailed by his other related views.

1989

Nova et Vetera, 2019

Proponents of the problem of animal suffering claim that the millions of years of apparent nonhuman animal pain and suffering provides evidence against the existence of God. Neo-Cartesianism attempts to avoid this problem mainly by denying the existence of phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. However, neo-Cartesian options regarding animal minds have failed to compel many. In this essay, I explore an answer to the problem of animal suffering inspired by the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas. Instead of focusing on phenomenal consciousness, the neo-Thomistic view of animal minds focuses on self-awareness. After proposing and providing evidence for this view, I conclude that nonhuman animal suffering is not morally significant.

The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2000

In the last two decades there have been many critics of western biomedicine's poor integration of social and psychological factors in questions of human health. Such critiques frequently begin with a rejection of Descartes' mind-body dualism, viewing this as the decisive philosophical moment, radically separating the two realms in both theory and practice. It is argued here, however, that many such readings of Descartes have been selective and misleading. Contrary to the assumptions of many recent authors, Descartes' dualism does attempt to explain the union of psyche and soma -with more depth than is often appreciated. Pain plays a key role in Cartesian as well as contemporary thinking about the problem of dualism. Theories of the psychological origins of pain symptoms persisted throughout the history of modern medicine and were not necessarily discouraged by Cartesian mental philosophy. Moreover, the recently developed biopsychosocial model of pain may have more in common with Cartesian dualism than it purports to have. This article presents a rereading of Descartes' mental philosophy and his views on pain. The intention is not to defend his theories, but to re-evaluate them and to ask in what respect contemporary theories represent any significant advance in philosophical terms.

The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics, 2018

The use of animals in laboratories is a controversial issue involving much dispute between the researchers who support animal experimentation and those who are in favor of its abolishment. The former, whilst criticizing the emotional behavior of those who oppose it, consider experimentation on animals unavoidable, whereas the latter criticize animal experiments and the underlying logic as erroneous considering its methods unscientific and therefore misleading. This paper stems from the idea of researching into possible ways of developing or improving new alternative strategies for animal experimentation by finding adequate solutions beyond dogmatic opposition in the context of the current European Directive 2010/63/EU (the main reference point for the experimentation on animals) for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. More specifically the paper aims at offering the readers a working proposal, while duly respecting the protocol for the post mortem donation of their own corpses for the purposes of study and research. As we believe diseases need to be cured and not only treated, we are advocating post mortem studies on organs which could lead to the discovery of the causes of unknown etiological pathologies. The commitment to the implementation of constantly new and innovative alternatives concerning animal experimentation is right and proper, especially in the light of the 'enormous debt' which the Italian National Bioethics Committee stated that mankind has towards nonhuman living beings.