Do animals have consciousness?

[Maelstrom1]

Watch out now. Don’t get caught up in the idea that apologists and theologians have a special insight into God. It’s much more of a job that they use to support themselves. Don’t let them drive you away from the Church. In their arrogance they might think they know everything but they do not; such is the Cross they have to bear. Don’t allow your Faith to be determined by someone in position at a university or writing in their own blog. Make an informed decision, of course, but do not surrender to possible human folly.

 

[AlNg]

why do Catholic apologists, theologians, and others, deny that animals feel pain and suffer?

Because they are ignorant and have not been to a slaughterhouse. Posts here linking to videos showing the excruciating pain and suffering of animals subject to slaughterhouse cruelty have been flagged and then taken down with a warning to me that those posts violated the CAF rules.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

jan10000:

It is common in Catholic apologetics that animals do not feel pain.

Huh? Can you provide a citation?

William Lane Craig defends his ridiculous claim that animals don’t suffer – Why Evolution Is True

Hang on a second: you asserted that this is common in Catholic apologetics. William Lane Craig doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church. More to the point, he isn’t even a Catholic – he’s a Baptist.

If you want to support your claims, I would ask that you not attempt to change the discussion. Very naturally, I’m not going to defend viewpoints that aren’t Catholic.

So… let’s try again: you claimed that “animals don’t feel pain” is an assertion that’s part and parcel of Catholic apologetics. Do you have anything to substantiate that claim?

The problem of animal suffering is specifically related to the earth being 4B years old any many species lived, died, suffered, became extinct, and so forth - for no purpose whatsoever - long before human beings evolved.

How do you reach the conclusion “for no purpose whatsoever”? That’s the heart of your claim, after all. How can you argue that position rationally?

There are only two responses:

There’s at least a third response: “it’s not ‘for no purpose whatsoever’”. But, since you’ve already made that positive claim, let’s see your argument to support it.

Animals of course can be included in the general ‘problem of evil’ (which also has no answer)

Actually, it does have an answer. It’s generally ignored by those who pose the question, but the answer really is out there.

Do you then have a resolution for the theological problem of animal suffering?

That’s not the way it works: you made the claim that there’s a ‘problem’ here. Before you require a response to the claim, you have to substantiate that there actually is a problem. If there’s no problem that you can substantiate, then there’s no need to respond. So… whence the ‘problem’?

What really interests me - and to be honest, disgusts me - is why do Catholic apologists, theologians, and others, deny that animals feel pain and suffer?

Why do you keep making this claim without even attempting to demonstrate that it is true?

 

[John_Martin]

I think Taffy, based on an understanding of the options available to him, has made a free will decision. Who could possibly disagree?

Free will is about doing something that is work but has no power of itself to satisfy an appetite. Going on a walk/run is appetite if it makes Taffy enjoy, but it is free will if he is doing it to be available as your protection in case a villain might appear on your run; if he turns to go home in the sight of the difficulty he is again “doing appetitive movement”. He would have no satisfaction felt in the doing of the difficult activity of running with you in your exuberance if he has free will (as he might have felt licking a bowl of ice cream), yet would be “happy” that he took care of your possible future well being as he plops on the ground after the run in bodily fatigue.

 

[AlNg]

Free will is about doing something that is work but has no power of itself to satisfy an appetite.

I think that it is possible for a particular choice made to satisfy an appetite.

 

[Freddy]

John_Martin:

Free will is about doing something that is work but has no power of itself to satisfy an appetite.

I think that it is possible for a particular choice made to satisfy an appetite.

Indeed. Chocolate or vanilla?

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The term free will indicates more just a decision. More than a baseline rationale like a dogs decision to go or stay based on loyalty, tiredness, and anything else - which, btw I think is just barely making the cut for a dictionary definition of rationality.

Free will indicates the ability to rise above base appetites, training and instincts, which your dog probably cannot do.

That’s the difference in animal rationality and human rationality that I tried to explain up thread. A dog cannot love its enemy by use of its will - a person can.

 

[John_Martin]

Indeed. Chocolate or vanilla?

My puppy will not choose, but eat both.
Anyway, I think not many here pay heed to the fact that Free Will is different than Will.
Free Will is a Power of the Will, where it “moves” the reason to find a reasonable path to acquiring the Will’s Desired Good (like ice cream). Free Will is not choosing ice cream - that is the Will loving what the intellect has already called “Good to Consume with my Mouth”. It is Good, but “How do I get some?” That is where the Will asks my Reason for a Means to the End to be defined, and “chooses” the one that seems most effective to getting myself and the ice cream together. The Means, doing the means, walking to the store and back, does not satisfy anything, only eating the ice cream does that.

My puppy does not seek to know such things as how best to bring me home safe from a run so that we can have ice cream in peace after, both Chocolate and Vanilla. She goes on a walk because it is Good being With Me the whole way - consumption, union with me. Then eats both Chocolate and Vanilla, as Good to have on her tongue - consumption, union with the good. But no means to either end is considered by her.

 

[Freddy]

The term free will indicates more just a decision. More than a baseline rationale like a dogs decision to go or stay based on loyalty, tiredness, and anything else - which, btw I think is just barely making the cut for a dictionary definition of rationality.

Free will indicates the ability to rise above base appetites, training and instincts, which your dog probably cannot do.

That’s the difference in animal rationality and human rationality that I tried to explain up thread. A dog cannot love its enemy by use of its will - a person can.

But why are you and John defining free will only in terms that are applicable to us? We are not trying to decide if a dog would vote Democrat or Republican. Obviously it can’t. But equally obviously neither can a small child. But we wouldn’t have any problem in discussing at what stage a person develops enough mental ability to be able to do so.

What you are suggesting is that Man is the only animal that has free will when it is patently obvious that it doesn’t at the early stages of a person’s development and equally obvious that it didn’t in the early stages of our specie’s evolution. So what other conclusion could we come to other than free will develops along a continuum and isn’t simply turned on like a light switch.

So John, your dog may not have a preference for chocolate or vanilla but it will have a preference for a leisurely walk versus a hard work out. At least it will if it’s like mine. But how do we know, you might ask. Well, I gave you the evidence for that. It makes a conscious decision based on forward thinking about two options.

So please, we don’t need any more comments to the effect that a chimp can’t read music or a dolphin can’t discuss philosophy. We know that already.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

What you are suggesting is that Man is the only animal that has free will when it is patently obvious that it doesn’t at the early stages of a person’s development

There’s a lot of things little kids can’t do but adults can do. But it’s in their nature to be able to do them if they grow up.

So what other conclusion could we come to other than free will develops along a continuum and isn’t simply turned on like a light switch.

Genes can turn off and on like a light switch. Which is why I wouldn’t discount a sudden development of intelligence in evolution. I mean like in one generation.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

What you are suggesting is that Man is the only animal that has free will when it is patently obvious that it doesn’t at the early stages of a person’s development

There’s a lot of things little kids can’t do but adults can do. But it’s in their nature to be able to do them if they grow up.

So what other conclusion could we come to other than free will develops along a continuum and isn’t simply turned on like a light switch.

Genes can turn off and on like a light switch. Which is why I wouldn’t discount a sudden development of intelligence in evolution. I mean like in one generation.

Well, let’s run forward a few million years and see if dogs develop free will to the extent that would keep you happy. The corollary of your argument is that dogs at this moment in time do not show that. It doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential at this stage. Just like we didn’t in our evolutionary past. So that argument doesn’t stand.

And do you think we’d have some evidence of intelligence being turned on at one point in the past? There is none. Notwithstanding that intelligence and free will are not the same. Dogs are intelligent yet you would deny them having free will. So I’m afraid that doesn’t hold water either.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Just like we didn’t in our evolutionary past.

Are saying that in the evolutionary past people didn’t have the potential for intelligence? ? You’ve lost me. I don’t know what you’re saying.

And do you think we’d have some evidence of intelligence being turned on at one point in the past

Yes it’s around 70K years ago.

Dogs are intelligent yet you would deny them having free will.

Freddy, stay with me here. Dogs don’t do things out of charity. They don’t love their enemy. They cannot muster enough will to overcome their wants - just like a very small child.

 

[AlNg]

Then eats both Chocolate and Vanilla,

No. Some cats will eat Nine Lives chicken but not Whiskas chicken. They will freely choose to eat one and they will freely choose not to eat the other.

 

[John_Martin]

As I said above, and as defined by authorities, free will is not equivalent to “will”; free will is a “power of the determined will” (the determined will is the will already set on what it is going to unite with).
A dog can love an easy walk and hate a strenuous run and can imagine one or the other ahead, visualize it coming. But it never visualizes that I may be in danger and (here is free will) never chooses to run with me to protect me even though it finds no goodness in the effort.

As a power of the will, free will is not used until a child becomes aware of his agency in being able to plan his action, that he is not tied to being reactionary to appetites, but can move where there is no appetite, no desire. Then when he chooses such movement of himself he is entering into free will, being finally powerful as a free agent rather than determined by appetite.

 

[John_Martin]

Then eats both Chocolate and Vanilla

I believe a cat would like both kinds of ice cream, though. Many decades since I have had a cat, though.

 

[AlNg]

I believe a cat would like both kinds of ice cream,

Possibly but they appear to be making free choices wrt other foods.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Just like we didn’t in our evolutionary past.

Are saying that in the evolutionary past people didn’t have the potential for intelligence? ? You’ve lost me. I don’t know what you’re saying.

And do you think we’d have some evidence of intelligence being turned on at one point in the past

Yes it’s around 70K years ago.

Dogs are intelligent yet you would deny them having free will.

Freddy, stay with me here. Dogs don’t do things out of charity. They don’t love their enemy. They cannot muster enough will to overcome their wants - just like a very small child.

I mean that we obviously didn’t have free will in our deep evolutionary past but we do now. Could we have said that we had ‘potential free will’ back then? No. So you can’t say the same thing about other animals - that they don’t have the potential now.

And 70,000 years ago is just when it is proposed that we left Africa. There’s nothing about an instant (and that is your proposal) appearance of intelligence. In fact, there are multiple examples of intelligence a very long time before that - well over a million years before.

And yet again you are using human standards by which to judge that which is exhibited by animals. Which is not the point of the exercise.

 

[EndTimes]

Similar but quite different. If you are a Creationist,

Anyone who even uses the term ‘creationist’ in an argument - undermines the argument.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

We obviously did have the potential. All the other hominids or Homo sapiens, whatever they were called, are gone. They may have had potential, for all intents and purposes, your dog doesn’t.

It’s a possibility that 70K years ago things evolved very quickly. I don’t know how anyone would ever know for sure.

Intelligence is a broad term. Some people think ants are intelligent.

Is the point to judge humans by traits that we see in animals??

 

[Freddy]

We obviously did have the potential. All the other hominids or Homo sapiens, whatever they were called, are gone. They may have had potential, for all intents and purposes, your dog doesn’t.

It’s a possibility that 70K years ago things evolved very quickly. I don’t know how anyone would ever know for sure.

Intelligence is a broad term. Some people think ants are intelligent.

Is the point to judge humans by traits that we see in animals??

You can only say we had potential in retrospect. If I took you back in time and showed you three creatures and asked which had the potential for free will then it would be impossible to say. Despite the fact that one of the creatures was a direct ancestor of yours. In the same way you cannot argue that any extant animal does not have the same potential. The argument is not valid.

And your argument was that intelligence appeared instantly (in a generation) around 7,000 years ago. Firstly there is zero evidence for that and certainly none that would indicate it could happen instantly. (In fact there’s a great deal of evidence that it couldn’t happen in that way). And secondly, it is obvious that intelligence arose well over a million years before that. So that argument is equally invalid.

And the point is to decide if some animals have consciousness. And currently to decide if they exhibit anything we could class as making free will decisions.