Is it reasonable to think that animals have self awareness?

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I was listening to a priest on Catholic radio say that animals do not have self-awareness.

He cited the case of Nim Chimpsky (a play on the name Noam Chompsky). It turned out, according to this priest, that the primate named Nim did not become or behave as a human would even though he was raised as one. That he did not have self-awareness.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
I was listening to a priest on Catholic radio say that animals do not have self-awareness.

He cited the case of Nim Chimpsky (a play on the name Noam Chompsky). It turned out, according to this priest, that the primate named Nim did not become or behave as a human would even though he was raised as one. That he did not have self-awareness.

Peace,
Ed
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It is not obvious to me why self-awareness would require human behavior.
 
I assume when the OP asks about self-awareness, he is speaking of the kind of self-awareness that humans possess. He is not referring to the awareness of a slug that crawls out of the sun to avoid being dried up. St. Thomas assigns to all life three types of souls, the nutritive soul, the sensitive soul and the rational soul. While all animals have sensitive self-awareness, only a rational creature has rational self-awareness. Such awareness has (at least) a will, a conceptual faculty, and language. The will is what defines rational self-awareness when it conflicts with external forces and other wills. The ability to form rational concepts makes it possible to form a concept of self. The ability to speak and employ words has a two-fold purpose. Firstly, it is the building block of concepts. Some may argue that a concept is pre-lingual, however we only recognize them when they appear in the mind as words. Even if one disputes the necessity of language for the formulation of concepts, the second role for which language is indispensable is the communication of concepts. This is the major empirical test for conceptual ability. Whatever is purported to be conceptualizing must be able to respond to my queries, and it must be able to do so with a certain degree of loquacity. When Koko the gorilla says “give me candy” or Watson the computer says that the sun is 150 million kilometers from earth, I have grounds for doubting the rationality of these responses. However, if I ask something for an example of when it employed will, conceptualization, and language, and it not only understands the question but supplies sufficient detail to indicate a real experience, I would be more inclined to admit that it had rational self-awareness. We have yet to find a non-human that can do this.

The attempt to anthropomorphize animals is having an adverse and perhaps unexpected effect. The intention may have been to elevate animals in our understanding and thus have them treated more humanely. What is actually happening is the devaluation of humans. We are not giving gorillas the vote, or cows bank accounts. We are instead modeling human behaviour on animal behaviour, we treat embryos as if they were slugs, and the poor as if they were cattle. St. Thomas may have foreseen such problems, for the only way to bring animals and humans into equality is to eliminate that which is uniquely human.
 
Moontown_Rabbit said:
I assume when the OP asks about self-awareness, he is speaking of the kind of self-awareness that humans possess.
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I don’t think the OP would make that assumption. That would really be anthropomorphizing animals, your analysis of which I fully agree with.
He is not referring to the awareness of a slug that crawls out of the sun to avoid being dried up.
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Almost all animals possess self awareness to varying degrees and so to do a lot of bacterial life forms, at least when defined in terms of self preservation reflexivity. Obviously, the higher the life form, the more complex and more difficult the definition of self awareness becomes. In post 13 I asked someone to state what they meant by self awareness, but no-one attempted to do so. St. Thomas assigns to all life three types of souls, the nutritive soul, the sensitive soul and the rational soul. While all animals have sensitive self-awareness, only a rational creature has rational self-awareness. Such awareness has (at least) a will, a conceptual faculty, and language. The will is what defines rational self-awareness when it conflicts with external forces and other wills. The ability to form rational concepts makes it possible to form a concept of self. This point you raised is very important. The ability to form a rational concept of self is how I’d diffentiate human self awareness from animal self awareness.
The ability to speak and employ words has a two-fold purpose. Firstly, it is the building block of concepts. Some may argue that a concept is pre-lingual, however we only recognize them when they appear in the mind as words. Even if one disputes the necessity of language for the formulation of concepts, the second role for which language is indispensable is the communication of concepts. This is the major empirical test for conceptual ability. Whatever is purported to be conceptualizing must be able to respond to my queries, and it must be able to do so with a certain degree of loquacity. When Koko the gorilla says “give me candy” or Watson the computer says that the sun is 150 million kilometers from earth, I have grounds for doubting the rationality of these responses.
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I’d say a computer can’t help but be logical, which is different from being rational and I’d say the chimp is being logical also, but with a degree of rationality. Neither give cause to beleive that they have a sense of self. There are many examples of people who have no language skills, but who have a sense of self, of self identity.
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The attempt to anthropomorphize animals is having an adverse and perhaps unexpected effect. The intention may have been to elevate animals in our understanding and thus have them treated more humanely. What is actually happening is the devaluation of humans. We are not giving gorillas the vote, or cows bank accounts. We are instead modeling human behaviour on animal behaviour, we treat embryos as if they were slugs, and the poor as if they were cattle. St. Thomas may have foreseen such problems, for the only way to bring animals and humans into equality is to eliminate that which is uniquely human.
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Well said.
I blame the utilitarianism of Peter Singer and the sheeple who sing his praises and follow his preachings. The extremists who do follow his beliefs seem to abandon rationality and to embrace emotivism.
 
What if the value of humanity does not lie in its uniqueness? Or ability, intelligence, perception, etc etc. Indeed, it is hardly civilised to say that those with reduced linguistic/reasoning capabilities are less worthy of kind treatment, so we tacitly live by this.

The only thing stopping us consequently giving proper recognition to the value of animal life is that we have to eat them, not that doing so would reduce humanity.
 
Bobber90 said:
What if the value of humanity does not lie in its uniqueness? Or ability, intelligence, perception, etc etc. Indeed, it is hardly civilised to say that those with reduced linguistic/reasoning capabilities are less worthy of kind treatment, so we tacitly live by this.
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That’s a good question.

So, if we ascribe value to humanity on grounds other than its “uniqueness”, what are they?
The only thing stopping us consequently giving proper recognition to the value of animal life is that we have to eat them, not that doing so would reduce humanity.
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What do you mean by “proper recognition”?
 
Bobber90 said:
The only thing stopping us consequently giving proper recognition to the value of animal life is that we have to eat them
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One of the reasons that Christ appeals is that His words do not violate common sense. When He tells us that in the eyes of God one human is worth more than a hundred sparrows, this resonates. Upon discovering that his attic is infested with a hundred disease carrying bats, the sane man does not have to consult anyone before destroying them all to protect the life of his children. If he does decide to consult someone, he will find Christ approving his action and the rabid animal rights activist outraged. This is why the sane man follows Christ and ignores the others.
 
John21652 said:
That’s a good question.

So, if we ascribe value to humanity on grounds other than its “uniqueness”, what are they?
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I think the ability to suffer comes with the duty to care. That is a concrete thing which gives value to humanity - we are selfish in our point of view (“I” is singular), but we empathise with and respect other people, and project our self-worth onto them. In this way we recognise that we ought to value humanity.
John21652 said:
What do you mean by “proper recognition”?
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If we have reason to believe that another animal can suffer, we owe it care when we interact with it. Not that we can have soul-searching conversations with animals, nor avoid the imperative of self-defense, but if we did not benefit so greatly from eating them, we might already be acting according to this understanding. In doing so, we would not reduce humanity but make it more humane.
 
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