(Saturday, June 30, 7:30pm)
Cows and horses lack the kind of language required to tell us what they know, if anything, about their futures. No bovine behaviors suggest cows have autobiographical, episodic “prospection” in which they imagine themselves at specific places and times in the distant future. However, they act in ways that suggest they consciously set goals, act on hypotheses to achieve them, and react flexibly when obstacles arise. The behavioral repertoire suggests wanting, desiring, and looking forward to at least short-term future states. What do we know of the neural correlates of such prospective, anticipatory seeking? Cowshave neural networks homologous to those known in humans to support short-term prospection. Behavioral and cortical evidence suggests that cows' minds are furnished with concepts of the future.
Andrews, K. (2017). Cow persons? How to find out. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 4(4), 499-501.
Marino, L., & Allen, K. (2017). The psychology of cows. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 4(4), 474-498.
Payne, E., DeAraugo, J., Bennett, P., & McGreevy, P. (2016). Exploring the existence and potential underpinnings of dog–human and horse–human attachment bonds. Behavioural processes, 125, 114-121.
Baars, B (2005) Subjective experience is probably not limited to humans: The evidence from neurobiology and behavior. Consciousness and Cognition(2005) 14(1):7-21.
Carruthers, P (2013) Animal Minds are Real, (Distinctively) Human Minds are NotAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 50(3)
@Mr Comstock Very impressive argument. Systematic and very conceptually clear. I’m sure Mr Wise would find good uses for it since autonomy was the central issue from the legal standpoint. Specifically the use of the variation in cognitive ability in humans to extend rights for non-human animals.
ReplyDeleteThanks for noting the relevance of my argument for a moral right to life for cows to Steven Wise's efforts to secure their legal rights. I've worked with a group of philosophers to provide an amicus brief for Steve's Nonhuman Rights Project and their work on behalf of two chimpanzees. https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/update-motion-philosophers-brief/ Our group includes many Canadian philosophers, and Kristin Andrews, an early presenter at the Summer School. I commend their works to everyone.
DeleteAdam Shriver is also a member of our group; he'll be presenting on Thursday.
DeleteI'm looking foward to it!
Delete@ Mr. Kona Boun
ReplyDeleteI found myself sobbing violently after only a few images presented. This is the one presentation that I was happy to watch from home. I cannot begin to understand why animal suffering can be a product of entertainment or can be entertaining in any way. I ended up angry and very worked up! There is no way to better the welfare of non-human animals unless those rodeos are seen are archaic, cruel and immoral. The direct consumption of animal suffering (rodeos, dog-fights, etc…) as entertainment must end before the quest to end the suffering of animals as byproduct can start to end.
Thank you for your work, I cannot imagine how hard it was for you to look over and over at those abuses to objectively observe and document them. My hats off to you and your work.
Thank you Elisabeth,
DeleteYou are right. Since most of the rodeo activities are inherently associated with distress, risks of injuries and pain for the animal beings, there is no way to improve the “well being” of these creatures. Even the softer activities, the gymkhana, would be difficult to improve (from a risk/pain point of view), unless they remove the use of whips, spurs, and time (since, as I said, theses activities are timed and most of the risks were associated with high speed in too tight turns, often causing falls and collisions with obstacles), which would remove any challenge and interest for the “show”.
Concerning the difficulty to witness all this brutality against animal beings and stay focused on the job/mission, I had just to think that this was a trivial pain, comparatively to what these sentient beings endured in the arena during the competition (as well as before and after the competition).
Thank you for your answer. I would not find your distress trivial. Empathy surely has a key role to play to make those abuse stop. If nothing else, we must find a way to make it contagious!
DeleteHi, I thought that your idea about the type of future planning cows may have was interesting, but I still am not sure I really understood the function of omitting the "I." I was wondering about what this omission means for what you think about cow individuality and personality. Are cows capable of seeing themselves as individuated from their environment and from other cows, are are they just sort of subsumed into their surrounding environment?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. I suspect cows have outward, world-directed, beliefs and desires that are unified, but don't have beliefs and desires that are directed inward, at themselves. So they're individuated from their environment, not subsumed by it, but don't think of themselves in this way.
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ReplyDeleteVery interesting talk.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you compared animals to that little girl who were suffering of a severe pathology. I know that a lot of people would get angry for comparing an human to an animal. I disagree. The fact that people get upset about that (just like when we compare the use of slaves - in a different time - with the condition of animals who have no rights just like slaves) proves that they consider the humans superior to animals the same way white people used to think they were superior to black people, and the same way women still have to fight for their rights.
When people say that we can't compare slaves, women, black people combat, etc. to animals, I have difficulty finding a proper answer. How would you answer to their argument?
I suspect the difficulty of having such a conversation has to do with the emotion we're referring to: shame.
DeleteShame is such an unpopular emotion that even in the field of research, in psychology, is doesn't get researched very much. But watching this video might help you find answers to your question, I bet.
Hint: she does talk about slavery, and about courage, among other things.
https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame
Étant donné l’anatomie de leur cerveau et étant l’observation que l’on fait de leur comportement, il est fort probable qu’ils aient des “désirs”. Pour ce faire, Gay Comstock réfléchit en prenant en exemple un être humain qui se rapprocherait de la vache, mais qui aurait vraiment la représentation mentale de “désir”. Ainsi, on ne peut pas se mettre dans la tête d’une vache pour savoir de manière indubitable si elle est consciente de son futur de la même manière que nous. Toutefois, on peut avoir plus d’une piste de solution, on peut avoir plusieurs “évidences”, en étudiant son comportement et sa neuroanatomie tout en les comparant avec des cas humains semblables. Ce n’est ainsi pas totalement “impossible” de savoir si elle pense de manière consciente à son futur et ce qu’elle ressent en y pensant. De cette manière, concernant la question éthique à savoir si nous avons un devoir moral de “sauver” ces vaches de la souffrance, il semble que la réponse soit oui.
ReplyDeleteInteresting complementary article about dairy cows: The cognitive issues of the calves' premature separation from their mother: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0098429
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ReplyDeleteThank you for the talk. Considering the behavioral and neural correlates highlighted in the presentation, I think we could assume that cows have the capacity to make choices. In a different (read better) world, animals would be free and considered autonomus individuals. However, living in the wild would most likely expose them to numerous predators, shortening their lifespan considerably. In your opinion, would the cows be aware of that and seek alternatives? Would they be able to make the choice to work (providing milk) in exchange for shelter, food and protection from predators? Would it be ethical?
ReplyDeleteNous nous projetons constamment dans la future. Je pense à ce que je vais faire dans la semaine, à mes buts personnels, etc. Chez les humains, cette projection est souvent considérée comme consciente et volontaire. Chez les animaux, c’est encore questionnable. L’exemple donné avec les vaches est très intéressant, surtout qu’elles ont certaines structures cérébrales similaires aux nôtres qui jouent un rôle dans la prospection. Cependant, le comportement décrit de la vache concerne un stimulus alimentaire, ce qui peut être une source de motivation supplémentaire. L’animal agit ainsi peut-être uniquement pour combler un besoin biologique (se nourrir). L’Homme utilise la prospection pour toutes sortes de raisons.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that some people justify harming animals because they do not think about their past or their future, and therefore are only aware of the present moment.
ReplyDelete- Being present in the here and now is exactly what people practicing mindfulness or some other form of meditation are striving for.
- Maybe this should not serve as a criterion?
Je crois qu'il faut distinguer l'anticipation de «imaginer le futur». Faire le lien entre un type de stimulus et ce qui survient ensuite n'exige pas une cognition complexe. La théorie du traitement prédictif stipule que le cerveau fonctionne exactement ainsi. J'adère à cette théorie et il me semble raisonnable de l'appliquer au cerveau de l'ensemble des mammifères, dont les vaches. De ce fait, les vaches seraient en mesure d'anticiper beaucoup de choses, simplement y aurait-il une différence de complexité entre les anticipations des vaches et les anticipations des humains.
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