The
Intentionality of Animal Actions
In 1992, Kennedy argued against the rise of anthropomorphism, and
arrived at the conclusion
that it is scientifically most likely that no non-human animals have minds at all. The book in which he
argued this can be found at this link.
I will be objecting to his arguments in order to further my thesis
that animals do in fact
possess minds. For the sake of this paper, I will be defining
minds as the presence of
intentionality in the mental states of the relevant animals being
talked about. Here,
intentionality refers to the ability of the mind to think of or
about something, for the mind to
be able to be about or represent something or someone (Standard
Encyclopedia).
Kennedy argues that anthropomorphism is on the rise in scientific
experiments related to
animals, and he says that most people just take it for granted
that animals think or feel or
explain the behaviour of animals by “merely pointing to the goal,
end or purpose of it.”
(Kennedy 1992:9) He says that –
[T]he formation of a mental image of [a] goal, end or outcome of a
conscious action precedes the performance of that action and is
the
prime cause of it. That is what we mean when we describe an action
as purposeful, intentional or goal-directed, and it is a human
mental
experience which we cannot assume that animals have. (Kennedy
1992: 10)
Therefore, he says that simply assuming the intentionality in
mental states of animals is a
result of “unwarranted anthropomorphism”.
Kennedy’s argument against this assumption is that most people who
assume animals to have
intentionality ascribe consciousness to a large number of animal
accomplishments and
capacities, in which he points out Griffin, in particular. Kennedy
argues that a large amount
of our own unconscious activity would look very clever if it was
conscious, but it is not, and
indeed that learning a social or practical skill means removing
the procedures from
consciousness, that is knowing the process so well that one no
longer needs to consciously
remember it to perform it. Therefore, Kennedy argues, if
consciousness is not always
necessarily a part of human perception and behaviour, then
“evidence that animals behave
adaptably and adaptively is not evidence that they think
consciously.” (Kennedy 1992:12)
Putting this argument into the Standard premise-conclusion form,
Premise 1: Animals are ascribed states similar to humans, due to
anthropomorphism.
Premise 2: Animals are assumed to have conscious states due to
their achievements.
Premise 3: Humans also have similar achievements, but these achievements
do not always
have intentionality or consciousness behind them.
Premise 4: If animals are ascribed states similar to humans, and
animals are assumed to have
intentionality due to their accomplishments, and humans also have
similar achievements but
their achievements do not always have intentionality or
consciousness behind them, then their
accomplishments are not proof that animals have intentionality.
Conclusion: Animal accomplishments alone are not proof that
animals have intentionality.
In this argument, Premise 1 restates Kennedy’s claim that human
mental states are being
ascribed to animals due to the rise in anthropomorphism. Premise 2
states that the reason we
assume that animals have consciousness or intentionality is
because they have certain
accomplishments. Premise 3 tells us that humans also have similar
such accomplishments,
but these are not always intentional i.e. there isn’t always
consciousness behind these actions.
Premise 4 connects all the above premises and states that since we
are assuming that animals
have similar mental states to humans, then when we know that
humans do not always have
intentionality when performing certain actions, then we should not
consider the performance
of such actions to be proof of the existence of intentionality in
animals. Hence, the logical
conclusion that is derived from these premises seems to be that
intentionality in animals
cannot be proved by the performance of these accomplishments
alone.
At first glance, this seems to be a quite logical argument, and
well-thought out. But the
argument itself assumes too many things. I would first like to
attack Premise 3. According to
Kennedy, since humans are not always conscious of their actions,
their accomplishments at
that point of time also lack consciousness or intentionality. I
disagree. Let us take for
example, any actions that a mother performs for her children.
After a point, it becomes
second nature to her to protect her children, and often she is not
even conscious of thinking
about doing so. But I would argue that this in no way means that
she has no intentionality in
protecting them. Her mind and body are acting without a conscious
thought, but this is
because it’s become a form of instinct. However, this instinct
itself is not merely physical, it
is also a mental state – of the unconscious part of the mind –
that carries an intentionality of
the own.
I would also like to take another look at Premise 4, which
establishes a connection between
the earlier premises. Kennedy argues that since we ascribe human
mental states to animals,
and humans are not always conscious of their actions; this rules
out animal actions as a
source of proof for their having intentional mental states. This
seems incorrect to me. I would
say that even if sometimes, humans do not have intentional mental
states while performing
actions (just for argument’s sake), animals still might have
intentional mental states while
performing certain actions. For example, even if we make the
distinction that only when
animals seem to perform an action that is not meant to satisfy
their immediate physiological
needs then they can be seen to have intentionality, even then we
can find examples to satisfy
one’s curiosity. Mothers protecting their children is as common in
other primates as humans.
How about pet dogs trying to comfort their owners, or even Kanzi
asking his human trainers
to hide from and chase each other (Pinker 1994 pp. 341)? It seems
clear to me that animal
actions can show that they do possess the ability to think about
or of something.
In response to my objection to Premise 3, Kennedy would likely say
that the mothers
protecting their children example comes down to a maternal
instinct that is physiological in
origin, that we were not born completely “unprogrammed.” As a
result, he would deny that
these instincts are in any way related to mental states and would
rather say that they have
nothing at all to do with intentionality.
As a rejoinder to this possible reply, I would just like to say
that a maternal instinct, while a
deeply-rooted idea in society, cannot seem to be merely
physiological in nature to me. There
has to be a mental component to it, for the protection itself is
not always just physical.
Mothers try their best to protect their children from any form of
harm, including but not
limited to any mental harm. But even thing is always clear, in all
this, they have at the back of
their minds the thought that they wish to protect their children
i.e. they always have an
unconscious intention of thinking about their children, even in
their most instinctive
moments.
In response to my objection to Premise 4, I suppose Kennedy’s most
likely reply would be
that I myself have now resorted to ascribing mental states to
animals. He would say that there
is no way for me to know that the pet dogs are really comforting
their owners with the
intention of comforting them or whether that is simply a
side-effect of their real actions
which might be asking for food or any such thing. He would say
that Kanzi asking his
trainers to chase him, can also be seen as an instinct as he has
been conditioned from an early
age to ask for the same.
As a rejoinder to this reply, I would like to say that all
conditioning leads to actions that have
intentionality behind them. If an animal has been trained to
expect to be hit at the sound of
keys clanging, then it will try to avoid the attack and will
cringe out of habit. But does that
mean that this unconscious action lacks intent? I don’t think so.
I think there is a pretty clear
intentionality here – the animal is thinking about how it can
avoid being hurt. Therefore, in
this way, I would say that animal actions do have their own
intentionality.
Kennedy’s arguments against anthropomorphism are certainly worth
taking into account, and
they tell us that we should avoid such a troubling urge to ascribe
human mental states to
animals. Both animals and humans seem to have their own types of
mental states, and
comparing them is not always a good idea. However, I disagree with
him on the question of
whether non-human animals have minds. I would say that they do
indeed have minds i.e.
mental states with intentionality. And I believe that the
existence of these states and their
intentionality can be easily proved by looking at animal actions
themselves, if nothing else.
Therefore, I would like to conclude that since the intentionality
behind animal actions is
inherent in the actions themselves, it is clear that animals do
possess mental states with
intentionality, and as a result, non-human animals have minds.
