Monday, January 25, 2010
Human/Non-Human Animals
The ability to reason and make educated decisions are the two main differences between human and non-human animals. Animals act more out of instinct than anything else; their main motivation being survival. While humans act instinctively at times, they are also driven by a moral code which often has an effect on the decisions being made. A human can take a situation and think about it in a variety of ways, such as morally, rationally, instinctively, etc., whereas an animal cannot. This would seem to be the most important difference between human and non-human animals, and one that has led us to the position we are in today.
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Although Pyrih has made some valid points, I believe his approach to showing the difference between human and non-human animals is not the most valid. He mentions that the main difference between the two is the human ability to reason and make educated decisions. This seems to imply a supreme consciousness that humans have but non-humans do not, much like the moral agents and moral patients of Tom Regan. As logical as this argument seems, we should not distinguish the two by their conscious states, but on a moral setting. Daniel Dennett notes that "We do not require absolute, Cartesian certainty that our fellow human beings are conscious- what we require is what is aptly called moral certainty." This means that we assume humans have moral values. By this idea, it is only fair to assume that non-human animals have moral values too. Although consciousness and moral values are linked, it is only fair that animals are innocent of moral fallacy until proven guilty. I therefore conclude that we should not distinguish animals from humans by their ability to think, as Pyrih claims, but by their rightfully assumed ability to have morals.
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