Descartes on the Moral Status of Animals

Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie

Volumn 80, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 268-291

  Steiner, Gary ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949309300     PISSN: 00039101     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/agph.1998.80.3.268     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Descartes, Discourse on Method, AT VI. 56-60, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (hereafter 'CSM' plus volume and page number), ed. John Cottingham, et. al., 3 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1984-91, vol. I, pp. 139-141.
2. See A. Boyce Gibson, The Philosophy of Descartes, New York: Garland, 1987, p. 214; and Norman Kemp Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes, New York: Russell and Russell, 1963, p. 136.
3. Stephen Voss has suggested that Descartes touches Upon as many as seven different criteria for distinguishing animals from human beings, namely life, soul, sensation, passions, thought, reason, and the use of language. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, tr. Stephen H. Voss, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1989, p. 48n53. One implication of the following discussion is that these seven criteria actually resolve themselves into more basic ones; for example, it will become clear that for Descartes, thought and reason are not two different criteria but instead refer to the same criterion.
4. John Cottingham, “A Brute to the Brutes?': Descartes' Treatment of Animals,” Philosophy 53 (l978): 551-559.
5. Peter Harrison, “Descartes on Animals,” Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1992): 219-227.
6. Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, pp. 166 f., 278-290, 349 f.
7. “A Brute to the Brutes?': Descartes' Treatment of Animals” p. 559.
8. “Descartes on Animals,” p. 227.
9. I will give only a brief description of this tradition. For an excellent discussion that focuses primarily on antiquity and the medieval world, see Richard Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate, Ithaca: Cornell University, 1993. A survey of philosophical positions from Aristotle to Wittgenstein concerning the essential differences between humans and animals is presented in Michael P. T. Leahy, Against Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective, London and New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 75-139. For briefer summaries of the philosophical tradition's views, see Stephen Walker, Animal Thought, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983, pp. 1-38 and Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment Of Animals, New York: The New York Review/Random House, 1975, pp. 202-232.
10. DeAnima II.2 at413a31.
11. Gilson notes that in this Aquinas follows Saint John of Damascus. See Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. Edward Bullough, New York: Dorset Press, 1948, p. 286.
12. Summa Theologiae 1, q. 78, a. 1 (Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis, New York: Modern Library, 1948, pp, 321 ff.); cf. De veritate XXII 4, ad Resp.
13. Summa Theologiae 1, q. 76, a. 3 (Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, p. 305).
14. Summa Contra Gentiles 3.112 (Animal Rights and Human Obligations, ed T. Regan and P. Singer, Englewood Ciiffs, NJ: Рrеntiсе-Hall, 1976, 59).
15. Summa Theologiae 1, q. 78, a. 4 (Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, PP- 331 ff.); cf. 1.2, q. 91, a. 6 (Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, pp. 625 ff.).
16. See Principles of Philosophy, Part I, sections 19, 23-27, 54, 63; Third and Fourth Meditations; letter to More, February 5, 1649, ATV.269 f., CSM III.361; and letter to More, April 15, 1649, ATV.343, CSM III.373.
17. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, p. 166.
18. Letter to the Marquess of Newcastle, November 23, 1646, AT IV.576, CSM III.304: si elles pensoient ainsi que nous, elles auroient une ame immortelle aussi bien que nous
19. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, p. 454-465.
20. Jeremy Bentham anticipated these sensibilities when he said that the real question in connection with our treatment of animals “is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? The Principles of Morals and Legislation, New York: Hafner, 1948, p.311n.
21. “A Brute to the Brutes?': Descartes' Treatment of Animals,” p. 553; cf. Kemp Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes, p. 135.
22. See for example “A Brute to the Brutes?': Descartes' Treatment of Animals,” p. 556.
23. “A Brute to the Brutes?': Descartes' Treatment of Animals,” p. 558.
24. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, p. 288; Cf. pp. 166 f·, 278 ff., and 349 f.
25. Grene, Descartes, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1985, p. 47.
26. Letter to Mersenne, June 11, 1640, AT III.85, CSM III. 148.
27. Letter to the Marquess of Newcastle, November 23, 1646, AT IV.574, CSM III.303.
28. Letter to Plempius, February 15, 1638, AT I.523-527, CSM III.80-82.
29. For an excellent historically contextualized analysis of Descartes's theory of the passions and its relationship to morality, see Anthony Levi, S. J., French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions. 1585-1649, Oxford: Clarendon, 1964; see also Vance G. Morgan, Foundations of Cartesian Ethics, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993.
30. Descartes: His Moral Philosophy and Psychology, tr. and intro. John J. Blom, New York: NYU Press, 1978, p. 12.
31. The Passions ofthe Soul, art. 18 and 19, AT XI.343, CSM 1.335 f.
32. Harrison attributes to Cottingham the view (a mistaken one, in my judgement) that “Descartes wedges animal feelmgs into the gap between self-consciousness and consciousness “Descartes on Animals,” p. 222.
33. The complexities involved in reflecting on animal experience are detailed in Thomas Nagel's classic essay “What is it like to be a bat?” Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1979, pp.165-180.