11 - Self-awareness in animals

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Many animals are self-aware. At any rate, I claim, the cumulative force of various empirical data and conceptual considerations makes it more reasonable to accept than to deny this thesis. Moreover, there are importantly different sorts of self-awareness. If my arguments are on the right track, then scientists and philosophers have significantly underestimated the case for animal self-awareness.

TYPES OF SELF-AWARENESS

The most primitive type of self-awareness is bodily self-awareness, an awareness of one's own body as importantly different from the rest of the environment – as directly connected with certain feelings and subject to one's direct control. Because of bodily self-awareness, one does not eat oneself. And one pursues certain goals. Bodily self-awareness includes proprioception: an awareness of body parts, their position, their movement, and overall body position. It also involves various sensations that are informative about what is happening to the body: pain, itches, tickles, hunger, as well as sensations of warmth, cold, and tactile pressure. These forms of awareness are essential to any creature that can feel features of its body and environment and act appropriately in response. In sum, bodily self-awareness includes both an awareness of one's own bodily condition and an awareness of one's agency, of moving around and acting in the world. Somewhat radically, I suggest that most or all sentient animals have this type of self-awareness.