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‘A Brute to the Brutes?’: Descartes' Treatment of Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

John Cottingham
John Cottingham
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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To be able to believe that a dog with a broken paw is not really in pain when it whimpers is a quite extraordinary achievement even for a philosopher. Yet according to the standard interpretaion, this is just what Descartes did believe. He held, we are informed, the ‘monstrous’ thesis that ‘animals are without feeling or awareness of any kind’. The Standard view has been reiterated in a recent collection on animal rights, which casts Descartes as the villain of the piece for his alleged view that animals merely behave ‘as if they feel pain when they are, say, kicked or stabbed’. The basis for this widely accepted interpretation is Descartes' famous doctrine of ‘animal machine’ (‘bête-machine’); a doctrine that one critic condemns as ‘a grim fortaste of a mechanically minded age’ which ‘brutally violates the old kindly fellowship of living things’.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy , Volume 53 , Issue 206 , October 1978 , pp. 551 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1978

References

1 Smith, N. Kemp, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes (London: Macmillan, 1952), 136 and 140.Google Scholar

2 Regan, T. and Singer, P. (eds), Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1976), 4.Google Scholar

3 Gibson, A. Boyce, The Philosophy of Descartes (London: Methuen, 1932), 214.Google Scholar

4 AT VI 56; HR I 116 (references to ‘AT’ are to volume and page number of Adam, Ch. and Tannery, P. (eds), Oeuvres de Descartes (Paris: Cerf, 1897–1913)Google Scholar; HR stands for Haldane, E. S. and Ross, G. T. R., The Philosophical Works of Descartes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, repr. 1969)).Google Scholar

5 Letter to More, of 5 02 1649Google Scholar: AT V 276; K 243 (‘K’ stands for Kenny, A., Descartes' Philosophical Letters (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970)).Google Scholar

6 Principles, I, 28 (AT VIII 15; HR I 230)Google Scholar. See further AT V 158 and Cottingham, J. G., Descartes' Conversation with Burman (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 85f.Google Scholar

7 Nor does Gibson cite any; op. cit., 211.

8 AT V 163/4; cf. Cottingham, , op. cit., 29.Google Scholar

9 ‘deinde quia rationi consentaneum videtur, cum ars sit naturae imitatrix, possintque homines varia fabricare automata, in quibus sine ulla cogitatione est motus, ut natura etiam sua automata, sed artefactis longe praestantiora, nempe bruta omnia, producat’ (AT V 277; K 244.) This is a development of material found in Discourse, part V (loc. cit.).

10 Op. cit., 135.

11 Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Mass: Merriam, 1963).Google Scholar

12 Theodicy, I, 52.Google Scholar

13 Traité de L'Homme, AT XI 130–132. Cf. Gilson, E., René Descartes Discours de la Methode (Paris: Vrin, 1925), 420ff.Google Scholar

14 Descartes compares the plants in this connection, ‘que [la nature] remplit d'une infinité de petits conduits imperceptibles à la vue’: letter to Reneri of April 1638 (AT II 40; K 54).

15 Discourse, loc. cit.

16 Ibid. Cf. letter to More of 5 February 1649: ‘loquela unicum est cogitationis in corpore latentis signum certum’ (AT V 278; K 245).

17 Descartes at one point observes that ‘quamvis… pro demonstrato habeam, probari non posse aliquam esse in brutis cogitationem, non ideo puto posse demonstrari nullam esse, quia mens humana illorum corda non pervadit’ (AT V 276–277; K 244).

18 To Newcastle, , 23 11 1646Google Scholar (AT IV 574; K 206).

19 To More, loc. cit.; to Newcastle, loc. cit.; and Chomsky, N.: Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1968), Ch. I.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 To Mersenne, , 05 1637Google Scholar (AT I 366; K 32); and to Renari, , 04 1638 (AT II 36; K 51)Google Scholar. Cf. Kenny, A., Descartes (New York: Random House, 1968), 68ff.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Anscombe, E. and Geach, P., Descartes' Philosophical Writings (London: Nelson, 1969), xlviifGoogle Scholar., and my ‘Descartes on Thought’, Phil. Quarterly, 07 1978.Google Scholar

22 Principles, I, 9 (AT VIII 7/8; HR I 222).Google Scholar

23 Conscientia is defined in the Conversation with Burman: ‘conscium esse est… cogitare et reflectere supra suam cogitationem’ (AT V 149; Cottingham, , op. cit., 7 and 61).Google Scholar

24 ‘He does not speak therefore he does not think.’ Strictly, the argument must be of the form ‘he does not speak and has no capacity for language acquisition, therefore he does not think’; for Descartes says that infants think (AT VII 246; HR II 115)—though only after a fashion (AT V 149/50; Cottingham, 8).

35 ‘impetus suos naturales ut iras metus famem et similia… significant’ (AT V 278; K 244).

26 ‘Si on apprend à une pie à dire bonjour à sa maîtresse, lorsqu'elle la voit arriver, ce ne peut être qu'en faisant que la prolation de cette parôle devienne le mouvement de quelqu'une de se passions; à savoir, ce sera un mouvement de l'espérance qu'elle a de manger, si l'on a toujours accoutumé de lui donner quelque friandise lorsqu'elle l'a dit; ainsi toutes les choses qu'on fait faire aux chiens, aux chevaux et aux singes ne sont que des mouvements de leur crainte, de leur espérance ou de leur joie, en sorte qu'ils les peuvent faire sans aucune pensée’ (AT IV 574; K 207).

27 ‘velim notari me loqui de cogitatione, non de vita vel sensu; vitam enim nulli animali denego, utpote quam in solo cordis calore consistere statuo; necdenego etiam sensum quatenus ab organo corporeo dependet’ (AT V 278; K 245).

28 To Plempius, , 3 10 1637 (AT 1415; K 37)Google Scholar; and to More (see note 5).

29 Principles, IV, 190 (AT VIII 317; HR I 290–291).Google Scholar

30 AT VII81; HR I 192.

31 ‘sensus doloris, aliosque omnes, non esse puras cogitationes mentis a corpore distinctas, sed confusas illius realiter unitae perceptiones’ (to Regius, , 01 1642: AT III 493; K 127–128).Google Scholar

32 I am indebted to Prof. A. G. N. Flew, whose questions about Descartes' position stimulated me to pursue this line of enquiry.