ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS:

AN INTRODUCTION

This issue of The Journal of Ethics contains essays by five renowned

writers on the topic of mental states in nonhuman animals. While
the essays featured here to a large degree focus on animal
mentality, each has great significance for the area of animal ethics.
In this introduction, I offer a brief preview of the papers that
follow. For those with rather limited knowledge of the philosophy
of mind, however, I would first like to offer some general remarks
on how issues regarding the nature of mind are relevant to
questions about animal ethics. Also, since behavior is one of our
best sources of evidence for mentality in nonhuman animals, I give
examples of how the study of animal behavior (in the field called
‘‘cognitive ethology’’1) can be used to support claims about the
presence or absence of ethically relevant mental features in other
animals.

MINDS, ETHICS, AND ANIMALS

Do nonhuman animals have sentience, awareness, self-consciousness,

thoughts, beliefs or desires? Which of the various species have these
mental states, and which of these mental states (or others) do they
have? The answers to these questions regarding animal mentality
have important ethical consequences, assuming, of course, that oneÕs
moral status is at least partly a function of oneÕs mental status.

1
Donald R. Griffin, ‘‘Prospects for a Cognitive Ethology,’’ Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 4 (1978), pp. 527–538.

The Journal of Ethics (2007) 11:239–252 Ó Springer 2007

DOI 10.1007/s10892-007-9017-4
240 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

Perhaps certain non-mental features are relevant to the moral status

of an individual; one might even argue that an individual can be an
object of moral concern in the complete absence of mentality (e.g.,
perhaps simply in virtue of being alive). In any case, it does seem that
oneÕs mentality is an important, if not the most important, determi-
nant of oneÕs moral characteristics.
Suppose Immanuel Kant is right to think that we have direct moral
duties only to rational beings.2 Or suppose, instead, Jeremy Bentham
and Peter Singer3 are correct in believing that the capacity to suffer is
sufficient for being an object of moral concern. In either case, the
mental status of an individual has consequences regarding how we
should or should not treat the individual. And in either case, deciding
on these ethical consequences requires answering some difficult
questions regarding the nature of mind. For one thing, there are
different kinds of reasoning – e.g., theoretical, mathematical, practical,
induction, causal, and normative. So if we think that being rational,
which includes the capacity to reason, is what makes an individual an
object of moral concern, then we need to decide which varieties of
reasoning are the most ethically important and to what degree, which in
turn requires understanding how best to classify the different kinds,
what exactly each consists in, and how these different varieties
interrelate.
Suppose the capacity to suffer, rather than the capacity to reason, is
what makes one an object of moral concern. The relevant questions
about the nature of mind are no less daunting. What exactly is it about
suffering that makes the phenomenon ethically significant? Is it the pain
sensation itself, i.e., the phenomenology of the pain? Or is Peter
Carruthers4 right to think that what morally matters about suffering is
not the actual feeling of pain, but the frustration of desire (which
includes, but is not restricted to, the frustrated desire to avoid pain). If
both the sensation of pain and the frustration of desire are ethically

2
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, L. Infield (trans.) (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1963), pp. 239–240.
3
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
(New York: Hafner Press, 1948), pp. 310–311; and Peter Singer, Animal Liberation,
2nd Edition (New York: Avon Books, 1990), pp. 7–9.
4
Peter Carruthers, ‘‘Sympathy and Subjectivity,’’ Australasian Journal of Phi-
losophy 77 (1999), pp. 465–482, and ‘‘Invertebrate Minds: A Challenge for Ethical
Theory,’’ The Journal of Ethics 11 (2007).
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 241

significant, is either more significant than the other? Also, are both
features necessary for the presence of genuine suffering? Is the belief
that oneÕs desire is frustrated also necessary? And whatever the essential
components of suffering happen to be, must all of them, or any of them,
be conscious mental states? Is it possible for the pain sensation itself to
occur non-consciously? The ethicist will need to figure out which mental
processes and which of their components matter ethically and to what
degree – but, it seems, not without sufficient attention to questions such
as those above about the nature of mind.
If the mere feeling of pain makes one a suitable object of moral
concern, then it would appear that the range of individuals to whom we
potentially have moral obligations is much larger than it would be if the
frustration of desire were what matters. After all, thoughts, beliefs,
desires, and other ‘‘intentional states’’5 seem to be more complex
mental items, and therefore harder to come by, than pain sensations. It
is arguable, however, that intentionality is required in the latter case as
well. For according to one popular theory of consciousness, a mental
state is a conscious mental state if and only if it is the object of a suitable
higher-order thought, a belief to the effect that one has that mental
state.6 So if some version of the higher-order thought theory is correct,
then even if the sensation of pain, i.e., the conscious sensation of pain,
were enough to warrant moral concern, being a suitable object of moral
concern would still require having intentional states.
With a higher-order thought theory, the requirements for con-
scious states might be more stringent still. Donald Davidson has
argued that having thoughts requires the capacity for language.7
While this view is dubious,8 Davidson is also famous for supporting
5
The term ‘‘intentional’’ indicates the representational character, the about-ness,
of a thought, belief, or desire. Since their content can typically be expressed in the
form of a proposition (e.g., the belief that it will rain), intentional states are also
called ‘‘propositional attitudes.’’
6
See David Rosenthal, ‘‘Two Concepts of Consciousness,’’ Philosophical Studies
94 (1986), pp. 329–359; and Peter Carruthers, ‘‘Natural Theories of Consciousness,’’
European Journal of Philosophy 6 (1998), pp. 203–222.
7
Donald Davidson, ‘‘Rational Animals,’’ in Ernest LePore and Brian
McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald
Davidson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 473–480. See also Donald Davidson,
‘‘Thought and Talk,’’ in Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 7–23.
8
For it seems there can be good evidence for thought in the absence of language.
Although, one might argue that certain complex types of thought require language
[See, e.g., José Bermudez, Thinking without Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003), Chapter 8].
242 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

the more plausible view that having any one intentional state requires
having lots of others.9 This follows from the idea that an intentional
state acquires its content in virtue of its logical relations to other
states within a network of intentionality. If we conjoin this holistic
view of mental content with a higher-order theory of consciousness,10
we get the result that a conscious mental state, even a pain sensation,
requires lots of intentionality indeed!
While many of us might be unsure whether fish, snakes, or frogs
have genuine beliefs and desires, most will find it odd to credit any
invertebrates with these mental states. And, yet, in an essay appearing
in this issue, Carruthers describes the results of research on the
navigating behavior of honey bees and jumping spiders, and argues
that the behavior observed in these studies is best explained by
supposing that the bees and spiders possess a genuine belief-desire
psychology. While this conclusion might not be easy to accept, after
reading the description of the impressive behavior recorded in these
studies, one is hard pressed to say exactly what it is about having a
belief or a desire (or at least what it is about the requisite behavioral
dispositions) that these little creatures lack. And if one is impressed by
the complexity of the behavior observed but still reluctant to say these
invertebrates really have intentional states, one might be tempted to
accept some brand of instrumentalism regarding the mind. One might,
for instance, agree with Daniel Dennett that there is no fact of the
matter of whether an individual really has intentional states – i.e., no
fact of the matter other than the usefulness of adopting the intentional
stance when explaining and predicting its behavior.11
It would seem, then, that ethicists who are tempted to classify the
moral status of nonhuman animals based on their presumed mental
capacity should remain aware of the fact that which mental states an
individual has is a difficult issue, in part because there is much
controversy about what exactly having the relevant mental states
consists in. Another reason that questions about animal mentality are
difficult is that in many cases it is far from easy to find adequate
behavioral evidence for the presence or absence of various mental states
in other animals. There is the Quinean worry that any amount of
9
Davidson, ‘‘Rational Animals,’’ p. 475.
10
This is not to imply that Davidson himself endorses the conjunction.
11
See Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987),
Chapter 1, for a general introduction to the intentional stance and the notion of an
intentional system, and Daniel Dennett, Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds
(Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998), Chapter 22, for application to other animals.
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 243

behavioral evidence observed is compatible with a number of different

mentalistic interpretations,12 a point that is especially threatening in the
absence of language. In the absence of language, it seems in principle
impossible to decide how exactly to interpret the content of an animalÕs
mental states. Does the dog believe ‘‘that the cat went up that oak tree’’
or ‘‘that the cat went up the oldest tree in sight’’ or ‘‘that the cat went
up the same tree it went up the last time the dog chased it’’?13 Also,
given the holistic nature of mental content, there is the additional worry
that ‘‘we must be able to imagine how we would decide whether the dog
has many other beliefs of the kind necessary for making sense of the
first,’’ in which case, ‘‘we very soon come to beliefs such that we have
no idea at all how to tell whether a dog has them.’’14
Despite these general skeptical worries, researchers in cognitive
ethology are optimistic about finding data that adequately justify at
least some of our beliefs about the mental states of other animals. And
given how fertile research on animal behavior can be, the optimism
seems warranted. One should be aware, however, that finding sufficient
empirical evidence in this domain is often much more difficult than one
might think. To illustrate the difficulty, let us consider the issue of
whether any nonhuman animals have thoughts, beliefs, or desires about
the mental states of others.
Note the communicative behavior of vervet monkeys studied by
Dorothy Cheney and Richard Seyfarth.15 The vervets have four
different alarm calls, each indicating the approach of a different type of
predator, and each causing escape behavior in other members of the
group appropriate to the type of predator signaled by the call. Now
suppose a vervet emits a leopard alarm, a call which has the effect of
getting the others to head for the trees. Presumably, there were some
thoughts, beliefs and/or desires the monkey had in mind that caused it
to give this alarm call. What exactly is the content of those intentional
states? Dennett notes that there are different interpretations available,
depending on the order of intentionality we are prepared to ascribe to
the monkey.16 We might be willing to ascribe intentionality only of the
first-order: the monkey called because he wants the others to head for

12
W. V. O. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1960).
13
Davidson, ‘‘Rational Animals,’’ p. 474.
14
Davidson, ‘‘Rational Animals,’’ p. 475.
15
See, for example, Richard Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney, ‘‘The Structure of
Social Knowledge in Monkeys,’’ in Marc Bekoff, Colin Allen, and G. M. Burghardt
(eds.), The Cognitive Animal (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002), pp. 379–384.
16
See Dennett, The Intentional Stance, Chapter 7.
244 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

the trees. But perhaps we should also attribute the desire to make the
others believe there is a leopard nearby, which is an instance of second-
order intentionality. Or maybe we should say the monkey wants the
others to recognize that he wants them to head for the trees. In addition
to this third-order intentional ascription, there is the possible fourth-
order Gricean attribution of meaning – wanting the others to believe
there is a leopard nearby in virtue of their recognition of that intention.17
Even if the highly limited overall range of vervet verbal behavior
renders attributions of third- and fourth-order intentionality implau-
sible (as Dennett notes18), we are still left with the daunting task of
deciding between the first- and second-order interpretations.19
Of course, the issue of whether there is anything more than first-order
intentionality underlying the communicative behavior observed arises
for other mammals as well – and also for birds. Irene PepperbergÕs
pigeon, Alex, is able to correctly name various objects, and their shapes
and colors, as well as correctly answering questions about the respects in
which pairs of objects are the same or different.20 This seems to show
that the bird has genuine concepts – color concepts, shape concepts, and
concepts of different objects of various types. Does the parrotÕs verbal
behavior also suggest the presence of thoughts, beliefs, and desires? Does
Alex desire to get his trainer to believe that, for example, the object is
blue? If the behavior observed does not support this second-order
attribution, then why not? What behavioral evidence would justify it?
Does Alex at least have the first-order intentional state of desiring to
answer correctly? Here, especially, it is unclear why the behavioral
evidence does or does not justify the attribution.21
17
H. P. Grice, ‘‘Meaning,’’ The Philosophical Review 66 (1957), pp. 377–388.
18
Dennett, The Intentional Stance, p. 247.
19
The higher-order thoughts (HOTs) required by a HOT theory of consciousness
differ from the higher-order intentionality mentioned here in two ways. Here we are
focusing on intentional states directed toward the mental states of others. Also,
depending on oneÕs version of the HOT theory, the HOT might be directed toward a
mental state without representing it as a mental state, i.e., without employing the
concept of a mental state (perhaps with the content, ‘‘I am having this’’ or ‘‘This is
occurring,’’ where ‘‘this’’ refers to the target mental state).
20
See, for example, Irene M. Pepperberg, ‘‘Cognitive and Communicative Abil-
ities of Grey Parrots,’’ in Marc Bekoff, Colin Allen, and GM.Burghardt, The Cog-
nitive Animal (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002), pp. 247–253.
21
It might even be wondered whether the bird has genuine concepts. What con-
cept-possession consists in is a big issue in the philosophy of mind. To get a sense of
the debate in connection with other animals, see Colin Allen and M. Hauser,
‘‘Concept Attribution in Nonhuman Animals,’’ Philosophy of Science 58 (1991), pp.
221–240.
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 245

Deceptive behavior (verbal or otherwise) is also potential evidence

of higher-order intentionality. One might engage in behavior that
happens to have the effect of producing a false belief, or one might act
with the intention of producing a false belief. It seems that only in the
latter case is there genuine deception; deception, it seems, requires the
second-order intentional state of wanting to produce a false belief. Do
any other animals engage in genuinely deceptive behavior? Consider
the plover bird who ‘‘pretends’’ to have a broken wing to entice the
fox, who is approaching her egg-filled ground nest, to come after her
instead. The birdÕs broken-wing display becomes more exaggerated
until the fox finally takes the cue and pursues.22 Is the bird intending
to produce a false belief in the fox? Or does it only desire to get the
fox to move away from the nest (without any thoughts about the foxÕs
mental states)? Or could it be that the birdÕs behavior is not guided by
any real beliefs or desires at all – zero-order intentionality, as Dennett
calls it?23 Also consider a female baboon having an unauthorized
sexual rendezvous with a subordinate male behind a boulder; she
wants to prevent the alpha male from finding out what she is doing,
so with her head and shoulders in view, she pretends to be foraging all
the while.24 Is this good evidence of genuinely deceptive behavior? Is
it better evidence than the behavior of the plover bird? Given the
empirical nature of the matter, we cannot expect the behavioral
evidence to provide any absolute guarantee. Still, it is amazing how
much research is required to achieve only weak evidence for
conclusions about higher-order intentionality.25
The moral status of an individual is a function of its mental status.
This is true, in particular, in the case of moral agency. So let us turn to
that issue for a moment.
It is arguable that being a suitable object of moral concern does
not require moral agency. According to Bentham and Singer, as
noted earlier, the capacity to suffer is enough to make an individual a
22
See J. L. Gould and C. G. Gould, The Animal Mind, 2nd Edition (New York:
Scientific American Library, 1999), pp. 136–140, for a description of the different
deceptive behaviors of plover birds.
23
Dennett, The Intentional Stance, p. 246.
24
Gould and Gould, The Animal Mind, p. 161.
25
One gets a good sense of how difficult it is to find adequate evidence by con-
sidering the intricate experimental designs and controls described by David Premack
and Mark Woodruff in their seminal attempt to show that chimpanzees have beliefs
and desires about the mental states of others [David Premack and Mark Woodruff,
‘‘Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of the Mind?’’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences
4 (1978), pp. 515–526].
246 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

potential object of our moral obligations, even if the individual does

not qualify as an agent that bears moral responsibility for its actions.
So the question arises: Do any nonhuman animals qualify as moral
agents?
The presence of higher-order intentionality seems relevant to the
issue of moral agency. It is arguable that one is a moral agent only if
one is capable of having thoughts about the welfare of others – which
would consist, at least in part, in thoughts about the mental states of
others. Of course, higher-order intentionality might not, itself, be
sufficient for moral agency. What might be required is a certain
special type of thought about the mentality of others. In the end, it is
up to the ethicists to figure out what sort of higher-order intention-
ality is necessary and/or sufficient for moral agency. However,
whatever the ethicists discover about moral agency, studies on animal
behavior certainly are required to determine whether any nonhuman
animals actually satisfy the conditions specified.
Charles Darwin claims that a moral sense, a conscience, is present
to some degree in many other animals.26 There are numerous
examples of animals exhibiting behavior characteristic of altruism, for
example. Gould and Gould note that ‘‘dolphins keep injured
members of the group afloat, vampire bats share food with starving
inhabitants of their colony, [and] childless elephants help form a
defensive circle to protect the young of the herd.’’27 This is behavior
characteristic of altruism, behavior normally associated with genu-
inely altruistic mental states in us. Yet, whether the mentality
necessary for genuine altruism really does underlie the ‘‘caring’’
behavior of these other animals, and which of these animals, remains
a significant source of debate – requiring conceptual inquiry into the
nature of altruism along with the arduous empirical investigation
needed to provide adequate evidence for or against its presence in
other animals.28
One clear sign of moral agency is the possession of personhood. As
John Locke notes, the word ‘‘person’’

26
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London:
D. Appleton, 1897), Chapter 4.
27
Gould and Gould, The Animal Mind, p. 150.
28
Deceptive behavior, such as that mentioned earlier, is another possible source of
evidence for the kind of higher-order intentionality involved in moral agency.
Desiring to produce a false belief in others, and acting upon that desire, might be
enough to make one morally blameworthy for oneÕs action – provided there is
suitable autonomy involved.
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 247

is a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit; and so belongs only to
intelligent agents, capable of a law, and happiness and misery. This personality
extends itself beyond present existence to what is past, only by consciousness, –
whereby it becomes concerned and accountable ...29

In addition to the normative component, there is also a purely

descriptive component to the concept of a person. A person, Locke
claims, ‘‘is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection,
and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different
times and places ...’’30 Besides self-awareness and intelligence (includ-
ing the capacity to reason), autonomy of some type is arguably
another essential part of personhood.31
It is not entirely clear how these two components, the descriptive
and the normative, logically interrelate, although it is not implausible
to suppose that satisfying the descriptive conditions is sufficient for
satisfying the normative element of personhood. Satisfying the
former certainly takes one at least a long way toward fulfilling the
latter. To see, then, whether any nonhuman animals are persons in
the normative sense, thereby qualifying as moral agents, we should
consider whether any of them have a suitable degree of rationality,
self-awareness, and autonomy (or whatever other descriptive features
might be thought necessary).
David DeGrazia notes that the various person-making features
come in different varieties; there are different types of rationality, as
noted earlier, and various brands self-awareness, including bodily,
social, and introspective self-awareness. And these different varieties
admit of degrees; one can have more or less of a capacity for
instrumental rationality, and more or less social self-awareness.32
Given that these mental features come in degrees, it is natural to
wonder whether some nonhuman animals have enough of them, to a
sufficient degree, to qualify as genuine persons. DeGrazia makes a
strong case that the typical adult members of the various species of
great apes and the cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) exhibit
29
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. A. C. Fraser
(New York: Dover Publications, 1959), p. 467.
30
Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 448.
31
Consider, e.g., what Harry Frankfurt calls ‘‘freedom of the will,’’ which consists
in the presence of second-order violations [H. Frankfurt, ‘‘Freedom of the Will and
the Concept of a Person,’’ The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971), pp. 829–839].
32
See David DeGrazia, ‘‘Great Apes, Dolphins, and the Concept of Person-
hood,’’ The Southern Journal of Philosophy 35 (1997), pp. 301–320; and David
DeGrazia ‘‘On the Question of Personhood beyond Homo sapiens,’’ in P. Singer
(ed.), In Defense of Animals (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006), pp. 40–53.
248 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

a high enough degree of the various person-making features to

qualify as borderline persons.33 He also argues that certain members
of these species exhibit a high enough degree to qualify as clear-cut
persons.34 The best behavioral evidence in the latter case is the use of
language. Language use, in itself, clearly demonstrates a high level of
intelligence and conceptual/logical acumen, and it can also provide
strong evidence for self-awareness, e.g., when the animal refers to
itself and communicates to others its beliefs about itself.35
Even when we have gotten clear on what sort of rationality, self-
awareness, or autonomy is most important for personhood, finding
adequate empirical evidence for the presence or absence of these
features, as the earlier discussion would suggest, is not an easy
project. Consider the self-recognition behavior of chimpanzees
studied by Gordon Gallup (where the chimps detect and explore in
mirrors red marks that were previously placed on their foreheads
during anesthesia).36 While the behavior observed would initially
seem to be irresistible evidence for the presence of a self-concept, the
behavior is also compatible with employing the alternative notion of
that body there of special concern.37 Consider, also, Lynne BakerÕs
detailed description of the first-person perspective, which she argues
few if any other animals attain.38
The preceding remarks are meant to remind readers that there is a
wide array of questions about the nature of mind and the minds of
other animals that are of potential significance to the field of animal
ethics. Along the way, I hope to have provided some sense of the
great importance of research in cognitive ethology for answering
these questions.

33
DeGrazia, ‘‘On the Question of Personhood beyond Homo Sapiens,’’
pp. 44–46.
34
DeGrazia, ‘‘On the Question of Personhood beyond Homo Sapiens,’’
pp. 46–48.
35
Consider, for example, the linguistic behavior of Francine PattersonÕs gorilla,
Koko [F. Patterson and W. Gordon, ‘‘The Case for the Personhood of Gorillas,’’ in
P. Cavalieri and P. Singer (eds.), The Great Ape Project (London: St. MartinÕs
Griffin, 1993), pp. 58–77].
36
Gordon Gallup Jr., ‘‘Self-Recognition in Primates,’’ American Psychologist 2
(1977), pp. 329–338.
37
See J. Bennett, ‘‘Thoughtful Brutes,’’ Proceedings and Addresses of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Association 62 (1988), pp. 197–210.
38
Lynne R. Baker, Persons and Bodies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000), Chapter 3.
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 249

Whatever I do know about animal mind and animal ethics I owe

to renowned researchers in these areas such as those who contributed
to this issue of The Journal of Ethics. The following is a preview of the
essays they provide.

THE ESSAYS

Bernard Rollin notes that while many empirically-oriented philoso-

phers and scientists for much of the 20th-century were skeptical
about attributing mentality to other animals, their attitude is not at
all in keeping with the beliefs of their empirically-minded ancestors.
Rollin points out that Locke, David Hume, Bentham, and John
Stuart Mill credited other animals with a variety of mental states,
from the capacity to feel pain to the ability to reason, with the
scientific culmination of these beliefs about animal mentality in the
work of Darwin. In ‘‘Animal Mind: Science, Philosophy, and
Ethics,’’ Rollin offers useful information for those working in animal
ethics on how this change in ideas came about.
One might be tempted to think that 20th-century skepticism
regarding animal minds would have had to come about for legitimate
scientific reasons, reasons that the scientific community itself would
regard as legitimate – i.e., empirical disconfirmation of the belief or
conceptual/logical flaws found within. But, Rollin argues, this was
not the case; the change in scientific opinion was due to a change in
value – disvaluation rather than disconfirmation. Rollin notes that this
phenomenon is not uncommon. He explains how the scientific
revolution inaugurated by Galileo, Rene Descartes, and Issac
Newton was not the result of any actual empirical falsification of
Aristotlean ideas, nor any proof that those ideas are logically flawed;
the scientific revolution resulted from disvaluing rather than dis-
proving Aristotlean beliefs. In the case of animal mind, the change in
belief was also due to a change in value – a change in value that came
about, Rollin explains, with the rise of psychological behaviorism.
Rollin also describes some of the major moral consequences of
this scientific shift, including the change from animal husbandry to
the factory farm, and the callous use of animals in biomedical
research.
For those who think the capacity to suffer makes one an object of
moral concern, a question that needs to be addressed is: What exactly
is it about suffering that matters morally? In ‘‘Invertebrate Minds: A
250 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

Challenge for Ethical Theory,’’ Carruthers argues that in a case of

suffering, the appropriate object of moral concern is not the feel of
pain, but the fact that an organism does not want the pain and is
frustrated in this desire. Only individuals capable of having desires
and having their desires frustrated are appropriate objects of
sympathy and moral concern.
One would expect Carruthers to conclude from this that inverte-
brates, for example, are not appropriate objects of moral concern
since they are incapable of having intentional states. On the contrary,
he describes the results of experiments on honey bees and jumping
spiders, and contends that the only plausible interpretation of the
behavior observed is that these invertebrates have informational and
goals states that qualify as genuine beliefs and desires. While many
will be reluctant to agree with Carruthers about this, he argues that
the burden of proof is on us to say what more should be required for
beliefs and desires, and why.
If these invertebrates are mentally sophisticated enough to have
beliefs and desires, does it not follow that we are moral obligated to
be concerned about their welfare? Carruthers argues that this does
not follow by highlighting the difference between being appropriate to
feel concern at an individualÕs struggles and being required to feel
concern. Given this distinction, the fact that one is undergoing states
of suffering of the sort that makes one an appropriate object of
sympathy does not, by itself, entail that sympathy and moral concern
are required of us. And in the case of invertebrates, the idea that
moral concern is required of us is one Carruthers finds highly
implausible. So a challenge for ethical theory, he thinks, is to
reconcile the belief that the suffering of invertebrates makes no direct
moral claims on us with the following two beliefs: that when humans
suffer, the basic ground for our sympathy and moral concern lies in
their states of frustrated desires, and that invertebrates share with us
a form of belief-desire psychology.
In ‘‘Animal Minds, Cognitive Ethology, and Ethics,’’ Colin Allen
and Marc Bekoff offer valuable advice along with some scientific
background to help ethicists more effectively support their views
about the rights of animals or our obligations toward them. It is not
uncommon for animal ethicists to draw conclusions about the moral
status of other animals while knowing little about the empirical
studies of animal behavior and what these do or do not suggest about
their mentality. Even when they do refer to work in cognitive
ethology, these often loose references, Allen and Bekoff note, can
 ANIMAL MIND AND ANIMAL ETHICS 251

signal ignorance of the field to scientists who are more deeply

immersed in the relevant literature. The risk is that their ethical
arguments end up being far less convincing than they otherwise might
be. In an effort to clear some of our ignorance of the relevant
scientific complexity, Allen and Bekoff describe the origins of the field
of cognitive ethology and how this area relates to the field of
comparative psychology.
The information and advice on scientifically-informed ethical
reasoning that Allen and Bekoff offer is especially useful for those
ethicists arguing on behalf of animal mentality against skeptical
scientists. As they note, scientific skepticism about animal cognition
remains a significant factor in policy debates, and it is important for
philosophers who wish to engage these scientists to have a good
understanding of the origins of their skepticism. It is tempting to
dismiss skepticism about animal mentality on ideological grounds,
and they describe four methods for doing so. But they remind us that
when arguing on behalf of animal mentality of various sorts and the
ethical consequences, nothing substitutes for detailed knowledge of
the empirical data.
In ‘‘Thinking without Words: An Overview for Animal Ethics,’’
José Bermudez outlines aspects of his book Thinking without Words
that are most relevant to those working in the area of animal ethics.
Bermudez argues that there are limits to the types of thought
available to non-linguistic animals, and it may be important, he
notes, for animal ethicists to take this fact into account when
considering the moral obligations we might or might not have toward
these creatures. Furthermore, to the extent that the moral significance
of an animal is a function of its level of cognitive sophistication,
ethicists need to take account of the subtle differences between the
different types of thought (which Bermudez identifies and explains)
available to non-linguistic animals.
After distinguishing between two different types of thinking at the
non-linguistic level (propositional thought and non-propositional
thought), Bermudez presents a revised version of one of the central
arguments of his book, an argument concluding that higher-order
thought is language-dependent.39 This conclusion is clearly significant
39
Talk of higher-order thoughts, here, is restricted to thoughts (and other
intentional states) that represent other thoughts (and other intentional states) in their
content. Recall the distinction mentioned in footnote 18 between thinking that one is
having this, where ‘‘this’’ happens to signify a thought, and thinking that one is having
a thought of some variety.
252 ROBERT FRANCESCOTTI

for those interested in animal minds, and might also have important
implications for the moral status of languageless animals. Bermudez
notes, however, that the types of cognitive activity ruled out by his
argument are more limited than they might immediately seem.
For example, by differentiating between two types of desire, goal-
desires and situation-desires, Bermudez shows it is possible for non-
linguistic creatures to have a type of knowledge regarding the
psychological states of their conspecifics. This knowledge, he
explains, allows non-linguistic creatures to engage in a primitive
form of psychological explanation, and allows them to predict the
behavior of others with some success. Whatever type of reasoning is
involved here will not, however, count as logical reasoning. Logical
reasoning involves the deployment of logical concepts, which
Bermudez explains requires thoughts about thoughts, and therefore
depends on language. Thus, non-linguistic animals are incapable of
logical reasoning. Yet, Bermudez argues, it may be possible to
identify other forms of reasoning, ones that can be explained without
assuming the animal (or prelinguistic infant) is using logical concepts.
He describes for us what this non-logical reasoning might involve.
Thanks to the authors who contributed for showing the impor-
tance of various issues in animal mentality to the field of animal
ethics. These essays certainly are of value for those trying to
understand the moral status of nonhuman animals. And assuming it
is true, in general, that oneÕs moral features are a function of oneÕs
mentality, the following discussions may shed light on the moral
status of human animals as well.

Department of Philosophy
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA, 92182 USA
E-mail: [email protected]