Abstract
Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well as personality. I describe how instruments such as the Child Behavior Checklist, which relies on intersubjective expert opinion, could be modified to assess other species subjects. The measures are validated via the accuracy of the predictions that are derived, which is an example of the functionality of attribution. I respond to theoretical criticisms against use of this method, and argue that if the method counts as good science for infant cognition research, then it should count as good science for animal cognition research as well. Correspondingly, if the method doesn’t count as good science for animal cognition research, then we must be very skeptical of its use with nonverbal humans.
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Notes
Others share this view. For example, Rollin (1997) writes “usually the best source of information about animal pain are farmers, ranchers, animal caretakers, trainers—in short those whose lives are spent in the company of animals and who make their living through animals” (p. 128), and he cites Morton and Griffiths (1985) as endorsing this view. However, we must note that not all caretakers have the same quality of relationship with their charges, and that those who have nurturing relationships may be in a better position to make such expert judgments than those who are not socially involved with the animal, or those who see the animals as commodities. The same will be true for humans as well; the child will not demonstrate her full range of cognitive abilities when confronted by someone she doesn't trust, e.g. The issue is that the starting position for attributing mental states to human and nonhuman animals will be different, unless the attributor is familiar with and has the same quality relationship with the animal as the human experts have with the children. Without antecedent argument against choosing the same starting point for investigating animal and human mental states, there is no reason to place a greater burden of proof on the animal case than we place on the human one.
It has been argued by de Waal (2006) that humans should also be seen as having a Dominance factor. His claim amounts to the charge that a reverse anthropomorphism is at work among psychologists who are unwilling to attribute to humans a property traditionally used to describe nonhuman species.
One might think that the animal versions of the FFM are designed so as to determine whether a particular property is applicable to a species, whereas an animal version of the Child Behavior Checklist may be seen as determining situational applicability, rather than categorical applicability of a property. However, if categorical applicability is to be seen as an empirical issue, as has been argued, then in order to determine categorical applicability one must look at individual behavior to determine whether there exists some animal who has the property in question. Thus, methodologically speaking, we must see a connection between situational and categorical approaches to attributing psychological characteristics to animals. For example, when developing an other-species version of the Child Behavior Checklist, the tests for reliability and validity serve as tests for the appropriateness of the property for the species under consideration. If reliability or validity for a particular feature cannot be reached, then there is reason to avoid making claims about that property.
It's worth noting that the formal research on personality in different species is careful to avoid this criticism. Researchers collect data from different groups of humans in order to minimize the danger of collecting shared interpretive frameworks.
Each of these methods of determining friendship between apes has its downsides, as Silk (2002) shows. While she is hopeful that some more objective measurement of the friendship relationship can be developed, at this time there is not an operationalized definition of “friend”. Thus, judgments about friendships between nonhumans will presumably be generated in the same way as judgments about human friendships are.
In his 1992 defense of neo-behaviorism, Kennedy uses Keeton's quote to describe the position that once was orthodox. Kennedy’s view is that we ought to return to this position, and that the growing acceptance of an anthropomorphic bias is a dangerous flirtation.
I don't mean to suggest that there is no difficulty with making attributions across cultures; when applying a term or notion from our culture, we must be vigilant. For one, we shouldn’t understand our concepts too narrowly when working across social groups, be they inter- or intra- one’s own culture. What counts as molestation in one group may be seen as acceptable medical care in another. Cultural differences are real, as are species differences. But at the same time we cannot deny the very possibility of similarities, and we shouldn’t deny that a property is applicable before we have done empirical investigation that is based on a foundation of folk expertise with a particular species.
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Acknowledgements
This paper owes much to three groups of individuals. First, I would like to thank the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation for allowing me to visit their orangutan rehabilitation project in Samboja, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The helpful conversations I had there with researchers and caregivers had a large influence on this work. In particular, I would like to thank Purwo Kuncuro, Agnes Ferisa, and Wiwik Astutik, as well as Raffaella Commitante. In addition, I would like to thank York University’s Comparative Cognition in Context research group for discussions about anthropomorphism from the perspective of psychology; thanks especially go to Sara Shettleworth and Suzanne MacDonald. Special thanks are extended to Anne Russon as a member of both groups, and for reading and commenting on an early draft of this paper. Brian Keeley, Kim Sterelny, and an anonymous reviewer for this journal provided me with insightful comments, and I thank them for their help in making the arguments stronger than they were. This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Andrews, K. Politics or metaphysics? On attributing psychological properties to animals. Biol Philos 24, 51–63 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-007-9098-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-007-9098-2