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Neo-Cartesianism and the expanded problem of animal suffering

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Abstract

Several well-known theodicies, whatever their merits, seem to make little sense of animal suffering. Here we argue that the problem of animal suffering has more layers than has generally been acknowledged in the literature and thus poses an even greater challenge to traditional Judeo-Christian Theism than is normally thought. However, the Neo-Cartesian (NC) defence would succeed in defanging this Expanded Problem of Animal Suffering. Several contemporary philosophers have suggested that recent evidence either supports the NC view or at least should decrease our incredulity with respect to it. We discuss new evidence that undermines the NC position and thus reassert the gravity of the Expanded Problem.

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Notes

  1. In Bayle 1991/1697, 214–216.

  2. For example, Murray (2008, 68) says, “… the evidence available to us would tend to indicate that the affective side of pain is not experienced by organisms other than humans and other humanoid primates”. And Craig (2011a) claims that animals “… are not aware of pain, and therefore they do not suffer as human beings do”. Note then that these are not claims of mere logical or epistemic possibility but suggest the stronger form of the strategy.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Monica Halper for helping with the editing of the manuscript. We should also thank Miles Donahue, Josh Parikh who read and commented an earlier version of this paper as well as three anonymous reviewers who provided helpful feedback on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Phil Halper

  2. Department of Philosophy and Humanities, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, USA

    Kenneth Williford

  3. Faculté des Sciences du Sport, Université Paris Saclay, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France

    David Rudrauf

  4. Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, USA

    Perry N. Fuchs

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Correspondence to Kenneth Williford.

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Halper, P., Williford, K., Rudrauf, D. et al. Neo-Cartesianism and the expanded problem of animal suffering. Int J Philos Relig 94, 177–198 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09875-0

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