First of all, I'd like to thank Jim for his time and resourcefulness in
sharing some quotes from Dennett and explaining and interpreting them for
us.  There are some points that Dennett raises, however, that seem to me to
be unfounded assumptions.  Now, I may be lacking necessary information to
make this assessment because I have not read Dennett.  In either case, I'd
like to raise my objections; and hopefully Jim or someone else would be kind
enough to shed light on my objections whether or not Dennett specifically
addresses them.

(I hasten to add that
>nothing I have said implies that when children dissociate they in any way
>mitigate the atrocity of the vile behavior of their abusers; they do,
>however, dramatically diminish the awfulness of the effects on
>themselves--though such children may pay a severe price later in life in
>dealing with the aftereffects of their dissociation.)"

Dennett acknowledges here that "such children may pay a severe price later
in life in dealing with the aftereffects of their dissociation."  What he
does not address is whether, in his opinion, this "severe price" is greater
or lesser than the "suffering" that would be experienced during the
hyopthetical "aweful act."  In my opinion, and from my personal experience,
dissociating (which I did my fair share of as a child) causes more suffering
later on than would have been experienced if the child *were able to* simply
experience the pain and "suffering" of the moment during the act.  I'm not
sure if my point here (that dissociation (esp. unconscious or unintentional
dissociation) is not positive or beneficial to any organism) is directly
related to my main objection to Dennett's case, but I did want to state it
seperately in any case.

>But now what should we say about creatures that are _ naturally _
>dissociated--that never achieve, or even attempt to achieve, the sort of
>complex internal organization that is standard in a normal child and
>disrupted in a dissociated child?

I have two problems with this simple statement.  (1)  Where in the world
does Dennett get the idea that animals are "natrually dissociated"?  This
seems like a bizzare assumption to me.  (2)  Dissociation is at odds with a
complex internal organization?  My understanding was that it was the
opposite case.  For a child to dissociate, he or she must add complexity (or
layers) to his or her psyche.

I still agree that this is a complex issue and that it's difficult if not
impossible to say that animals suffer in the same way as humans do.
However, if I see an argument (like Dennett's) which gives logical reasons
why animals would suffer *less* than humans, and if I can find errors or
holes in that logic, then I will expeditiously do so.

Bryan H.



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, April 18, 1999 11:49 PM
Subject: Consciousness, language, pain, and suffering


>Hi again, everybody,
>
>Consider this the promised followup both to (a) Ray's earlier question
>about drawing distinctions between human and nonhuman animals, and to (b)
>Dreamer's repeated and often penetrating questions about the moral
>significance of suffering and consciousness.
>
>Ray wrote:
>>But Jim, the problem for me with your point (^^^^), is that nowhere in
>>this discussion can I find a generalized ethical principle .  .  . which
>>provides for a distinction between .  .  . *human animals* and * .  .  .
>>non-human animals*.  Certainly, utilitarianism does not provide for that
>>distinction? [ellipses added--JT]
>
>Now, to be sure, what Ray *actually* wrote was:
>
>>"[N]owhere in this discussion can I find a generalized ethical principle
>>on killing which provides for a distinction between killing *human
>>animals* and *killing non-human animals*."
>
>But I think the first, elided, version of Ray's question is applicable to
>the larger and more general question of how we justify the differential
>treatment of nonhuman animals versus humans, which is expressed in
>Dreamer's comment:
>
>Dreamer:
>>We come back then to the question of how you can justify doing things to
>>animals that you would not allow to be done to humans.
>
>I'd like to introduce some additional materials for consideration that may
>address Ray's and Dreamer's well-stated concerns about this discussion.
>
>Daniel C. Dennett explores the issue of animals' minds (both human and
>nonhuman) in his 1996 book, Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of
>Consciousness (New York: Basic Books).  Dennett expresses doubts about the
>possibility of ever drawing a precise ethical line between humans on the
>one hand, and those nonhuman animals who should count morally on the other.
>After reviewing the scientific research that has been done in the fields of
>animal ethology and cognitive studies, Dennett (who is Director of the
>Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University) comments:
>
>"It is _ possible _ , of course that further research will reveal a
>heretofore undetectable system of similarities and differences which will
>properly impress us, and we will then be able to see, for the first time,
>where nature has drawn the line, and why.  This is not a possibility on
>which to lean, however, if we can't even imagine what such a discovery
>might be, or why it would strike us as morally relevant.  (We might just as
>well imagine that one fine day the clouds will part and God will tell us,
>directly, which creatures to include and which to exclude from the charmed
>circle.)" (at162)
>
>Throughout the book Dennett explores the differences between animal and
>human cognition, and argues persuasively that while human
>self-consciousness arose evolutionarily from animal proto-minds, the human
>mind represents a quantum leap beyond animal cognition not just in degree,
>but in kind.  Dennett writes: "In our survey of kinds of minds (and
>protominds) there does not seem to be any clear threshold or critical
>mass--until we arrive at the sort of consciousness that we language-using
>human beings enjoy." (162)  Dennett's (and others') views about the
>importance of human language helped inform my earlier emails about
>consciousness, speech, and suffering, to which Dreamer responded with the
>following summary:
>
>Dreamer:
>>We come back then to the question of how you can justify doing things to
>>animals that you would not allow to be done to humans.  Some of the
>>rationales offered to date in this list discussion: animals can't speak
>>(or at least we're not smart enough to understand them); animals don't
>>suffer (by way of proof, the assertion is made that only self-concious
>>beings really suffer); animals aren't self-concious beings (no proof
>>offered); [snip]
>
>I would like simply to add some additional brief excerpts from Dennett's
>book, in order to clarify and/or to illustrate the points I have been
>making all along with regard to consciousness, language and suffering.
>Hopefully this will also provide additional background for addressing the
>above objections regarding evidence (or lack of "proof," in Dreamer's
>terms).
>
>In discussing the evolution of mind, Dennett distinguishes between
>first-order intentionality (beliefs and desires), which is easily or
>commonly attributed to animals, and higher orders of intentionality, e.g.
>beliefs and desires *about* beliefs and desires; beliefs and desires about
>*those* beliefs and desires; and so on.  Dennett argues these higher orders
>of intentionality form the basis (evolutionarily) for conscious thinking.
>While his discussion is a bit too involved to summarize here, he does
>emphasize that such higher order intentionality represents a difference in
>kind, and not just in degree, from previous evolutionary forms of animal
>cognition: "[H]igher order intentionality is, as I and others have argued,
>an important [evolutionary] advance in the kinds of minds . . . ." (121)
>Dennett emphasizes the evolutionary importance of human language in humans'
>going beyond animal minds, and employs a "slingshot" metaphor to make his
>point:
>
>"There is no step more uplifting, more explosive, more momentous in the
>history of mind design than the invention of language.  When _Homo sapiens
>_ became the beneficiary of this invention, the species stepped into a
>slingshot that has launched it far beyond all other earthly species in the
>power to look ahead and reflect."  (147)
>
>[Now, in the interest of saving time, at this point the best I can do is
>commend to the list Dennett's lengthy discussion of the development of
>language and its evolutionary significance for the development of
>consciousness.]
>
>Yet, anticipating potential objections, Dennett says that the moral
>conclusions one can draw from the insight about the uniqueness of human
>consciousness are limited. Thus, in a section entitled, "Pain and
>Suffering: What Matters," he redirects the focus of moral enquiry back to
>the more traditional questions about pain and animal suffering:
>"That [human] variety of mind is unique, and orders of magnitude more
>powerful than any other variety of mind, but we probably don't want to rest
>too much moral weight on it.  We might well think that the capacity for
>suffering counts for more, in any moral calculations, than the capacity for
>abstruse and sophisticated reasoning about the future . . . . What, then,
>is the relationship between pain, suffering, and consciousness?" (162)
>
>I hope the list will bear with me while I quote a somewhat lengthy passage
>discussing the relations between pain and the human psychological
>phenomenon of "dissociation."  This subject, however, bears directly on the
>question of what we can reasonably infer about (the extent of) animal
>suffering.
>
>Dennett writes :
>
>"The phenomenon of pain is neither homogenous across species, nor simple.
>We can see this in ourselves . . . ." (162)
>--"Consider the widely reported phenomenon of _ dissociation _ in the
>presence of great pain or fear.  When young children are abused, they
>typically hit upon a desperate but effective strategm: they 'leave.'  They
>somehow declare to themselves that it is not they who are suffering the
>pain.  There seem to be two main varieties of dissociators: those who
>simply reject the pain as theirs and then witness it from afar, as it were;
>and those who split at least momentarily into something like multiple
>personalities ('I' am not undergoing this pain, '_ she _' is).  My not
>entirely facetious hypothesis about this is that these two varieties of
>children differ in their tacit endorsement of a philosophical doctrine:
>Every experience must be the experience of some subject.  Those children
>who reject the principle see nothing wrong in simply disowning the pain,
>leaving it subjectless to wander around hurting nobody in particular.
>Those who embrace the principle have to invent an alter to be the
>subject--'anybody but _ me _!'
>--"Whether or not any such interpretation of the phenomenon of dissociation
>can be sustained, most psychiatrists agree that it does work, to some
>degree.  That is, whatever this psychological stunt of dissociation
>consists in, it is genuinely analgesic--or, more precisely, whether or not
>it diminishes the _ pain _, it definitely _ obtunds suffering _. So we have
>a modest result of sorts: the difference, whatever it is, between a
>nondissociated child and a dissociated child is a difference that markedly
>affects the existence or amount of suffering.  (I hasten to add that
>nothing I have said implies that when children dissociate they in any way
>mitigate the atrocity of the vile behavior of their abusers; they do,
>however, dramatically diminish the awfulness of the effects on
>themselves--though such children may pay a severe price later in life in
>dealing with the aftereffects of their dissociation.)"
>
>Why is all this significant for the question of nonhumans' suffering?
>Dennett explains:
>--"A dissociated child does not suffer as much as a nondissociated child.
>But now what should we say about creatures that are _ naturally _
>dissociated--that never achieve, or even attempt to achieve, the sort of
>complex internal organization that is standard in a normal child and
>disrupted in a dissociated child?  An invited conclusion would be: such a
>creature is constitutionally incapable of undergoing the _ sort _ or _
>amount _ of suffering that a normal human can undergo.  But if all nonhuman
>species are in such a relatively disorganized state, we have grounds for
>the hypothesis that nonhuman animals may indeed feel pain but cannot suffer
>the way we can." (pp. 162-163) [all emph. orig.]
>
>He concludes with a wry exclamation:
>--"How convenient! Animal lovers can be expected to respond to this
>suggestion with righteous indignation and deep suspicion.  Since it does
>indeed promise to allay many of our misgivings about common human
>practices, absolving our hunters and farmers and experimenters of at least
>some of the burden of guilt that others would place on their shoulders, we
>should be particularly cautious and even-handed in considering the grounds
>for it.  We should be on the lookout for sources of illusion--on both sides
>of this stormy issue. " (163)
>
>Tantillo:
>Notice here that Dennett is not in fact arguing dogmatically that "animals
>don't suffer."  He is simply raising the concern, with which I concur (and
>that I have been raising all along), that equating animal pain with animal
>suffering is very likely an unwarranted presumption.  And I completely
>concur with his admonition, "We should be on the lookout for sources of
>illusion--on both sides of this stormy issue."
>
>As a final aside, Dennett adds:
>"The suggestion that nonhuman animals are not susceptible to human levels
>of suffering typically provokes a flood of heart-wrenching stories--mostly
>about dogs."  (163-164)
>
>[He goes on to speculate how the evolution of dogs might have resulted in
>giving them a greater capacity for actual suffering than other animals:
>"Our ancestors engaged in selective breeding, but they didn't think they
>were doing so.  This unwitting favoritism, over the eons, has made our dogs
>more and more like us in ways that appeal to us.  Among other traits we
>have unconsciously selected for, I suggest, is susceptibility to human
>socializing, which has, in dogs, many of the organizing effects that human
>socializing also has on human infants.  By treating them as if they were
>human, we actually suceed in making them more human than they otherwise
>would be." (165)]
>
>For what it's worth. . . .
>
>******************
>
>Please note that I don't think Dennett (or I) "prove" anything in any kind
>of definitive or theoretically certain way about the existence/nonexistence
>of animals' pain or suffering.  I simply continue to maintain that these
>issues are very complex and will likely remain so.
>
>I hope the material presented here both supplements and helps clarify some
>of my previous posts on the subject.  And my thanks to all for bearing with
>the extensive quotations,
>
>Jim Tantillo
>





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