The Use of Animals as Humans

Part of Syllabus to which it relates: Could animals or machines be persons?

Number of words: 1,608

Source Material: Garfield by Jim Davis at gocomcs.com (http://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2011/08/12)
All rights reserved to Jim Davis

Garfield, a normal house cat, lives with his owner, Jon, and constantly have talks between each other. Yet, in this comic shown, there is a question derived from the knowledge of what Garfield can do, and that is if animals could be a person. The obvious answer to any average human would be 'No', but only by means of distinguishing between a normal household cat and a human and only comparing the physical body structure of both. After all, Garfield is supposed to be a normal household cat. But, he may have that human personality, because he thinks and it is somewhat of a communication with Jon. He also stands just like a human, and has a background for drinking coffee out of a mug, making him somewhat of a person. Yet this comic, depicting him as Jon's kid only for the practice of having kids, only describe the topic of believing that animals could be persons.

Garfield is fat tabby cat that has a big attitude between him, Odie, a dog also in the house, and Jon. Yet, throughout the comic series, Garfield also struggles with human problems, such as diets, loathing of Mondays, apathy, boredom, and working out. Most of the time, Garfield is found either with himself or Jon in a conversation speaking through thought bubbles. In this comic, we assume that Jon knows what Garfield is saying, but that may not seem right, as thoughts are never heard by others but only when spoken out. This has not been clear if Jon can actually know what Garfield is thinking, but in reality, it is almost impossible for one to actually speak through thoughts.

Yet seeing the similarities between animals and humans are simple. Both have the similar bone structure, and both animals and humans can feel pain and actually have emotions. As shown many recent studies, animals such as fish and monkeys can actually feel pain, based from emotions that the animals expresses. But does that really mean that just those two things shown from studies can make animals considered as humans?

Some people, such as René Descartes, apparently believed that animals were, as a factual matter, indistinguishable from inanimate objects in that animals were not sentient —they were simply not beings who were conscious, had subjective and perceptual awareness, or were able to experience pain and suffering. As a result, they were not beings who had interests; that is, they did not have preferences, wants, or desires. According to Descartes, animals were “machines” that God created and therefore were no more conscious than the machines that humans created. If Descartes were correct and nonhumans are not sentient and have no interests, then it would not, of course, make sense to talk about having moral or legal obligations to animals concerning our use or treatment of them any more than it would to talk about our obligations to alarm clocks.

With this argument, we can see that the animals can be considered as machines and therefore can encounter if machines can be humans also. When asking the question if machines can be humans, instinctive reply to this question by nearly all people is a resounding ‘No’, and people develop a variety of reasons to maintain the distinctiveness of the human as a living being with a brain of its own, similar to the animal. But the animal, as many humans may agree, that the animal has a smaller and limiting thought capacity (its natural way of thinking) and cannot think as the human can.

Alex Knapp describes the thinking process of the chimpanzee, which is very similar to the human from evolution and such. He states that our intelligence is one aspect of what it means to be human, but an essential aspect of that intelligence is communication – which for humans is primarily vocal. Vocal communication for chimps is limited and we’re still working out the basics for dolphins. Parrots (which are quite smart) can handle vocal communication, though. He also argues that besides the fact that there is a difference between the manipulation and language of both animals and humans, but that the important thing to debate about is the physiology of intelligence. He argues that the human brain is significantly larger than that of chimpanzees, because our brains are about 3 times larger in volume and also says that it has caused a different metabolism than those other animals. With all of that in mind, he argues, it is best just to focus on ours and let animals be what they are, and not considered a human.

Dvorsky and other pro-uplift advocates have argued that we have a moral imperative to make other species as intelligent as we are once we have the means. But even if we come up with a technique to create chimps, parrots, or dolphins with human-level intelligence, we are almost certainly not going to be take any current, adult animals and uplift them. Those changes would be mean many scientific processes in order to change the function of these adult animal brain, most of which we cannot do. So if we try to change the animal brain to human-level intelligence, it is almost impossible to do.

Aristotle, in his work "The History of Animals", he states that "Many animals have memory, and are capable of instruction; but no other creature except man can recall the past at will." Basically, he states that the human-level intelligence is much more stronger than that of an animal. But later, he states that "Of the senses man has the sense of touch more refined than any animal, and so also, but in less degree, the sense of taste; in the development of the other senses he is surpassed by a great number of animals." Aristotle shows that, even though humans may surpass animals in some parts of senses, many animals surpass man through other senses.

Gary Francione argues that "nonhumans were regarded as things that were indistinguishable from inanimate objects and toward which we thus could have no moral or legal obligations, and although we might have a legal obligation that concerned animals—such as an obligation not to injure our neighbor’s cow—this was an obligation that we owed to our neighbor not to damage her property but not an obligation that we owed to the cow." He also states that "We have no moral justification for using nonhumans, however 'humanely' we treat them. To the extent that we do use animals, it is, of course, always better to cause less pain than more pain." He thoroughly explains that only nonhumans are considered things, not humans, and continues to explain that humans are more of a being than nonhumans (specifically, animals).

If animals have a sense of themselves only in the present, we cannot assume that they do not value their lives and are concerned only with how we treat them. Sentience, or subjective awareness, is only a means to the end of continued survival for certain beings who have evolved in particular ways that have made sentience a characteristic to help them adapt to their environment and survive. A sentient being is a being with an interest in continuing to live, who desires, prefers, or wants to continue to live. Animals cannot communicate directly with humans, as stated before, so we cannot even tell if they actually have the interest of continuing to live.

The social contract theory also helps explain the argument of the intelligence of animals. First, the social contract theory is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract asserts that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm. Any human has the intelligence to know the rules and regulations that governments give, yet if we have the same type of governments for animals, they would not understand the rules and regulations that humans give these laws and would have no idea that these rules and regulations are in existence, based on the knowledge that animals can actually have in their minds. If human intelligence is much higher than animal intelligence, that means that the animal cannot replace a human based on its intelligence.

Many people assume that since apes are our counterparts, they are intelligent animals. Andrew Lansdown argues that apes have a marked faculty for language, they can codify language in writing, and a refined aesthetic sense. Yet this cannot be proven if us humans cannot understand what the ape is trying to describe to us. It cannot tell us what is beautiful for them or what it tries to say, since we can barely understand the language of these creatures, or our counterparts, as most people would call them.

So, in conclusion, I feel that it is almost impossible for the common animal to fulfill the place of a human being, no matter if it's a baby or a senior. The mind appears to be a purely metaphysical thing that both animals and humans have, but the human seems to have the higher intelligence than that of an animal. Also, us humans have no idea of how to believe these animals. With the mind – our freedom and intentionality emerge from the very complex arrangement of our organic bodies, which are unique to humans and animals, yet animals do not have much of a mind to actually develop much freedom and its thoughts. Thus, in reality, it would make Garfield's thoughts or sense of communication almost impossible to actually exist.

Bibliography:
Francione, Gary. Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation. Columbia University Press. New York 2008.

Knapp, Alex- Is It Ethical to Make Animals As Smart As People?

Lansdown, Andrew-Differences Between Humans and Animals.