HUMAN AND ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS: A BRIEF REFLECTION ON IRREFUTABLE DIFFERENCES

By Noelle Leslie G. de la Cruz Philosophy Department De La Salle University

Introduction: Why talk about animal minds? Human beings live inextricably in the company of animals. In fact, we literally cannot survive without them: our species uses them for food, clothing, medicine, sport, transportation, protection, and companionship. The majority of us subsist on a diet that includes chicken, pork, and beef as staples of every meal. Many of us have pets such as dogs, cats, birds, and fishes. Some of the products we consumepain-killers, contraceptives, shampoos, and colognes, for instancehave previously been tested on animals in order to determine their safe and effective use for humans. Most of us have been to zoos where different animals, especially wild ones, are confined and exhibited for our entertainment and education. Even our ancient myths and legends, as well as contemporary books and movies, make use of animal characterstypically anthropomorphized in order to make sense of the human experience. And yet, talk of animal consciousness or animal minds often induces laughter or incredulity. We often take it for granted that there is nothing to know about non-human living things, or at least nothing important that high school science hasnt already taught us. And what science (and some major religions, for that matter) teach us is that animals are relevant to us only to the extent that they further human ends. In fact, the Bible explicitly designates us as rulers of the earth and all the organisms in it: And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every

living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

As the story goes, Adam, the first human beingwho is also considered the most special of all Gods creaturesis tasked to name the different animals, in the same way that the discipline of biology provides a scientific name for all the known organisms. Highly symbolic, the story of Genesis prefigures the human domination and stewardship of nature and animals. There is thus a very old and rarely questioned belief in the human ability and inherent right to act as sovereign of the known universe. The basis of this idea is the human capacity for reason, which will be elucidated later in this paper in terms of the criteria for personhood and human consciousness. My aim is to focus on what I see to be one of the marginalized issues in the philosophy of mind: the problem of animal consciousness. When I first presented my report about the subject in a graduate class, there were scattered chuckles and some skeptical raising of eyebrows. It seemed incongruous to many that a course on the first philosophy of the analytic tradition should even remotely touch on the mental lives of animals. However, a closer examination of the issue would reveal many important connections between animal sentienceusually defined as the capacity to feel painand the nature of human consciousness. Pondering questions about what it is like to be a dog or a cat, to use Thomas Nagels parlance, opens up a world of vital and fascinating concerns about what it is like to be human, to live and thrive in the company of other sentient beings, in a universe seamlessly stratified by the fact of evolution. For instance, in identifying some of the salient differences between the human mind and the animal one, philosophers have pointed to mental features such as ego formation, higher-order thought, and language abilities, among others, as unique to human beings. How do such distinctly human characteristics factor in our considerations about how we should treat animals? Does the fact that animals do not have our kind of consciousness justify our use of them as means to an end? Or does our very capacity for reason indicate that we should protect and defend animals, even and especially from human intervention? Debates about the nature of human consciousness The attributes that make us different from animals seem to hint at something transcendent regarding human consciousness. This very idea is fiercely contested among identity theorists and dualists, who constitute the two main opposing camps in the philosophy of mind. Identity theorists are also called physicalists or reductionists, since they reduce the human mind into purely physical phenomena. They hold that science can explain everything about the human mind. For them, mental states are identical to brain states. Take for instance the feeling of love, which many of us ordinarily take for granted as an abstract or even spiritual concept. For an identity theorist, love is
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simply the firing of certain neurons in the brain; there is nothing mysterious about it. On the other hand, dualists maintain that the human being is more than just the physical object of scientific study. They assert that there is something about the human mind that cannot be captured solely through the observation and description of its material aspects. In short, dualists believe that there is something transcendent about the nature of human beings. We are special, and hence partake of the irreducible mystery of the universe. In this paper, I will be exploring the position of both identity theorists and dualists on how humans should treat animals. Dennett (1995) and Carruthers (2004), both identity theorists, maintain that human and animal consciousness are vastly different. On the basis of this difference, they do not endorse the claims of the animal liberation movement. Meanwhile, Thomas Nagel (1974), a dualist, holds that since consciousness is a purely subjective experience, humans have no reliable access to animal minds. We cannot know the exact nature of animal consciousness. Nagels views are fundamental to the stand of animal rights supporters who dismiss the differences between human and animal consciousness as moot. They believe that by virtue of animals capacity to feel pain, they have moral status, or even deserve equal moral consideration, regardless of the nature of their minds or consciousness. Thus, improbable though it may sound at first, delving into discussions about the lives of animals and their moral status helps illuminate some of the key debates in the philosophy of mind: whether the human mind is spiritual or material, whether neuroscience could ultimately decipher its secrets, and whether it could be replicated by a computeras the physicalists hope to achieve in the future. While these big questions are beyond the scope of my paper, insights about the nature of animal consciousness make valuable contributions to other issues that are usually taken for granted as more important. In addition, animal consciousness is among the notable sub-fields in the philosophy of mind that invites analytic philosophers to cross over from the sterile laboratory of concepts to lived experience, in which our shared humanity demands the ethical treatment of animals. Hence, my approach in this paper will be an amalgam of phenomenology and logical analysis. In view of the above considerations, my paper is concerned with two problems: (1) What is the nature of animal consciousness, and how does it differ from human consciousness?, and (2) What are the logical consequences of the differences between human and animal consciousness in the moral arena? Before I discuss these problems, in the first part of my paper I will briefly discuss the different intellectual traditions regarding how humans should treat animals, as well as the genesis of the modern animal liberation movement founded by Peter
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Singer. This background should provide the social context of the debates among philosophers of mind regarding animal consciousness, some of whom support the idea of animal rights while others reject it. In exploring the first question above, I will be differentiating the broader term consciousness from sentience, which is what philosophers ordinarily ascribe to a class of non-human animals, mostly vertebrates (namely, in descending order of moral significance, mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes). I will examine the concept of sentience itself especially in light of its discriminating function among non-human life; philosophers seem to confer moral status only on sentient beings. Meanwhile, in answering the second question, I will discuss the logical conclusions that follow from the differences between human consciousness and ascriptions of animal sentience, in terms of our own view of ourselves and of our relationship with nonhuman life. This is a fundamental problem in the philosophy of the person, and accordingly I will discuss several main criteria for personhood. The question of the moral status of animals is closely related to the question of whether sentient non-persons have moral rights. Animal rights: A history of ideas A notable roster of Western philosophers, from the ancient times to the twentieth century, perceived animals as having no appreciable moral status.1 Here are some of the main and enduring views from Western thinkers (de Grazia 2002: 3-5):
Aristotle argued that although animals are sentient, they are not rational. As such they are lower than humans in the hierarchy of nature and the latter may accordingly use them as resources. Medieval theologians Augustine and Aquinas, exemplifying the Christian tradition, echoed the Aristotelian view. During the modern Enlightenment period, Descartes saw animals as lacking not only reason but also sentience or feelings. Animals are mere automata or organic machines, a passive part of brute nature. Finally, Kants moral philosophy, which asserted the uniqueness of humans in that we are free from natures causal determinism, served to justify the human exploitation of animals.

Interestingly, according to de Grazia (2002: 6), While a Westerner and an Easterner may both speak of life as sacred, only the Easterner is likely to have in mind all life. The Indian belief systems of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are notable for the concept of ahimsa or non-injury to all living things and reverence for all life. 5

This is not to say though that there are no exceptional opinions about the ethical treatment of animals among Westerners, for instance: Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras believed that animals may be humans reincarnated. Jeremy Bentham considered the welfare of sentient animals as a factor in his pleasure-pain calculus. Finally, Arthur Schopenhauer saw morality as involving compassion for all organisms capable of experiencing suffering (de Grazia 2002: 3-5).

And paradoxically enough, it is in the West that the political movement in favor of animal rights was founded. Tester (1991: 13) identifies four main areas under the umbrella of animal rights: (1) Vegetarianism, (2) opposition to hunting, (3) the campaign against vivisection, and (4) concern with animals welfare. It was Australian philosopher Peter Singer who pioneered the above movement with the publication of his Animal Liberation (1976). Here he uses a utilitarian framework in arguing for the ethical treatment of animals. Since utilitarianism advocates the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number, Singer takes into consideration the interests of all sentient creatures in avoiding pain or suffering (Tester 1991: 3-4). He follows the equal consideration principle, according to which animal suffering matters as much as human suffering (de Grazia 2002: 20). He coins the term speciesism, an attitude which qualifies the above principle based on whether or not one is a member of the human race. Tester (1991: 4) quotes Singer as saying that the speciesist is someone who allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. Meanwhile, Tom Regan uses a different moral principle, Kantian in essence, in building The Case for Animal Rights (1984). Whereas Singers approach is primarily oriented toward an end, namely the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, Regans argument is based on the intrinsic value of subjects as ends in themselves. He views animals, just like humans, as having the inherent right not to be harmed. He also emphasizes the virtue of vegetarianism (Tester 1991: 5-8). A cursory overview of these different intellectual traditions indicates that however thinkers see the relationship between humans and animals, including our proper conduct towards them, the overall point is how humans should act ethically. Its possible that the actual welfare of animalswhich is perceived by animal rights supporters as highly importantmay nonetheless constitute a secondary concern. Ultimately, its possible that we care about animals only to the extent that our behavior towards them says something about our views
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regarding human morality. In relation to this, Tester (1991: 16) explores the hypothesis that
animal rights is not concerned with animals at all; that, on the contrary, the idea says rather more about society and humans. It is not a morality founded upon the reality of animals, it is a morality about what it is to be an individual human who lives a social life.

Discussions about the nature of animal consciousness in the philosophy of mind often take place in relation to discussions about human consciousness, or at least for the purpose of furthering existing knowledge regarding the nature of the human mind. This convention is of course contrary to the principle of the moral status of animals, which De Grazia (2002: 20) lists as one of the three senses of animal rights. This principle simply states that animals have value in and of themselves, apart from their utility for humans; hence they should be treated well for their own sake. In this paper I do not mean to imply that discussions about animal consciousness are relevant only to the extent that they serve our own ends. Rather, my choice of the topic is an acknowledgement of the moral value of animals as ends in themselves. However, it is impossible to talk about their mental lives other than from the perspective of a human being and through the lens of our own kind of consciousness. Thus I begin the following section with a brief overview of what philosophers mean by consciousness, with the caveat that what follow are necessarily anthropomorphic concepts. Phenomenal consciousness or sentience There are a couple of ways of understanding consciousness: phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness pertains to the experience of sensory mental events and states or qualia (Kim 1998: 157), as in seeing the bright azure of the sky, feeling the soft surface of a cotton shirt, or inhaling the savory scent of an asparagus soup dinner. Nagels famous formulation of this kind of consciousness is, There is something it is like to be. While there is something it is like to be a bat or a human being, there is nothing it is like to be a chair or a rock. Most contemporary philosophers acknowledge that animals possess a degree of phenomenal consciousness. That is to say, they are sentient or

capable of having feelings or felt sensations and emotional states (De Grazia 2002: 40). Not all non-human organisms are sentient, however; there is a boundary that marks sentience somewhere in the phylogenetic scale or evolutionary hierarchy. Here, humans are on top, followed by the Great Apes and dolphins, the mammals from elephants to rodents, followed by birds which are higher than reptiles and amphibians, which in turn are higher than fish (De Grazia 2002: 35). The creatures mentioned above are vertebrates or those who possess backbones; they are generally considered sentient. The rest of the creatures in the lower part of the scale are invertebrates; not all of these are generally considered sentient. Intuitively, we know that a dog has phenomenal consciousness in that it flinches and whines if kicked. However, it is more difficult to ascribe sentience to some insects which have very simple nervous systems and short life spans, and which do not seem to respond to injury or loss of body parts apart from a startle reflex (De Grazia 2002: 44). Other primitive life forms such as amoeba and bacteria are almost certainly non-sentient beyond simple chemical reactions to the environment, which can hardly suffice as any kind of theater for feeling either pain or pleasure. Discriminating among sentient and non-sentient animals is necessary in formulating a moral stand in regard to them. The principle behind the ethical treatment of animals rests on their capacity to feel pain, an unpleasant or aversive sensory experience typically associated with actual or potential tissue damage and suffering, a highly unpleasant emotional state associated with more-than-minimal pain or distress (De Grazia 2002: 42-45). The moral concern is reserved for creatures that would conceivably care about how they are treated because they are aware of it and experience sensations because of it. It follows for example that if lice cannot experience extensive suffering, then one cannot be expected to abstain from bathing out of concern that one might drown them. The ethical demand on the part of humans is for us not to inflict unnecessary pain and suffering on sentient beings. Hence, the term animal as it is used in this paper pertains to sentient non-human life on Earth. However, Tester (1991: 14-16) ponders a problem with regard to such a view of animal liberation that imposes restrictions on what the term animal should include:
Animal rights is restricted to animals who are most like us. Of course, seemingly valid philosophical explanations for the restriction are provided, but the fact that barriers are erected after mammals and only ambiguously encompass reptiles, fish, and mollusks is sociologically important. why does animal rights only properly include nice cuddly mammals? Why are rights only
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accorded to the animals which are most easy to anthropomorphise?

It would seem that the feasibility of animal rights rests on an effective definition of the class of beings that should receive moral consideration. Otherwise, we could conceivably find ourselves in an absurd situation wherein we would have to ponder the relative value of a termites lifeas opposed to, say, a human beings need to live in a sturdy house. On the other hand, drawing the line between animals and non-animals among non-human life may uncomfortably remind us that the human bias is indeed in favor of creatures who are closer to our level in the evolutionary scale. There are obviously no easy and morally comfortable answers to this dilemma. The tack taken by those who discuss animal rights is simply to rely on the idea of sentience as a sufficient moral gauge. An application of this moral gauge is evident in Dennetts (1995: 12) description of the mental life of snakes and how he believes they should be treated:
For [sentient] states to matter there must be an enduring, complex subject to whom they matter because they are a source of suffering. Snakes (or parts of snakes!) may feel pain but the evidence mounts that snakes lack the sort of over-arching, long-term organization that leaves room for significant suffering. That does not mean that we ought to treat snakes the way we treat worn out tires, but just that concern for their suffering should be tempered by an appreciation of how modest their capacities for suffering are.

Self-consciousness or higher-order thought Meanwhile, apart from sentience, another way of understanding consciousness is in terms of self-consciousness. This pertains to a state of inner awareness whereby one is capable of higher-order thought. David Rosenthal sums it up thusly: a mental states being conscious consists in ones having a thought that one is in that very mental state (Kim 1998: 165). Consciousness as inner awareness has also been evinced by David Armstrong who refers to it as perception or awareness of the state of your own mind (Kim 1998: 165).

A hen whose chicks are being threatened may exhibit ferocious behavior, spreading its wings across the bodies of its offspring while attempting to peck the aggressive interloper with its little beak. At that moment of instinctive reaction, the hen might not necessarily know or acknowledge that it is angry or why it is angry; all its energy is focused on the impulse to protect and defend the chicks. Later on it will not reflect on its reactions or feel complex human emotions such as guilt, regret, or bitterness. Contrast this to the ordinary persons response to his or her own exhibition of anger. Due to eons of training in civilized life, a person who may have shouted at his or her colleague during a moment of stress may be moved to apologize or resolve to be more patient and respectful in the future. Self-consciousness also implies a unity of all phenomenal perceptions concretized in an individual subject, commonly called the ego. Due to our possession of an ego, human beings may experience a variety of sensations all at oncee.g. hearing music from the radio, breathing in the scent of somebodys cologne, seeing words and images on the computer screen, and feeling the individual keys of the keyboard. There is an imaginary subject who binds these overlapping experiences together, and who understands that these events are happening to himself or herself, that he or she is undergoing these experiences, and not anyone else or the entire universe without differentiation. It is in this way that the ego separates itself from its environment and other egos. Some philosophers, notably Carruthers (2003) and Dennett (1995), argue that animals do not have self-consciousness. According to Carruthers functionalist higher-order thought theory, for a creature to be conscious it must have a theory of mind that will equip it with the concepts it will need to think about its own mental states. Since there is little scientific evidence in favor of animals having a theory of mind, Carruthers does not consider animals conscious (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2003: 4).

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Meanwhile, Dennett (1995: 8-9) builds the case that animals lack an ego or an inner Cartesian Theater that enables consciousness. He cites a study that describes a snakes predatory activities, which indicates that a snake relies on three separate modalities to catch and eat a mouse. Apparently, a snake uses its senses of sight, smell, and touch individually on three different stages of the hunt. According to Dennett, there is no unity of experience among the individual parts that function in order for the snake to eventually catch, kill, and ingest its prey. Its important to note here that the kind of consciousness being denied to animals by thinkers such as Dennett is self-consciousness and not sentience or phenomenal consciousness. But for animal liberationists, mere sentience on the part of animals is enough to justify and demand the recognition of their moral status, and in a stronger sense of animal rights, equal moral consideration in regard to their welfare. De Grazia (2002: 20) describes the equal consideration principle as saying that We must give equal moral weight to humans and animals comparable interests. For example, animal suffering matters as much as human suffering [italics supplied]. However, Dennett and Carruthers set a higher standard of moral consideration that is predicated on the formation of higher-order thought or egoan aspect of consciousness that is intrinsically human. To quote a passage from Dennett (1995: 9) regarding the ego and its peculiar absence in animals: In order to be consciousin order to be the sort of thing is like something to beit is necessary to have a certain sort of informational organization that endows that thing with a wide set of cognitive powers (such as the powers of reflection and representation). This sort of internal organization does not come automatically with so-called sentience. It is not the birthright of mammals or warmblooded creatures or vertebrates; it is not even
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the birthright of human beings. It is an organization that is swiftly achieved in one species, ours, and in no other. [Italics supplied.] In sum, my discussion of the nature of consciousness in the last two sections has shown that animals are conscious in the first sense, namely phenomenal consciousness or sentience. They differ from human beings in that their mental lives do not qualify them for the stricter sense of consciousness, which refers to the capacity for higherorder thinking or self-consciousness. The next two sections explore the logical consequences of this undeniable difference for the case for animal rights and liberation. Should self-consciousness be a prerequisite for moral rights? A brief critique of Dennetts views Intuitively, we perceive animals, especially pets such as cats and dogs, as having a sense of self in the ordinary sense. Such pets commonly respond to their names and would often seem to form emotional relationships with their masters, exhibiting behaviors that humans may interpret as jealousy, affection, indignation, and so forth. But if one were to interpret the word ego in such a way as to encompass the capacity for long-term memory, appreciation of personal history, symbolic thought, an aesthetic sense, and even spirituality, then obviously no philosopher would grant that any nonhuman animal has an ego. However, in such a case the definition of consciousness would be patently anthropomorphic. It reveals that the entire discussion about animal consciousness is inevitably based on human terms. In his article Animal consciousness: What matters and why (1995), Dennett delves into the various epistemological and ethical debates about animals mental lives and how they should be treated. He presents many commonsensical arguments and cites various empirical data about vultures, snakes, and bats. In the course of presenting his own views as a physicalist, he critiques the opposing perspectives of dualists who, following Nagel, insist that science can never fully and exactly describe for us what it is like to be any kind of sentient non-human animal. Having established a certain degree of confidence in describing consciousness scientifically, Dennett then makes a distinction between human and animal minds. For him, this distinction is important and represents the crux of the debate about animal liberation. With Dennetts allusion to human beings as a group that uniquely possesses a mental Cartesian Theater, animal rights supporters may denounce his ideas as speciesist. However, Dennett also says that
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there is nothing special or mysterious about consciousness. In fact, he attributes ego formation among humans to an evolutionary accident; he also dismisses the Cartesian Theater as an illusion. Notwithstanding this reductionist view of consciousness, however, Dennett clearly says that animalseven though they are sentientare not (self-)conscious. Thus, even though Dennett strips human consciousness of its transcendent connotations, he implies that it is still a significant determinant of moral status. In his example about the predatory behavior of snakes, he hints that since snakes are not (self-)conscious, they do not deserve the same ethical treatment that we would ordinarily accord human beings. In his snake example, Dennett claims that mere sentience may not imply any appreciable capacity for long-term suffering. To some, this may sound like a reiteration of the Cartesian view that animals are mere automata, in contrast to humans who are rational souls. Of course the logical consequence of this kind of thinking is that there would be an unbridgeable divide between humans and animals mandated by God, nature, or evolutionand which could stand as a rationale for breeding and raising animals for human use, hunting and killing them for sport, using them in laboratory experiments and vivisections, or killing them for their furs or skins or ivories. Animals are different from us; animals are the Other. Which brings me to the concept of difference. As a feminist, I have long grappled with the many sense of the word difference and its implications for politics, identity, and the treatment of marginalized groups. Having taken a temporary hiatus from feminist issues, I now find myself going over the same concepts, this time in regard to animal difference and animal marginalization. First of all it would seem that the very notion of differenceof dualisms or dichotomiesis fundamental to the structure of human thought itself, as evidenced by different philosophical traditions across cultures and across historical eras. The West talks about the domination of logos over nature and the non-rational. Meanwhile, although the East talks about wholeness and integration, it also emphasizes the complementary but irreducible differences of two halves, yin and yang. Ancient creation myths tell the saga of difference in terms of breaking away or rising out of primitive waters or the primordial voidthe cosmos is first formed through separation and individuation. Even developmental theories in psychology talk about separation from a parent, usually the mother, as the fulcrum of selfhood. In short, all discussion about animal consciousness will ultimately lead to the irrefutable fact of animal difference from human beings. Its how we come to understand the world: to name everything in it and then to categorize it. Granted, we share the quality of sentience with animals and have traditionally attributed human qualities to them. But
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no matter how heartbreaking Disney makes Bambis life out to be, we human beings have very different mental lives and we have no reason to assume that they see or experience the world in remotely the same way as we do. In fact, there is some sense in saying that we have completely different worlds even though we belong to the same biosphere. Many of us, in a well-meaning sort of way, would like to gloss over this difference and insist that animals are basically like us, digging into the nature of animal consciousness in the hopes of drawing important similarities beyond simple sentience. I think this impulse stems from the fear of difference, or rather a certain interpretation of difference. Some people assume, and they are correct to some extent, that acknowledging that animals think differently or experience the world differently from human beings would plunge us into a ruthless Cartesian alternate universe where animals may be abused, maimed, slaughtered, and consumed at will (because they are perceived as comfortably beneath human beings and our moral concerns). In fact, this is what is already happening here and now. However, this outcome need not necessarily follow from the idea of difference. I learned this lesson from the predicament of the early feminists who once cried for equality, and who were rewarded equality to the extent that they became honorary men. What Im saying is that its patently wrong to accord animals moral consideration only if they measure up to some anthropomorphic standard. As in, I will refrain from stripping off your skin to make a pair of shoes only if you can get up, walk on two legs, and debate animal consciousness with me. The case for animal liberation need not be predicated on a oneto-one correspondence between human and animal consciousness. Sentiencethe fact that a being can feel pain and experience suffering is enough to ground the ethical demand for us not to harm that being. In the next section, I will further expound on this idea in the context of the philosophy of the person. Among persons differences and animals: A balance sheet of

A useful way of making sense of the differences between humans and animals is to consider the three main criteria for personhood, as they are commonly enumerated in the philosophy of the person. These are consciousness (sentience), intelligence, and self-awareness (Anderson 2004: 2). My discussion of the nature of consciousness and its two senses has already touched on some aspects of these criteria, and hence the preceding sections may overlap a bit with the discussion in the following paragraphs. We can say that phenomenal consciousness pertains to sentience, the first criteria, while self-

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consciousness pertains to intelligence and self-awareness, the last two criteria. Consciousness is the subjective experience of sensory impressions and internal thoughts. At any given moment, a conscious individual experiences a composite of sensations from the five senses. Also for Thomas Nagel, a conscious individual is someone whom there is something it is like to be. For example, try to describe what it is like to be you at this moment. You feel the smooth surface of the philosophy journal in which this article is likely printed, you breathe oxygen and possibly hear other peoples voices. You may be amused by or bored with or interested in the ideas presented in this article. Perhaps you are also hungry because youve missed lunch. In any case, there is something it is like to be you. But there is nothing it is like to be an inanimate object such as a piece of chalk or a stove. Its impossible to describe what its like to exist as a chair, because theres nothing it is like to be a chair. A chair is not conscious. But there is something it is like to be a dog or a cat. Sentient animals are conscious in this sense. (Note that for Nagel, consciousness is a purely subjective experience. We can have no access to conscious beings internal mental states. In his article What It Is Like to Be a Bat, he writes that while its possible to imagine the individual sensory states experienced by a bat, we can never fully capture or personally feel exactly what it is like to be a bat.) The second criterion of personhood, intelligence, refers to the capacity to understand and cope with new situations (Anderson 2004: 3). A sufficient understanding or grasp of ones situation and options is a prerequisite to rational action and choice. For instance, a person who signs a contract communicates his or her understanding of the agreement, hence indicating his or her consent to the terms presented. While conversing with a person who may not have an adequate mastery of the language in which his or her options are statedfor example, in addressing a foreigner who wants to complete a business transactionwe usually punctuate our end of the conversation with the question, Do you understand? This is how crucial intelligence is to human life; without it, no one can conceivably cope with the situations a human being is usually presented with (e.g. going to school, traveling to other countries, maintaining a relationship, working a job, etc.). Animals obviously do not possess the
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same level of intelligence we take for granted in human beings. A dog that urinates on a carpet may perceive that its owner is angry, but it will not understand why. It can be trained to urinate outside the house through a system or reward and punishment, but it will not be able to appreciate the meaning and social implications of cleanliness and manners. Finally, the last criterion of personhood is self-awareness, which pertains to the subjects knowledge both of the things external to him or her and his or her internal states as well (Anderson 2004: 4). It implies the capacity to reflect on his or her own feelings and beliefs, which is made possible by the mechanisms of the ego. Animals may be aware of their own relation to the external world, including the threats from the environment and their own needs and desires. However, they do not possess the cognitive capacity to reflect on this awareness. A stallion may be aware of its own sexual arousal and will most likely respond by mounting an available mare. Afterwards, the act will not have any other meaning for the animal beyond the basic fulfillment of its bodily urges. But a human being who is in a state of sexual desire will not necessarily indulge the instinctual urge to mate. Before deciding to have sex, this person will probably first contemplate issues such as his or her own body image and he impact of sex on the future of his or her relationships and career. This reflects a sense of self and involves considerations such as Who am I?, What do I want? What are my goals in life?, and so forth.

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These criteria of personhood lead us to two conclusions: (1) Not all humans are persons, and (2) not all persons are humans. Babies, very young children, brain-damaged individuals, those who are in a comatose state, and the insane are humans but they are not, strictly speaking, persons in the philosophical sense. Meanwhile, some fictional accounts of non-human beings may be considered persons, such as robots or artificially-intelligent creatures (C3PO in Star Wars, Agent Smith in The Matrix), the ghosts at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series, and some animals in films such as Garfield or in comic books such as the precocious tiger in Calvin and Hobbes. But these fictional accounts aside, animals are not persons. Even though they satisfy the first requirement, sentience, they do not possess either intelligence or self-awareness.

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The concept of personhood has crucial importance in the realm of moral rights and responsibilities. Traditionally, we assign the burden of moral responsibility only to persons, who are uniquely capable of rational choice. We ordinarily do not enforce laws that punish babies, insane individuals, and animals for the purpose of correcting their behavior or making them appreciate the fine nuances of ethical behavior. (Although animals who kill human beingsfor instance, crazed horses or rabid dogsmay be put to death, the purpose of the act is not to punish them but to prevent further harm to humans.) The question of whether only persons have or deserve moral rights is more difficult to settle. Some of the most basic moral rights as we commonly understand them include any and all of the following: The right to live, The right to liberty and security of person, The right to equality and to be free from all forms of discrimination, The right to be free from torture and ill-treatment, and The right to development.

Some moral rights that apply specifically to persons include freedom of thought, reproductive freedom, and freedom of assembly and political participation, and freedom of religion. For the purposes of this paper, moral rights shall pertain to the five basic ones that are not unique to persons. On one hand, there is the view that only persons have moral rights. Corollary to this is the idea that persons are more valuable than nonpersons, and by virtue of this difference the former deserve better treatment and a bigger share in the resources of the planet. While the philosophers who do not support animal liberation generally do not advocate the unnecessary suffering of animals, they do attempt to justify the human use of animals for whatever purpose our lifestyle demands. On the other hand, there is the view that all sentient beingsall beings who are capable of pain and sufferingwhether they are persons or non-persons, deserve ethical treatment, or have inherent moral rights. This is the main premise of the animal liberation movement. For animal rights supporters, it is not necessary to prove that animals are (self-)conscious or that they are persons in order to respect their moral rights. My own position favors the latter view, that all sentient beings, human or animal, have moral rights. Despite the obvious differences between human and animal minds, where you are in the evolutionary scalefor as long as you can experience pain and sufferingis irrelevant when it comes to the right to be treated ethically. To argue
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otherwise is to subscribe to a hierarchical view of difference, a dangerous, chauvinistic attitude that has led to the human exploitation of nature as well as the subjugation of other human races. Postscript: On the ethical treatment of sentient non-persons Taking seriously the view that all sentient beings have moral rights involves several considerations. The first has to do with the degree to which human lives can and ought to change in order to accommodate the ethical treatment of animals. I believe that any change that our lifestyle can sustain without directly harming us or threatening our lives should be brought about. For example, vegetarianism is an ideal; we should stop hunting and mass-producing animals solely for the purpose of eating them. Also, out of respect for animals right to liberty and security, we should not remove them from their natural environments for our own amusement or entertainment. We should also refrain from using animals for clothing and accessories. With regard to animal testing, such a practice should be countenanced only when human survival necessitates it; for example, scientific research in cancer or AIDS. (However, the latter may be debatable because cancer or AIDS probably will not in themselves wipe out the human race. Its possible that some may even consider such research speciesist. I personally do not hold this view, however.)

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Another consideration brought about by the view that all sentient beings have moral rights has to do with the moral debate about abortion. The issue of reproductive rights and health is outside the scope of my paper. However, the matter of abortion must be mentioned tangentially here because a fetus is a sentient being. (An unborn human may not necessarily be sentient in all the stages of its development; a zygote for instance may not be sentient. For this reason, I limit my discussion to abortion during the fetal stage.) Those who oppose abortion typically argue that the fetus is a person, and that by virtue of this it has the right to live. Applying the criteria for personhood, however, it is more appropriate to say that the fetus is not yet a person, but it is a potential person. Nonetheless, if one subscribes to the view that all sentient beings have moral rights, then the issue of whether the fetus is a person or not ceases to be important. We must grant that it still has the right to live. The debate about abortion is very thorny and may never be settled. The contribution of this paper to the issue is the idea that the personhood argument should be abandoned in the discussion about moral rights. However, the question as to whether abortion is either morally wrong or morally justifiable cannot be decided in the abstract. A situation that involves abortion should always be discussed in its own unique context. That the fetus is a sentient being even though it is not yet a person is only one of the considerations. And in any event, feminist views that support reproductive freedom do not claim that the fetus has no value or no moral status or even that it has no right to life, only that its right to live is not the sole consideration in the situation. It is a mistake to equate animal liberation with anti-abortion. Although fetuses and animals are both sentient non-persons, there are salient differences between them. The main difference is that a fetus is a potential person who is biologically indistinct from another human being, its mother. Until technology finds a way to nullify this physical bond, the moral rights of fetuseseven though we must acknowledge that they have themdo not by themselves settle the question of abortion.
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Summary and Conclusion In this paper I elucidated on the problem of animal consciousness in the philosophy of mind. I explored two main issues: (1) the nature of animal minds especially in comparison to human minds, and (2) the logical implications of the differences between them. I situated the philosophical arguments regarding the nature of human and animal consciousness in light of the animal liberation movement. In describing the nature of animal consciousness, I drew a distinction between the concept of sentience and the broader one of (self-)consciousness, which incorporates not just phenomenal consciousness but also higher-order thought. Most philosophers are willing to grant that animals are sentient but not self-conscious. This means that there are important and undeniable differences between human and animal consciousness. I clarified these differences in terms of the three main criteria of personhood: consciousness or sentience, intelligence, and selfawareness. Animals are not persons because although they satisfy the first criterion, they lack the other two. Personhood has important implications for the notion of moral rights and responsibilities. I argued that even though animals are not persons, as sentient beings they have moral rights and thus should be treated ethically. Finally, in the last part of the paper I mentioned some important considerations with regard to the idea that sentient non-persons have moral rights. One involves some recommendations as to the extent to which we can and should modify our lifestyles in order to respect animals rights and welfare. The other is a tangential discussion of the issue of abortion in regard to the idea that the fetus is also a sentient non-person. I concluded that animal liberation is not equivalent to antiabortion.

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