Animal Emotions

[Gertie]

Given the way their conceptual distinction is formulated, it does have ontological implications, in the sense that an identity of emotions (qua "measurable physiological and/or neural states that are often reflected in behavior") and feelings is ruled out by definition: Emotions can be associated by feelings, but they are not feelings themselves.

It follows that emotional states "such as fear, anger, disgust" can occur without any subjective emotional experiences, such that being in fear/anger/digust doesn't entail feeling fear/anger/disgust. Unfelt or unexperienced emotions in those authors' sense are "objective emotions" defined in purely neurophysiological or ethological (behavioral) terms; but I think such objective emotions do not deserve to be called emotions at all, because all we have here are corporeal motions or (re)actions.

Right. The termonology can need clarification, but the obvious key issue here is that of having subjective experience, and the moral implications which follow.

As GE says, we can't objectively/third person observe another subject's experiential states, so we have to analogise. If they have similar physical characteristics associated with experience in humans, and/or behave in ways we'd expect if they were having experience, it's reasonable to assume they have experience. It won't be identical to human experience, but we should try to treat them with moral consideration commensurate to our best guess as to ''what it is like to be a lobster slowly being boiled alive'' and so on.

[Consul]

No, since sensory experience = sensory subjective experience.

Animals have nerves (or their equivalent in the relevant non-mammal cases) and therefore receive sensory input. That is all I mean by 'sensory experience.'

The mere neurophysiological processing of sensory signals (stimuli) shouldn't be called sensory experience.

[GE Morton]

We take their reports as evidence of subjective states only because we've already assumed, a priori, that other humans have minds and therefore experience subjective states.

Why think such a thing? You seem to be doing nothing more than begging the question in favor of your own conception of the inferential sequencing, but ironically your conception misses the mark of basic empiricism. If you think you've made an a priori assumption about the subjective nature of human beings before you witness the behavior that manifests the being's subjectivity, then you will have to explain why the heck you made that a priori assumption in the first place!

No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing. The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.

Actually, you're right there too. We can't logically infer subjective states from observable behavior. But we can infer it inductively, provided we've already assumed other minds exist and that there is a correlation between their subjective states and their behavior, based on the one case where we know there is such an association --- our own.

You are assuming the question at stake (begging the question). We are asking how, when one encounters a foreign entity or substance, one can discern whether that entity possesses subjective states. Your basic claim has been that if we cannot infer that certain animals have subjective states, then we also cannot infer that other humans have subjective states. I pointed out that this is incorrect, since the inference in the case of humans is based on evidence that is not present in animals, i.e. language and even self-description.

Yes, you did make that argument, and I responded that language use is not necessary for making that inference with respect to humans. We assume other humans experience subjective states whether they express them verbally or not, and even when they are incapable, for various reasons, of so expressing them. We also routinely impute them to animals, especially to most other mammals, all of whom are non-verbal. Verbal ability is superfluous for making that inference.

In response you claim that we don't infer human subjectivity from any sort of observable behavior, but rather know it a priori.

Oh, no. We can never claim to "know" something we've assumed a priori. The reason we make that assumption is just because we don't know whether other minds exist or not; so we must assume either that they do or they don't. We opt for the former because the latter leaves us with solipsism, which is an unsatisfying explanatory dead-end.

But beyond that you have the burden of showing why that "a priori" assumption cannot exclude the non-human animals you wish to see as subjective beings. Do you claim that we also make this "a priori" assumption with regard to non-human animals?

Oh, it could exclude them, but then we'd need some grounds for doing so. Having assumed a priori that other minds (creatures who experience subjective states) exist, the next task to decide which creatures, which entities within our experience, may possess that property. And we do that by observing their behaviors and assessing how similar it is to our own (since we know those behaviors are accompanied by subjective states). It is a weak inductive argument, being based on a single confirmed instance, but it is the best we can do.

Note here that the a priori assumption that other minds exist is not the same as the inductive inference that you, or my cat, or a lobster experiences subjective states. The a priori assumption merely enables that possibility; it allows us to ask that question.

Your basic argument, consistent even from the early parts of the thread, is as follows:

1. The behavior of human and non-human animals is more or less the same (with respect to " "emotion" ").
2. We infer subjectivity from the behavior of humans.
3. Therefore we must also infer subjectivity from the behavior of non-human animals.

That's a valid syllogism, but (1) is false. The behavior of humans is significantly different from the behavior of non-human animals, and thus we have two different bodies of evidence from which to draw inferences. This is obviously why we can and do draw different inferences about the subjectivity of the two different kinds of entities.

That is indeed my argument (and that of the authors of the article). I'd agree that human behavior is different from that of other animals (whose behaviors are also different from one another), but deny that those differences are "significant" --- or even relevant --- to the question at hand. The question of whether an animal (including mute humans) experiences subjective states depends upon whether they exhibit certain distinctive patterns of behavior, which patterns we take to be definitive and conclusive for making that inference. Other behaviors they may display are irrelevant to that question.

[Vita]

Anyone who has owned a cat knows that animals have emotions.

Cats seem to have so many idiosyncrasies. My mum used to adopt strays and she had one, 'Biffy' who seemed to have so much fear. We used to wonder if he had been through psychological trauma. He used to jump up in the air and preferred women to men. This lead to wondering if some man had ill treated him in the past. It is hard to know to what extent animals have memories in the absence of human language and to what extent they have are able to form concepts, possibly based on images.

Eventually, Biffy was seen by a vet and a worker in the RSPCA who discovered that he had an overactive thyroid which explained why he wanted about 5 meals a day and was not fat. Also, it appeared that he had some damage to the bones in his face, and had only 1 tooth. This seemed to indicate that he may have been run over by a car. He definitely was complex and used to keep my mother busy all day and even in the night.

At the risk of turning this thread into a compilation of cat stories, a behavior of a cat I had for a long time better illustrates sentience than her displays of emotion. At the time I had two cats, a petite bicolor female (Katy) and a gimpy back tom, Schwarzie (both neutered). They were indoor/outdoor cats, and had a cat door into the back yard. One evening while I sat at the kitchen table reading both cats came bounding through the cat door, full speed, ears flat, as though something was chasing them. Had a dog gotten into the fenced yard? They ran through the kitchen, through the house, and up the stairs to the 2nd floor. I went to the door and looked out into the yard, saw nothing threatening, then followed the cats upstairs. Schwarzie was sitting at the top of the stairs, alert, as though watching to see if the intruder had followed them through the cat door. But Katy had continued on to the back bedroom, which had windows overlooking the back yard. She'd hopped up on the window sill and was scanning the yard, in full "alert mode." It impressed me that she knew just where she could go to get a good view of the back yard. I'd read later that cats thoroughly explore their territories and construct mental "maps" of it, so they know exactly what is in it and where it is. They also refresh those maps from time to time, to see whether anything has changed. That is sentience.

I don’t think sentience is quite the same as intelligent thinking. If so, would you consider AI to have sentience, or plants?

[stevie]

Do animals, including invertebrates, have felt emotions and does this morally matter?

There is not even scientific evidence for emotions in humans because the concept of "emotions" relies on phenomena which are exclusively privately accessible based on introspection and beliefs but not publically accessible through sense perception independent of beliefs. So if one doesn't know whether a human really/truly has "emotions" or only believes to have "emotions" (because others tell them) why ignorantly impute "emotions" to organisms one even cannot communicate with about what they themselves believe to experience?

[GE Morton]

Do animals, including invertebrates, have felt emotions and does this morally matter?

There is not even scientific evidence for emotions in humans because the concept of "emotions" relies on phenomena which are exclusively privately accessible based on introspection and beliefs but not publically accessible through sense perception independent of beliefs. So if one doesn't know whether a human really/truly has "emotions" or only believes to have "emotions" (because others tell them) why ignorantly impute "emotions" to organisms one even cannot communicate with about what they themselves believe to experience?

The answers to those questions are given in the responses above.

[GE Morton]

I don’t think sentience is quite the same as intelligent thinking.

Not quite, but intelligent behavior warrants assuming sentience.

If so, would you consider AI to have sentience, or plants?

No, because neither exhibits the requisite types of behavior (though AI may do so eventually).

[Leontiskos]

We take their reports as evidence of subjective states only because we've already assumed, a priori, that other humans have minds and therefore experience subjective states.

Why think such a thing? You seem to be doing nothing more than begging the question in favor of your own conception of the inferential sequencing, but ironically your conception misses the mark of basic empiricism. If you think you've made an a priori assumption about the subjective nature of human beings before you witness the behavior that manifests the being's subjectivity, then you will have to explain why the heck you made that a priori assumption in the first place!

No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing. The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.

Then I think you would do better to talk about inductive inference, as you were doing earlier in the thread. The premises you are thinking of are simply not a priori vis-a-vis the behavioral observations I am referencing.

Actually, you're right there too. We can't logically infer subjective states from observable behavior. But we can infer it inductively, provided we've already assumed other minds exist and that there is a correlation between their subjective states and their behavior, based on the one case where we know there is such an association --- our own.

You are assuming the question at stake (begging the question). We are asking how, when one encounters a foreign entity or substance, one can discern whether that entity possesses subjective states. Your basic claim has been that if we cannot infer that certain animals have subjective states, then we also cannot infer that other humans have subjective states. I pointed out that this is incorrect, since the inference in the case of humans is based on evidence that is not present in animals, i.e. language and even self-description.

Yes, you did make that argument, and I responded that language use is not necessary for making that inference with respect to humans. We assume other humans experience subjective states whether they express them verbally or not, and even when they are incapable, for various reasons, of so expressing them. We also routinely impute them to animals, especially to most other mammals, all of whom are non-verbal. Verbal ability is superfluous for making that inference.

Ah, but if you had read me more carefully you would not now be conflating verbal speech with language. In <this post> I gave examples of language, "spoken words, written words, signs, etc." In <this post> I gave a working definition of language as, "an intentional manifestation and communication of the subject's abstract perception of the world."

The most obvious counterexample to your fixation on speech would be formal sign language, but we could also point to pictorial representation and also to more subtle forms of intentional representation.

But beyond that you have the burden of showing why that "a priori" assumption cannot exclude the non-human animals you wish to see as subjective beings. Do you claim that we also make this "a priori" assumption with regard to non-human animals?

Oh, it could exclude them, but then we'd need some grounds for doing so. Having assumed a priori that other minds (creatures who experience subjective states) exist, the next task to decide which creatures, which entities within our experience, may possess that property. And we do that by observing their behaviors and assessing how similar it is to our own (since we know those behaviors are accompanied by subjective states). It is a weak inductive argument, being based on a single confirmed instance, but it is the best we can do.

Note here that the a priori assumption that other minds exist is not the same as the inductive inference that you, or my cat, or a lobster experiences subjective states. The a priori assumption merely enables that possibility; it allows us to ask that question.

I would claim that the inductive inference about the existence of other minds is grounded in the inductive inference about concretely existing minds, or more properly, persons. The first logical step in the child's understanding of the existence of other minds is its understanding that its mother or father exist as other persons (and as other human beings).

Your argument depends on the strange claim that we first arrive at an abstract belief that "other minds exist," and that these minds might therefore be equally found to exist in humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils. But this isn't right at all. The way that we arrive at the belief that other minds exist is precisely through our interaction with human persons, and I would contest that a child raised by wolves would not possess this same belief that other minds exist.

Your basic argument, consistent even from the early parts of the thread, is as follows:

1. The behavior of human and non-human animals is more or less the same (with respect to " "emotion" ").
2. We infer subjectivity from the behavior of humans.
3. Therefore we must also infer subjectivity from the behavior of non-human animals.

That's a valid syllogism, but (1) is false. The behavior of humans is significantly different from the behavior of non-human animals, and thus we have two different bodies of evidence from which to draw inferences. This is obviously why we can and do draw different inferences about the subjectivity of the two different kinds of entities.

That is indeed my argument (and that of the authors of the article). I'd agree that human behavior is different from that of other animals (whose behaviors are also different from one another), but deny that those differences are "significant" --- or even relevant --- to the question at hand. The question of whether an animal (including mute humans) experiences subjective states depends upon whether they exhibit certain distinctive patterns of behavior, which patterns we take to be definitive and conclusive for making that inference. Other behaviors they may display are irrelevant to that question.

Hopefully the above provides some concrete reasons for adjudication in favor of my position. Your a priori belief in the abstract existence of other minds is not tenable. It is precisely because of our interaction with human persons that we come to hold such an abstract belief, and this interaction in no way justifies the claim that minds might be found anywhere.

[Leontiskos]

GE Morton - it seems that every time you lose an argument you abandon the conversation and disappear into the ether. How about some closure this time?

[GE Morton]

@GE Morton - it seems that every time you lose an argument you abandon the conversation and disappear into the ether. How about some closure this time?

Oooh! Either I overlooked your last post, or didn't receive a notice about it. Will respond later today.

[Leontiskos]

@GE Morton - it seems that every time you lose an argument you abandon the conversation and disappear into the ether. How about some closure this time?

Oooh! Either I overlooked your last post, or didn't receive a notice about it. Will respond later today.

Sounds good. No hurry, really. I just assumed the topic had been abandoned.

[GE Morton]

No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing. The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.

Then I think you would do better to talk about inductive inference, as you were doing earlier in the thread. The premises you are thinking of are simply not a priori vis-a-vis the behavioral observations I am referencing.

That would be a very weak inductive inference, based on a single confirmed case.

We make two metaphysical assumptions a priori, before we undertake to explain our own existence and the phenomena we experience: 1) that there is an external world, and 2) that at least some other creatures/entities are also conscious. Without those assumptions we're trapped in solipsism. The question of just which creatures/entities those are is answered by inference from their behavior. Note that we make those assumptions even before we begin to philosophize ("naive realism"). Everyone makes them. Philosophers make them explicitly, and acknowledge that they are hypotheses, not "facts."

Yes, you did make that argument, and I responded that language use is not necessary for making that inference with respect to humans. We assume other humans experience subjective states whether they express them verbally or not, and even when they are incapable, for various reasons, of so expressing them. We also routinely impute them to animals, especially to most other mammals, all of whom are non-verbal. Verbal ability is superfluous for making that inference.

Ah, but if you had read me more carefully you would not now be conflating verbal speech with language. In <this post> I gave examples of language, "spoken words, written words, signs, etc." In <this post> I gave a working definition of language as, "an intentional manifestation and communication of the subject's abstract perception of the world."

Well, that is itself begging the question (by assuming a behavior reveals intentions and perceptions). We can only infer intentions (and other conscious phenomena) from behavior if we've already assumed there is such a relationship in the cases of certain behaviors --- an assumption we make a priori.

Also, your definition of "language" above is ad hoc, contrived, and useless for distinguishing languages from other structured patterns of behavior.

The most obvious counterexample to your fixation on speech would be formal sign language, but we could also point to pictorial representation and also to more subtle forms of intentional representation.

I never claimed that languages were confined to verbal speech. It is just the most common form among humans. A language is any structured system for conveying information via symbols. But while the capacity for using such a system is good (inductive) evidence for consciousness, it is not the only evidence germane to that question.

Note here that the a priori assumption that other minds exist is not the same as the inductive inference that you, or my cat, or a lobster experiences subjective states. The a priori assumption merely enables that possibility; it allows us to ask that question.

I would claim that the inductive inference about the existence of other minds is grounded in the inductive inference about concretely existing minds, or more properly, persons. The first logical step in the child's understanding of the existence of other minds is its understanding that its mother or father exist as other persons (and as other human beings).

I agree; it is what I said above. The child is automatically a "naive realist." But that is an assumption on his part, though he doesn't recognize it as such.

Your argument depends on the strange claim that we first arrive at an abstract belief that "other minds exist," and that these minds might therefore be equally found to exist in humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils. But this isn't right at all. The way that we arrive at the belief that other minds exist is precisely through our interaction with human persons, and I would contest that a child raised by wolves would not possess this same belief that other minds exist.

Oh, not "first." At first we are all naive realists. We all assume the world we experience is the "real world," and that creatures (more-or-less) like us have minds more-or-less like ours. Only when we begin to philosophize do we realize those beliefs are not warranted by the evidence we have. But we have to postulate an external world of some sort, and other minds, in order to get off the ground with explanations of our existence and experiences.

And I disagree about the child and the wolves. The child would asume those wolves also had minds --- more-or-less like his. Mythology is full of mindful, intentional, anthropomorphized animals, and animist religions deify them.

Hopefully the above provides some concrete reasons for adjudication in favor of my position. Your a priori belief in the abstract existence of other minds is not tenable. It is precisely because of our interaction with human persons that we come to hold such an abstract belief, and this interaction in no way justifies the claim that minds might be found anywhere.

They won't be found "anywhere." They'll only be found in systems of a certain kind, and evidenced by the behavior of those systems.

[Leontiskos]

No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing. The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.

Then I think you would do better to talk about inductive inference, as you were doing earlier in the thread. The premises you are thinking of are simply not a priori vis-a-vis the behavioral observations I am referencing.

That would be a very weak inductive inference, based on a single confirmed case.

Even the statement that you made shows this to be false. "The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time;" Clearly this is not based on a single case, for you speak of phenomena in the plural over a matter of years. Further, you are clearly not talking about an a priori assumption if it is a conclusion based on, or presupposing, the theories we construct to explain phenomena we've experienced over a matter of years. In that case it is a posteriori, and it is inductive, as I noted.

We make two metaphysical assumptions a priori, before we undertake to explain our own existence and the phenomena we experience: 1) that there is an external world, and 2) that at least some other creatures/entities are also conscious. Without those assumptions we're trapped in solipsism. The question of just which creatures/entities those are is answered by inference from their behavior. Note that we make those assumptions even before we begin to philosophize ("naive realism"). Everyone makes them. Philosophers make them explicitly, and acknowledge that they are hypotheses, not "facts."

Maybe you make those assumptions, but I don't. I am an empiricist and my epistemology does not float two feet above the ground. I believe there is an external world and other creatures because I have evidence for those conclusions (which as you rightly note, are hypotheses and not assumptions).

Yes, you did make that argument, and I responded that language use is not necessary for making that inference with respect to humans. We assume other humans experience subjective states whether they express them verbally or not, and even when they are incapable, for various reasons, of so expressing them. We also routinely impute them to animals, especially to most other mammals, all of whom are non-verbal. Verbal ability is superfluous for making that inference.

Ah, but if you had read me more carefully you would not now be conflating verbal speech with language. In <this post> I gave examples of language, "spoken words, written words, signs, etc." In <this post> I gave a working definition of language as, "an intentional manifestation and communication of the subject's abstract perception of the world."

Well, that is itself begging the question (by assuming a behavior reveals intentions and perceptions). We can only infer intentions (and other conscious phenomena) from behavior if we've already assumed there is such a relationship in the cases of certain behaviors --- an assumption we make a priori.

No, and now you're committing foundational logical errors. We don't have categories like 'intention' and 'behavior' in hand a priori before we experience the world. It is only after experiencing the world that we come to understand such concepts. You are making the common mistake of assuming that all reasoning must be deductive or compositional (which is actually impossible). The simple, atomic elements which deductive and compositional logic manipulate and presuppose are known without deductive or compositional reasoning.

So the reason we know that a human differs from an earthworm in the manner of intentionality is by observing humans and earthworms. God doesn't magically grant us a conception of intentionality and behavior before we ever experience intentionality or behavior (i.e. we do not know such things a priori). You are an anti-religious thinker and yet you are falling into what would be thought of as naive religious reasoning (such as the attribution of substantive a priori concepts - a sort of naive Platonism).

Yes, you did make that argument, and I responded that language use is not necessary for making that inference with respect to humans. We assume other humans experience subjective states whether they express them verbally or not, and even when they are incapable, for various reasons, of so expressing them.

The most obvious counterexample to your fixation on speech would be formal sign language, but we could also point to pictorial representation and also to more subtle forms of intentional representation.

I never claimed that languages were confined to verbal speech.

It seems plain that you implicitly did just that when you used 'verbal expression' to exhaustively illustrate your point about language, as the two bolded sentences confirm.

Note here that the a priori assumption that other minds exist is not the same as the inductive inference that you, or my cat, or a lobster experiences subjective states. The a priori assumption merely enables that possibility; it allows us to ask that question.

I would claim that the inductive inference about the existence of other minds is grounded in the inductive inference about concretely existing minds, or more properly, persons. The first logical step in the child's understanding of the existence of other minds is its understanding that its mother or father exist as other persons (and as other human beings).

I agree; it is what I said above. The child is automatically a "naive realist." But that is an assumption on his part, though he doesn't recognize it as such.

Well, no. Above you said that we make a priori assumptions, not inductive inferences. Earlier in the thread you spoke about induction, but you later moved away from this. Please note that an a priori assumption and an inductive inference are two entirely different things, and this distinction is precisely what is at stake.

Your argument depends on the strange claim that we first arrive at an abstract belief that "other minds exist," and that these minds might therefore be equally found to exist in humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils. But this isn't right at all. The way that we arrive at the belief that other minds exist is precisely through our interaction with human persons, and I would contest that a child raised by wolves would not possess this same belief that other minds exist.

Oh, not "first." At first we are all naive realists. We all assume the world we experience is the "real world," and that creatures (more-or-less) like us have minds more-or-less like ours. Only when we begin to philosophize do we realize those beliefs are not warranted by the evidence we have. But we have to postulate an external world of some sort, and other minds, in order to get off the ground with explanations of our existence and experiences.

Noted disagreements notwithstanding, those "other minds" you speak of cannot be thought to equally subsist in "humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils," and this is precisely why your conclusion about the subjective equivalence of humans and animals is false. There is an inductive rationale for why we attribute different natures to humans and animals, and your attempt to ignore that inductive rationale in favor of some sort of a priori equivalence just doesn't make sense.

And I disagree about the child and the wolves. The child would asume those wolves also had minds --- more-or-less like his. Mythology is full of mindful, intentional, anthropomorphized animals, and animist religions deify them.

I disagree, and this seems to be a very gross misunderstanding of mythology.

Hopefully the above provides some concrete reasons for adjudication in favor of my position. Your a priori belief in the abstract existence of other minds is not tenable. It is precisely because of our interaction with human persons that we come to hold such an abstract belief, and this interaction in no way justifies the claim that minds might be found anywhere.

They won't be found "anywhere." They'll only be found in systems of a certain kind, and evidenced by the behavior of those systems.

And you maintain that the behavioral evidence does not allow us to make traditional distinctions between humans and (non-human) animals?

[GE Morton]

No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing. The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.

Then I think you would do better to talk about inductive inference, as you were doing earlier in the thread. The premises you are thinking of are simply not a priori vis-a-vis the behavioral observations I am referencing.

That would be a very weak inductive inference, based on a single confirmed case.

Even the statement that you made shows this to be false. "The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time;" Clearly this is not based on a single case, for you speak of phenomena in the plural over a matter of years.

The "phenomena we've experienced for years" is, 1) our own subjective experience, and 2) behavior we've observed by ourselves and others. The only confirmed case of a correlation between those two is our own case.

Further, you are clearly not talking about an a priori assumption if it is a conclusion based on, or presupposing, the theories we construct to explain phenomena we've experienced over a matter of years. In that case it is a posteriori, and it is inductive, as I noted.

The a priori assumption is not a "conclusion based on theories." It is an assumption upon which those theories rest and from which they proceed. That's what "a priori" means. We can't (rationally) infer that others have minds based on the single confirmed case. But in order to explain the behavior we do observe, we assume, a priori and without evidence, that they do. If we didn't we'd be left with solipsism.

We make two metaphysical assumptions a priori, before we undertake to explain our own existence and the phenomena we experience: 1) that there is an external world, and 2) that at least some other creatures/entities are also conscious. Without those assumptions we're trapped in solipsism. The question of just which creatures/entities those are is answered by inference from their behavior. Note that we make those assumptions even before we begin to philosophize ("naive realism"). Everyone makes them. Philosophers make them explicitly, and acknowledge that they are hypotheses, not "facts."

Maybe you make those assumptions, but I don't. I am an empiricist and my epistemology does not float two feet above the ground. I believe there is an external world and other creatures because I have evidence for those conclusions (which as you rightly note, are hypotheses and not assumptions).

Well, no, you don't have empirical evidence for the existence of other minds. You have evidence for your own case only. And the only "evidence" you have for an external world are phenomenal impressions in your mind. That they are produced by entities or events in an external world is an assumption on your part. There is no difference, BTW, between an assumption and a "working hypothesis."

A note about "evidence": E serves as evidence for X IFF there is known relationship between E and X. An alien from Betelgeuse crash lands his saucer in northern Canada. Exiting the damaged craft, he observes a line of narrow depressions in the snow, running out of sight in both directions --- caribou tracks. For an Inuit hunter, those depressions would be evidence a caribou had recently passed that way. For the alien, who knows nothing animal life on Earth, they are evidence of nothing.

Well, that is itself begging the question (by assuming a behavior reveals intentions and perceptions). We can only infer intentions (and other conscious phenomena) from behavior if we've already assumed there is such a relationship in the cases of certain behaviors --- an assumption we make a priori.

No, and now you're committing foundational logical errors. We don't have categories like 'intention' and 'behavior' in hand a priori before we experience the world. It is only after experiencing the world that we come to understand such concepts. You are making the common mistake of assuming that all reasoning must be deductive or compositional (which is actually impossible). The simple, atomic elements which deductive and compositional logic manipulate and presuppose are known without deductive or compositional reasoning.

It is you who is begging the question, by assuming we "experience the world." We have experiences; that they are induced/produced by an external world is an assumption. The "simple, atomic elements" of reasoning are those experiences --- which are all subjective, internal phenonema. But if we wish to explain them we're forced to postulate an external world.

You also seem to be confusing knowledge with reasoning. Reasoning presupposes knowledge, which may be gained by experience (Russell's "knowledge by acquaintance"), by description, or by inference from the first two. Both deductive and inductive reasoning proceed from premises --- information already in one's possession.

So the reason we know that a human differs from an earthworm in the manner of intentionality is by observing humans and earthworms. God doesn't magically grant us a conception of intentionality and behavior before we ever experience intentionality or behavior (i.e. we do not know such things a priori). You are an anti-religious thinker and yet you are falling into what would be thought of as naive religious reasoning (such as the attribution of substantive a priori concepts - a sort of naive Platonism).

The term "intention" denotes that a given behavior was goal-directed, with attaining that goal the "intent" of the actor. But the only intentionality we experience is our own. For all other creatures (including other humans) we infer it from their behavior --- provided we've assumed a priori that correlation holds, given sufficient similarities between their behaviors and our own.

I'm also not sure you understand what is meant by an a priori assumption. It has nothing to do with religion or anything transcendental or Platonic. It simply denotes the axioms we take as givens, in order to get explanation underway, off the ground, so to speak. Those assumptions are, at bottom, pragmatic.

I would claim that the inductive inference about the existence of other minds is grounded in the inductive inference about concretely existing minds, or more properly, persons. The first logical step in the child's understanding of the existence of other minds is its understanding that its mother or father exist as other persons (and as other human beings).

I agree; it is what I said above. The child is automatically a "naive realist." But that is an assumption on his part, though he doesn't recognize it as such.

Well, no. Above you said that we make a priori assumptions, not inductive inferences.

Correct. The child is not making any inductive inference, and if he was, it would be a very weak one. He is assuming, a priori, that other persons have minds. The only difference between the naive child's assumption and the philosopher's is that the latter recognizes it as such, while the child does not --- he sees it as "fact," or "truth." Questioning it does not occur to him.

Noted disagreements notwithstanding, those "other minds" you speak of cannot be thought to equally subsist in "humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils," and this is precisely why your conclusion about the subjective equivalence of humans and animals is false. There is an inductive rationale for why we attribute different natures to humans and animals, and your attempt to ignore that inductive rationale in favor of some sort of a priori equivalence just doesn't make sense.

You seem not to be grasping that argument. First, no one has suggested that the minds of humans, snakes, etc., are "equal," and certainly not that pencils might have minds. Nor do the authors contend that there is a "subjective equivalence" of animal and human consciousness. They only argue that many of the behaviors we take as evidence of consciousness in humans are also presented by some animals --- which is quite obvious. That leads to questions regarding the moral status of those creatures.

And you maintain that the behavioral evidence does not allow us to make traditional distinctions between humans and (non-human) animals?

It certainly allows us to make some distinctions, but not the distinctions we'd need to dismiss them all as creatures with moral status. Cruelty to animals is already nearly universally considered to be immoral, and is prohibited by law in most jurisdictions. The authors only suggest that status reaches a bit further into the animal kingdom than we currently assume.

[snt]

The following article appears in the current issue of Science (25 March, 2022, Vol. 375, Issue 6587)

de Waal is a psych professor at Emory university (Atlanta), Andrews a philosophy professor at York University (Toronto).

While I'm not sure of their claim that emotions and felt experiences are tantamount to sentience, I do agree that they qualify an animal as having "moral standing" (they would be "moral subjects," though not moral agents).

Some might question whether behavioral responses and neurochemical processes, upon which the authors' arguments heavily rely, can justify moral conclusions (the "is/ought gap"). But whether a creature is or is not a moral agent is not actually a moral question; it is a factual one, and that type of evidence is the only evidence we have for considering other humans to have moral standing.

Here is the article. Thoughts?

I believe that the way that humans are addressing morality and the idea of 'moral standing' is wrong. It provides people with a completely wrong idea about morality which could result in profound cultural moral issues.

What is being asked is actually whether or not humans should neglect morality or not, a morality which is ever present!

When the intent is to achieve quality in morality and a sound moral culture to spur intellectual progress for humanity, it is case to spur the potential for moral consideration and that would demand ingraining people with the right conception of morality, not as a choice between good and bad but as an everlasting quest into 'good'.

The assignment of animals to a class on the basis of which they receive a certain treatment is politics and has nothing to do with morality.