Question Do animals know they are mortal? Bill Reay

Accepted:
November 7, 2005

Comments

Here's a more basic question: Do (non-human) animals know that they are? Do (non-human) animals have a conception of themselves? Are they, as it is put, "self-conscious"? Self-consciosuness seems to be a necessary precondition of knowledge of one's own mortality.

Obviously, one need not give a single answer for all (non-human) animals. Perhaps birds are not self-conscious, but chimpanzees are. If one thought, as some philosophers have, that one cannot be self-conscious unless one is a user of language, then of course that would answer the question. But I don't find that view terribly appealing or well-argued.

The question which animals are self-conscious is, presumably, an empirical one. I'm reasonably sure that flies are not self-conscious, but would be prepared to believe that cats are, and I've encountered some evidence that chimpanzees are. But there is a philosophical question here, as well, namely: What exactly is self-consciousness? What is involved in having a conception of oneself? I find it reasonably intuitive that, to have a conception of oneself is to think of oneself as one among many things in the world. (The idea traces to Kant.) If so, then a conception of oneself necessarily involves a kind of "objective" conception of the world and of one's place in it. Such a conception would not require one to be aware of one's own mortality, but it would come pretty close, since that would arise from an awareness of other creatures' mortality together with an awareness that one is oneself a creature like those others.

Question Do animals know they are mortal? Bill Reay Accepted:November 7, 2005

Question Do animals know they are mortal? Bill Reay

Accepted:
November 7, 2005