Did Descartes kick dogs? A few words on the Cartesian conception of animals
Originally published in Finnish, in a shorter form, by the Animal Justice Party of Finland in 2015. Later revised and published in a longer from, still in Finnish, in Paatos in 2016.
According to a famous story, French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) once kicked a pregnant dog; when berated by his companions for the action, he replied that the dog’s whimpers are only like the rattling of gears. The story is lively but does not have textual support. In other versions of the story, the dog is kicked by another philosopher, Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715), generally considered as a follower of Descartes (e.g., Watson 2007, 11–12; Hatfield 2008, 423). Confusing the philosophers seems to stem from a common conception that, according to Descartes, animals do not feel or sense anything, not even pain.
Descartes’s enthusiasm to kick and dissect living dogs has become a stuff of philosophical legend,[1] even though no direct evidence for such behaviour exists. The stories might be fancy, yet they still reflect rather well the picture that contemporary people (laymen and philosophers alike) have of Cartesian conception of animals: Animals are machines, mere clockwork without feelings, emotions, sensations, or anything considered ‘mental’. This conception is often brought up in discussions of animal justice as the radical opposing view which, despite its brutality, still echoes in our society’s attitude towards non-human animals (e.g., Regan 2004).[2] Intuitively, this feels like a fitting description of the philosopher, who comments: “[I]f any such machines had the organs and outward shape of a monkey or of some other animal that lacks reason, we should have no means of knowing that they did not possess entirely the same nature as these animals”. (Discourse on the Method: AT VI, 56; CSM I 139.) This famous view of bête-machine, animal machine, has often been interpreted as directly leading to the view of animals as unfeeling and non-sensing machinery, kind of sophisticated robots. Indeed, Descartes sees animals as automatons (automata). and, contrasting with for example the renaissance thinker Michel de Montaigne who viewed animals as capable of thinking,[3] denies them both thought and speech (Letter to More, 15 February 1649: AT V, 277; CSMK, 366; cf. Brown 2018, 194). The Cartesian mind-body distinction is also seen as aggravating evidence. Following Aristotle, the medieval Scholastics divided the soul into three parts – nourishing, sensing, and rational – of which animals were seen to possess the first two, whereas humans were the only ones possessing also the last (de An. II.3, 414a29–414b19). However, Descartes denies the division of the soul and piles up the nutritional and sensual parts into the mechanics of the body. As Descartes makes a strong distinction between the soul or the mind (everything intellectual) and the body (working by the laws of mechanics), denying the former from non-human animals, does he not have to uphold the cruel doctrine of lack of sensation in animals?
Portrait of Descartes, originally considered to have been painted by Frans Hals (1555-1666) but later disputed.
Yet, when reading Descartes’s own writings, instead of the commonly reiterated views associated with him, several sophisticated nuances manifest in the philosopher’s conception of animals, some of them even potentially challenging this general Cartesian presentation. Descartes is commonly seen to hold the following views: [1] animals do not think, [2] animals are not (consciously) aware of their surroundings, [3] animals do not sense and [4] animals do not feel or have emotions. View [1] is quite indisputable but views [3] and [4] are questionable at best in light of textual evidence. I will also clarify some qualifications regarding view [2].
Descartes directly denies that animals have cogitatio, thinking (Letter to More, 15 February 1649: AT V, 275–277; CSMK, 365–366) but does not deny feelings from animals. Quite the contrary: “[A]ll the things which dogs, horses and monkeys are taught to perform are only expressions of their fear, their hope, or their joy; and consequently they can be performed without any thought.” (Letter to the Marquess of Newcastle: 23 November 1646: AT IV, 574–575; CSMK, 303. Emphasis added.) Descartes admits that animals feel for example fear, hope, and joy, and are capable of this despite lacking thought. This view would sound quite strange for a philosopher, who sees non-human animals as mere robots without feelings. This calls view [4] into question.
How about pain? In the Letter to the Marquess of Newcastle, when discussing the lack of speech in animals, Descartes states: “I add also that that these words or signs must not express any passion, to rule out not only cries of joy or sadness (tristesse) and the like, but also whatever can be taught by training to animals.” (AT IV, 574; CSMK, 303.) This seems to implicate that animals do express the joy and distress they experience without it counting for speech (which for Descartes is the only direct demonstration of thought). Descartes likewise connects the feelings of pain and fear in animals in an earlier letter from 1630, when describing if one were to hit a dog to the sound of a violin, the dog would run away each time when hearing the melody (AT I, 134; CSMK, 20; There is no evidence that Descartes ever put his example into practice). Likewise, in the human body, the passions and the movements following them are considered as bodily actions by Descartes. (Letter to More, 15 April 1649: AT V, 344–345, CSMK, 374.) Even though Descartes holds that animals are mechanical, the conclusion that they would not feel pain is too crude.
Unlike one could draw from the reference to automatons, Descartes does not deny that animals are alive. “I do not deny life to animals, since I regard it as consisting simply in the heat of the heart.” (Letter to More, 15 February 1649: AT V, 278; CSM I, 366.) Indeed, automata in the 17th century context were still strongly tied to the literal meaning of the term, things that move by themselves (gr. αὐτόματος). The use of the term refers to a creature that is by itself the cause of its own movement. Even though Descartes sometimes likens animals to clocks, this should not be taken as a direct analogy but instead as referring to the sophistication and detail of their mechanics (which exceeds any machinery created by humans).[4] The human body, like the animal one, is a mechanical machine for Descartes and, when examined separate from the mind, likewise fills the description of an automaton. The term “automaton” was less negatively charged for Descartes and does not directly usher him to the view of animals as unfeeling.
A drawing of the assumed inner workings of Jacques de Vaucanson’s (1709-1782) automaton known as Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck. Later revealed to be mistaken as the automaton was not truly capable of digesting food and then defecating it - instead, the grain kernels fed to it were stored in an inner container, and the feces "produced" were actually pre-prepared breadcrumbs pellets, dyed green, that were released from another container. Source: Mediamatic Magazine Vol. 7, No. 1 (1992).
Descartes is commonly read as a strong dualist, who makes a distinction between a human being’s mind and body. However, this is somewhat misleading and part of the confusion with animals is connected to the obscured relation of body and mind. For Descartes, the human being as a person is effectively a union of mind and body which enables humans to use thought and language, both of which the animals lack. When discussing sensation in animals, most sources refer to Descartes’s distinction between three grades of sensory response:
The first is limited to the immediate stimulation of the bodily organs by external objects […] The second grade comprises all the immediate effects produced in the mind as a result of its being united with a bodily organ which is affected in this way. […] The third grade includes all the judgements about things outside us which we have been accustomed to make from our earliest years. (Meditations, Sixth Replies: AT VII, 436–437; CSM II, 294–295.)
Of these grades, only the first one is shared by both humans and animals, whereas grades two and three can only be found in humans as a result of the union or “as it were the intermingling” (Sixth Replies: AT VII, 437; CSM II, 294) of mind and body. Even though Descartes does not deny the first grade of sensation from the animals, he is commonly understood as holding that animals do not have actual sensation, which only generates in the second grade. The same goes for pain. Therefore, Descartes stating not to be denying animals of sensation “in so far as it depends on a bodily organ” (Letter to More, 5 February 1649: AT V, 278; CSMK, 366) is taken to mean that animals possess sense organs, which they use to react mechanically to their environment, but do not have sensation proper (e.g., Regan 2004, 4–5).
Descartes’s stance on this is though somewhat unclear, and it is not obvious that his view should be read this way. In the works which discuss sensation in human body separate from the mind (e.g., Treatise on Man, Description of the Human Body, Passions of the Soul §§XII–XVI), Descartes seems to paint a picture of sensing as a mechanical activity, which is only dependent on the body and its motion. Likewise, when discussing pain, hunger and thirst, Descartes mounts part of these experiences to the body (Sixth Meditation: AT VII, 81, 86–88; CSM II, 56, 59–61). With feelings, such as joy, Descartes also separates mental joy from animal (bodily) joy (Principles of Philosophy: AT VIIIA, 316–318; CSM I, 280–281; §CXC).
A detail from Nils Forsberg's (1842-1934) painting Dispute of Queen Cristina Vasa and René Descartes (1884)
When writing about animals, Descartes often emphasises that they do not feel like us (lat. sicut nos, fr. ainsi que nous). He could then be read as not denying animals of experiences but only stating that theirs do not correlate with our (cognitive) experiences. Regarding, for example, pain Descartes points out that he explains all the required external motions which coincide with pain. Animals also possess these motions, but they do not have pain in the strict sense (fr. proprement dite) (Letter to Mersenne, 11 June 1640: AT III, 85; CSMK, 148).[5] What Descartes’s term cogitatio more specifically means is potentially self-reflective mental experience. Descartes separates between cogitatio (sensation as reflective experience) and sensus (sensation as lower-level activity), denying animals only the first. He then makes a difference between bodily sensation (experience of pain, hunger, light and so on) and reflective sensation (experience that I sense, or that I am in pain). (See, e.g., Principles: AT VIIIA, 7–8; CSM I, 195; §IX.[6] Animals do not have cogitatio, so, according to Descartes, they do not possess a similar reflective sense-experience. Nowhere, however, does Descartes state that animals do not possess the same bodily sensation as humans do. View [3] is then likewise questionable.
As I have aimed to demonstrate, Descartes does not unequivocally support all the views connected with the mechanistic conception of animals. Mechanical, non-experiencing conception of animals needs to be opposed but, to do this, it is not necessary to dig Descartes from his grave over and over again. More essential would be to focus on how little the general conception of animals has in the end changed since Descartes’s time.
Sources and references
Adam, Charles & Tannery, Paul (eds.): (AT; 1899–1908; 1963–1967) Oeuvres de Descartes I–XII, Vrin/C.N.R.S.
Cottingham, John; Stoothoff, Robert & Murdoch, Dugald (eds.): (CSM; 1984–1985) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volumes I & II, Cambridge University Press.
Cottingham, John; Stoothoff, Robert; Murdoch, Dugald & Kenny, Anthony (eds.): (CSMK; 1991) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volume III – The Correspondence, Cambridge University Press.
Ablondi, Fred: (1998) “Automata, Living and Non-Living: Descartes’ Mechanical Biology and His Critetrion for Life”, Biology and Philosophy no. 13, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 179–186.
Aristotle: (de An.; 1957) On the Soul (Περὶ Ψυχῆς, translation by Hett, W. S.; original Greek text included), Harvard University Press.
Brown, Deborah J.: “Animal Souls and Beast Machines: Descartes’s Mechanical Biology” in Adamson, Peter & Edwards, G. Fay (eds.): Animals: A History, Oxford University Press.
Carriero, John: (2009) Between Two Worlds, Princeton
University Press.
Cottingham, John: (1998; 1978) “Descartes’ Treatment of Animals”, original title “A Brute to the Brutes? Descartes’ Treatment of Animals”, in Cottingham, John (ed.): Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Descartes, Oxford University Press, 225–233.
Gaukroger, Stephen (2002): Descartes’ System of Natural Philosophy,
Cambridge University Press.
Hatfield, Gary: (2008) “Animals” in Broughton, Janet & Carriero, John (eds.): A Companion to Descartes, Blackwell Publishing, 52–65.
Montaigne, Michel de: (1991; 1580; 1588; 1595) The Complete Essays (Essais, translation by Schreech, M. A.), Penguin Books.
Regan, Tom: (1983; 2004) The Case for Animal Rights, University of California Press.
Watson, Richard: (2007) Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes, David R. Godine
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