Читать книгу Dogs in the Leisure Experience - Neil Carr - Страница 12

‘Sentience’ is a term that is inherently biased and as a consequence somewhat limiting when attempts are made to apply it to non-human animals. The reason for this is simply that the term has been constructed by humans and from a human perspective where humans are always at the top of the tree: the hegemonic power. It refers to the ability of animals (human and non-human) to think and undertake reasoned action, and their level of self-awareness. With these concepts comes the view that if something has them then it also must have agency; an ability to self-determine. Implicit to the notion of sentience is that creatures that have it are more than automatons that exist at the behest of biological processes. This suggests there is more to a sentient being than an agglomeration of atoms and chemical reactions. This has been referred to as a consciousness but can, in decidedly non-scientific language, also be referred to as a ‘soul’ (for want of a better word, and not implying any religious affiliation, of which I have none). The debate about whether non-human animals can be considered to be sentient is a highly emotive one where science, religion, politics and law, and personal belief collide. The balance of this debate is prone to change over time and is a culturally and therefore spatially specific issue.

How we, as individuals and societies, view the sentience of dogs has a profound impact on how we use and treat them and is, as a result, crucial to understanding the position and utilization of dogs in the leisure experience. From a scientific perspective the dominant position of the 20th century was that dogs, like most animals, are not capable of conscious thought and, therefore, are not sentient beings (Masson, 1997; Thomas, 2000). It is within this context that Griffin (2001: 29) has stated that: ‘Behavioralists have been insisting for decades that the only appropriate scientific view of animal behavior is one that treats the animals as nearly as possible like mindless robots.’ This view is supported by Boakes (1992 in McConnell, 2005: 271), who has said that: ‘Attributing conscious thought to animals should be strenuously avoided in any serious attempt to understand their behavior, since it is untestable, empty, obstructionist and based on a false dichotomy.’ Boakes’ view of animals is underlain by the notion that unless it can be proved that they are sentient beings then we should continue to view them as lacking sentience. Thio (1983: 18) identified this view as a modernist one, whose proponents claim: ‘there is a world of difference between humans (as active subjects) and nonhuman beings and things (as passive objects). Humans can feel and reflect, but animals, plants, things and forces in nature cannot. Furthermore, humans have sacred worth and dignity, but the others do not.’ Consequently, while humans are self-defined as being sentient and therefore deserving of inherent rights concerning their freedom and welfare that encapsulate both their physical and mental wellness, it is clear, as MacFarland and Hediger (2009: 1) claimed that: ‘Many have contended that other animals deserve no such opportunities because they lack the abilities, particularly the cognitive abilities, to make use of them.’ Yet even something as apparently concrete as this perspective needs to be set against the realization that leading scientists such as Charles Darwin thought that animals, including dogs, were sentient beings (Morell, 2008). Indeed, Darwin is quoted as saying that: ‘dogs possess something very like a conscience. They certainly possess some power of self-command’ (Knoll, 1997: 15).

A shift has been occurring in scientific thought in recent years away from the previously dominant behaviourist paradigm (Duncan, 2006) and towards the realization that many animals, including dogs, experience a range of ­emotions. There are those who, as Griffin (2001) noted, suggest animals have at least simple thoughts (compared to humans), though these are probably different from those experienced by humans. This position is exemplified by Kiley-Worthington (1990: 95), who has stated: ‘That mammals at least feel something like pleasure or joy cannot be denied by any person who is prepared to admit that animals feel pain.’ Others, such as Bradshaw (2011: 210), are happy to state that: ‘dogs share our capacity to feel joy, love, anger, fear and anxiety. They also experience pain, hunger, thirst and sexual attraction.’ That this shift is an emerging one explains why as McConnell (2005: xxvii) noted:

In contrast to the beliefs of most dog lovers, current beliefs among scientists and philosophers about the emotional life of dogs are all over the map. Some argue that only humans can experience emotions, while others argue that non-human animals experience primitive emotions like fear and anger, but not more complicated ones like love and pride. At the other end of the continuum, some say it is good science to believe that many mammals come with the whole package, being capable of experiencing emotions in ways comparable to the way we experience them.

While the recognition that dogs experience emotions hints at a change in the position of scientific thinking regarding the sentience of dogs, it is important to note that discussions about how animals experience emotions is often set within the traditional scientific bulwarks of chemical reactions and evolution. This arguably relates to the traditional view that: ‘a phenomenon that is not publicly observable and confirmable is not the stuff of science’ (Horowitz, 2009a: 3). Consequently, the only way science can look at emotions, in animals or humans, is by distilling them down to the biological and chemical and away from the fuzzy reality in which emotions are experienced. Such a view of the emotions experienced by dogs and other animals allows them to be seen as biological processes necessary to the survival of the species. In this way an animal that experiences emotions can still be viewed as an object, an automaton reacting subconsciously to chemical inducements rather than a self-aware, sentient being. This view is echoed by McConnell (2005: 271), who identified that: ‘Some people assert that while animals may “have” emotions, they aren’t actually conscious of them.’ It is from this perspective that it may be argued that most scientists today are willing to attribute sentience to animals; but I would suggest this is a poor imitation of what sentience really is, something more than the merely subconscious, automated reading of emotions as chemically induced events in the body. Bradshaw (2011: 211) goes a little further than many scientists when stating: ‘dogs do possess some degree of consciousness. In other words, they are probably aware of their emotions, but to a lesser extent than humans are,’ while at the same time recognizing that there is little agreement across the scientific community on this point. Consequently, it may be argued that, while agreement on animals possessing a range of emotions may have been reached, there is an ongoing debate raging as to whether this equates to animals being self-aware, sentient beings capable of individual agency.

It is against the backdrop of the traditionally dominant view of animals as lacking sentience that laws, rights, and welfare issues and standards relating to dogs – indeed, to all animals – need to be viewed. In virtually all cases it is clear that animals are viewed as objects, or property (Sanders, 1999; Bekoff, 2007; Rudy, 2011); not all that different in cold legal language from inanimate possessions. The implications of being an object as opposed to a sentient being are clear. An object has no rights and needs no rights; its welfare is of no concern as it is clear that an object has no feelings or emotions. Even where we see the advancement of the idea that animals have rights and are sentient, as argued below, Francione (2004: 120) has stated that: ‘The status of animals as property renders meaningless our claim that we reject the status of animals as things. We treat animals as the moral equivalent of inanimate objects with no morally significant interests.’ This highlights how existing laws based on one view of animals may be poorly equipped to handle significant shifts in the notion of what the non-human animal is and is capable of.

Against the view of dogs and other animals as objects lacking sentience or only possessing a poor form of sentience that consists of experiencing emotions as nothing more than chemical reactions in the body is a voracious voice that demands that dogs are sentient, self-aware beings capable of feelings (Siegal, 1994; McConnell, 2005; Bekoff, 2007). This is a viewpoint that is being increasingly voiced in relation to animals in general (Bostock, 1993; Lehman, 1997; MacFarland and Hediger, 2009). Jane Goodall (2007: xii) goes as far as to state: ‘There was increasingly compelling evidence that we are not alone in the universe, not the only creatures with minds capable of solving problems, capable of love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and despair.’ The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, written by Philip Low (2012) and ratified by some of the world’s contemporary leading thinkers, is written in a much drier and less emotional academic prose. It stated: ‘the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates’, and clearly recognizes the potential sentience of the non-human animal through its possession of a consciousness. Bringing the focus back to dogs Steiner (2005: 243) has indicated that they: ‘exhibit behaviour that strongly suggests rich emotional lives and complex ways of negotiating their environments’. Similarly, the rich consciousness of dogs and their potential to have a soul is illustrated by Horowitz (2009a: 139) who wrote:

Look a dog in the eyes and you get the definite feeling that he is looking back. Dogs return our gaze. Their look is more than just setting eyes on us; they are looking at us in the same way that we look at them. The importance of the dog’s gaze, when it is directed at our faces, is that gaze implies a frame of mind. It implies attention. A gazer is both paying attention to you and, possibly, paying attention to your own attention.

Following on from the views of people such as Goodall and Steiner, Bekoff (2007: 18), among others, has suggested that: ‘ethical values tell us that animals should not be viewed as property, as resources, or as disposable machines that exist for human consumption, treated like bicycles or backpacks’. This turns the matter of the rights and welfare of animals away from something that is simply related to the sentience of animals and therefore within their power (such as it is) and into a human construct where our ethical values have a bearing on the animal. In this way, as normal, the human is the one in the position of power, dispensing animal rights and welfare according to human ethical standards.

The leading proponents of the notion that dogs have sentience are the owners of dogs, in particular pet dogs (Sanders, 1999). Ask almost any person who has a pet dog and they are likely to tell you that their dog understands and empathizes with them: two clear indicators of sentience. Are these people right or are they delusional, interpreting animal behaviour through rose-tinted human eyes and as a result guilty of anthropomorphism, of imposing human traits on objects or non-human animals – dogs in this case? Certainly traditionally such dog owners have been viewed as eccentric for voicing such opinions (Rudy, 2011), but arguably such an opinion is beginning to change, though the more extreme views espoused by some owners are still ridiculed, as society embraces these views in a manner that is at least partially driven by the widening ownership of pet dogs and the changing views of the scientific community.

The question of sentience is crucial because it forms the basis of arguments surrounding the ‘rights’ of dogs. If they are mere objects, devoid of any sign of sentience, then we can all too easily dismiss the notion that dogs have any rights at all. Rather, as simple objects they are owned by individuals who may do as they wish with said objects with impunity. On the other hand, if dogs have a level of sentience akin to that of humans then by default they should also have the rights that have been enshrined for humans in a variety of universal laws thanks to the United Nations, among other bodies.

With the argument about the sentience of dogs still unresolved it is difficult to determine what the rights of dogs should be. Therefore, rather than relying on science to provide the answer, societies and individuals must continue to decide for themselves on the question of sentience and the related issue of rights. To me, it is clear that dogs do have a kind of sentience; that they are capable of independent thought and of understanding and interacting with different species (most notably, though certainly not exclusively, humans). Is this sentience the same as humans possess? No, I would suggest that it is not, while at the same time suggesting that just because it is not does not mean it is of lesser importance.

So where does this leave the debate about the rights of dogs? If we assume they are sentient beings then we must accept they have rights; rights that relate to their physical and mental well-being. Yet since the dog cannot speak the same language as humans there remains the potential for misinterpretation, wilful or not, with good intentions or otherwise, concerning the needs of dogs and hence the requirements for their welfare and by extension the defining of their rights. At one extreme Rudy (2011) has stated that those proposing the strongest animal rights have suggested we should stop breeding domesticated animals; that we should not cuddle or walk them or use them in our leisure. For me personally this is several steps too far and is also a human-oriented view rather than one that truly takes the animals’ views into consideration. Domesticated animals exist because of humans and would cease to exist without our active involvement. While we can argue that the initial involvement was misguided, abandoning such animals now will lead to their extinction, something that is more appalling, at least to me, than the original domestication of animals. With specific reference to the dog, it is clearly an animal that through its heritage and human-influenced breeding is strongly bonded to humans. To deprive it of such contact is to take a moral high ground that ignores the mental well-being of a species and the associated right of the dog to be with humans if it so wishes.

Consequently, rather than suggesting a blanket ban on dogs to fit well with an idealized standpoint on animal rights that ignores the reality of human–animal interactions that can be beneficial for and desired by all participants, I adopt a more nuanced approach that has the welfare of the dog at the centre. In this way I have no argument with the five freedoms promoted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), among others (freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury and disease; freedom to express normal behaviour; and freedom from fear and distress (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 2012)) but I would position them in a framework that is constructed around the recognition of the sentience of animals and therefore sees them as social actors rather than passive objects.

Within my perspective the focus is on ensuring the physical and mental well-being of the dog and recognizing that the interaction between dogs and humans can be central to both the achievement and destruction of this well-being. In this manner I would fit under Rudy’s (2011) definition of an ‘animal welfarist’. In this way I recognize that the lives and welfare of dogs (like all domesticated animals but more than most) and humans are closely intertwined and to speak only of or to one is to miss this crucial point. To me, this means that it is necessary to reject Rudy’s (2011: 9) assertion that animal welfare means ‘humans still hold all the power’. Yes, one may have more of one type of power than the other but this is not the same as saying dogs have no power of any kind. Even if humans do hold more power, from a welfarist standpoint the important point to note is that with this power (­indeed power of any kind) comes the responsibility to wield this power appropriately; not for the benefit of those in power but rather for all (human and non-human). The core issue then is not power but responsibility and the responsible use of power. In this way I would suggest that Kiley-Worthington’s (1990) assertion that animal welfare is ultimately a matter of moral judgement is not entirely accurate. We may as humans be in a position of power where we can impose our moral values on animals, but welfare is about more than this, it is about being able and willing to listen to the animals and their needs, and bend our morality to meet their position rather than simply impose it on them. Looked at in one way, such a position suggests a lack of equality between humans and dogs but this is based on the idea that there is no difference between dogs and humans. There are differences and to ignore them is disrespectful to both species. I agree with Singer’s (2004) view that the concept of equality ­extends beyond treating different animals in exactly the same way or giving all the same rights. The important point is not equal treatment, but equal consideration, which can lead to different rights for different animals. ‘Consideration’ becomes the key word here: of truly listening to and considering the ‘other’, human or otherwise.