Page iii The Unheeded Cry Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science Expanded Edition Bernard E. Rollin Iowa State University Press / Ames Page iv BERNARD E. ROLLIN is professor of philosophy, professor of physiology, and director of bioethical planning at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, where he developed the world's first course in veterinary ethics and animal rights. Rollin is the author of twelve books, including Farm Animal Welfare (1995) and The Frankenstein Syndrome (1995). © 1998 Iowa State University Press © 1989 Bernard Rollin All rights reserved Iowa State University Press 2121 South State Avenue, Ames, Iowa 50014 Orders: 18008626657 Office: 15152920140 Fax: 15152923348 Web site: www.isupress.edu Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by Iowa State University Press, provided that the base fee of $.10 per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 27 Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970. For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by CCC, a separate system of payments has been arranged. The fee code for users of the Transactional Reporting Service is 08138 2575X/98 (cloth); 0813825768/98 (paper) $.10. Printed on acidfree paper in the United States of America First edition, Oxford University Press, 1989 Expanded edition, Iowa State University Press, 1998 Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Rollin, Bernard E. The unheeded cry : animal consciousness, animal pain, and science/Bernard E. Rollin.—Expanded ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 081382575X (cloth); 0813825768 (pbk) 1. Animal experimentation. 2. Animal welfare. 3. Animal rights. 4. Animal psychology. I. Title. HV4915.R65 1998 179'.3dc21 983110 The last digit is the print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Page v To my mother, my wife, and Michael David Hume, with thanks Page vii Foreword When I read Bernard Rollin's book Animal Rights and Human Morality (New York, 1981) I realized that the animals had gained a powerful champion. Thus I was delighted when I found that another book on the subject was in preparation and considerably honoured when I was asked to write a Foreword. The Unheeded Cry is a book that I can recommend enthusiastically to all seriousminded people who care about animals and the ways in which they are used—or abused—in our society. It will be of equal interest to those whose interest lies in the field of human morality and ethics. Rollin writes in a clear, crisp style that compels attention. His argument is logical, rational, and persuasive. Over the past ten years the general public has become increasingly aware of human exploitation of nonhuman animals. In particular, as a result of the efforts of animal activists, the public is learning more about the atrocities that may be perpetrated behind the closed doors of underground animal research laboratories around the world. How is it that a scientist, who appears to be quite fond of his dog at home can, when he dons his white coat, become so seemingly insensitive to animal suffering? How can science teach us that animals feel no pain when we 'know', from our commonsense perspective of the world, that they do feel pain? This is one of the main issues addressed in this book. With considerable authority Rollin sets the present growth of international concern about animal welfare issues into historical perspective. He traces the changes in social mores and economic pressures that have influenced the ideology of science and the scientist's attitude towards animal nature. In addition to his own lucid commentary on these changes, Rollin allows many of the key figures to speak for themselves. He quotes long passages from their writings that convey vividly the flavour of their personalities and the scientific atmosphere of their times. As Rollin points out, the commonsense view of most people has always been that animals, like preverbal children and the mentally Page viii retarded, experience a variety of humanlike feelings including pain. It was from this perspective that Darwin, for example, argued that there was continuity in the evolution of mind as well as structure. Subsequently, however, American psychology introduced the concept of behaviourism and it became fashionable for scientists (at least during working hours) to view animals as animated, mindless machines—walking bundles of stimulusresponses. Not until quite recently has mainstream scientific ideology begun to change again with the admission that perhaps, after all, mind and consciousness in animals (including human animals) may be real enough to justify investigation. But The Unheeded Cry offers a great deal more than an overview of changing scientific attitudes towards animals. It is not overtly an animal rights/welfare book: there are few graphic descriptions of the actual cruelties that human beings inflict on nonhuman beings. Yet despite this—perhaps because of it—Rollin conveys poignantly the extent to which animals suffer at our hands. And this is the more shocking because so much of their pain has been for nothing. The book is enlivened by many anecdotes and Rollin's sense of humour bubbles throughout. Sometimes he pokes deliberate fun at the posturings of mere humans who, once they have donned their white coats, become (only too often in their own eyes) demigods. At other times we can almost hear him chuckling in the background as he allows them to speak to us themselves. This is not an antiscience book—far from it. But it does illustrate clearly that scientific ideology is susceptible to social, political, and economic pressures, and that changes in scientific attitudes have by no means always been for the good. Rollin's plea is for the integration of human morality and ethics into scientific ideology and methodology. His plea is backed by such compelling logic that it will, I suspect, gain the support of many openminded readers, scientists and nonscientists alike, who have been sitting on the fence, concerned about the plight of animals but afraid of being considered sentimental cranks if they express their feelings. It is particularly important for students to read the arguments presented here. Rollin is by no means an armchair philosopher pontificating from behind the closed doors of a booklined academician's study. He first became involved in animal welfare issues when he learned, with incredulity and dismay, something of the lack of true compassion for animals then pervading veterinary education. And, having made this Page ix discovery, he rolled up his sleeves and started to try to do something about it. He developed a course in veterinary ethics and eventually got the goahead from the administration of his school to present his material to the students. The project was a success—the course became one of the best attended and was integrated into the mainstream teaching. One reason why I welcome this book is because of its implicit message of hope. Darwin, despite his belief that animals experience humanlike emotions and feelings, was no more concerned with the moral implications of animal abuse than was the average man in the street at that time—and cruelty to animals, usually through ignorance, was pervasive. But today, as Rollin stresses, it is the growing moral concern for animals and their welfare among the general public that is putting pressure on scientists to investigate animal consciousness and suffering. This book, especially if it becomes required reading in science courses (as it surely must), will give added credibility, and an additional and powerful incentive, to the noninvasive, scientific investigation of animal intelligence and awareness. And surely, once there is sufficient scientific 'proof' to provide substance to the concerns of those who care, the 'unheeded cry' of millions of suffering creatures will be addressed responsibly at last. JANE GOODALL DAR ES SALAAM TANZANIA DECEMBER 1988 Page x The tale is told of a man who purchased a camel from a savant. The savant informed him that as the camel matures, it is likely to become badtempered and irascible, and that he would do well to castrate it at the first sign of such behaviour. 'And how do I accomplish this, O wise one?' asked the man. 'You must take two large stones, hold one in each hand, place the testicles between them, and bring the stones sharply together,' replied the sage. 'But surely this will cause severe pain,' said the astonished man. 'Not if you take great care to keep your thumbs out of the way,' responded the savant. Page xi Preface For the past decade, I have been concerned in my teaching, lecturing, and writing with raising questions about the morality of animal use in the sciences and attempting to effect significant change in this area. Unlike most philosophers, I enjoy the opportunity of working directly with scientists in many fields on a daily basis, and engaging them in extended dialogue on a wide array of moral and conceptual topics. During most of this time, my activities have been predicated on the assumption that what is most needed in this area is an ideal theory concerning the moral status of animals, which could be used to provide a criterion for assessing current practice and as a guide to change. After all, as Aristotle pointed out long ago, just as archers can sharpen their skill only if they have a target to aim at, so too, we need a measure by which to guide our moral activities in any given area. Until very recently, Western society in general and philosophers in particular have neglected to develop such an ideal ethic for the treatment of animals; indeed, more has been written on this question during the past ten years than in the previous three thousand. In approaching this issue, I have taken the tack that such a theory might best be constructed by following through the logical implications of the ethical theory about humans implicit in our socal practice and our laws, as rationally extended to animals. 1 Further, I have become convinced on the basis of my own activities that one could elicit acquiescence from scientists to such a theory through rational dialogue, which would help them lay bare their own moral assumptions and what follows from these, something typically unrecognized by most of us, scientists and nonscientists alike, even including philosophers. Thus I have seen my task as Socratic; in Plato's judicious metaphor, as helping people recollect and appropriate in conscious fashion what they already carry within them. In my own, much cruder metaphor, I see the battle as one which could be won only by means of a form of intellectual judo—using opponents' own force to move them—rather than by intellectual sumo—attempting to muscle their ideas out of the Page xii arena and overpower them with mine. I believe that such a Socratic strategy is the correct one for a moral philosopher; Plato was right in his view that we cannot teach, but only remind. While I have found this strategy quite successful, I failed to realize initially the extent to which what I call in this book the ideology, or common sense, of science overrides what to nonscientists is ordinary common sense. I soon learned that I could expect the same sorts of initial responses from scientists of all varieties the world over to my raising of ethical questions: 'Science is valuefree.' 'Ethical questions are outside the purview of science proper.' And, most astonishingly, the claim that one cannot know 'scientifically' that what we do to animals matters to them. In short, built into the common sense of science is the idea that we cannot know that animals experience pain, fear, suffering, distress, anxiety, and all the other subjective states of consciousness which are so essential to our moral concern for and deliberations about our moral obligations to other people. Increasingly, I found myself in the position of being forced to 'prove' that animals were conscious, and to provide good, 'scientifically acceptable' grounds even for claiming that animals feel pain. Thus, it became clear to me that an integral part of becoming a scientist is learning to abandon ordinary common sense in a number of areas, including that of ascribing mentation and subjective experience to animals. Even more surprisingly, I found that very often such a stance was donned along with a laboratory coat, and that in their nonscientific garb, most scientists used the same mentalistic locutions in talking about animals as the rest of us. Thus, my attention gradually turned to trying to confute this morally pernicious, ideologically based scepticism about animal subjective experience. The issue of animal consciousness, particularly subjective states like pain which are directly relevant to moral thinking about animals, forms the main subject of this book. I hope to show that denial of subjective states in animals is not an essential feature of a scientific stance, but rather a contingent, historical aberration which can be changed—and indeed must be changed—to make science both coherent and morally responsible. My hope is that this book will help scientists break the ideological bonds which keep them from ascribing subjective mental states to animals. Additionally, I hope that it will help nonscientists with an interest in the moral status of animals to persevere in their attempt to penetrate the fortress of scientific ideology and practice, and effect
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