One commenter on PZ Myers’ post notes that the argument that animals don’t feel pain as humans know it is not at all original with Craig:
In my theology classes in high school they tried REALLY HARD to drill it into us that animals do NOT feel real pain, do NOT feel real fear, and do NOT think in any way whatsoever. They were “one step above robots.”
As someone who had grown up with animals, this upset and confused me, and I didn’t understand why people stared blankly at me like I was some kind of moron when I said of COURSE dogs can reason and learn, haven’t you ever seen a dog?!
I’m not aware of the history of the argument—anyone else familiar with it? Another commenter notes the similarity to the claim that humans, even severely brain-damaged ones, have souls, and smart animals just don’t.
I don’t know all of the ins and outs of the literature, but the basic problems here go back at least to Bentham and Mill, who had a dispute about kinds of pleasure and pain. Bentham took the view that all pains and pleasures were on the same footing. A human appreciating a work of art is no different from a pig appreciating a good roll in the mud. Mill took the view that pains and pleasures had more internal structure. Of course, for both Bentham and Mill, pain played a big part in the moral calculus. General concern about the moral standing of animals goes back a lot further: Descartes, for example, claimed that we have a moral certainty that animals have no souls—otherwise, we couldn’t eat them—but it’s not clear to me whether he connected this to pain.
More recently, the debate seems to be about the degree to which an analogical argument works that takes us from human pain to animal pain. See, for examples, an older article by Singer (excerpts only) and a newer article by Allen et al (pdf). But for most of these people, the issues are not theological.
Thank you :-) I meant in particular religious pedagogy really pushing the point, but I suppose that follows from the sort of backlash against the Enlightenment that inspired Fundamentalism.
One commenter on PZ Myers’ post notes that the argument that animals don’t feel pain as humans know it is not at all original with Craig:
I’m not aware of the history of the argument—anyone else familiar with it? Another commenter notes the similarity to the claim that humans, even severely brain-damaged ones, have souls, and smart animals just don’t.
I don’t know all of the ins and outs of the literature, but the basic problems here go back at least to Bentham and Mill, who had a dispute about kinds of pleasure and pain. Bentham took the view that all pains and pleasures were on the same footing. A human appreciating a work of art is no different from a pig appreciating a good roll in the mud. Mill took the view that pains and pleasures had more internal structure. Of course, for both Bentham and Mill, pain played a big part in the moral calculus. General concern about the moral standing of animals goes back a lot further: Descartes, for example, claimed that we have a moral certainty that animals have no souls—otherwise, we couldn’t eat them—but it’s not clear to me whether he connected this to pain.
More recently, the debate seems to be about the degree to which an analogical argument works that takes us from human pain to animal pain. See, for examples, an older article by Singer (excerpts only) and a newer article by Allen et al (pdf). But for most of these people, the issues are not theological.
Thank you :-) I meant in particular religious pedagogy really pushing the point, but I suppose that follows from the sort of backlash against the Enlightenment that inspired Fundamentalism.