I’ve just finished reading an article by Duncan Purves and Nicholas Delon called ‘Meaning in the lives of humans and other animals’. Essentially, they argue that other animals can have meaningful lives.
So, what makes a life meaningful?
In their view, the best account of meaningful lives requires acting intentionally in ways that contribute to final value.
They say that a meaningful life need not be subjectively pleasant. For example, imagine that Martin Luther King did all that he did and caused all that he caused, but spent the whole time worried about whether anything good would come of it, feeling scared and suffering from depression. That would not make his life meaningless. However, it would be meaningless, on their account, if a person achieved the good by accident. Say someone happened to walk in the way as MLK was shot and was killed instead. They’d have saved a meaningful life and played a causal role in enabling MLK to continue his work, but one would not want to say they had a meaningful life. There has to be intention.
Purves and Delon then argue that animals do show intentionality. While we do not know what a cat is thinking when she stalks a bird, it would seem odd not to grant that she intends to catch it. They claim that research into animal cognition backs this up.
Thus, when an elephant helps a disabled elephant or a crow feeds a sick (unrelated) crow, the action is intentional - even if they are not thinking, ‘I’ll help that creature’. Instead, it’s like the elephant sees a conspecific-to-be-helped and the crow sees a conspecific-to-be-fed. They include a great quote from Jeff Sebo defining normative perceptual experiences:
Our memories, anticipations, beliefs, desires, and other psychological dispositions shape our perceptual experiences, with the result that we perceive at least some of the objects in our perceptual field as ‘calling out’ to be treated in certain ways, and we thereby feel motivated to treat those objects in those ways.
In a similar way, when a person sees a child drowning, she may not think at all but instead, seeing a child-to-be-saved, she leaps into the water. The action is still intentional - but shows perceptual rather than propositional agency. Propositional agency is to act on a series of propositions such as, ‘A child is drowning, I should save him; therefore I will jump into the pond.’
I like this a lot.
This basically allows for animals to act intentionally in ways that contribute to final value - such as the raising of children, the support of vulnerable others, the protection of the group and so on.
Thus, animals can have meaningful lives.
If an animal can have a meaningful life and that leading a meaningful life constitutes a good, then it is wrong to prevent animals from leading meaningful lives.
One of the Feisty Gang has a limp - I think. Oddly, I think she was the one who was looking at the sky. Perhaps her foot was hurt by a raptor? So far, she does not seem unhealthy. I wonder if her family support her?
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