Ward, "Is the Crown of Creation a Dunce Cap?"

Ward begins his writing by pointing out that yes, humans are intelligent and have accomplished amazing things, but at the same time we are not as intelligent as we think we are. We don’t realize that our intelligence only extends as far as measurable and predictable knowledge, such as math or physics. We have yet to grasp knowledge where “the whole tends to be greater than the sum of its parts but not predictably so.”

To begin discussing the intellectual capacity of non-humans, Ward redefines intelligence as “the capacity to learn from experience and apply that learning to future challenges.” Animals accomplish this through pattern recognition and communication. Although we may not be able to understand their non-vocal “languages,” species are capable of communicating with each other, like how a bee dances to tell its fellow bees where to find food. We cannot understand them, but they also cannot understand us; there is a mutual misunderstanding from species to species – the intelligence of one species cannot be recognized by other species.

“Swarm intelligence” is another type of intelligence that Ward discusses. While one ant may not be able to survive very well on its own, a swarm of ants is very successful. The accumulation, in essence, of tiny bits of intelligence creates a larger intelligence that allows a swarm of ants to survive. Ward points out the fact that bees form an unconscious democracy when finding a new place to build a hive, yet humans would still be arguing and suing each other long after the bees have finished their new hive. He fails to recognize, however, that the bees build a new hive because it is necessary for their survival. The bees have an innate drive to build a new hive in order to survive, whereas a new community or democracy built by humans is artificial (a creation of the technosphere), not necessary for our survival.

The matter of “conscious intent” is brought up. As far as we can tell, non-humans, especially microbes and insects, do not have conscious intent. However, it is impossible for us to understand their consciousness, as it is impossible for them to know ours. We can think that we know what animals are thinking, but our anthropomorphism of animals gets in the way of the fact that we don’t actually know what animals are thinking. We are so separated from nature that we only see the anthropomorphism, and don’t actually get to appreciate the real thing. Because of the technosphere that is constantly surrounding us, we don’t recognize the intelligence in nonhuman species.

Our human intelligence may help the technosphere evolve, but it does not help us survive as a species. Ward claims that human intelligence is possibly just a way for us to rationalize the “destructive addictions to going faster and getting more stuff.” The key point that Ward drives at is that humans need to recognize some humility. While nonhuman intelligence is different than ours, we cannot say they are less intelligent than us. In fact, human intelligence can’t even comprehend the natural world. When we recognize and accept this, we can pay closer attention to the natural world and how it can help us become intelligent in other aspects of our lives.

Rowlands: Can Animals be Moral?

Rowlands offers three categories when considering animals as moral: 1) moral patients, 2) moral agents, 3) moral subjects. He then discusses how animals fit into these three. Moral patients are “legitimate objects of moral concern” that have “interests that should be taken into consideration”. Based on this definition it is not hard to see how animals could be considered as moral patients. They can feel and express these feelings at least in some way. They can express preferences and so these preferences should be taken into account. It is true that humans’ actions toward animals do not always reflect a respect for them as moral patients but one can see why they should.

A moral agent is “morally responsible” and therefore “can be morally evaluated for its motives and actions”. It is much more difficult to see animals as fitting into this category. Animals are not perceived as being responsible for their actions and therefore are not held accountable for them. To claim animals are moral agents is to claim that they are capable of making decisions and understanding the consequences of these decisions. If animals are moral patients then humans have a responsibility to act morally toward them. If animals are moral agents then they have a responsibility to act morally towards humans.

A moral subject “is, at least sometimes, motivated to act by moral reasons”. This seems to mean that if animals are moral subjects they have the motivation to act morally but cannot be evaluated based on these actions. This implies that animals cannot choose to act in a certain way and therefore their acting that way cannot be defined as morally motivated. Animals can only be moral subjects if they are moral agents because they have to be morally responsible to be morally motivated.

Based on this, it seems that animals are moral patients only. Rowlands claims that he will go on to prove that they are also moral subjects but based on the information provided, this does not seem to be the case.

Kant's Teleology

Kant argues for almost a new idea of teleology. He states that “nature’s purposiveness is for our cognitive faculties”, which is subjective when teleology is meant to be objective. This however is essential for his teleology because he says we naturally attribute purposiveness to nature. He argues that this is unavoidable, in a way arguing that anthropomorphism is unavoidable, and therefore we give nature intentionality. If this is unavoidable, Kant states we must use our reason to decide nature’s ends while at the same time recognizing that we are attributing intentionality on to nature. He says that scientists such as Newton, argue that we have to examine the mechanical processes of nature, but these processes are hidden from us. Kant argues that we must take a more broad view. By doing this for years we have been able to discover many laws of nature.

            Later on in this reading, Kant argues that we are either looking at nature in very mechanical terms or in very teleological terms. He describes these both as not being able to know truly what nature is but only being able to set principles by which we can view nature and use our reason with. Kant seems to be saying that there is no way to know what true nature is, but the closest way to know what it is, is to use reason.

            We have discussed anthropomorphism a lot in class, and in this essay Kant directly deals with it. I thought his argument was strong, but it still is scary thinking that we should determine the ends of nature, because that then effects the way we act towards nature, for example the polemical language we saw in the readings by Mcphee, and how that influenced the actions they took.

Kant goes to the movies

In thinking about Imanuel Kant's "Duties Towards Animals and Spirits," I could not help but think about a movie I have enjoyed consistently for the past 13 years, My Dog Skip, the coming of age story of small town, big brained Willie Morris and his precious dog, Skip. 
In My Dog Skip (I'm trying really hard not to ruin it in case you haven't seen it (in which case holler at me and i'll give you my amazon prime password to watch it ASAP)) there is a scene in which Skip, as what now we must understand is a thoughtless, feelingless dog, runs around Willie's baseball game stealing the show and ruining the game until havoc wreaks and Willie incurs harm on Skip. At the moment Willie does this, the whole town watching this little league game shrieks in terror that this kind hearted boy would hurt his dog. The way the fans react is exactly what Kant argues, "he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"(82). Willie shortly after realizes just how wrong he was and just how much he can and did learn from his dog, causing him to go great distances to find him, something Kant would think of as an unnecessary direct action. I think a duty implies it is universal and ethical answer or action, so this one instance cannot exactly disprove the indirectness of animals to humans.When Willie is good to the dog, the whole town knows who both Willie and Skip are and this unpopular boy gets friends-pretty unbelievable display of treating an animal as a neighbor.  Later in this brilliant film, there is a moonshining bad guy who desperately wants to hurt or kill Skip because he thinks Skip is annoying. Despite Skip's being like 15 inches tall and what most of the philosophers have deemed thoughtless, the moonshiner believes Skip is getting in the way of some serious bad guy business. The moonshiner acts as Kant would suggest is not justified because "cruelty for sport cannot be justified"(82). Willie was not trying to be a bad person when he hit Skip, but he improperly tried to attribute a consequence and physical punishment onto Skip for his behavior. 
--Back to hurting animals for a consequence to their poor behavior-- Let us say that animals do not have feeling, and they are on earth to reflect human morals because what you treat something that cannot retaliate and has no direct duty onto humans and humans onto it should foil one's own values. If these creatures exist for humans, and humankind is the center, as this "Anthropocentrism" section in our compilation argues, there is no reason for humans to purposefully treat an animal badly, ever, which seems more like an argument for animals than humans. 
Kant's argument opens the door for anthropocentrism in a new light, one of morals; in order to be human, one must limit as much destruction as possible (83) because indirect duty is attached to everything. 
This makes me question why aren't more people more conscience? I hope we all think animal crush videos are bad and evil, but where does the disconnect come from when we don't feel bad about printing off too much paper or even swatting a fly?
Is Kant right? Does his weird spirit argument seem like Newton's (sorry I don't really address it here, I touched on it on Maggie's post-check her's out!) 

Thomas Aquinas: Humans as Moral Ends

All else in nature is there for the sake of humans. Humans are there for the sake of themselves. We cannot find a reason for human beings to exist for anything else; we have no natural predators, and we do not seem facilitate any important natural processes. In all other things or organisms on earth we can find some purpose or creature that they serve outside of themselves. However, humans do not seem to live for or serve any other earthly creature. Are human beings then according to Aquinas, the final cause of nature, as Aristotle would describe them?

We know human beings are there for the sake of themselves and not for the sake of others partially because they have “dominion” over themselves. They are not like the animals that act in a set manner according to a specific stimulus. Humans do not act by instinct; they can control how and why and when they act. Are human beings really so far removed from the supposed machine-like manner by which animals operate? Or are we actually acting according to a set group of rules or laws or instincts, that are simply appear complicated by our own diverse experiences?

This dominion humans have over themselves is important because it means we are intellectual creatures, which makes us like God. God is truly the ultimate, perfect intellect. Human beings are the earthly beings most like the divine in that they have that intellect. God’s intellect is the ultimate end, but human beings, in being formed in God’s image, have a part of this divine intellect. Because God is divine intellect, then by providing for humans, who have that intellect imperfectly, He is providing for the ultimate end: divine intellect. If God’s divine intellect really is the ultimate end, then why are humans necessary or useful at all? How does the providing for and preserving of intellectual earthly creatures contribute to the divine end? Does God need anything or anyone to validate His own existence?

How does the intellect use nature other than as resource preserve itself in humans? The intellect demonstrates its power when it is being used, when the mind is thinking, contemplating, discovering. God has no need to do these activities, for not only does he have reason and intellect but he also has complete knowledge of the world and its processes (which he created). Perhaps this is why God needs, or at least likes to have, humans. Humans can really use the intellect to learn and discover. I’m not thinking that Aquinas was suggesting this thought, but do humans actually have the ability to do something God cannot do? To learn and discover?

At the end of this passage, Aquinas discusses our duties to animals. In the end, it seems that we really have no duties towards animals except as those duties ultimately affect us.  How do his views differ from those of Kant?

Newton's Mechanistic Metaphysics

Isaac Newton discussed his take on causes in Mechanistic Metaphysics. This excerpt from his work Optiks is brief but comprehensive. He begins by addressing properties of matter like inertia, gravity, and fermentation. Newton describes these phenomena as manifest. The qualities are obvious; it is only the cause that is occult. Bodily things operate under principles of motion, not according to supernatural and random guides. Newton calls for a set of laws which material things follow, but does not attempt to find the laws. He introduces the concept of an intelligent designer that created these principles, principles that must be responsible for creation instead of chaos.  He uses the nearly perfect orbit of the planets as an example. Animals are also quite similar, he says, most having bilateral symmetry and many of the same body parts. This is thanks to a designer as well. Here, Newton sets up a mechanized view of the universe. Many bodies in this universe are so similar that it can’t just be chance.

The intelligent agent described doesn’t have organs or body parts like animals do. This distinction is interesting because it separates the designer from the mechanism of the universe Newton just described. God, he says, doesn’t need sensory organs because he is present for all things at all times. He is better at moving the contents of the universe than they are at moving themselves. What sets the designer apart is that he is not very similar to anything at all. How something so dissimilar to the universe could be responsible for its existence makes total sense to Newton. A god so estranged from the similarities of the universe means a god that can effectively mechanize his world, drawing to the belief of mechanistic metaphysics.

While Newton seems very sure of his arguments (the excerpt closes with, “I see nothing of Contradiction in all this,”) many more questions can be asked in response. Why must there be occult causes, or even a creator, when Laws of Motion were already being explored and laws for material things were thought important? Newton makes great conclusions about the universe but relies on an intelligent designer to explain it. He even says that God can create different types of matter, therefore matter might not always follow the same natural laws. How does a more modern take on the relationship between a creator and natural laws compare?  

John Stuart Mill: The Amoral Status of Nature

          The piece written by Mill proves to be a work that poses as many questions as it answers. It contradicts thoughts proposed by Aristotle, Bacon and at times Mill seems to either contradict himself or leave questions open ended. Mill approaches the same questions proposed by these previous philosophers, seeking answers for the driving forces behind nature. While Aristotle proposed the four causes, the most important being the end; Mill does not see nature moving in order to do something as Aristotle does. Mill's thinking has an underlying idea that nature feeds off necessity, which stem from his conceived "laws of particular phenomenon, and also, more generally, Laws of Nature"(74). It is interesting to note that Mill incorporates the use of induction, moving from the particular to the general. Mill however, gives nature a more encompassing power, stating that all phenomena are aspects of nature. Nature seems to be, according to Mill, a much more general term than that proposed by Aristotle or Bacon.

          Mill's writing becomes very convoluted, giving two seemingly contradictory notions for understanding and defining nature. He begins by downplaying the role of man in man made things. Since man is punitive in comparison to man, and as Mill later say "Man necessarily obeys the laws of nature, or in other words the properties of things", Mill surmises that nature is still the ultimate driving force behind mechanical devices and constructions.(75) Man simply is there to move things from place to place and put them where they belong. Aristotle would say that Man creates the form. This argument, though a very interesting and unique, even rogue interpretation, Mill doesn't really leave much room for anything to not be classified as nature. In a possible attempt to draw back and remedy that, Mill proposes that there are two possible definitions of nature. The first, in accordance with his previously mentioned theory, is that nature "means all the powers existing in either the outer or the inner world and everything which takes place by means of those powers"(74). His second presentation of nature, is similar with the distinction that nature is "only what takes place without the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man"(74). Is Mill proposing a question with two solutions because he is indecisive? Is he simply contradicting himself?
          So Mill does accurately see the greater amount of power which nature holds. We have seen many examples of how man has tried to thwart nature, and only produced more consequences. Mill's writing serves more as a word of advice to his audience, stressing that we must use nature, by obeying it. He says that "though we can do nothing except through laws of nature, we can use on law to counteract another"(75). Though I appreciate his respect for nature's immovable power, I find the Mill doesn't really give much insight into how someone would truly make a difference through this abstract strategy. I also have a problem with his use of the idea that by obeying nature we seek to control it. This again seems like a contradiction of ideas, and I truly feel like Mill has skipped analyzing the particulars, and jumped straight the the vague and general solutions. Mill is with no doubt a higher level thinking than myself at this point in my life... though my future is still unknown. Nevertheless, I find this piece riddled with contradictions and open ended questions. I also feel that he categorizes too much under the umbrellas of nature, phenomena, and laws of Nature. I do however find his idea that even man made structures can be viewed as nature, because in certain ways man is only the mover in the process.... Yet I am still not completely sold on that notion either. Either way, I believe this piece will especially offer itself well to class discussion due to its inconsistencies, open ended ideas, and debatable concepts. -Nick