Summary of Student Paper #2

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The first line is a delightfully obvious statement that aspires to say something grandiose but merely must settle for common knowledge. The author subtly raises the issue of animal testing and posits the question of moral responsibility towards animals already here in the first few lines (although what exactly those actions are are vague). The author then establishes that there is a moral obligation (again, specifics are omitted) and that this moral responsibility can be established on the basis of the ability to feel pain, the ability to think and the ability to have feelings.

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The author asserts that animals feel pain and quickly move to invoking the words of Peter Singer. The online in the citation should be one word and could be italicized.

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This paragraph attempts to explain the reasoning inherent in the above statement by Singer. The twist to this is the author's conclusion that, based on the notion that animals do indeed feel pain, a human is not entitled to torture or "do stupid things" to animals. [Note: I think it's difficult in any situation to make a case for the torturing of animals.]

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This paragraph attempts to show that animals think. The author uses Gordon Gallup's mirror study to exemplify this. After the quoted material the author explains that this experiment shows that animals can think; however, this conclusion is a little vague. Surely lots of behavior could be used as evidence to demonstrate thinking, whether it's thinking in regard to learned behavior or thinking in regard to demonstrating preference, etc. Thinking is a very boad term, and its use could refer to many kinds of mental activities. The key issue with the mirror test is to show self-recognition. The author's inability to attach this notion of self-recognition to the mirror test shows a great misunderstanding of Gallup's paper.

The author reasons further that because the chimps are "taught" tricks that this demonstrates they are thinking. This rather vague understanding of the mirror test indicates an incomplete grasp of the issues at hand.

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This paragraph takes on the idea of whether animals have feelings.

The author's first example uses the situation of a "happy" dog who seems overjoyed at its master's arrival. This seems to be pure anthropomorphism at work here. The attribution of "happiness" or "anger" to a dog's behavior may be warranted, if and only if, one admits that anthropomorphism is the best available tool for discerning internal mental states of animals.

Then the author uses an example of a child raised by chimps apart from humans. When the humans try to return the human boy to human civilization, the chimps fight to the finish. The author suggests that this demonstrates chimps have feelings. This, again, is overly vague. Perhaps this example would be better used to illustrate a moral sensibility, to show altruism within chimp society. The story does seem to speak of a kind of duty to the young human boy. However, one must warrant this conclusion by ruling out any kind of instincual response on the part of chimps to protect members of their group (much the way a dog is protective of other dogs in the same pack).

Finally, invoking the term "feelings" is probably a misnomer. The author probably meant to convey the idea of an internal mental state.

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The author restates the thesis again. The author confers consciousness on the basis of three things: a capacity for pain, a capacity for thought and the possession of feelings. However, the author does not specify what kinds of actions would be allowed or what legal considerations be given to an animal that passed all three parts of his/her test for consciousness. The only thing the author mentions is that humans should not be entitled to do "unnecessary things". This is rather vague.

In addition, the author does not attepmpt to discuss whether the moral or legal responsibilities should be considered on the basis of the author's definition of consciousness.

Overall Comments

The paper needs to be a bit more specific in its terminolgy. "Feelings" and "thinking" are a bit too broad to have any real meaning. This vague terminology also suggests that the author didn't really understand what was at stake in the papers, in particular, the one by Gallup. This is a dramatic flaw of the paper.

After the pain section of the paper, the author's reasoning seems to be a bit specious. The examples aren't always appropriate and the justification or warranting of the evidence is almost non-existent. Surely there is no attempt to discuss alternative explanations for the phenomenon that the examples put forth.