"You Don’t Know How It Feels To Be Me"

That's what most animals could say to us.

A few days ago I threw out my back. Since then I can only hobble around, and I eat Ibuprofen as if it was candy. Instead of a new piece, I’m sharing one that I wrote over a year ago — my apologies, that’s the best I can do at the moment.

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Do you know this Tom Petty song?

It’s a pretty common sentiment – even your closest friend, even the person most dear to you doesn’t REALLY understand you. Misunderstandings are the most frequent reasons for arguments, fights, and squabbles between close people.

The song came to mind when I was musing about what, how, and even IF non-human animals feel: they are just about the most misunderstood creatures on earth. Yes, cat- and dog owners may be convinced that they understand how their pets feel – everybody knows what it means when a dog wags his tail, and when a cat purrs, right?  However, the inner life of dogs and cats may be much more complex than that. And what about a goldfish? Or a dragonfly? Do they feel anything? If yes, what?

The French philosopher and scientist René Descartes (1596 - 1650) maintained that animals were fundamentally different from humans and were nothing but machines.¹ They were unable to suffer or feel pain because, unlike humans, they lacked a mind or soul and thus, reason or intelligence. Just imagine – to Descartes, animals were equivalent to automatons or clocks. Descartes based this notion on a strict dualism between mind/soul (God, angels, human souls) and body/matter, the substance of human bodies, animals, plants and inanimate physical objects. Animals are “living things”, the same as machines. Clearly, such a view allows for the exploitation and maltreatment of animals, giving humans the right to do with animals whatever they want. Even today the law considers animals as “property”, which is everything that is not a “person”.²

While the perception of animals as being nothing but machines has changed when Darwin established a continuity between humans and other species, and science firmly established that vertebrates and certain invertebrates definitely experience pain, the vast majority of animals destined for human consumption are treated much worse than many “things” which receive at least a modicum of care from a utilitarian point of view. Factory farmed animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens but also fish lead short and painful lives defined by such devastating misery that it’s hard to imagine their feelings don’t leave traces in their bodies. Most meat eaters are oblivious to the suffering their “meal” experienced, and the industry does their best to maintain this illusion. The neatly wrapped packages at the supermarket barely look like animals, there is no blood, and there may even be a “Happy Cow” sticker. Some people believe that humans are superior and animals are created for their use. Yet others may feel a small pang of remorse that’s easily overcome by the pleasant taste of meat. No matter why, the feelings of these animals are being ignored, disregarded, shrugged off.

Image: Valentin Petkov, Unsplash

And it’s not only the physical pain of animals destined for food that consumers ignore. When her calf is removed right after birth from the mother cow, she experiences emotional pain that lasts for days, even weeks. Wolves and coyotes have complex family relationships in which every member of the clan has a distinct role to play. The memory of elephants is legendary and it is well known that they remember dead family members for many, many years. Non-human animals such as mammals relate to nephews, grandparents, sons, daughters, sisters, etc. just as we do, and a disruption of such relationships causes emotional pain. While this may be obvious to those of us who form strong emotional bonds with our pets, the scientific community tended to dismiss such ideas as anthropomorphism. This has changed however: on July 7, 2012 a group of prominent scientists issued the Cambridge Declaration On Consciousness which declares the following:

The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.

In essence, this confirms that non-human animals do indeed experience a wide range of emotional states, everything from joy and pleasure to sadness and abject pain. They are sentient, intelligent beings. Most pet owners would consider this trivially obvious, but it helps with creating legal protections for companion animals, and to a lesser degree for livestock. While all animals are regarded as property by the law and thus can be used as research subjects, food, clothing, or for work for example, their wellbeing is somewhat protected by anti-cruelty laws such as the federal Animal Welfare Act. Since the majority of people consider themselves to be animal-friendly, this satisfies their somewhat fuzzy notion of the just and adequate treatment of animals.

BUT – there is this huge elephant in the room that most people simply ignore. On the one hand, people love cats and dogs, but they also eat pigs – although the cruelty that factory farmed pigs have to endure is no secret. They eat rabbits but get upset when Koreans eat dogs.  They are passionate about saving the rainforest and yet eat beef, turning a blind eye to the fact that cattle ranching is one of the main causes of deforestation. Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance” – the state of mind that one feels when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. We have a range of strategies at our disposal that help us avoid the pain  this dissonance would otherwise cause. “I don’t want to think about it” is probably the easiest and most wide-spread reaction of many animal-loving meat eaters. And then there is the vast range of rationalizations that most vegetarians and vegans are all too familiar with: “People have been eating meat since the stone age. We need it to be healthy and stay alive”.  “Bullfights belong to Spain’s culture”. “Plants are alive, too”. And among the more bizarre arguments: “Vegetarians produce more gas than meat eaters”³, and “Hitler was a vegetarian” – which I find particularly hilarious because I was born and grew up in Germany after the war. Some of the personal conversations I’ve had with meat eaters who tried hard to talk me out of being a vegan  convinced me that they were defensive, compensating a vague sense of guilt with aggressive argumentation. I prefer the response of a meat eating friend of mine who simply stated that it tastes too good to give up; at least, she was honest.

So, how do we humans learn how it feels to be an animal? A mammal? Or a fish? I noticed a gradual and increasing connection with animals ever since I stopped eating dairy products and became a vegan. In particular, my attitude towards insects and spiders etc. changed. While I don’t like mosquitoes any more than I did 20 years ago, I find it harder to smack one that landed on my arm, and instead try to blow or flick it off. Even when I get bitten. And the tarantulas who migrate once a year here in northern New Mexico? I find them simply adorable! As a kid, I had to call my father when I found a spider, they freaked me out so much that I couldn’t even kill them myself. What is gradually changing is my understanding of the fact that each of these creatures is an entity, a being with relationships, who lives in their own world which is likely to look and feel different from my own but is just as real and complete. If I want to know what it feels to be a chicken or a cow (or a dog, for that matter) I have to accept them as sentient beings. And then I can't harm them or kill them, any more than I could kill a baby.

We need to internalize that non-human animals are not isolated entities but beings embedded within a web of relationships, just as we are. They interact with family members, friends and foes, and the environment. Some of these relationships are similar to ours; elephants, for example, have strong family ties, they can develop lifelong friendships, and they grieve over the loss of a loved one or a baby. Other animals’ relationships are very different from humans’: When a female octopus gives birth to tens of thousands of babies, tiny eggs, she weaves them together into long strands that she attaches to a secure spot. And then she will guard them, wafting fresh, oxygen-rich water over them constantly, keeping potential predators at bay. This can take months, and all this time she doesn’t eat or leave the den, getting weaker and slowly starving. With her last breath she blows all of her babies into the open water, and then she dies! 

All creatures have some kind of autonomy; they govern their own lives and can make choices. Let’s not take this away by treating them as if they were mere “things”.

1. Gaukroger, S., Descartes' System of Natural Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 180–214

2. Should Non-human Animals Have Rights?

3. askmen.com, Argue Against Vegetarians