The status of nonhuman animals as persons has been the subject of intense debate over the last decades, especially since the dawn of the animal liberation movement. This debate includes, on the one hand, an elucidation of which characteristics are necessary for one to qualify as a person, along with a discussion on whether animals can, or do, possess these traits. And on the other hand, the animal ethics literature has examined the moral implications of personhood, often arguing that personhood cannot be the base of moral status. Additionally, and perhaps more interestingly, contemporary discussions have focused on whether personhood is a necessary condition for other topics, such as the badness of death or the capacity for agency or autonomy.

These debates commonly adopt Locke’s canonical conception of personhood, centered on self-awareness and time-awareness, and investigate whether animals possess these attributes. A question that is in part empirical, but that cannot be separated from philosophical inquiry. After all, one first needs to define these terms to even investigate whether animals possess them. It is in this philosophical perspective that Mark Rowlands’ Can Animals Be Persons? is situated. Rowlands not only examines the available empirical data, but he engages with the philosophical concepts behind personhood. Taking an innovative approach to some of these concepts, Rowlands argues that even accepting Locke’s definition of personhood (one that is definitely hostile to the possibility of personhood in animals), animals qualify as persons. Putting together Locke’s definition with other contemporary views of personhood, Rowlands identifies four conditions that are collectively sufficient (and individually necessary) for personhood. These are consciousness, cognition, self-awareness, and other-awareness.

Of these four conditions, consciousness is without doubt the easiest to attribute to animals. Most of us believe that animals, such as mammals and birds, are minded. But, is this a justified belief? Rowlands first tackles the problem of other minds; a question that we commonly dismiss as merely theoretical in the case of humans, but that many take seriously in the case of animals. Here, the author does not offer a solution, but a dissolution. Through the analysis of the adequacy of formal and functional explanations of animal behavior in different situations, he shows that we can only make sense of animal behavior if we accept that they desire, intend, and try things. This implies that, in a way, when we see them doing these things, we see their psychological states. Once the problem of other minds is dissolved, Rowlands points to the empirical evidence that strongly supports the case for phenomenal consciousness in animals, and shows that the main objection for his position, the HOT (High Order Thought) account of consciousness is not tenable, and as such, it is unsuccessful in arguing that animals lack phenomenal consciousness.

To address the second condition, cognition, Rowlands addresses the capacity of animals for reasoning. In order to be able to reason, one first needs to be able to have beliefs and desires. A position for which the author argues in chapter four. Then, in chapter five, rationality (that is, the process of reasoning itself) is addressed. There is plenty of evidence that nonhuman animals engage in causal reasoning, and some even pass deductive inference tests, in which the capacity for disjunctive syllogisms is tested. Here, Rowland addresses some problems to support the idea of logical reasoning in animals, such as the position that argues that reasoning requires understanding relations between thoughts. This position, however, seems to set too high a standard for reasoning, as children would not be able to reason in this conception. Rowland also discusses at length the idea that deductive thought is underwritten in a language of thought (LOTH), pointing out that if (strong) LOTH was true, humans should be much better at deductive reasoning than we in fact are. Instead, humans do well on those tasks that can be solved in a connectivist system, showing that we, like other animals, are model-based thinkers. Thus, although there are undeniable differences between our abilities and other animals’ (a fact that is here mainly explained by allusion to extended cognition theories), Rowlands argues that humans and other animals share the capacity of rationality.

The section about the self-awareness condition is the longest, and also the most interesting one in the book. Rowlands first discusses intentional awareness, the empirical evidence we have about this trait in nonhuman animals, and how this evidence can be misleading. However, he argues, intentional self-awareness is not the most common form of self-awareness. There is a more pervasive form of self-awareness: pre-intentional self-awareness. When we perceive the world, there are expectations that shape our perception. If, for instance, I am looking at a can of Coke, I can only see a fraction of it. Let’s say, its front. But I can still recognize the object as a can of Coke given that I have certain expectations of how it will change as I move around it. This implies that awareness of myself (of my body, my movements, etcetera) is necessary to see the appearances as appearances of a particular object. This process does not take place in an intentional way, but it is pre-intentional.  Importantly, Rowlands argues that it is pre-intentional self-awareness that gives unity to our mental life, and as such, the one that is relevant for personhood. And, as pre-intentional awareness is a simple form of self-awareness that animals do have, they comply with the third condition of personhood.

Finally, the fourth condition is other-awareness. There has been much discussion regarding the capacity of animals to have a theory of mind, that is, to attribute mental states to others. Adopting a similar strategy to that used in the case of self-awareness, Rowlands distinguishes between intentional other-awareness and pre-intentional other-awareness. He introduces Sartre’s concept of shame to illustrate what he means by pre-intentional other-awareness. Sartre did not use this term in the common usage of the word, but in a technical way, to denote the experiencing of one-self as an object. This commonly takes place when we are seen by others; which, in turn, implies recognizing the other as a subject. This type of experience is not closed to animals, as they can, for instance, experience themselves as an object in the presence of a predator or an adversary.

In this way, Rowlands argues that animals comply with the four conditions of personhood. And, as he has chosen the most demanding definition of personhood, it is likely that animals qualify as persons in other theories of personhood too. This, according to him, has implications for our treatment of animals, given that we owe to persons more than treating them decently (that is, not harming them), we should also listen to how they want to be treated. In practical terms, this means that we need to shift from a treatment paradigm to a listening one: we need to listen to what they want.

In sum, in his book, Rowlands accepts the canonical definition of persons, but he analyses the meaning of the conditions needed for personhood, and which of the different levels in which these can manifest are truly needed for personhood. This implies the introduction of a new discussion regarding how we should understand these four conditions; and as such, it is a highly innovative and valuable contribution to the debate.

© 2019 Fayna Fuentes López

Fayna Fuentes López, Macquarie University, Ph. D. Candidate