Marc Bekoff has for years been a
leading figure in cognitive ethology, the branch of the study of animal
behavior that acknowledges the common-sense truth that animals have emotions
and other mental states similar to our own. His previous work includes Species
of Mind, written with philosopher Colin Allen, and numerous empirical
studies of birds and canids. Bekoff’s new book, Minding Animals, is
partially an attempt to defend the kind of science he does, but it also has a
broader agenda. Bekoff argues that because animals have feelings like ours,
many of our current practices, such as eating meat and wearing animal skins,
are immoral. This book—with blurbs on the back from Steven Jay Gould and
activist Julia Butterfly Hill and an introduction by Jane Goodall—is clearly
aimed at a popular audience. It is also a book that wants to be taken
seriously—in the introduction, Goodall instructs us to “read this book
carefully.” While the book has many strengths, I’m afraid it won’t have much
appeal, either to a popular audience or to those who have been involved in the
debate over animals for some time.

Bekoff begins the
book with a general defense of cognitive ethology and ends it with an extensive
discussion of animal ethics, but the most interesting section is actually the
middle. There he gives an overview of the current state of knowledge about
animal minds, including a discussion of his intriguing hypothesis—argued
previously in The Journal of Consciousness Studies (2001)—that human
ethics has its evolutionary roots in ideas of fairness found in animal play.
When young animals play, they make an agreement, monitored by a constant series
of exchanged signals, not to hurt each other, even though they easily could.
Animals that don’t play fair are punished by not being allowed in future play
sessions, a ban that will severely hurt the animal’s development. Bekoff also
notes that in play animals will frequently allow the other to win so that the
total number of victories is split 50-50, and dominant animals will often give
submissive gestures to equalize the playing field. These are deep and important
observations, which should be further explored.

Unfortunately,
Bekoff’s more general ideas about what cognitive ethology can do and its impact
on animal ethics are not as insightful. Particularly problematic is his
repeated assertion that we cannot compare the normal mental abilities of
different animals (pp. xx, 13, 86, 91) or at least that we cannot make any
ethical inferences on the basis of such comparisons (pp. 41, 54–55). In
Bekoff’s mind, any such comparison is “speciesist.” He even goes so far as to
claim that laws in Great Britain and New Zealand banning harmful experiments on
the great apes constitute unjustified discrimination. In truth, however, people
who believe in animal rights not only can compare the normal cognitive ability
of different species, they must. A vegetarian eats lettuce and not pork because
she knows that a pig has a rich mental life and a head of lettuce has no mental
life at all. She can thus compare the mental capacities of organisms and make a
moral judgment based on that distinction. Comparisons that Bekoff criticizes,
such as the estimate that an adult chimpanzee has the linguistic capacity of a
normal four-year-old human child, may be more complicated and harder to
support, but they are not different in kind.

Given that such
comparisons are inevitable, it is not surprising to find that Bekoff himself
compares the average abilities of various species. Indeed, his definition of
cognitive ethology makes such comparisons a part of his job description (p. 86).
Bekoff is also willing to draw moral conclusions based on the typical
capacities of animals. Like animal liberationists Peter Singer and Tom Regan,
he acknowledges that in a lifeboat type situation, where one must either
sacrifice a normal human or a normal dog, one should sacrifice the dog (p. 27).
In a sense, Bekoff is ignoring his own arguments when he denounces
cross-species comparisons. He frequently points out that critics of cognitive
ethology make the fallacious leap from the fact that cognitive ethology is
difficult to the assertion that knowledge of animal minds is impossible. But
Bekoff himself makes the same leap when he gives arguments showing that
cross-species comparisons are difficult and concludes that they are impossible.
This point is not a philosopher’s quibble. The judgments I am defending are
common sense, and if an animal rights view cannot appeal at least a little to
common sense, it will not get far.

Minding Animals
is also burdened by Bekoff’s prose style, which is too often cloying and
clichéd. He says things like, “It is a never ending journey” (p. 7) and “I
conclude that love is the answer” (p. xxi). He can also be redundant. On nearly
every page in the first chapter there is a sentence whose meaning boils down to
“I really love studying animals.” His scattershot organization can also bog the
reader down. At times I felt like I was just being subjected to a barrage of
random animal anecdotes. At one point, Bekoff flatly asserts that the “plural
of anecdote is data” (p. 47). This isn’t true. To become data, anecdotes must
be presented in such a way that patterns in them are manifest. In many sciences
this is done by quantification, but a thematic organization of stories can also
impart knowledge. I could discern little such organization in Bekoff’s
presentation. The stylistic problems are a big flaw for a book that aims at a
popular audience. A talented writer like Barry Lopez can do much more to bring
you into the world of animals than Bekoff can.

On a purely logical
level, to infer that animals deserve radically better treatment than they
currently receive at our hands from the fact that they have minds like ours is
fairly easy and straightforward. Unfortunately, the animal rights position
challenges habits whose age is measured on an evolutionary scale. Minding
Animals may not be the best contribution to this struggle, but all efforts
are needed.

© 2003 Rob Loftis

Rob Loftis, Ph.D., Department of
Philosophy, Auburn University

Categories: Psychology