Do Animals Have Souls?

You have no doubt that you're conscious. But what about your dog? Does your dog or cat experience life the way you do? Sure your dog can't read, but does he experience pain, love, hot, cold, joy and sorrow? Or is he a biological machine?

Most of us would probably say our dog or cat is conscious, at least on some level. But throughout history many so-called great thinkers (Descartes and more recently Daniel Dennett) would say no, animals are not conscious, they just appear to be so. To them, an animal is nothing more than an automaton. A complex molecular machine that gives the appearance of having a spirit. Descartes believed that humans had a non-material mind/soul. Dennett, on the other hand being an atheist believes humans are automatons too, but have consciousness that arises from "complexity". So to him we are akin to nothing more than complex biologically based computer programs. Animals may or may not be complex enough to have consciousness "arise" from "complexity", in one interview he boldly asserted dogs and cats were not conscious in any way.

Philosophers aside, its obvious that animals have consciousness. Anyone who owns a dog or cat or horse knows this. Perhaps people try to convince themselves animals don't have conscious minds because it makes it OK for us to abuse them. If dogs are biological machines, no different than the computer on your desk, then Michael Vick can fight and kill them, and Chinese fur traders can skin them alive without feeling an ounce of guilt. To recognize that animals have consciousness and by extension souls means humans have perpetuated great crimes on this planet by abusing the life that shares it with us.

Well let's look at the basic facts. What is consciousness? It can be described in a loose way as you're experiencing life, kind of sitting in a movie theater in which the external world is played for you on a screen. As this happens, you have feelings-love, hate, fear, joy. You have memories of the past, and hopes for the future. You feel as though there is an "I" that exists and flows through time, and you can form transcendant connections with others. Notice none of this has anything to do with "intelligence", at least once a certain threshold is reached. Does that threshold only happen when we reach humans?

It is hard to verify if another being shares these characteristics, indeed some philosophers have gone so far as suggesting we can't even know if other human "beings" are conscious. That's a bit silly, and I think although you can't verify it with 100% certainty, to most people its self-evident ("obvious") that animals share many aspects of consciousness with us.

For example, its obvious that dogs experience fear. Its obvious dogs experience happiness. Its obvious dogs form connections, with people and other dogs. Its obvious dogs remember the past, including people who were in it. Dogs see the world through their own two eyes. Who can doubt there isn't an "I" behind those eyes? Otherwise why would they have them?

I single out dogs only because many people have owned them and this is their direct experience with animal life. The same paragraph applies to cats, to horses, and also to rabbits, pigs, and cows. Maybe even snakes.

The existence of the "senses" is a clue that a conscious mind exists. The senses are a connection between the external world and the internal mind. This calls into question many of our abusive behaviors. If you hit a rabbit on the road, you've ended a life. If pigs are crowded into a factory farm, these are living minds enduring torture.

This isn't to say we should never eat meat or hold a funeral if you run over a snake on the highway. But why not treat animals better? Let animals on farms live free range lives, so that they can enjoy a life in the field before they are "slaughtered" so that we might eat and live. Drive more carefully on the highway so that if possible, you can avoid hitting that rabbit trying to cross the road.

Do animals have souls? As much as we can connect the mind to a soul, the answer is yes.

The painting shown in this article is available here.