How do Animals Think?

Paper Summary:

This paper deals with the way animals think. It also deals with the issue of using animals for university experiments. It examines whether or not animals possess the prerequisite physical ability to sustain thought, from both a scientific and ethical point of view. It details several studies that have been done on the matter and states their conclusions. It concludes that if we consider that animals do have similar physiological organs of thought, and do regularly display behavior similar to human behavior, then there should be no discriminating against them and their ability to think.

From the Paper:

37"The question is often repeated, "Do animals think, in the same way that we do?" It is a question which for most part comes loaded with significance and prejudice. If it is true that animals think, like humans do, and feel pain and happiness, and desire, then the logical conclusion is that they must be treated with a certain respect. Much of Western culture depends on the use of animals in a fashion not compatible with the ethical demands of sentence. Unfortunately for the science of animal psychology, most researchers on the subjects have a vested interest in coming to the conclusion that their subjects (which have likely not been treated in a human[e] fashion over the course of the experiments) are not thinking beings. "We were taught as undergraduates not to think of animals as other than stimulus-response bundles," asserts Melanie Stiassney, an ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History. "The dogma is you can't credit them with feelings." "(Mukerjee) One must ask, though, how such a pre-decided pool of scientists can treat the question of animal thought fairly" To be fair, one must divorce the answer from its ethical implications, and simply ask: "Why not?" If animals possess physiology parallel to that which gives rise to human thought, if they display behavior consistent with such awareness, then (if one disregards the demands of hubris and the fear of guilt) the scientist must admit at least the definite possibility of animal thought."

More papers on How do Animals Think?:

• Term Paper # 96413 : "Do Animals Think?"
• Essay # 85809 : "What True Education Should Do"
• Essay # 137915 : "Civilization, Racism and Colonialism: The Tense Relationship between Asian Nationalism, Jingoism and Racism and “Universalistic” Conceptions of Civilization"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: