Descartes

Paper Summary:

This paper presents the premise that human interactions with nonhuman animals should be guided solely by the impact of these interactions with other human beings and not upon any perceived impact upon nonhuman animals themselves. The paper explains that this argument is largely based on Descartes' ideas. The paper analyzes his opinions on this topic and contrasts them with those of thinkers, Anthony Weston and David Abram.

From the Paper:

"Descartes' arguments about the nature of the world and nonhuman animals rest strongly on his underlying philosophy that the body is external to the mind. Through this argument, he notes that all that we can ever truly know about the world comes from our own thoughts. As such, humans learn about the external universe through a prior knowledge within our mind (Palmer). To Descartes, the world was divided into the pure, thinking mind that was possessed solely by humans and unthinking, mechanical matter that was possessed by animals, plants, minerals, and the human body. In Animals are Machines, Descartes notes, "there are (no humans) so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts, while, on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same." As a result of the human ability to think, Descartes argued that humans alone (and not animals) were able to feel the mechanical sensations of the body (Abram)."

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• Analytical Essay # 4510 : "Descartes Proving God"
• Essay # 74093 : "Descartes and Advertising"

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