Letters to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir: It is a general and deeply rooted belief that Descartes, in the words of Bertrand Russell, "regarded animals as automata, governed entirely by the laws of physics, and devoid of feeling or consciousness" [Lp. 583]. Rowan and Rollin, in a recent number of thisjournal [2], stated that "René Descartes . . . has become a notorious and symbolic figure in the animal research controversy. He argued that animals were no more than machines and were therefore incapable of thinking or feeling." The authors continued, "Animal welfare advocates, . . . have thus held Descartes up as typifying the sort ofcallous mechanistic approach which paved the way for the subsequent use of 'vivisection'." The reason I write this letter is that I feel that Descartes is being done an injustice. The views originally put forth by Descartes in his books perhaps may be considered reprehensible. A significant fact, however, is that, following publication of his books, an extensive correspondence between Descartes and prominent people all over Europe ensued. In these letters Descartes amplified and perhaps modified his stand. In his letter to the Marquess of Newcastle, dated 23 November 1646, he expressed some thoughts worth quoting: "As for the movement of our passions, even though in us they are accompanied with thought because we have the faculty of thinking, it is none the less very clear that they do not depend on thought, because they often occur in spite of us. Consequently, they can also occur in animals, even more violently than they do in human beings, without being able to conclude from that that they have thoughts" [3, pp. 206-7]. And further, in the same letter, "... all the things which dogs, horses and monkeys are taught to perform are only expressions of their fear, their hope or their joy; and consequently they can be performed without any thought." Whether or not Descartes thus appeared to have had second thoughts on this matter or just wanted to clarify his view has to be left undecided. Anyway, to me it seems evident that Descartes did not deny that animals have their emotions. He only held that these emotions are not accompanied by cogitation the way they are in humans. Permission to reprint a letter printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 28, 3 ¦ Spring 1985 | 485 REFERENCES 1.Russell, B. A History of Western Philosophy, 1st ed. London: Allan & Unwin, 1946. 2.Rowan, A. N., and Rollin, B. E. Animal research—for and against: a philosophical, social, and historical perspective. Perspect. Biol. Med. 27:1-17, 1983. 3.Descartes: Philosophical letters. Translated and edited by A. Kenny. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970. A. VAN DEN HOOFF Laboratory ofHistology and Cell Biology, Ie Const. Huygensstraat 20, 1054 BW Amsterdam The Netherlands Dear Sir: van den Hooff questions whether Descartes has been unjustly accused of heartlessness by animal activists. It is true that Descartes may not have maintained an absolute mechanistic interpretation of animals (as opposed to humans ). Cottingham has argued that Descartes's attribution of sensations to animals shows that Descartes believed that animals have some sort of consciousness [I]. Regan denies this [2, pp. 3-5], arguing that Descartes only accepted animal sensations to the extent that eyes or ears responded (mechanically) to external stimuli without any involvement of mind or consciousness. Descartes's opinions also stimulated extensive debate at the time [3], and not all seventeenth-century scholars accepted his position. Nevertheless, the teachings of Descartes (and Malebranche) had a profound effect on seventeenth century behavior. Passmore [4] notes that public vivisections became popular at the time and that the spectacles were performed not for scientific reasons but for the sake of technical display. Rosenfield quotes a contemporary of Descartes as saying, "Scientists administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference and made fun of those who pitied the creatures as if they felt pain. They said the animals were clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noise of a little spring that had been touched, but that the whole body was without feeling. They nailed the poor animals up on boards by their four paws to vivisect them to...