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Hello, and welcome to Humanities Matter, brought to you by Brill. I'm Lee Chung-Grechault, and this week we'll be looking at key issues in the field of humanities. We're speaking with Dr. Judith Ben-Schwartzberg.
She's the author of Cognitive Kin, Moral Strangers, Linking Animal, Cognition, Animal Ethics, and Animal Welfare. Dr. Ben-Schwartzberg is a senior postdoc researcher at the University for veterinarian medicine in Vienna. Dr.
Ben-Schwartzberg, thank you so much for talking with us today. Yes, thanks for having me. So philosophers have started looking into the socio-cognitive abilities of animals, so their language, beliefs, logic, memory, and even mind reading to a certain extent. But there's a huge gap in research looking at the ethical implications of animals' cognitive ability.
Why is that? Yeah, that's a very good question, and it's not so easy to answer. I mean, maybe it's because it's fascinating to accumulate scientific knowledge and to get some surprising insights into animal minds on the one hand, but on the other hand, it's also, it means leaving our comfort zone when asking what do we do with this knowledge. So the ethical question is, what are the implications of knowing more and more about disabilities in animals and how should it influence the way we treat animals?
The problem with that is that the human animal relationship can basically be characterized foremost as a relationship of use, I would say. So that means we are using animals as testing devices for products, for therapies, for human medicine, for example, in the lab. We use them on farms for food. We use them in our homes as social support and companionship.
And also we use them as entertainment objects if you think about circus, for example, and to a certain extent also suits. And these are just some areas which are easy to understand, I guess. So the ethical question is, basically, are we allowed to still use, for example, create apes in animal experimentation or keep them in circus and zoos when these animals are on a socio-cognitive and emotional level of, let's say, a three to five-year-old child. So what happens in light of increasing knowledge about animals' minds and their emotions is that animals turn from objects we use and possess into individual subjects, right?
And they seem to be very much our cognitive skin and have their own personalities. So this is the problem we face when we have a closer look on what we should do with the knowledge we gain from animal behavior and comparative cognition research. So you talk about these three areas of cognitive research, culture, language, and theory of the mind. So why have we attributed these to humans and how is that changing?
Yeah, I think to some extent at least we like to understand ourselves as special maybe. And we also like to argue in favor of continued practices of use or continued ideologies we entertain, right? And the thing is the way we treat animals, let's think about meat eating as a context, for example, is as much shaped by an ideology that has been called by sociologists' carnism, as is the opposite veganism or vegetarianism. So social psychology tells us that what we find here is a network of, how did we say that in English, narratives that legitimize what we're doing, right?
We come up with narratives that tell to justify what we want to do with these animals. So one thing is knowing about these abilities in animals and knowing how animals are. And the other side of the coin is not wanting to know, right? So for example, we like to say that those species we want to eat are dumb or don't have complex cognitive abilities and don't really suffer.
That is what we can see from empirical studies where people were asked to rate animals according to their cognitive abilities and their ability to suffering. And what you find is a very cultural dependent list ranking in the sense that, for example, pigs and cows are ranked low with regard to their cognitive abilities and their ability to suffer. Compared to dogs, for example, who are ranked high in a culture where dogs are appreciated as companion animals. So, but this is just one example, I mean, the meat eating topic.
In general, I think we have ascribed disabilities to humans only because there's a century-long tradition also supported by philosophers telling us that these are the abilities that make humans uniquely and separate them from animals. And this on the other hand gives us a reason why we can treat animals in a different way and do things to them, which we usually don't do in at least in many instances to humans. And the question why is this changing? I mean, maybe we're now facing since the last, let's say 60, 70 years, just too many new research results to shut our eyes any longer.
That's one possibility. So, I mean, empirical knowledge has accumulated and it has accumulated in different disciplines who deal with human-animal relationship. And that's great because for now we can really start working into disciplinary topic. So we can combine findings from psychology, sociology, philosophy and biology and so on to get a better picture.
And having a better picture, having one knowledge helps a little bit, right? On the other hand, I think an increasing number of philosophers and also biologists have the courage now and really speak up to face normative questions as well. One example is Jengudal or Mark Beggoff, these are two researchers who started as ethologists, but have turned also into activists and bring their knowledge to activism and try to improve animal welfare and animal rights. So there are more and more role models working like this, which encourages, on the other hand, young scholars to maybe also combine their scientific interests with political interests as well, for example, and ethical interests.
And there's an increasing ethical sensitivity, probably in society in general. So why are the numbers of animals we use in animal testing, for example, and in meat consumption are increasing still? We have on the other side a range of ethical theories now that make us think about these issues and we have also social movements that are well established in our society. So society seems to be ready for some crucial changes maybe.
And also society increasingly sees the interrelatedness of the big questions we face. And as we are right in the middle of a pandemic at the moment, this is quite, I think, important to see, because the pandemic we have at the moment is a so-nose and it has to do with how humans treat animals. I mean the progress spread from markets where wild animals are kept under horrific conditions and sold under these conditions. And scholars have told us for years that something like this could happen, right?
But the animal rights movement in specific, for example, is also connected to a broader question, maybe that social justice because society that treats animals badly and doesn't have an understanding for any treatment of animals. You mean treatment is most likely society that also mysteries minorities, for example. So the question of social justice and rights of minorities has been linked to animal rights questions as well. And the climate change issue is also one of the big questions of the future that is easily linkable to our way of using animals if you think about meat consumption.
So, yeah, we've started to recognize these things and how they are interrelated and up to a level that even the insurance companies in the US, as far as I know, have recognized the advantages of plant waste diets, for example, and so on. So this is just an example to show you that these kinds of ideas are, yeah, they are getting embedded into other movements and embedded into social structures somehow. So all of this might lead to a situation where it's maybe, yeah, at least on an intellectual level, let's say it like that, the human animal rights has the opportunity to become a better relationship and we have the opportunity to reflect on it. So you also mentioned Jane Goodall earlier, and I'm going to talk about this because this is such a famous example when it comes to tool use.
So tool use was thought to be the sort of dividing line between humans and animals. So in 1917, Wolfgang Koller observed chimpanzees using tools to solve problems, but people still consider tool use exclusively as the domain of humans. That is until Jane Goodall comes along and study chimps in the 1960s and observe them using tools. So how was this a breakthrough in the way we perceive animals and how they actually think?
Well, I think it was a breakthrough with regard to different aspects of first of all, it set the state for researching tool use in animals. I mean, it's true what you said. It was one of the dividing characteristics for animals, and it was the first time that the community saw this changing, right, when she reported to her results. So, yeah, it was a breakthrough with regard to the specific research on animal to use, but it also set the stage for some other female researchers to follow in her footsteps.
In a community that was really, I think to some extent, also still is made dominated. So I think that was also an aspect of breakthrough. And we can see from her observations, other areas of interest, not just tool use that opened up suddenly as something that might be fascinating to look into. For example, the ability to grieve in animals.
I mean, she reported reactions of animals to the death of corn specifics, and I think her observations were also in this area. So, some of the first ones we have, and I'll still use today to argue that animals like chimpanzees might have a concept of grief. Furthermore, I think it set the stage for perceiving the animals as individuals. I mean, Jane Gaudel gave her animals names, for example, that was the first, and it was also a cause of criticism from colleagues.
Yeah, I remember it was rather cute in a way, didn't they? Yeah, I mean, it's very easy to say what a woman does is not rational, and it's romantic or whatever, right? This was exactly the way how to not to appreciate some female research, and it's a very old narrative to argue along these lines. And I think the fact that she gave them names was one of the things that was surprising to colleagues, because up to then the animals were just numbered, right?
And there's a difference between an animal you research who is just a number to you, and more ranges more like a research object, right? In the object sense, then what Jane Gaudel did with treating them also, not just naming them but treating them as individuals, and observing them in their own, as these individuals, observing them in their own social communities and in their own habitat. I mean, that was really breakthrough also. So her research, I think, emphasized the importance and the value of field research also.
I mean, Kola was in the lab, right? Even though it was an outside enclosure, as far as I know, but this is classical lab research, as we see it today also in Zeus, like the Leipzig Zoo in Germany with the West Congenkola Primary Research Station there. Yeah, but Jane Gaudel's research really put an emphasis on the importance and value of field research and as well on the preservation of those habitats. I mean, it's not a coincidence that she really turned from being a peer researcher into founding the Jane Gaudel Institute and the Wu-Tinsuits program and so on.
So she's very much concerned not just with the animals, but with the habitat and with the conservation of these species, right? So, I mean, I think her influence was manyfold on the community and very important. Can you talk about how animals develop culture or traditions? How does this go beyond social gatherings that might accomplish basic goals like gathering food?
Yeah, I mean, the thing with culture is that we can define it in a very simple and biological way as a unique array of socially transmitted behavior. That's the official definition in comparative cognition. So, a unique array of socially transmitted behavior. That means that if we find a specific, let's say, tool use culture like the termite fishing or not cracking things that Jane Gaudel already saw in chimpanzees.
It's important to rule out that a community who does that and another community who doesn't show the behavior is not distinguished by their genes, for example, because if they have different genetics, it might be a genetic code behavior, right? And it's also important to rule out that it's just the environment. If we have this behavior south of the Congo River, but we don't have it north of the Congo River and in the north of the Congo River, we also don't have the specific nuts, for example, which are chimpanzees crack, we don't have the specific stones they need for their animals or so on. Then it's explainable by environmental factors, right, that the north of the community doesn't do it.
So, these things have to be ruled out and what then remains is that the behavior, if they are similar with the Gaudel genes and if the situation is similar with the Gaudel environment conditions, then it's probably an associated transmitted behavior that arises because one individual invented it and the other ones may be that they just found it cool or interesting, right? Or also helpful, but it can be something that is also not that functional, that not cracking, I mean, it can be specific behavior, right? That is more, yeah, not connected to food acquisition also. And that's exactly, I think, the point coming from your question.
If we have this unique array of social transmitted behavior, we can see in chimpanzees very nicely that there's a huge complexity of this array. That means chimpanzees, for example, have specific social traditions like hand-holding positions during grooming, so-called hand-class, or they have, they use plants to self-medicate and so on. So, they show these socially transmitted traditions in their communities in all these different domains. And I think that's a possibility to say, okay, the term culture in general, the question does species have culture, it could be, I don't know whether it makes that much sense, but it's a possibility to define it like that, could be if this array has a specific complexity, and if these traditions span over different domains.
Whereas we can maybe speak of a tool culture in a more specific sense, if it's just limited to food acquisition, for example, and in some species, we find lots of examples of tool use in the domain of food acquisition, but we know little about the domain so far. Again, this could be because we just haven't observed it yet, right? But this is at least something that, for example, distinguishes what we know from chimpanzees and orangutans compared to New Calionian grows, for example, who are very scale tool users in the lab and in the wild. But this is really focused a lot on food acquisition.
Really fascinating research here. I could talk about this all day because you have so many fascinating examples of different kinds of animals using different tools and different forms of language. Dr Judith Ben-Schwartzberg, she is a senior postdoc researcher at the University for veterinary medicine in Vienna. Her paper is Cognitive Kin, Moral Strangers, Linking Animal, Cognition, Animal Ethics, and Animal Welfare.
Dr. Ben-Schwartzberg, thank you again so much for being with us today. Yes, thank you for your question. Thanks.
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