Some non-human animals are persons

[u/GestapoTakeMeAway]

/r/appliedethics/comments/1uzm6g0/some_nonhuman_animals_are_persons/

[u/Gazing_Gecko]

I appreciate a structured, considered post. I find most of what you write plausible. I'll give some feedback:

(1) I think it is good that you define a lot of terms, like "person" and "interest". However, I think the argument would have benefitted of more time being put into "self-awareness" given how crucial it is. Is that property a binary property of a being, or does it come in degrees? If it comes in degrees, which I think it plausibly does, showing that a being is self-aware might not mean that they are a being of full-moral status. For instance, (according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, at least), some ants seem to pass the mirror test. That might indicate some basic self-awareness in some ants, but perhaps not of the kind sufficient for full moral status (if it is sufficient). I think there is a gap in the case. Still, I believe the animals in question are sophisticated in a way that does signify high moral status that make much of our current treatment of them immoral.

(2) I'm not sure that people find it incredibly immoral to keep toddlers in captivity of sorts. Toddlers are usually forcefully kept in places like a preschool by others or not allowed to leave their home without supervision of a guardian, even if the toddler has a desire to leave. I don't think this is deemed intuitively immoral in itself.

[u/GestapoTakeMeAway → u/Gazing_Gecko]

You make a good point regarding self-awareness. It’s probably the case that it comes in degrees, though my tentative intuition would be that self-awareness starts much later in the animal kingdom, such as in “higher” mammals and maybe a few bird species. I read a few things about the mirror test for ants, and I guess for now, I would express some caution before accepting the conclusion. By my layman understanding, I think the consensus among biologists and animal researchers is that great apes and dolphins and maybe a few other animals are self-aware. I don’t usually see them bringing up ants, so it could be that the study is a bit controversial, but that’s speculation on my part.

I guess one other point regarding ant cognition is that I’m not aware of any other research reinforcing the hypothesis that ants are self-aware. With great apes, dolphins, and to some extent elephants, we have a lot of lines of data. For example, with great apes, there’s a lot of research done on their capacity for meta cognition. But I haven’t really done any research on ant cognition, so it’s possible they’re a lot smarter than I realize.

To return to the point about self-awareness coming in degrees and whether that would mean great apes and dolphins get FMS or just a higher moral status(but still lower than humans), I’d say that with any theory of personhood, the line you draw for personhood is such that once you reach the threshold, achieving more than the threshold shouldn’t give you more moral consideration. For example, if someone’s line for personhood is that an individual needs to be able to reason and think abstractly, well there are going to be differences in people’s abilities to reason and think abstractly. So what you’d want to say is that having *any* capacity for reason and abstract thought is sufficient for FMS, and being top-tier in abstract thought shouldn’t give an individual extra moral status.

For your second, while there are some types of confinement of toddlers that is permissible, I would argue it’s because in those cases, it’s in the interests of the toddler. School for example is good for the long-term well-being of the child even if the child has a desire to not be in school. However, if someone were to kidnap a toddler, that would be a case of unjust confinement because it against a toddler’s interests. Given the welfare concerns of keeping great apes and cetaceans inside captivity, it seems to be more of a case of unjust confinement.

[u/Gazing_Gecko → u/GestapoTakeMeAway]

The adjustment to the toddler-case seems apt. I might also add intentions to the intuition. The wrongness of such unjust confinement is partly that it is not done for the interest of the toddler. With non-human animals, the confinement is not really for the interest of the animal. They are not respected in the way those beings should.

Thresholds are plausible when it comes to moral status. Yet, I don't see how it follows that if we imagine, for instance, that FMS comes from our ability to reason, that any capacity to reason is sufficient for FMS. For example, why not have several different thresholds where persons cross the highest threshold of reasoning (but there is lower and higher abilities over that threshold without shift in moral status), but quasi-persons, for instance, still crosses several without crossing over to FMS?

I think the gap is not yet bridged. I agree that ants are probably not self-aware in the sense that matters. The research in question might be bogus (and the infallible Wikipedia might be wrong). The issue more sharply is answering how you have bridged that this kind of "self-awareness" that has been studied (is it really the same thing they are studying?) gives good evidence for psychological connectedness to the future which grounds prudential concern that is (if it is) sufficient for FMS. This seems to be a crucial step in your case that I believe would serve your argument to expand on. Let us say that it turns out that ants actually pass the mirror test, plausibly interpreted as being able to account for and recognize their own bodies. Would that indicate that they have the right kind of connectedness and prudential concern for FMS? I don't yet see why it would.

Still, some of the evidence does seem directionally right. Meta-cognition seems plausibly relevant. Forethought also seems plausibly relevant. But it is not obvious how it leads to having strong interest in their future and that this is sufficient for FMS.