Fish,
Consciousness, and Advocacy
Matt Ball
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The
circulation of
articles in early 2003 regarding
fish raises two issues: one
scientific, the other strategic.
A
number of stories were written about
a study by Professor James D. Rose,
which concluded that fish do not
have the capacity to suffer. The
basis for this conclusion is, in
short, that human consciousness
depends on the neocortex, a portion of the brain
that is lacking in fish. Most vegetarian
advocates dismissed this report
-- often without reading it. Some
said simply, “Of course
fish feel pain.” (One animal
advocate who actually read the paper
is Stephen Kaufman, M.D., Clinical
Assistant Professor at Case Western
Reserve and Northeastern Ohio Universities
College of Medicine, cochair of
both the Medical Research Modernization
Committee and the Christian Vegetarian
Association, President of Vegetarian
Advocates, and Advisor to Vegan
Outreach. You can read
his critique here.)
More
recently, stories about the conclusion
by the Roslin
Institute that fish could feel pain
(for example, a cover story by the
Financial Times)
have made rapid, multiple rounds
through the vegetarian community.
Oddly
enough, it is possible that these
two reports -- the Rose view that
fish can't suffer,
and the Roslin Institute conclusion
that fish could feel pain
-- could both be correct.
Vegan
Outreach’s goal is to alleviate
and prevent suffering. This
may sound simple, but pursuing this
end leads to very difficult questions,
such as optimal allocation of resources.
More basic, though, are the questions
of defining "suffering"
and determining to what extent,
if at all, members of different
species may suffer.
Many
vegans tend to equate suffering
with sentience -- i.e., being able
to sense, to perceive stimuli. Although
we associate the idea of sensing
with conscious awareness, this is
not strictly true. Perception alone
is a much simpler task than subjective
experience. A sunflower can be more
"perceptive" than a clam;
a Venus flytrap might
be seen as more
"sensitive" than a shrimp.
Even more intriguing is the fact
that machines are becoming more
advanced every year, more "sentient"
in terms of being able to sense,
interact, and learn. The appearance
of awareness –-- even the ability
to interact -- is not the same as
the actual ability to suffer. People
can form attachments to the Aibo and
be freaked out by
the Asimo; similarly, robot "escapes" can elicit
sympathy.
"Sentience,"
then, is not the same as being able
to have ethically relevant conscious
states (for a discussion of ethics
and consciousness, see the Universal
Ethics section of "A Theory of Ethics"). The study
of the neurology of consciousness
indicates that the ability to have
subjective experiences -- such as
suffering -- is quite complex.
A
more in-depth summary of sentience,
consciousness, and suffering can
be found in the essay, "What
Animals Can Suffer?" To
summarize the hypothesis of Dr. Antonio Damasio,
there is a difference between "feeling"
(sensing) and "feeling a feeling"
(conscious awareness). Or, in terms
of the recent reports, it is entirely
possible that fish might
be able to feel
pain -- that is, sense
negative stimuli -- but may lack
the ability to suffer
-- have a subjective, conscious
experience of the pain.
Thus,
while fish obviously respond to
tissue damage, we don’t know whether
they
suffer.
Of
course, except for ourselves, we
can't know if any creature can suffer. But enough is known
that we can arrive at reasonable,
although not conclusive, guesses
about what is required for another
creature to be conscious, and thus
capable of subjective, ethically-relevant
states. What is known now shows
that, between a worm and a normal
human, there is uncertainty as to
where, exactly, the neural mechanisms
exist for conscious suffering.
You
might wonder, Why
does this matter? Fish might suffer,
so we should act as though they
do.
But
advocacy is not this simple. At
some level, most people know that
at least some of what they eat causes
suffering. Yet not only do they
continue on as before, they actively
seek out any reason to dismiss the
slightest threat to the status quo.
If we are to be effective in reducing
suffering, we can't provide the
public with excuses to dismiss the
message because of the messenger.
Most
people oppose cruelty to animals,
yet find it easy to dismiss veganism
when presented as a religion, with
dogma such as "Bees
suffer from factory farming
[enslaved,
raped] just
as much as any other animal."
"Eating clams is cruel"
is really not much different than
"Plants feel pain," and
just as easy to ignore. Whenever
we act like we have all the answers
(and everything just happens to
exactly align with our worldview)
and dismiss (or attack) anyone who
doesn't toe our "party line,"
we give people ample reason to ignore
the message of reducing suffering.
If we can't admit
to uncertainty and the possible
validity of other points of view,
we will be seen -- rightly -- as
militant fundamentalists.
Simplicity,
and/or a dogmatic "consistency,"
isn't the goal. Rather, our purpose
is to be able to reach new people
in such a way that they consider
the message and change their habits.
Advocacy isn’t about pontificating
our "truths," but opening
and changing the hearts and minds
of others. Effective advocacy
is the difference between asking
"What do you think a fish
feels when hooked and brought out
of the water?" and preaching
"Of course fish feel pain!"
Or,
as Dr. Kaufman said: "I think
some general humility is desirable,
including humility about what we
know to be true and humility about
what is the 'right' path. Overconfidence
and self-righteousness will change
few minds."
Critique
of Rose | What Animals Can Suffer? | Rights,
Liberation, and Uncertainty
You can see previous
issues of Vegan Outreach's e-newsletter
here.
Vegan Outreach
P.O. Box 38492
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
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