Animal Emotions
When I was a teen, my cat seemed to know when I was sad. I’d be curled up feeling miserable, and Kitty Dukakis would be there, cuddled on top of me, and making me feel better with her soft warm fur and calming purr. Kitty and I met when she was only a kitten. I saw her being stuck with a broom by my boyfriend’s landlady—this was probably 1988. I swooped in and brought her back to my parents’ house and told them we now had a pet. There was no question in my unschooled mind that Kitty felt emotions. She was terrified of the landlady. She was happy to come home and live with me. And, I was sure she understood my emotions too. Now I’m not so sure she understood my emotions. She may have found sad Kristie to be a warm and comfortable place to cuddle—she certainly got positive reinforcement for coming to me when I was out of sorts. But I’m still certain that she felt her emotions—as certain as I can be of anything, and as certain as I am that anyone reading this feels their emotions. That’s because I take the problem of other minds seriously.
In a hypothesis article for Science, Frans de Waal and I sketch the argument for accepting animal emotions. Whether we are scientists, friends, or caregivers, we never directly see other’s feelings. We see symptoms of emotions—a smile, a verbal report of being in a good mood, heightened energy, a relaxed body. These expressions are not the same as the experience felt by the individual. For humans, it seems that the verbal report is enough to convince us that other humans really feel things. It’s not just that we share a physiology, since, as we discuss in the article, until the 1980s infants in the US were treated by the medical profession as unfeeling. Infants were regularly operated on without anesthesia—even open heart surgery. The denial of infant pain flies in the face of common sense for many of us, just as much as the denial of Kitty’s emotions. There is no justification for privileging verbal report over other means of communication or expression.
While observations of behavior suggest emotions in the animals we live with, they have their limitations. It may be hard to see emotions in unfamiliar species. More theory laden observations of felt emotions, such as changes in temperature, dilations of eyes, brain activity in the amygdala, are found across mammals, offering behavioral measures of animal emotions. And when we turn to birds, reptiles, fish, and even worms we see continuities in the physiology of mammalian emotional functioning, given the role of oxytocin and cortisol and their homologues across species—including in nematode worms. While all this offers evidence that animals have feelings, it doesn’t tell us what their emotions are like. It is likely that octopus emotions are different from human emotions—just like octopus locomotion is different from human locomotion. Future research can help to understand the content and quality of emotions in different species.
Science works with background assumptions, or null hypotheses. The assumption that animals don’t feel has led to some problematic science. It’s time to flip the null, and start with the presumption that animals have emotions. With that assumption in hand, scientists and philosophers can work together to uncover the kinds of emotions that animals have, and what the moral implications are of having emotions like that.
For the rest of us, accepting animal emotions gives us a gorgeous way of seeing the world—a richly woven tapestry of beings who have their own desires and feelings and private lives. Every day we’re living some sci-fi fantasy, full of alien Muppets out of Star Wars, but it’s the actual world. Despite all our differences, we can still find some places of common ground. The bees and I are probably both stressed during the long days of demolishing a large building down the street.
Thirty years ago I took Kitty’s affection for granted. Today, I am more deliberate with my dog Riddle, who adores me and follows me everywhere. With Riddle, I try to figure out what he likes and doesn’t like, I worry that it’s not emotionally healthy for him to follow me everywhere—I actively interpret Riddle’s behavior and learn to read his communicative signs. These efforts to learn dog communication are grounded in my desire to support Riddle’s possible emotions. I want to give Riddle as much delight as he gives to me and my family.
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