AGENTS UNDER INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
WE hold an agent responsible not only for his intention, but for any known concomitant of his act, as also for any such unknown concomitant of it as we attribute to want of due attention. But for anything which he could not be aware of he is not responsible. Hence certain classes of agents—animals, children, idiots, madmen—are totally or partially exempted from moral blame and legal punishment.
Though animals are undoubtedly capable of acting, we do not regard them as proper objects of moral indignation. The reason for this is not merely the very limited scope of their volitions and their inability to foresee consequences of their acts, since these considerations could only restrict their responsibility within correspondingly narrow limits. Their total irresponsibility rests on the presumption that they are incapable of recognising any act of theirs as right or wrong. If the concomitant of an act is imputable to the agent only in so far as he could know it, it is obvious that no act is wrong which the agent could not know to be wrong.
It is a familiar fact that, by discipline, we may teach domesticated animals to live up to a certain standard of behaviour, but this by no means implies that we awake in them moral feelings. When some writers credit dogs and apes with a conscience,[1] we must remember that an observer’s inference is not the same as an observed fact.[2] It seems that the so-called conscience in animals is nothing more than an association in the animal’s mind between the performance of a given act and the occurrence of certain consequences, together with a fear of those consequences.[3]
[1] Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 352. Perty, Seelenleben der Thiere, p. 67. Brehm, From North Pole to Equator, p. 298.
[2] Cf. Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 399.
[3] Cf. ibid. p. 405.
The following is one of the most striking instances of what Professor Romanes regards as “conscience” in animals; it refers to a terrier which had never, even in its puppyhood, been known to steal, but on the contrary used to make an excellent guard to protect property from other animals, servants, and so forth, even though these were his best friends. “Nevertheless,” says Professor Romanes, “on one occasion he was very hungry, and in the room where I was reading and he was sitting, there was, within easy reach, a savoury mutton chop. I was greatly surprised to see him stealthily remove this chop and take it under a sofa. However, I pretended not to observe what had occurred, and waited to see what would happen next. For fully a quarter of an hour this terrier remained under the sofa without making a sound, but doubtless enduring an agony of contending feelings. Eventually, however, conscience came off victorious, for emerging from his place of concealment and carrying in his mouth the stolen chop, he came across the room and laid the tempting morsel at my feet. The moment he dropped the stolen property he bolted again under the sofa, and from this retreat no coaxing could charm him for several hours afterwards. Moreover, when during that time he was spoken to or patted, he always turned away his head in a ludicrously conscience-stricken manner. Altogether I do not think it would be possible to imagine a more satisfactory exhibition of conscience by an animal than this; for … the particular animal in question was never beaten in its life.” The author then adds in a note that “mere dread of punishment cannot even be suspected to have been the motive principle of action.”[4] It may be so, if by punishment be understood the infliction of physical pain. But it can hardly be doubted that the terrier suspected his master to be displeased with his behaviour, and the dread of displeasure or reproof may certainly have been the sole reason for his bringing back the stolen food. Among “high-life” dogs, as Professor Romanes himself observes, “wounded sensibilities and loss of esteem are capable of producing much keener suffering than is mere physical pain.”[5] But fear of the anticipated consequences of an act, even when mixed with shame, is not the same as the moral feeling of remorse. There is no indication that the terrier felt that his act was wrong, in the strict sense of the word.
[4] Romanes, ‘Conscience in Animals,’ in Quarterly Journal of Science, xiii. 156 sq.
[5] Idem, Animal Intelligence, p. 439.