On Mon, 8 May 2000, Ken Stuart wrote:

> >Do bugs have enough of a nervous system to be capable of
> >suffering?  A case can be made that the systems responsible for
> >pain reside mainly in the limbic system, which bugs lack
> >altogether.  So what reason is there to believe in the suffering
> >of bugs?
>
> Pain and suffering are experiences of the mind, not the body.

Agreed, but there is a body of evidence that these mental states
are *correlated* with states of the body in many cases.  We're
not aiming for proof here; just warrant for reasonable belief.

> When you are dreaming, and a large rock smashes your hand, what physiological
> processes caused that pain and suffering?

This shows that pain is possible without its usual causes, but
doesn't begin to count as a reason to deny animal pain.

> Actually suffering is not the same as pain, as is evidenced by the existence of
> BDSM.

I agree that they are not the same.  Pain certainly contributes
to suffering, but does not exhaust the concept.

> Suffering is simply the experience of something happening that is not desired
> (which, by the way, is more easily dealt with by eliminating the desire than by
> eliminating the circumstances).

I think this is a gross oversimplification.  The frustration of
some desires is too trivial to be called suffering, as for
example when a shoelace breaks.  But if you insist on calling
this suffering, then it would be odd to say that it is easier to
deal with it by ceasing to desire tied shoes.

> So, to posit that other species suffer, we also have to ascertain that they
> have:
>
> - Minds
> - Self-consciousness
> - Personal experiences
> - Desires
>
> To my knowledge, the only way to ascertain that would be by cross-species mind
> reading...

I agree that we should not talk about the suffering of species
that lack these capacities.  That's precisely the point.  But I
reject the claim that the only way to ascertain it would be by
cross-species mind reading.

If I apply a glowing coal to my skin, I will reliably feel pain.
That pain will likely be correlated with certain behaviors on my
part, as well as with certain neural processes.  The same
stimulus will produce similar responses in other humans, who
report that they also feel pain.  If I do the same thing to a
dog, the dog will engage in similar behaviors and these will be
correlated with similar neural processes.  What reason do I have
to doubt that the dog feels pain under this circumstance?  I
can't think of any.

When I come to species whose nervous systems are so simple that I
cannot really point to the expected neural correlates of pain,
then I begin to have reason to doubt whether pain is present.  I
haven't proved that it isn't present, of course, but I do have
some reason to doubt it.  Ethical vegetarians may wish to dispute
whether morality requires us to err on the side of caution here
or not, but that doesn't show that the whole notion of moral
concern over animal suffering is arbitrary or illusory.

Todd Moody
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