New APPS

Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Mostly Philosophy.

about

Living with or without conspecifics

March 31, 2014

Over the weekend I came across this hoax piece of ‘news’, 'reporting' that a boy who had been raised by orangutans has been recaptured so as to live a ‘normal human life’ again in Malaysia. Despite (or perhaps because!) the phoniness of the ‘article’, it did get me thinking: in such a hypothetical scenario, would capturing such a child and bringing them back to a life with humans be the obvious, right thing to do? On the one hand: isn’t it a form of species chauvinism to think that a human being would undoubtedly be better off in the company of conspecifics? Wasn’t the boy doing just fine among orangutans? (In the hypothetical scenario, that is.) On the other hand: can a human being really thrive and live a fulfilling life exclusively among members of other species (and from a very early age)? This strikes me as an eminently philosophical question, though also partially empirical.

Relatedly, I am currently dealing with another surge of demands for a pet in our household. The current proposal is for rabbits, but I’m resisting this move by pointing out that rabbits belong in the wild, with other rabbits. They wouldn’t be happy living with us, no matter how often my kids will pat and caress them, as they promise. (It’s cute though to hear that this is their conception of what makes a living being happy: lots of hugs.) Coming to think of it, the only species that make any sense at all as pets are those that truly thrive in the company of humans, and as far as I can tell, this only holds of dogs and cats. (Maybe horses? Not sure.) Could it be that, just as I resist the idea of e.g. rabbits being ‘happy’ among humans, I should also resist the possibility of a human boy being happy among orangutans? My intuitions are clashing here.

What do readers think? I especially welcome comments by philosophers of biology, who may have more data on intraspecific vs. interspecific cohabitation among the different species of animals.

(PS There are of course lots of interesting implications for the nature/nurture debate in such scenarios, but I will leave them be for now.)

Posted in Biology and the biological, Catarina Dutilh Novaes

11 responses to “Living with or without conspecifics”

Matt

March 31, 2014

From my own experience I can say that Rabbits don’t make that good of pets- they are hard (perhaps impossible) to house-break, so are not great to just have around, and if they are in a hutch most of the time are not really fun to play with. They can get used to being held and petted, but many don’t like it, and they can kick pretty hard with their back legs if they don’t want to be held. That doesn’t hurt itself, but can lead to big scratches from their nails (I know!) A dog or a cat (or maybe a ferret in the right circumstances) is surely better. Horses do well around people who treat them well (they live a lot longer than in the wild and are healthier) but are not really “pets”- the exception might be a mini, though even those are really not so great as a pet. Even an old or not well horse who can’t work is usually better off as a “pasture buddy” to other horses than living just on its own with people. Lots of hugs actually is a good thing for a pet, in most cases, but for an animal that doesn’t want them it will be a bit like torture.
As for the boy w/ orangutans, I’d think the most serious problem is that a person can’t really live like an orangutan- can’t move through the trees in the same way, and that’s an essential part of their lives- or probably eat or at least thrive on the same sort of food. That’s different from a pet, of course, and would seem a pretty important problem.

LikeLike

Reply
Justin E. H. Smith

March 31, 2014

A bit of context: this report is not only a hoax, it’s also the latest iteration of a trope that is very, very old, that we see in Locke, Maupertuis, Monboddo, and many other Enlightenment philosophers interested in humanity’s ‘lower limit’, and that eventually culminates in the Tarzan fiction. In most cases, the thought experiment involves a fairly clear role for the apes as ersatz native peoples, and thus a clear implicit analogy between non-European people living in ‘primitive’ societies, on the one hand, and apes on the other. (See, for example, the movie Emerald Forest, about an American boy raised in an Amazonian tribe: this is transparently a Tarzan remake). Comparing people to apes is problematic and complicated and I don’t really want to address that aspect here (my own views of the obvious racism involved are refracted through a concern to remodel our conception of apes such that acknowledgement of our kinship and resemblance to them does not automatically afford material for racist insults). What’s problematic here in a more sub rosa way, perhaps, are the implications of the ‘thought experiment’ once we acknowledge the ersatz involved: we don’t need to carry out thought experiments about imaginary children being raised by ‘men of the woods’ (to literally translate the Malay term ‘orang utan’) since there are in fact many representatives of the ‘Homo sylvestris’ kind who are also Homo sapiens –namely, indigenous or ‘tribal’ groups–, and who in fact have their own children to whom they transmit their culture. So now the raised-by-apes myth becomes a thinly concealed occasion to revisit the question of state paternalism vis-à-vis indigenous peoples. Should their children be taken away and put on reservations and made to learn, e.g., Portuguese? The belief that they should be becomes that much easier to instil when we have in the back of our minds a picture of indigenous peoples as orangutans.

LikeLike

Reply
Aaron Garrett

March 31, 2014

As an ex-rabbit owner I must disagree with Matt. Rabbits are easy to housebreak. http://www.apbc.org.uk/articles/rabbitlitter
As to rabbit happiness my access to this is limited, but rabbits no doubt live a lot longer in a house, have easier access to food, etc. I can’t see why a pair of rabbits couldn’t be happy.
They are very destructive though.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt

March 31, 2014

I’m happy to take correction from a more experienced rabbit owner! They will chew on things, though.

LikeLike

Reply
Sara L. Uckelman

March 31, 2014

Ignoring the main point of your post and going towards the issue of pets instead, I’m going to take up the issue of “truly thriv[ing] in the company of humans”, because I think it isn’t entirely clear what this might mean. If it’s “has a healthier, longer life than it would not in the care of humans”, then I think there are a lot of animals that would qualify as good pets: Reptiles, fish, anything which has a lot of predators in the wild, and so forth. (This could even include rabbits). If you’re looking for animals where the fact that they are in the care of humans as opposed to some other situation where predators have been removed, i.e., animals where the social interaction with people is supposed to be beneficial to them, then I’d encourage you to add to your list rats. Rats are extremely intelligent and sociable, and from rat owners that I know, rival cats in their capacity for being good pets. Were it not for the fact that I’m a dedicated cat owner myself, I’ve always wanted to have a pet rat.

LikeLike

Reply
Eric Schliesser

March 31, 2014

Our rabbit, Lefkowitz, destroyed most of the electrical wiring in our house. Not sure what stance to take toward this, but you might consider this kind of behavior a net benefit, or not.

LikeLike

Reply
Eric Jonas

March 31, 2014

Excellent an exciting post!
Regarding whether it is a good thing to bring rabbits into one’s home, I would say that even though my own tendency is to think that nonhuman animals who are not thoroughly domesticated (dogs, e.g.) don’t really thrive in human households in the way they would in the “wild,” there is another consideration here, namely, the huge numbers of “pet” rabbits who are abandoned and in need of homes. If the choice is between buying rabbits from a breeder or not living with rabbits, then the latter seems preferable precisely because of the concerns you raised re: thriving among humans. But if the choice is between giving a home to a rabbit from a shelter (who might otherwise be euthanized if not adopted) or not, then I think the former is probably better, provided you are actually committed to providing a good, safe home for them.

LikeLike

Reply
Julie Klein

March 31, 2014

Must add to the chorus that rabbits are very destructive. Housebreaking is hit or miss as far as I can tell. Rabbits also need a lot of exercise, so they need free run of whatever large space they are in. Without enough exercise, they get nasty, often fatal intestinal blockages.
I recommend a dog or a cat.

LikeLike

Reply
Catarina Dutilh Novaes

April 1, 2014

Thanks for this, Justin. The racist trope of comparing certain groups of people to ‘apes’ is indeed alive and kicking; it’s hard to believe, but the other day a Belgian newspaper had a modified picture of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys… (Fortunately, much uproar ensued.) The trope is problematic also at the level of taking for granted that apes are of course ‘inferior’ to humans.
But maybe my strong reaction at the hoax is perhaps on some level a (unconscious?) reaction to exactly the kind of situation you describe, where children of ‘primitive’ people are taken away to be raised in a ‘civilized world’ (horrendous episode of the Australian history, but also practiced in many, many other places).

LikeLike

Reply
Catarina Dutilh Novaes

April 1, 2014

Thanks all for the comments! To clarify, acquiring a pet rabbit in our household is absolutely out of the question; it was already out of the question before you all told me about how destructive they are, and now even more… In terms of pets, the only one I would consider in any seriousness is a dog (I’ve had a few dogs in my life, and especially my beloved Dachshund Petra lifted me up in the months after my father died). But given our current domestic arrangements, with two parents juggling busy careers and two still fairly young children, plus all the traveling we do, it is simply impossible. Maybe when the kids are older…
Regarding what counts as ‘living a happy life’, it is indeed an interesting point that animals in captivity, protected from predators and having abundant food supply, often live longer and healthier lives. But aren’t they missing out on something too? Again, this strikes me as a truly philosophical question.

LikeLike

Reply
BunnyHugger

April 1, 2014

Agreeing with Aaron. I have had companion rabbits for years and first, they can thrive with the right sort of attention and care (but few give it to them, which is the problem and the reason people think rabbits are dull or make bad pets); second, they are quite easily housebroken provided they are neutered.
Rabbits have been domesticated for quite a long time now. I would not class them with exotic pets that are more clearly wild animals.
They are destructive and need a “rabbit-proofed” area, but I find them worthwhile enough companions that I do not begrudge them this.
Having said that, I would very strongly discourage rabbits as a pet for children as they do not like to be picked up and need a lot of care and attention — past the point where they will cease to be an interesting novelty to a child — to be kept well and flourish. They also live as long as 12 years.
None of this addresses your philosophical points, but as a “rabbit person” I do feel compelled to address the assumptions about rabbits.

LikeLike

Reply