Non-human persons

There's an AAAS conference coming up in San Diego, focusing on the ethical implications of dolphin intelligence. Several very interesting people will be speaking. A few of them are quoted in this article, which outlines the ongoing controversy about intelligence and animals and what it means, or should mean, to us. The abstract for the conference:

The dolphin brain has a large cerebral cortex and a substantial amount of associational neocortex. Most anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain. More important, recent research in marine science has revealed that dolphins have a remarkable degree of cognitive and affective sophistication. For example, dolphins can recognize their image in a mirror as a reflection of themselves -- a finding that indicates self-awareness similar to that seen in higher primates and elephants. These and other studies, which have found that dolphins are also capable of advanced cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, artificial language comprehension, and complex social behavior, indicate that dolphins are far more intellectually and emotionally sophisticated than previously thought. Considerable research indicates that they are significantly different from fish and other marine species, and this research has significance for commercial policy and practice. This symposium will present the scientific findings and explore their ethical and policy implications.

Here are the abstracts for the talks:

• Lori Marino, Emory University  
• Anatomical Basis of Dolphin Intelligence
  

• Diana Reiss, Hunter College of the City University of New York
•  Self-Awareness and Dolphins
  

• Thomas I. White, Loyola Marymount University 
• Ethical Implications of Dolphin Intelligence: Dolphins as Nonhuman Persons

It's interesting stuff. I'm rather invested in this debate, and I'd love to be at that conference. The crux of White's argument is, as he put it, "... that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals”. I don't know how to feel about that.

On the one hand, there is every reason to believe that they have strong individual personalities, what could be termed a sense of self, and a great capacity for complex cognition. Whether some animals are capable of what we think of as "thought" is another huge can of worms - one that I'm writing a sprawling, impractical thesis on - certainly too large to take on in one blog post.

But there is no question that the way we treat our most intelligent, self-aware cousins right now is inexcusable. If you don't follow any other links on this page, follow that one. The dolphin drives, if dolphins are anything like us at all, are horrors on the level of genocide. Hell, even South Park has noticed.

On the other hand, I think White goes a little far in calling what dolphins have "personhood". Comparing the sentience of a terrestrial, primate species to that of a completely aquatic creature is like comparing apples and oranges: there are certain fundamental differences about how we interact with the world, which shape our intelligences. Dolphin intelligence might be better characterized as an extraterrestrial intelligence - similar in magnitude, but alien in character. Essentially, I'm uneasy with his phrasing, and still uncertain about how much "person" there is in a dolphin, whatever "person" means to me. I've got a lot more thinking to do.

Finally, here's the trailer for The Cove, a recent movie on the dolphin drives and the conspiratorial and aggressive secrecy that surround them.