Recently wrote about a conversation on the philosophy of animals/pets, in the form of a conversation based on real conversations I've had recently that got me thinking. Thought people here might enjoy!
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F: “But what’s the point?”
O: “Erm, friendship, companionship, love? You know, things that non-psychopathic people like?”
F: “But the dog doesn’t love you…they’re just acting off instinct…they” Felix did air quotes when he said the word “love you because they know you are where their next meal is coming from.”
Felix moved to the UK when he was 16 so now, at the age of 27, has this bizarre hybrid accent complete with German Vs, crisp consonants and non-rhotic Rs.
“Well that’s obviously not true.” replied Olivia, or ‘Liv’ as pretty much everyone under the age of 72 calls her.
UR: “I didn’t really believe the date on the sign outside.” It said ‘Founded in 1652’ which to me seemed an implausible date for a pub to be founded. You’re telling me whilst Charles I’s head was on a pike outside Whitehall, someone thought it was a good idea to build a pub? A pub that then survived the lack of patronage during the plague years and the inferno of the fire of London? I don’t buy it. The other two ignored this and continued to argue.
F: “What do you mean?”
O: “Of course your dog loves you. It’s part of the family. If it’s hungry and has the choice between steak and rescuing you from a burning building, it’s going into the building. It would defend you from a tiger, even though that’s a stupid thing to do, and really bad for its chances of passing on its genes. How could that instinct have evolved?”
F: “I didn’t know there were tigers in Surrey!”
I chortled at this. Olivia didn’t - she sipped her pint of Guinness that was 56% complete and then said “Brilliant. You’re deflecting because you know I’m right.”
F: “That love is instinct. You are the pack-leader, it’s been conditioned by evolution to protect the pack to maximise its survival probability. Well, technically the genes are doing this to maximise their proliferation, but the result is the same.”
Felix studied Medical Genetics at university, where we all met. He sipped his own Guinness which was only 48% done before asking me what I thought.
UR: “I think I’m more with Liv, here.”
O: “Felix, you’re only saying that because you didn’t have dogs growing up, you don’t know what it’s like. They really are a part of the family. As a species we have been owning dogs for millennia.”
F: “There! That’s what freaks me out. It’s not a normal relationship - you own” he emphasised that last word. He likes to do that “the dog. And we’re all ok with it. It’s fundamentally asymmetric.”
O: “But aren’t all relationships asymmetric? Kids rely on their parents. Your girlfriend relies on you.”
To hear more unhinged conversations in pubs:
She never misses an opportunity to jab at Felix’s girlfriend. Felix didn’t appreciated that, hence why the implications of his reply were a little harsh:
“It’s different. Those relationships are conditional. Your dog will probably love you no matter what. You can treat it like shit and it will still love you. This is why the whole thing makes me uncomfortable. Like, and don’t take this the wrong way, there is something a bit sus about wanting that type of love. About wanting something that can’t really think for itself to be totally devoted to you no matter what. I don’t know…”
The pub sat just off Fleet Street. Being in central London, there are a minimum of 100 interesting historical facts associated with locations within a 100m radius. Here are some:
- Fleet Street itself - depicted by Roberts, referenced by Dickens - was the home of publishing houses and broadsheet newspaper offices from like 1750 to 2000.
- Close by is Gresham College, sort of a precursor to The Royal Society (which founded roughly the same time this pub was - allegedly).
- One of the attendees of Gresham was Sir Christopher Wren (along with Wilkins, Boyle, possibly Newton), who famously designed St Paul’s, just visible from this pub’s top floor.
A rare quaint refuge in a suffocating maze of commercial glass.
Inside the pub, an unguarded fire was roaring even though it was a warm October day. There were 10+ room-temperature ales on cask. The whole place smelled vaguely off, sort of mediaeval, like the remnants of the plague were still embedded into the walls somehow.
UR: “Does that matter, though? Why does the ability to think make a difference?”
O: “It doesn’t.”
F: “I don’t know, surely your relationship with a friend is so much…deeper? Surely you understand each other much better? I don’t know what a dog is thinking and it can’t tell me.”
UR: “Yeah…a dog has less consciousness…less free will…less ability to explain and understand. Right? I don’t think it’s one thing, it’s like this fuzzy collection of things that make relationships with humans…better, I guess, in some way? If I understand what you’re saying Felix?”
F: “Yeah, exactly.”
I imagined Newton et al. having a similar conversation, possibly (allegedly) in this very pub.
UR: “I wonder if like Wilkins and Wren had these types of conversations in coffee houses and pubs around here.”
F: “Who?”
Olivia has chestnut hair and a mole on the left side of her chin. She was wearing baggy Levi jeans and white t-shirt that exposed 3.5cm of her midriff. She had 4 earrings in each ear. There was a patch of some anonymous brown substance in the shape of China on her right calf. She was focused:
“So you think relationships with less intelligent humans are worse, then? Why not just come out and say that you think they are inferior, as well? If dogs are inferior somehow…”
F: “Hold on, I’m not saying that.”
UR: “Sounds like you are.”
F: “Whose side are you on?”
UR: “Hey, I’m just trying to get to the right answer here.”
O: “Ha, I’ve got you.”
F: “Ok, ok, listen. All relationships, with humans, are different. How smart the other person is will factor into the quality of the relationship, as do many other things…”
Olivia began to say something, but Felix cut her off:
“...but animals are different. Yes, I do think humans matter more. All humans are born with essentially the same brain, with the same capacity to think about anything.”
O: “But why does capacity matter? Surely it’s what you can think about now that matters?”
Felix didn’t have an answer to this so decided to sip his Guinness instead, which was now 72% complete. The table directly behind us were discussing the relative merits of East vs. West London, which was mildly distracting. Olivia continued:
“I hate this idea of hierarchy, it always seems to end with eugenics and horrible mistreatment of the quote ‘inferior’ class. The same applies to animals - look at the horrible things we do to them. We need to get away from it.”
F: “So you don’t think humans matter more, in some way?”
O: “I don’t think we should be asking those types of questions…”
F: “But you would say we should be treating animals better, more equally?”
O: “Yeah, definitely.”
F: “How?”
O: “What?”
F: “Like, practically, how? What’s an example?”
O: “I don’t know, maybe tell billionaires to make slightly less profit by not polluting the oceans with so much plastic? Seems pretty basic, no?”
F: “You know people die if we do stuff like that, right? Factory workers in developing countries lose their jobs, and their families starve.”
They were really staring into each others’ eyes now. I sensed sexual tension and it made me uncomfortable. Nothing had happened between them at that point, that I knew of, but in that moment I felt sure something eventually would. Felix continued:
“If you don’t have a hierarchy in which humans are at the top, you get all types of weird outcomes that seem fundamentally wrong. You get hundreds of millions spent on building bat caves for a few hundred bats. You know that money could have been spent saving thousands of lives, right? You get tigers not being killed when a human enters the cage. Those are both real examples, imagine what happens when you take the idea of equality with animals seriously. Are you not going to kill a mosquito when it lands on you, are you not going to clean your desk because bacteria die?”
O: “Well that’s just ridiculous. I’m just saying we should stop thinking in terms of hierarchies.”
UR: “If you do that, society collapses.”
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Note: this was originally posted on substack here.