The halls of Port Royal in the seventeenth century echoed with a sound that would haunt the history of science. It was the screaming of dogs. Inside the laboratories, researchers nailed living animals to wooden boards by their paws, cutting them open to observe the rush of blood through their veins. When the animals whimpered and writhed in agony, the scientists did not flinch. They laughed. They mocked those who showed pity, telling them that these cries were nothing more than the squeaking of wheels and the grinding of gears.
René Descartes provided the intellectual license for this cruelty. He is famous for his division of the world into mind and body, but the darker side of this philosophy is often overlooked. In his attempt to elevate human reason, Descartes stripped the rest of the animal kingdom of any inner life. He reduced living, breathing creatures to mere matter. To Descartes, an animal was an automaton. It was a machine.
There was only one real difference between a dog and a pocket watch. The watch was made by human hands, while the dog was constructed by a divine craftsman. Descartes argued that God was simply a far better machine-maker. The complex behaviors of beasts were not signs of intelligence or feeling. They were the pre-programmed movements of a highly sophisticated clock. When a clock strikes the hour, we do not assume it feels joy. When a beaten dog howls, Descartes argued, we should not assume it feels pain.
To justify this view, the philosopher established two criteria for consciousness. A being must possess speech that puts actual thought on record, and it must exhibit universal reason. Because animals failed these tests, they were cast out of the moral circle. When confronted with parrots that seemed to converse, Descartes dismissed them. He insisted that such displays were merely physical reflexes, no different from a spring unwinding in a timepiece.
This was a comforting doctrine for a changing world. It solved a difficult theological puzzle. If animals could suffer, then God had allowed innocent creatures to feel pain in a world corrupted by human sin. By declaring that beasts were empty of consciousness, Descartes kept the universe neat. He also gave humanity a blank check to exploit nature.
The consequences of this theory were immediate and bloody. The belief that animals do not feel pain allowed early scientists to perform horrific experiments with complete peace of mind. They sliced open living flesh without a second thought. If the beast-machine did not have a soul, then vivisection was no more criminal than breaking a clock.
Yet Descartes was not entirely consistent in his letters. In correspondence with the Marquess of Newcastle and Henry More, he admitted that he could not definitively prove animals lacked thought. He conceded that they might experience basic sensations. But his public philosophy remained rigid. He warned that believing animals shared our nature would lead humanity away from virtue, making us fear we had no more hope for an afterlife than ants or flies. He dismissed any concern for animal slaughter as Pythagorean superstition.
This mechanistic view of life outlived the seventeenth century. It laid the groundwork for the industrial exploitation of animals that persists today. Whenever we treat living beings as units of production or mere resources, we are repeating the errors of Port Royal. We are still listening to the ticking of Descartes’ clocks.
Bibliographic Information
- Title: The Philosophy of Vegetarianism
- Author: Daniel A. Dombrowski
- Publisher: The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst
- Publication Year: 1984
- Edition: First Edition / Paperback
- ISBNs:
- Cloth ISBN-10: 0-87023-430-7
- Paperback ISBN-10: 0-87023-431-5
- Ebook ISBN-13: 978-0-585-08337-7
- Print ISBN-13: 978-0-870-23431-6
- Historical Period Covered: Ancient Greece (~6th century B.C. to 6th century A.D.) with comparative analysis of the Judeo-Christian Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era, and the 1970s–1980s contemporary philosophical debates
- Main Subject Areas: Ancient Philosophy, History of Vegetarianism, Environmental Ethics, Animal Rights, Virtue Ethics (Arete), Metaphysics, Process Philosophy
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