Education

Animal Intelligence

But what is intelligence? Experts give different answers. Some use “discrimination tests” to measure animals' capacities for figuring out puzzles — which, by the way, have shown the New Zealand kea to be among the smartest of birds. Other experts believe intelligence means “self-awareness”, so they test whether animals faced with a mirror recognise themselves, or mistake their reflection for another animal. Our nearest genetic relative, the chimpanzee, passes this test well, while other species — even ones thought very clever — fail it: elephants walk right through the mirrors. Of course this might just mean elephants don't care about their looks, while chimps share with humans a gene for self-absorption.
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Animal rights, human wrongs?

I would like to propose something a little different: that a sensible and coherent theory of animal rights should focus on just one right for animals. That is the right not to be treated as the property of humans.

Let me explain why this makes sense. At present, animals are commodities that we own in the same way that we own automobiles or furniture. Like these inanimate forms of property, animals have only the value that we choose to give them. Any moral or other interest an animal has represents an economic cost that we can choose to ignore.
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Beastly treatment

I would be opposed to circuses exploiting performing animals if every dog which ever walked round a ring on its hind legs lived in conditions approved by a joint committee of the RSPCA and Dogs Trust with Saint Francis of Assisi in the chair. Animal acts are demeaning - not to the animals which perform them but to the grown men and women who enjoy the spectacle. What strange psychological condition makes a certain sort of person want to see a lion obeying the instructions of a man with a whip? And, since you ask, I do not expect my dog to "sit up and beg" or "shake hands". It gives me pleasure to be with him. I do not need him to amuse me with tricks. Just being a dog is enough.
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