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My early research provided a new account of the early modern debate sparked by Descartes's view that animals are non-conscious automata. In a foundational paper, I showed how Descartes defends this view using an "introspective-analogical" argument (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2020). The first step in this argument relies on introspection to justify conclusions about which motions of our bodies depend on our thoughts and which instead are produced automatically by our bodies without thought playing any role. The second step in the argument asserts that the motions of animals are analogous to automatic motions in human beings. Descartes concludes from this that animals are best regarded as automata. In other papers, I've shown how early modern critics of this argument engaged questions about the relationship between attention and consciousness (Journal of Modern Philosophy, 2020) and the phenomenology of the passions (British Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2022)
My current research builds on this work. I am continuing to work on issues in Descartes's philosophy of mind related to his denial of minds to animals. In one work in progress, I argue that Cartesian consciousness plays an essential role in enabling thought's capacity to represent. I am also currently working on a project examining early modern women philosopher's views on nonhumans, beginning with the work of Margaret Cavendish. This project examines not only early modern women's views on animal minds but also their views in animal ethics which some scholars have argued are progressive compared to their male peers. I aim to assess whether, and if so in what ways, early modern women's engagement with questions about sexual difference interact with their views on species difference.
Publications
"Descartes, and his Critics, on Passions and Animals", British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2022
Descartes’s theory of the passions has important connections to his view that nonhuman animals are automata. In this paper, I show how critics of animal automatism exploited these connections. I interpret a criticism of animal automatism developed by Gabriel Daniel (1649-1729). Daniel argues that animal automatism commits Descartes to an implausible account of the phenomenology of conflicts between passion and reason. If animal bodies act by mere automatic mechanism, then when a human being resists their animal impulses they should experience a conflict between the disposition of their body and their rational soul. However, our experience of conflicts between passion and reason instead suggests that these conflicts are internal to the soul. Daniel’s objection to Cartesian animal automatism was later criticized by David Renaud Boullier (1699-1759), but Boullier himself raises an objection to Cartesian animal automatism that develops insights from Daniel. I argue that Boullier succeeds in raising a powerful objection to Cartesian animal automatism.
Descartes held that animals are material automata without minds. However, this raises a puzzle. Descartes’s argument for this doctrine relies on the claims that animals lack language and general intelligence. But these claims seem compatible with the view that animals have minds. As a solution to this puzzle, I defend what I call the “introspective-analogical” interpretation. Descartes employs introspection to show that certain human behaviors do not depend on thought but rather on automatic bodily processes. Descartes then argues that animal behavior resembles only those behaviors that are automatic in humans. Analogy thus supports the view that the behaviors of animals do not depend on thought but are rather automatic. And if animal behavior is automatic, then animals are best regarded as automata.
"Animals and Cartesian Consciousness: Pardies vs. The Cartesians", Journal of Modern Philosophy, 2020
The Cartesian view that animals are automata sparked a major controversy in early modern philosophy. This paper studies an early contribution to this controversy. I provide an interpretation of an influential objection to Cartesian animal automatism raised by Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636-1673). Pardies objects that the Cartesian arguments show only that animals lack "intellectual perception" but do not show that animals lack "sensible perception." According to Pardies, the difference between these two types of perception is that the former is reflexive such that we both perceive an object and the perception itself, whereas sensible perception lacks this reflexivity. This notion of sensible perception was criticized by the Cartesian Antoine Dilly for violating the doctrine that all thought is conscious. However, I argue that sensible perceptions are not unconscious for Pardies. Rather, they are conscious perceptions that are unaccompanied by a kind of reflexive perception that is constitutive of attention. Moreover, I argue that when understood in this way Pardies raises a compelling objection to Cartesian animal automatists.
Works in Progress
Works in Progress
In order to preserve anonymity for the review process, I have not included titles for my works in progress. Instead, I have included a one sentence description of the paper. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about any of these projects.
A paper arguing that in Descartes's philosophy consciousness enables thought's capacity to represent. (full draft)
A paper examining how Cavendish argues against Descartes's denial of minds to animals. (full draft)
A paper arguing that an objection to Cartesian animal automatism raised by Bernard Fontenelle (1657-1757) can advance contemporary discussion of the problem of animal consciousness. (full draft)
A paper examining how Cavendish defends her view that animals have as much reason as humans. (partial draft)
A paper showing how to analyze the notion of 'speciesism' such that the analogy between speciesism and other isms doesn't beg the question. (full draft)
A paper responding to a common objection to species egalitarianism by arguing that species egalitarianism is consistent with the existence of special duties to humanity. (partial draft)
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