Minding the Animals: Cognitive Ethology and the Obsolescence of Left Humanism

Abstract

What does it mean to be "human"? The question, though it has occupied some of the greatest Western minds of philosophy, science, history, and political theory, could not have been answered with any plausibility until recently. For only in the last century or so have we begun to acquire enough knowledge through evolutionary theory, geology, ecology, anthropology, paleontology (the scientific study of prehistoric life), archaeology, and genetics to provide an informed response. At the same time, recent scientific and technological developments have produced radical and vertiginous change. The possibilities of artificial intelligence, robotics, cloning, pharmacology, stem-cell research, and genetic modification pose entirely new challenges for attempts to define "human" in fixed and essentialist, rather than fluid and plastic, terms. Ironically, just as we are beginning to acquire important knowledge of human nature, we have developed the means to begin altering ourselves in dramatic ways, yet as technological animals with malleable natures this itself is an important part of what it means to be human. 1