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First Step to Primate Equality: Understanding They Are Conscious

Philosophy professor from the University of New York (Toronto), Kristin Andrews, focuses
her research on the nature of social cognition and examines human social relations and the
relationships among, and between, animals of different species. In her essay The First Step
in the Case for Great Ape Equality: The Argument for Other Minds, Andrews states that
before nonhuman primates can be considered equal, the idea that they (and other animals) are
not conscious must be demolished (131). Andrews argument is partially based on the fact
that apes can also rationally think and also possess problem-solving skills. In her own words
she states that one who accepts the existence of humans minds is then rationally compelled
to accept the existence of great ape minds in general (132). This section outlines
noninvasive experiments that prove NHPs are rational and self-conscious living creatures.
Since the beginning of the 20 century, primatologists have focused on determining
th

whether communication among NHPs is intentional or not; Professor Scott-Phillips from

Durham Universitys anthropology department, however, has focused his research on the
structure of nonhuman primate communication while also tying his results to the origins of
language. In other words, Scott-Phillips article, Nonhuman Primate Communication,
Pragmatics, and the Origins of Language, traces the origins of human language to NHP
communication by telling us that ape communication involves the use of metacognitive
abilities that ... were exapted for use in what is an evolutionarily novel form of
communication: human ostensive communication (56). Scott-Phillips makes reference to
the first experiments that focused on comparing human to ape communication. As a early as
1920, playback experiments in which animal vocalization were recorded and then played to a
different group of animals, but of the same species. Their reactions were then observed and
compared to words in human language (Seyfarth, Cheney, Marler 1980b). Nevertheless,

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Scott-Phillips mentions that words and monkey reactions to alarm calls identified in this
research completely rely on different cognitive mechanism and cannot be directly compared
to one another (53). This raised the question of whether apes communicate intentionally. As
well as Scott-Phillips, comparative psychologists Josep Call and Michael Tomasello, agree
that ape communication is not intentional. Nevertheless, Scott-Phillips argues that there are
other aspects of communication that are at least as important as intentionality that have
received far less attention(53). In the section Does Nonhuman Primate Communication
Use Ostension and Inference of his article, he proves that ape communication is not
ostensive by proving that ape communication uses a form of code model that allows apes to
communicate. He mentions that ape gestural communication is very sophisticated and it is
based on a process that scientist refer to as ontogenetic ritualization, in which a behavior
takes on a communicative function by virtue of its repeated use in the interactions of two (or
more) individuals (Nonhuman Primate Communication, Pragmatics, and the Origins of
Language). As a result, one can conclude that this code is simply enhanced by
metapsychological abilities that humans use to communicate, thus making it clear to see that
human language evolved from this simplistic form of ape communication.
In addition to Scott-Phillips findings, Doctor Roberta Salmi and professor Diane
Doran-Sheehy narrowed down the topic of ape communication to a specific form exhibited in
western gorillas. In the article The Function of Load Calls (Hoot Series) in Wild Western
Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) Salmi and Doran-Sheehy established that western gorillas use loud,
long-distance calls (Hoot Series) to reunite the group in a specific place (379). To begin their
research, they first established whether hoot series were used to establish spatial proximity
among them. They outlined four criteria that needed to be met in order to exactly tell what the
function of hoot series is. First, the hoot series should vary from one individual to the other in
order to allow recipient to distinguish who was making the call and respond to the sender

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correspondingly. Secondly, the call

should only be emitted when the
sender and the recipient become
further apart than normal. Thirdly, the
distance between the sender and the
caller should be either stable or
increasing before the call is emitted
and should immediately decrease after
the call has been emitted. Lastly, the
call should differ from those
recipients that are in the group from those that are not (380). In order to make sure these
criteria were met, Salmi and Doran-Sheehy collected all the behavioral data and vocal
recordings over a period of fifteen months from a healthy, well-habituated group of gorillas
that lived in the Mondika Research Center located in the Republic of Congo. The conclusion
of the experiment was that between the beginning and the start of a hooting series the
distance between the sender(s) and the recipient(s) decreased significantly (See figure 1). As
a result, Salmi and Doran-Sheehy said that because inter-individual distances were
increasing prior to the calls and decreasing only after, we [Salmi and Doran-Sheehy]
conclude that hoot series function as signals for individuals to regroup (386). In addition to
ape gestural communication, Hoot series could also be considered an example of the process
Scott-Phillips referred to as ontogenetic ritualization in his article. As described above, the
repetition of the series becomes a form of communication among NHPs that although differs
from human communication, it is very similar to human communication and it is a sign of
consciousness. It is important, though, to note that there are many other aspects about
nonhuman primates, such as grief and mourning, that tell us that they are conscious.

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In chapter twelve of her book, How Animals Grieve, Barbara King describes
observations made by primatologists, such as Jane Goodall, as early as 1900 . King starts off
by describing two different situations, one in the wild and one in captivity, in which
chimpanzees show specific behaviors that signal ape grief. She mentions that the apes eat less
than normal, sleep less and in different places than they are used to when a companion or a
member of their group dies. King describes these behaviors as an altered routine or a
disturbed mood (129). To illustrate, King describes the death of mother chimpanzee Pansy
who lived in a Scottish safari park together with another chimpanzee mother called Blossom.
Pansy fell ill, describes King, and started having problems breathing, to the point that the
owners of the park anticipated her death. The mothers offspring, Chippy and Rosie, both
seemed to know that something was not in order and immediately started showing signs of
agitation and desperation. In Kings own words in the ten minutes before her death, they
groomed her or caressed her at what the observers judged to be a higher than usual rate
(King 130). After Pansys death different behaviors were observed: Chippy (Blossoms son)
attacked Pansys corpse by pounding her torso repeatedly times that night; Rosie (Pansys
daughter) stayed near the corpse for long periods of time; Blossom (the other mother
chimpanzee) did not sleep much and although she used to sleep on the platform on which
Pansys body lay, she did not sleep there neither did the other chimpanzees (King 131). King
expands on another example of a strange behavior in monkeys when another monkey
dies.More specifically, King discusses the action that mother chimpanzees take when their
offspring die shortly after they have been born by making reference to Peter Fashings
research which observed gelada monkey of Guassa, Ethiopia. King gives specific attention to
three cases that in which three mother gelada monkeys carry their offspring after they had
died for thirteen, sixteen, and forty-eight days. King notes that the carrying behavior does,
after all, represent a substantial energy expenditure by the mother (66). So the question

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remains, why do monkeys exhibit these behaviors? To the plain human eye it might seem like
the mother just does not know the baby has died, or to some it might look like another way
for NHPs to communicate a message, in this case pain and grief. Consequently, these
behaviors have over time influenced humans to start considering animals and relating with
them through stronger bonds. In order to explain these bonds, we must take into account the
ethics behind the scientific evidence that I have provided thus far. I have outlined behaviors
exhibited by nonhuman primates that leads us to think that they are rational beings with the
ability to form social relations with one another and even with humans, but in the next section
of this issue, I shall explain the ethical and scientific perspectives on the issue, accounting for
the inefficiency and immorality behind experimentation on primates.