In our readings, there has been a large debate over whether animals are conscious or not. Some have the view that they are conscious, conscious of what they want, conscious of their pain, yet others knock these arguments aside by saying that animals may have wants and feel pain, but they are not aware of this and so are not conscious. Bermond describes consciousness as "knowing that you know," yet I agree with the point brought up in class today that this sounds more like self-consciousness than consciousness in general.
In the essay we read, Lynch argues that humans and animals are conscious, yet their levels of consciousness may vary, and uses the examples of driving and having a headache to describe his views. Through this, Lynch conveys his beliefs that there are varying levels of consciousness. Yet at the end of Lynch's argument, there is another two pages written by Jane Duran, agreeing with his statements and yet pointing out what she sees as flaws in his argument. According to Duran, the only degrees of consciousness are being awake (being conscious) or being asleep (being unconscious).
Reading that really struck a chord in me. I understood where she was coming from and, to me, it makes a lot of sense. I understand what everyone else is saying when they use the terms "conscious" and "unconscious", yet there are so many different ways to use a word. As we have seen in class, sometimes we have to be careful with the ways in which we use words in our arguments.
Having said all of that, I am curious. How would you define consciousness and unconsciousness? How would you define the terms in the case of animal ethics?
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