Throughout the course of history it has been heavily debated as to what the difference is between man and animal. What is it that allows man to contemplate complex ideas while animals stay living life only in order to stay alive? There is a complex non-tangible object labeled as the soul that differentiates the two, but what is the difference between an animal soul and a human soul. The soul of an animal and the soul of a human are different only in the practicality of the body which they inhabit. This is displayed in the book “The Island of Dr. Moreau” in his vivisection of animals making them more intelligent, in creating a better body for the animals their mind could also expand.
In order to show the difference between an animal’s soul and the soul of a human a formal definition for the soul must be given, the philosopher Aristotle defines it as follows “the soul is the principle of life in those things that are animate. Animate processes include growth, self-sustenance, decay, locomotion, sensation and thinking” (Bergson 1). Therefore the soul is what makes all living beings living rather than similar to rocks. In his other works he dives deeper into what differentiates the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, aristotle wrote that the souls of animals are just degenerated versions of the souls of man. This offers a clear reasoning for why humans are able to think deeper than animals, due to modern technology our society knows that it is the brain that gives us the ability to understand more complex ideas while aristotle thought it was the body itself. The soul of a man isn’t hindered as intensively as the soul of an animal. To put this in simpler terms the brain can be assimilated to a computer and the soul can be compared to a computer program, a technologically superior computer can run an intensive program to its full capability while a inferior computer cannot. This relates back to aristotle in the way that an animal can’t comprehend deeper thought in the same way that a human can because their ‘computer’ is inferior.
From the view of an Evolutionary Psychologist there is no soul, they argue that all that is perceived to be intelligent behavior is simply an evolved version of instincts.”EP's niche involves what David Marr (1982) called "computational theories:" functional descriptions of what information processing devices, including brains, are designed to do” (Fikes, Thomas G. "Evolutionary psychology as computational theory in the cognitive sciences." Journal of Psychology and Theology, vol. 29, no. 4, 2001, p. 21+. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?)more simply the brain is a computational device where animals brains only compute thing such as eat, sleep, survive the human mind does these and then also has the ability to compute abstract thought, but there is no external force driving it to do so and that it is operating only in itself.
What exactly is it that differentiates the two as many times the line is very thin? Most importantly it is the way which animals act on a daily basis. In the book “How Dogs Work” by Raymond Coppinger and Mark Feinstein two ethologists look into the idea that what dogs do is all a product of instinct or as he puts it Intrinsic Behavior. He gives several examples throughout the novel on the intrinsic behavior of dogs one of which as follows “Most actions that a dog does from birth is simply a product of years of genetic evolution. From birth the puppy comes out and immediately latches onto the mother’s teat he has no prior experience telling him to do so but it is his instincts telling him to do so”( Coppinger and Feinstein 108). If what these men are saying is true, and as respectable experts in the field of dog ecology they are reliable sources, then much of what dogs do is not that of an intelligent being but of a being whose only driving force is to survive. However this behavior is also seen in man but only up till a certain developmental point which would mean that our soul at the early stages of life is less developed or restricted more and scientists also know that the brain is underdeveloped at that age, through logical deduction it can be assumed that the reason why man does not have the same cognitive capabilities as a child, but the child has those abilities when he is an adult is because the soul is restricted by the brain. This again brings up the point that the soul of an animal isn’t lesser than the soul of a man just that the brain of an animal is lesser and because of this the soul has less potential.
The presence of an abstract thinking in man sets man in a different light in the means of cognitive ability. The most prominent example of this is religion, religion itself is the idea that there is a higher power telling humans how they should live. Religion helps human beings to have guidelines on life this is not present in animals in any way from birth an animal knows exactly how to interact properly with other beings and where they lie on a food chain. Humans are in a constant battle of philosophy over how a man should live life this is referred to in our society as politics. The fact that humans do this is evidence in and of itself of cognitive superiority or superiority of the soul. The presence of instincts is a sign of an inferior brain as these are set responses that are predictable, making them not of the soul. Humans also do have instinctual habits such as fear or the innate feeling of greed. Looking at the soul as a non tangible object not of this world it is by definition perfection. Therefore it can be assumed that instincts are an indicator of how often the soul manifests itself in decisions in a being's day to day life, and beings that humanity deems as less intelligent are much more prone to usage of instincts over deliberate action. Humans being the most prone to using deliberate actions over instinctual again shows that the only difference between the soul of a human and the soul of an animal is the complexity of the body it is in. In the book “The Island of Dr. Moreau” by H.G. Wells this is shown numerous times. In the book a scientist by the name of Moreau uses vivisection to make animals more human looking and with the new bodies they were given their mind also evolved to be more intelligent showing that there is more potential in the soul and that it is the body which inhibits it.
Assuming that what has been established is true it is evident that it may be possible to enhance the intelligence of a being by changing it physiology. This idea has been explored in the past but most men could not grasp exactly why it is that this is possible. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that to “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Mr. Nietzsche is telling us to be wary of those around us even if they are enemies as they may change the fundamentals of man, thus implying that it is possible for a mind to degenerate to that of an animal which would mean that they are the same in many ways but the brain of the man just is not being used to its full potential.
There is also an argument of which type of existence is better that of an animal or that of a more intellectual being. There is a famous quote from Samuel L. Johnson that says ”He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man” Dr. Johnson is implying that it is in less painful to be an animal than a man. The reasoning for this being that man has the problems of existential crises, the man has to worry about life after death, or whether there is a god, and all a dog has to worry about is when he’s going to get fed or where his toy is. The dogdoes not think of these things not because he has no desire to but he does not have the cognitive ability to do so in the same way the human mind cannot grasp the image of a fourth dimensional plane.
The claims made can be dismissed very easily being that they are claims of the philosophical level but the implications of the philosophy show and have been studied. One such study was done by a man named Wolfgang Kohler who wanted to test the problem solving skills of apes to see if what they did to solve his problems was simple cause and effect thinking or if it was a more complex train of thought. From his studies Mr. Kohler came to the conclusion that ”In every situation he studied, Kohler observed two different types of solution, one he deemed "genuine," or intelligent, and another more random and mechanical:” (Ruiz, Gabriel, and Natividad Sanchez. "Wolfgang Kohler's The Mentality of Apes and the animal psychology of his time." Spanish Journal of Psychology, vol. 17, 2014. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?)with these two types of responses there was the debate of whether the “intelligent” response was that of a deeper thinking or if it was just a stem of instincts that led the chimpanzee to a solution. From this argumentative point many would say that human intelligence is simply a more complex version of this. If that were the case then man would only use this intelligence to get things that had a direct benefit rather than furthering knowledge.
The soul of a man and the soul of animals fundamentally aren't different at all but it is the ability of the brain which controls the body that shows the soul which leads many to believe that animals and man have different types of souls. Animals do things based on instincts rather than deliberate thought which shows their inferior thought. The idea that man really cares to understand his own soul shows that he has a greater computing ability than an animal