The greatest obstacle in science to investigating animal behavior has been a strong desire to avoid anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism means the assigning of human characteristics -- thought, feeling, consciousness, and motivation -- to the non-human. When people claim that the weather is trying to ruin their picnic or that a tree is their friend, they are anthropomorphizing. Few believe that the weather is being unkind to them, but anthropomorphic ideas about animals are held more widely. Outside scientific circles, it is common to speak of the thoughts and feelings of pets and of wild animals. Yet many scientists regard even the idea that animals feel pain as the worst sort of anthropomorphic error.
Science considers anthropomorphism toward animals a grave mistake, even a sin. It is common in science to speak of "committing" anthropomorphism. The term originally was religious, referring to the assigning of human form or characteristics to God. In an article on anthropomorphism in the 1908 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, the author writes: "The tendency to regard objects as persons -- whether objects of sense or objects of thought -- which is found in animals and children as well as in savages, is the origin of anthropomorphism." Men, the idea goes, create gods in their own image. Thus a German philosopher once remarked that God is nothing but our projection, on a heavenly screen, of the essence of man. In science, assigning human characteristics to animals is a violation of principle. Just as humans could not be like God, now animals cannot be like humans.
To accuse a scientist of anthropomorphism is to make a severe criticism of unreliability. It is regarded as a species-confusion, a forgetting of the line between subject and object. To assign thoughts or feeling to a creature known incapable of them, would, indeed, be a problem. But to give to an animal emotions such as joy or sorrow is only anthropomorphic error if one knows that animals cannot feel such emotions. Many scientists have made this decision, but not on the basis of evidence. The situation is not so much that emotion is denied but that it is regarded as too dangerous to be part of the scientific discussion. As a result, no one but the most noted scientists would risk their reputations in writing about this area. Thus many scientists may actually believe that animals have emotions, but be unwilling not only to say that they believe it, but unwilling to study it or encourage their students to investigate it. They may also attack other scientists who try to use the language of emotion. Non-scientists who seek to retain scientific accuracy must act carefully.
Against this scientific orthodoxy, a British biologist has argued that to imagine oneself into the life of another animal is both scientifically justifiable and productive of knowledge. He introduced one of the most extraordinary accounts of a deep and emotional tie between a human being and a free-living lion as follows:
When common people interpret an animal's gestures or postures with the aid of human emotional terms -- anger or curiosity, affection or jealousy -- the strict Behaviourist accuses them of anthropomorphism, of seeing a human mind at work within the animal's skin. This is not necessarily so. The true student of animal life must be evolution-minded. After all, he is a mammal. To give the fullest possible interpretation of behaviour he must use a language that will apply to his fellow-mammals as well as to his fellow-men. And such a language must employ subjective as well as objective words -- fear as well as impulse to escape danger, curiosity as well as an urge to gain knowledge.
Most people who work closely with animals, such as animal trainers, take it as a matter of fact that animals have emotions. Accounts by those who work with elephants, for example, make it clear that one ignores an elephant's "mood" at one's peril. A British philosopher puts it well:
Obviously those elephant trainers may have many beliefs about the elephants which are false because they are anthropomorphic. But if they were doing this about the basic everyday feelings -- about whether their elephant is pleased, annoyed, frightened, excited, tired, suspicious or angry -- they would not only be out of business, they would often simply be dead.
The real problem underlying many of the criticisms of anthropomorphism is actually anthropocentrism. Placing humans at the center of all interpretation, observation, and concern, and powerful men at the center of that, has led to some of the worst errors in science. Anthropocentrism treats animals as lower forms of people and denies what they really are. It reflects a passionate wish to separate ourselves from animals, to make animals other, presumably in order to maintain the human at the top of the evolutionary scale and of the food chain. The idea that animals are wholly other from humans, despite our common roots, is more irrational than the idea that they are like US.
Idealizing animals is another kind of anthropocentrism, although not nearly as frequent as treating them as if they were lower or evil creatures. The belief that animals have all the virtues which humans wish to have and none of our faults, is anthropocentric, because at the center of this kind of thinking, there is a strong mistaken idea about the wicked ways of humans, which emphasizes contrasts with humans. In this sentimental view the natural world is a place without war and murder, and animals never lie, cheat, or steal. This view is not confirmed by reality. The act of deceiving has been observed in animals from elephants to foxes. Ants take slaves. Chimpanzees may attack other bands of chimpanzees, without any outside threats and with deadly intent. Male lions, when they join a group, often kill young ones who were fathered by other lions.
Humans have long recognized that animals have the potential to connect emotionally with humans. One of the oldest and most popular Indian tales is about the life-and-death bond between a Brahmin and a mongoose.
Once a Brahmin lived in a village with his wife, who one day gave birth to a son. The Brahmin, though poor, looked upon his son as a great treasure. After she had given birth to the child, the Brahmin's wife went to the river to bathe. The Brahmin remained in the house, taking care of his infant son. Meanwhile a maid came to call the Brahmin to the palace to perform an important religious ceremony. To guard the child, he left a mongoose, which he had raised in his house since it' was born. As soon as the Brahmin left, a snake suddenly crawled toward the child. The mongoose, seeing the snake, killed it out of love for his master. A few hours later, the mongoose saw in the distance the Brahmin returning. Happy to see him, the mongoose, stained with the blood of the snake, ran toward him. But when the Brahmin saw the blood, he thought, "Surely he has killed my little boy," and in anger he killed the mongoose with a stone. When he went into the house he saw the snake killed by the mongoose and his boy alive and safe. He felt a deep inner sorrow. When his wife returned and learned what had happened, she reproached him, saying, "Why did you not think before killing this mongoose which had been your friend?"
We cannot know whether the events really happened. The story is not so highly improbable. Mongooses are often kept as pets in India, and they do in fact kill snakes, including cobras and other highly poisonous species. But whether or not based on fact, such accounts catch the imagination in many different cultures: versions of this story are found in Mongolian, Arabic, Syriac, German, English, and other languages. They clearly show a sense of animal loyalty and clear judgment, of human pride and guilt, an awareness of the weakness of human judgment. Can we be trusted to honor the deep bond that a mongoose can form with us? This folktale at least would speak better for animals than for humans.