A Model of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities

Interaction between people and companion animals provides the basis for a model of the self that does not depend on spoken language. Drawing on ethnographic research in an animal shelter as well as interviews and autoethnography, this article argues that interaction between people and animals contributes to human selfhood. In order for animals to contribute to selfhood in the ways that they do, they must be subjective others and not just the objects of anthropomorphic projection. Several dimensions of subjectivity appear among dogs and cats, constituting a “core” self consisting of agency, coherence, affectivity, and history. Conceptualizing selfhood in this way offers critical access to animals’ subjective presence and adds to existing interactionist research on relationships between people and animals. The notion that animals, like people, have selves is controversial for sociology. The field has defined its subject matter as that which is uniquely human. Along with culture, rationality, and language, the self is one of the entities for which animals purportedly lack the tools. The word tool is important here, for tool use and, later, tool making long served to distinguish humans from (and portray them as superior to) other animals. When Jane Goodall (1990) observed the chimpanzee David Greybeard not only using a tool but also making one, her observation called for redefining the existing boundary between humans and animals. If some animals have the ability to make and use various physical tools, perhaps they also possess the conceptual tools required for selfhood. In other words, if we humans were wrong about tool use among animals, there are likely other things we have underestimated and overlooked, such as their capacity for selfhood. Perhaps the boundary of self-consciousness that has long divided humans from animals is also illusory. If so, then how can sociologists, in particular, interactionists, study animal selfhood? What might we gain from and contribute to the task? Scholars from a range of disciplines have repeatedly challenged the once-distinct boundary between human and nonhuman animals by showing that the latter can feel emotions (e.g., Bekoff 2000; Darwin [1872] 1998; Goodall 1990; Masson 1997; Masson and McCarthy 1995; Tabor 1983; Thomas 1993, 1994, 2000) and communicate with symbols (e.g., Patterson and Linden 1981; Pepperberg 1991). In humans, emotions and symbol use indicate the presence of capacities that constitute selfhood. In interactionist sociology, Sanders (1990, 1991, 1993, 1999) draws on everyday interaction between people and dogs to illustrate the construction of personhood and the sharing of basic emotions and intentions. Likewise, Alger and Alger (1997) examine attributions of selfhood among cat owners. Following Sanders, they observed cats engaged in taking the role of the others, defining situations, choosing courses of action, and having memories of past events. In addition, Alger and Alger’s research in a cat shelter reveals that cats have culture, in that they transmit behaviors socially, as well as instinctually, through symbolic interaction (1999, 2003; see also Bonner 1980; Dawkins 1998). The interactionist paradigm is well suited to the study of animal selfhood, and applying it expands the notion of what it means to be social. Using interactionism in this way requires moving beyond Mead’s ([1934] 1962) language-driven model of selfhood. For Mead, spoken language constituted the social psychological barrier between humans and nonhumans because it enables humans to understand and communicate the symbols for self, such as our names and the names of objects. Mead acknowledged that animals have their own social arrangements but claimed that their interaction involves a “conversation of gestures.” This term denotes primitive, instinctual acts, such as when a dog growls at another who threatens to steal his bone or a cat hisses at a rival. Mead considered the conversation of gestures insignificant because it allegedly has only one meaning. As Hewitt (2000:9) explains, “[I]n no sense does either [animal] ‘decide’ or ‘make up its mind’ to act in a certain way.” In this perspective, the behavior of animals may be goal directed in that it aims at getting food, a mate, or defending territory, but it lacks the negotiated meaning that characterizes human behavior. According to Mead, animals, lacking the capacity to use significant symbols, were incapable of having any meaningful social behavior. From Mead’s perspective, “the animal has no mind, no thought, and hence there is no meaning [in animal behavior] in the significant or self-conscious sense” (Strauss 1964:168). In making spoken language the key to what distinguishes humans from other animals, Mead (and, consequently, social psychology) established two states of consciousness: one for those who could converse about it and another, lesser form for those who could not. Mead thus advanced the anthropocentric, rationalist tradition of Descartes, whose claim I think, therefore I am required the ability to talk about thinking. The pitfalls in Mead’s view are numerous, and other scholars have reviewed them in detail (see Arluke and Sanders 1996; Myers 1998; Sanders 1999; Sanders and Arluke 1993). My intention here is to offer a model of animal selfhood that expands the possibilities of empirical interactionist research. In doing this, I build on previous work by Sanders and Alger and Alger that examines how we come to know animals as conscious, purposeful partners in interaction. Whereas Sanders and Alger and Alger have demonstrated animals’ capacity for intersubjectivity, I examine the capacities that animals must have in order to achieve this shared experience. My conclusions apply only to companion animals, by which I mean the dogs and cats with whom so many of us share our homes and our daily lives. Although some of my arguments might well apply to other animals, I have studied only dogs and cats. I leave it to other researchers to incorporate other species. Before proceeding, I want to anticipate an objection and emphasize that I have taken care to avoid overanthropomorphizing. Note that I said “overanthropomorphizing,” for we cannot entirely escape our human perspective. As Shapiro (1997) points out, this perspective is not something we take only when we try to understand animals. Rather, all understanding is anthropomorphic (from anthropo, meaning “man” and morphe, “form” or “shape”) for it is partly shaped by the human investigator as subject. However, since this is a perspective or “bias” inherent in all experience, it is not an occasional attributional error to which we are particularly prone when we cross species’ lines. It is a condition of science which prevents it from reaching certainty and, therefore, from supporting a positivistic philosophy. (P. 294) Those who use the term anthropomorphism usually intend to discredit someone’s claims about animals by suggesting they are sentimental and inaccurate projections. However, in describing animals, our choices are not limited simply to the “unconstrained use of anthropomorphism on one hand and the total elimination of anthropomorphism on the other” (Bekoff 2002:49–50). A middle ground involves informed, systematic interaction with and observation of animals known as “critical” or “interpretive” anthropomorphism (Burghardt 1998; Fisher 1991; see also Crist 1999; Mitchell, Thompson, and Miles 1997; Sanders 1999). Critical anthropomorphism aims to do for the understanding of animal life what Verstehn (Weber 1949) tries to capture in human life, which is to understand the meanings that people give to their actions. Verstehn involves placing oneself in the position of another person to see what purpose his or her actions might have, or, more accurately, to see what that person believes his or her actions will accomplish. Critical anthropomorphism tries to do the same for the experiences of nonhuman animals. Bekoff (2002:48) refers to it as “humanizing animals with care,” for it respects the “natural history, perceptual and learning capabilities, physiology, nervous system, and previous individual history” of animals (Burghardt 1998:72). In what follows, I strive to recognize the differences between animals and people while exploring what we share in common.