Does Fido Have a Soul?
Why do some dogs leap into rivers to rescue strangers? PJM's Burt Prelutsky isn't willing to chalk it up to instinct alone.
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Recently, a friend of mine announced that dogs don’t have souls. Inasmuch as I nearly always agree with her, I found it surprising that we were in opposing camps on this particular subject. Because I respect her opinion, I found myself questioning my own belief system somewhat more than usual. Is it possible, I asked myself, to have four legs, a tail, fleas and a soul? While I’m not absolutely certain what souls are, I finally decided that if they are what I think they are, dogs definitely have them.
To begin with, a soul, to me, is the thing within us that urges us to behave as decently as possible, as if God, Himself, were actually paying attention. It is similar, I think, to a conscience, but with one important distinction: The soul, I believe, points you in the right direction, while the conscience kicks in with a vengeance once you break the Golden Rule. In short, one provides guidance, the other doles out punishment.
Basically, there seems to be one reason why people such as my friend are convinced that dogs lack souls. Namely, when a canine does something terrific, it gets ascribed to instinct. If an animal performs an act of courage and self-sacrifice, he doesn’t get the same credit as a human being because it’s presumed he hasn’t acted out of free will. Without the ability to decide not to do something heroic, without the ability to consciously weigh the risks, we’re told that the animal is acting only out of blind obedience to his instinct. To which I say, with all due respect, hooey!
Even when a dog runs into a burning building, his derring-do is dismissed with condescension. After all, we’re lectured, dogs are pack animals; it’s bred into them to be subservient to the pack leader. Still, even that doesn’t begin to explain why dogs risk death to rescue babies; even a poodle knows that a squalling infant is not an alpha male.
Neither does instinct, alone, explain why dogs have been known to leap into raging rivers to rescue perfect strangers. Also, if some dogs are not to receive full credit because all of their marvelous traits are inbred, how do you explain that not every dog will perform similar acts of heroism?
And, finally, if an entire species is, by its very nature, warm-hearted, conscientious, loyal and brave, one would be hard-pressed to maintain that, in spite of all these virtues, they are soul-less.
In the end, the real question, so far as I can see, isn’t whether or not dogs have souls, but whether people do.
Television writer Burt Prelutsky is the author of Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco (101 Reasons Why I’m Happy I Left the Left).
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9 Comments
Allan Sheldon:I agree 100% My dog ran 20 miles to the nearest house and somehow got the owner to follow him back home to help me.I was pinned under a car and unconscious.When I came to the EMT’s were pulling me out.God bless that soul.
Sep 16, 2007 - 11:39 am L:No, dogs don’t have souls. Humans don’t have souls, either. Not in the religious sense of eternal soul which retains personality.
It would be more accurate to say both dogs and humans have souls in the Aristotelian sense, that is, they both possess an animating principle. When you eat a hamburger, what turns that hamburger into more you? The animating principle. What keeps you fresh without refrigeration? The animating principle. When that animating principle departs, the body dies, and rots.
Nowadays, most people use the term “life”.
Sep 16, 2007 - 1:19 pm Larry Sheldon:I don’t know how anybody can watch animals closely for any length of time and still insist “they have no souls”.
And if it is true that they have no souls (and hence can’t go to heaven), then I do not want to go.
Sep 16, 2007 - 2:44 pm tedders:L :
you’re and idiot.
Sep 16, 2007 - 3:02 pm anon:Neither dogs nor humans have “souls” in the religious sense. But dogs, like humans, have a kind of empathetic sentience.
It’s very difficult to think “that’s just anthropomorphism!” when you look your dog in the eye and she holds your gaze amiably. Or when she wants something done and shoots you a gaze pregnant with meaning.
Sep 16, 2007 - 5:46 pm Dave Munger:Well and played, tedders, well and played. Until I read your retort, I actually thought that the Bible might have been right about the soul being mortal, but now I realize that it’s idiotic not to read Plato into it.
Sep 16, 2007 - 6:48 pm iam7545:Great piece. I am a Dog trainer and completely agree with you. The NEW school of thought that counters ascribing all Dog behavior to pack mentality is the idea that as Dogs have become more domesticated they are acquiring new ways of thinking and processing data and behaving and they rely less on instinct. There have been many studies to support this. If my Dog Dubya starts asking for his taxes to be raised I think I will send him to the Dog pound!
Sep 16, 2007 - 7:33 pm mateo_g:Do cows have souls as well? Or not, because they are tasty?
Sep 17, 2007 - 5:53 pm BioNuclear Guy:J.P. Moreland, distinguished professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, wrote Body & Soul in which he defends the idea that animals have souls. This doesn’t mean, however, that their souls are immortal. Your definition of soul is wrong - the soul is not something that impels you to do what is right. You (or your dog) *are* a soul - an embodied soul.
Here is a quote from an Amazon comment about JP’s book:
“A purely physicalist view of man cannot satisfactorily account for immaterial thoughts, feelings, etc., the way that substance dualism can. On this point Moreland provides a strong criticism of physicalist emergent properties.
Moreland believes that animals have souls, which is to say an immaterial reasoning self, but these souls are not necessarily immortal, and they are inferior to human souls. For instance, Animals think, but they don’t think about thinking–philosophizing, as man does.
Moreland makes the important observation that Christians should not argue against animals having souls lest they inadvertantly (and wrongly) argue that a thinking animal need only be physical–the very physicalism that atheists often employ!”
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Soul-Nature-Crisis-Ethics/dp/customer-reviews/0830815775
Sep 17, 2007 - 8:57 pm