Response to Mary: “Headaches”

Are there times when we can absolutely tell if an animal is self aware?

I think there are defiantly times when you can tell if an animal is self aware. My dog is currently suffering from having itchy skin. He has big balled spots in his fur because of the amount of scratching he has been doing. I can tell that he is aware of his pain because he cries when he is itching or sometimes when just lying down and his behaviors have changed. We often give him a bone to try to “get his mind off of it”. This is interesting because Mary brought up the discussion about when we have headaches. If we focus our attention on something else we forget about our headaches. I think an animal is the same way but only for that short amount of time that his mind is focused on eating the bone, just as our mind is unfocused for a short period. I don’t think they are always unaware of their pain. I believe that animals can suffer and are very much aware of the pain they are in.

Bermond thinks that humans project the feeling of pain onto animals because we get “emotionally aroused” by seeing them seriously hurt and not because they are actually suffering, do you think that this is a valid argument?