Descartes on Humans, Animals, and Machines

R. Descartes, Discourse on Method. From Part 5, pp.32-33

Trans. by D. Cress (Hackett Publishing Co., 1993)

And I paused here in particular in order to show that, if there were such machines
having the organs and the shape of a monkey or of some other animal that lacked
reason, we would have no way of recognizing that they were not entirely of the
same nature as these animals; whereas, if there were any such machines that bore a
resemblance to our bodies and imitated our actions as far as this is practically
feasible, we would always have two very certain means of recognizing that they
were not at all, for that reason, true men.

The first is that they could never use words or other signs, or put them together as
we do in order to declare our thoughts to others. For one can well conceive of a
machine being so made that it utters words, and even that it utters words
appropriate to the bodily actions that will cause some change in its organs (such as,
if one touches it in a certain place, it asks what one wants to say to it, or, if in
another place, it cries out that one is hurting it, and the like). But it could not
arrange its words differently so as to respond to the sense of all that will be said in
its presence, as even the dullest men can do.

The second means is that, although they might perform many tasks very well or
perhaps better than any of us, such machines would inevitably fail in other tasks;
by this means one would discover that they were acting not through knowledge but
only through the disposition of their organs. For while reason is a universal
instrument that can be of help in all sorts of circumstances, these organs require
some particular disposition for each particular action; consequently, it is for all
practical purposes impossible for there to be enough different organs in a machine
to make it act in all the contingencies of life in the same way as our reason makes
us act.
Now by these two means one can also know the difference between men and
beasts. For it is rather remarkable that there are no men so dull and so stupid
(excluding not even the insane), that they are incapable of arranging various words
together and of composing from them a discourse by means of which they might
make their thoughts understood, and that, on the other hand, there is no other
animal at all, however perfect and pedigreed it may be, that does the like. This
does not happen because they lack the organs, for one sees that magpies and
parrots can utter words just as we can, and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is
to say, by testifying to the fact that they are thinking about what they are saying; on
the other hand, men born deaf and dumb, who are deprived of the organs that aid
others in speaking just as much as, or more than beasts, are wont to invent for
themselves various signs by means of which they make themselves understood to
those who, being with them on a regular basis, have the time to learn their
language. And this attests not merely to the fact that beasts have less reason than
men but that they have none at all. For it is obvious it does not need much to know
how to speak; and since we notice as much inequality among animals of the same
species as among men, and that some are easier to train than others, it is
unbelievable that a monkey or a parrot that is the most perfect of its species would
not equal in this respect one of the most stupid children or at least a child with a
disordered brain, if their soul were not of a nature entirely different from our own.
And we should not confuse words with the natural movements that attest to the
passions and can be imitated by machines as well as by animals. Nor should we
think, as did some of the ancients, that beasts speak, although we do not understand
their language, for if that were true, since they have many organs corresponding to
our own, they could make themselves as well understood by us as they are by their
fellow creatures. It is also a very remarkable phenomenon that, although there are
many animals that show more skill than we do in some of their actions, we
nevertheless see that they show none at all in many other actions. Consequently,
the fact that they do something better than we do does not prove that they have any
intelligence, for, were that the case, they would have more of it than any of us and
would excel us in everything. But rather it proves that they have no intelligence at
all, and that it is nature that acts in them, according to the disposition of their
organs just as we see that a clock composed exclusively of wheels and springs can
count the hours and measure time more accurately than we can with all our
carefulness.
After that, I described the rational soul and showed that it can in no way be derived
from the potentiality of matter, as can the other things I have spoken of, but rather
that it must be expressly created; and how it is not enough for it to be lodged in the
human body like a pilot in his ship, unless perhaps in order to move its members,
but rather that it must be more closely joined and united to the body in order to
have, in addition to this, feelings and appetites similar to our own, and thus to
constitute a true man. As to the rest, I elaborated here a little on the subject of the
soul because it is of the greatest importance; for, after the error of those who deny
the existence of God (which I think I have sufficiently refuted), there is none at all
that puts weak minds at a greater distance from the straight path of virtue than to
imagine that the soul of beasts is of the same nature as ours, and that, as a
consequence, we have nothing to fear or to hope for after this life any more than do
flies and ants. On the other hand, when one knows how different they are, one
understands much better the arguments which prove that our soul is of a nature
entirely independent of the body, and consequently that it is not subject to die with
it. Then, since we do not see any other causes at all for its destruction, we are
naturally led to judge from this that it is immortal.