Animal machine or ''bête-machine'' (Fr., animal-machine), is a
philosophical notion from
Descartes in the 17th century who held that
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
behaviour can be compared to the one of
machines. Like them, animals would be an assembly of mechanical pieces and therefore unable to
think and not gifted of
consciousness, although they differ by their
living character and ability of
feeling. This implied a fundamental difference between animals and humans, but ''
Man a Machine
''Man a Machine'' (French: ''L'homme Machine'') is a work of materialist philosophy by the 18th-century French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie, first published in 1747. In this work, de La Mettrie extends Descartes' argumen ...
'' (''L'homme Machine'') by
Julien Offray de La Mettrie, first published in 1747, extended Descartes' argument to humans.
MAN-MACHINE FROM THE GREEKS TO THE COMPUTER
from ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'' (1973)
This theory has been challenged from its original publication as inadequate to describe the specificities of life in animals and its ethical
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of morality, right and wrong action (philosophy), behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, alo ...
implications, while it has fed philosophical thought on the role of free will in human behaviour as opposed to determinism.
See also
* Mechanism (philosophy)
* Self-preservation
References
Concepts in the philosophy of mind
René Descartes
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