Mentophobia or mentaphobia is a concept described by
Donald Griffin
Donald Redfield Griffin (August 3, 1915 – November 7, 2003) was an American professor of zoology at various universities who conducted seminal research in animal behavior, animal navigation, acoustic orientation and sensory biophysics. In 1938 ...
, an American zoologist and the founder of
cognitive ethology
Cognitive ethology is a branch of ethology concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behaviour of an animal. Donald Griffin, a zoology professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cogn ...
, to denote strong resistance from scientists to the idea that animals, other than humans, are
conscious
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, a ...
.
Griffin argued that there is a taboo "against scientific consideration of private, conscious, mental experiences" that leads to the minimization of the significance of the consciousness of non-human animals, as well as human consciousness and asserted that this presents a significant barrier to scientific progress.
Mentophobia has been likened to
Frans de Waal
Franciscus Bernardus Maria de Waal (29 October 1948 – 14 March 2024) was a Dutch-American primatologist and ethologist. He was the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in ...
's concept of anthropodenial:
"a blindness to the humanlike characteristics of other animals, or the animal-like characteristics of ourselves". It has also been compared with an observation by
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those ...
that "a curious asymmetry can be observed" when it comes to the certainty of human consciousness not being required for moral certainty, but moral certainty is not applied when it comes to the experiences of other animals.
David Chauvet in ''Contre la Mentaphobie'' ("Against Mentaphobia"), argues that the denial of the consciousness of animals alleviates the guilt that is associated with abuses directed towards them.
See also
*
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From a ...
*
Ethics of uncertain sentience
The ethics of uncertain sentience is an area of applied ethics concerned with how to treat individuals whose capacity for sentience—the ability to subjectively feel, perceive, or experience—remains scientifically or philosophically uncertain ...
*
Pain in animals
Pain negatively affects the health and welfare of animals. "Pain" is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or descr ...
*
Speciesism
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions. Some specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an indivi ...
*
Sentientism
Sentientism (or sentiocentrism) is an ethical view that places sentient individuals at the center of moral concern. It holds that both humans and other sentient individuals have interests that must be considered. Gradualist sentientism attribute ...
References
Further reading
*
{{Animal rights, topics
Animal cognition
Animal ethics
Consciousness
Discrimination by type