Animal Suicide

Readings: "The Nature of Suicide" - Endeavor via Mind Hacks: Do Animals Commit Suicide

Can animals commit suicide? Do they have the capacity for the range of emotions, thought, and behavior that the commonsense notion of suicide requires? The above reading details several historical accounts in which animals seem to deliberately terminate their own existence, some records of which were written millennia ago. People as early as Aristotle have described animals engaging in behaviors (sometimes repeatedly after failed attempts) that resulted in their death. Aristotle's account mentions a horse that leaped off a cliff to its death after it discovered that it was duped to mating with its mother. The paper notes of other such accounts made in the 1800's; for example, a dog that repeatedly jumped into waters and submerged itself; a cat that strangled itself after the death of its kittens; dogs that would starve to death waiting at the grave of their masters.

But how are we to determine whether animals are capable of something as complex as suicide? Is it even possible? While I can't answer these questions, I am lead to believe that, for of 2 main reasons, that animals are simply not capable of it; at least not with the knowledge we currently have at hand. The first of these reasons pertains to the ideas underlying the notion of suicide and how several animals that seemingly engages in suicidal acts simply do not meet the necessary criteria for suicide. The second (and in my opinion, the more important) reason deals with the level of understanding and comprehension that seems to be necessary for a suicidal act and whether such levels can be found outside human cognition.

The examples in the paper are easy to mislabel as suicidal acts. The paper even mentions a (fabled?) story of an animal as simple as a scorpion that stung itself on the back when surrounded by a ring of fire. But I believe that using the word "suicide" to describe such actions is, even if only mildly so, a mistake. The word suicide, as I believe most people will agree, suggests that self-destruct behaviors are planned and intentionally executed with the purpose of terminating one's own existence. The breadth of that statement is rather wide and its constituent elements are many. First, intentions are a requisite to suicide, and intentions in turn require an awareness of the relationship between their actions and consequences.

There are several examples (these are not mentioned in the reading) in which the organisms engage in self-destruct behaviors (or rather, have self-destruct mechanisms) that we would clearly not label as suicide. Take, for example, the giant octopus (reference: BBC's Life series) that ceases to feed once it lays its eggs in order to protect and nurture its eggs. The octopus is biologically designed to release self-destruct hormones soon after it completes its reproductive process. However, my intuition tells me that the octopus is not committing suicide, but only that it was "mechanically" designed to self-destruct. By this, I mean to say that the self-destruct mechanisms are independent of conscious thought (a requisite for the act of suicide) and absent of any intentions (lest you say the act of reproducing entails the act of suicide, which would then require that the organism is cognizant of the fact that reproduction and death are one in the same; not likely in my opinion). Also, consider another organism: the Japanese foliage spider whose young often feed off of the mother (quite literally) before leaving their nests. Would you say that the mother committed suicide by allowing herself to be devoured by her young? Or is this merely an evolutionary mechanism to promote the survival of her offspring? It seems clear, to me anyway, that it's not suicide as they simply do not have the capacity for it (though, to be clear, that is not to say that they don't have the capacity to self-destruct).

Note: The octopus is especially interesting, as they have proved to be highly intelligent organisms. They have been found to be extremely adept at manipulating their environments: something that many consider a hallmark of intelligence. They even distinguish between HD and SD TV's (or rather, they are not fooled by SD TV's).

But the second reason, I think, is a much more compelling one. In the case of suicide, not only must an organism be capable of having intentions behind their behaviors, it must also be capable of understanding the consequences of their behaviors; namely, they must comprehend that the goal of their actions is to terminate their very own existence. For this, I think, a sense of self is necessary. Such a concept is difficult to articulate, so I'm simply going by my own intuitions on the matter. Some animals may have this, such as dolphins and certain primates. And the only scientific test of such a sense that I know if is the mirror test, and while it's far from a perfect test that reveals whether an animal has a sense of self, only a few animals can pass this test.