Reviewing When Elephants Weep
The Emotional Lives of Animals and the Science of Feelings
When Elephants Weep (Published by Dell Publishing, New York, Copyright Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy, ISBN: 0-385-31428-0) was written by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy in an attempt to argue that studying the emotions of animals is something that should be taken seriously and studied alongside other zoological sciences. The book succeeds in making the case that animals may well have emotions worth studying and understanding, but in making its argument, the book also shows exactly why science doesn't undertake many (if any) serious studies of animal emotions.
Arguing from Evolution
Masson and McCarthy spend a good deal of time explaining how much of animal behaviour is the result of emotional states that are the result of millions of years of evolution. Many of these supposed emotional reactions have evolved as survival mechanisms, but the evidence to prove emotion over instinctive reflex is almost non-existent.
The Problem of Anthropomorphism
The authors argue that one of the main reasons that so little evidence has been collected is that in the scientific community there is a taboo associated with anthropomorphising animal behaviour that keeps the study of emotion out of serious science circles. The scientific response to this argument is to explain that yes, anthropomorphism is to be avoided by serious science and ask how a human could possibly study the question of emotion in another organism without using human emotion as a baseline.
Anecdotes are not Science
While individual scientists will relate anecdotes that they feel strongly indicate an emotional response in the creatures they are studying, there is almost always the caveat that such an instance is likely the result of projecting a human emotion onto an animal and even then usually in an isolated instance. Virtually every example given in When Elephants Weep is of this type. That isn't surprising since so little empirical data is available on the subject, but anecdotes hardly constitute scientific proof that animals experience emotions.
A Compelling Read
As unscientific as anecdotal evidence is, when put together in bunches it does tend to gather a certain weight of its own. The variously touching, tragic and comedic instances that are related throughout the book do leave the reader with the impression that it is indeed likely that animals do have emotions that are analogous to those of human beings. Certainly it is a scientific fact that Homo sapiens have descended from creatures little different from chimpanzees, so it seems likely that animals like chimpanzees and bonobos live with similar emotional states to the ones that are experienced by human beings, and if they have emotions then why not elephants and other animals?
Arguing Against Itself
When Elephants Weep is an enjoyable book, with strong anecdotal evidence to support its argument that emotion in the animal kingdom is worthy of scientific study. The problem is that any serious scientific investigation of animal emotion must by necessity avoid anecdote and anthropomorphic projection of human emotion onto subject animals. The authors point out that the study of emotions in human beings is difficult enough with subjects who are able to vocalize their emotional states, making similar animal studies near to impossible without employing anecdote and anthropomorphism.
When Elephants Weep
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