Emotional support animals: a waste of time?
by Xavier Symons | 21 Apr 2018 | 2 comments
Yet experts are sceptical of the health benefits. ESAs – including dogs, pigs, hamsters and ducks – are used to treat conditions ranging from anxiety and depress to PTSD and even addiction. Yet very little empirical evidence exists to validate these therapies.
In a recent interview with New Scientist, anthro-zoologist John Bradshaw was scathing in his criticism of public health programs involving ESAs.
“When you stroke a pet, your oxytocin and endorphin levels go up, your blood pressure comes down and your heartbeat gets more regular...But there’s no evidence that this translates into anything that lasts even a couple of hours, let alone a lifetime.”Bradshaw argues that animals may be used effectively to help autistic children learn how to read. Yet programs such as using dolphins to help mature adults overcome depression have no evidential support.
“There’s a huge amount of mumbo jumbo surrounding it... It might be fun, but there are no independent studies that have shown any beneficial effect whatsoever.”
“Personhood” is a concept that is of great relevance to a range of bioethics debates. These include embryo research, abortion, the withdrawal and withholding of treatment, and euthanasia. Ironically, conservative bioethicists argue for a liberal definition of personhood, while liberal bioethicists tend to defend a more restrictive account of who classifies as a person. The former suggest that personhood pertains to a radical capacity for conscious activity, and all human beings, regardless of whether they have actualised this capacity or not, are persons.
The latter argue that the unborn and the radically incapacitated do not have a capacity for conscious self-awareness, and do not count as persons.
Yet the way in which we define personhood has a relevance that goes beyond debates about human beings. It also has significant bearing on debates about animal rights.
Some bioethicists argue that certain non-human animals, such as chimpanzees, should be recognised as “persons”. NYU animal studies professor Jeff Sebo, for example, says that chimps have many of the traits – self-recognition, use of language, friendships and the pursuit of goals – that we take to be constitutive of personhood. As such, we should include them in our definition of personhood. Sebo has championed a protracted legal campaign in New York State to have two chimpanzees, Kiko and Tommy, recognised as persons.
Here’s what Sebo had to say in a recent New York Times op-ed:
XAVIER SYMONS
Deputy Editor
The latter argue that the unborn and the radically incapacitated do not have a capacity for conscious self-awareness, and do not count as persons.
Yet the way in which we define personhood has a relevance that goes beyond debates about human beings. It also has significant bearing on debates about animal rights.
Some bioethicists argue that certain non-human animals, such as chimpanzees, should be recognised as “persons”. NYU animal studies professor Jeff Sebo, for example, says that chimps have many of the traits – self-recognition, use of language, friendships and the pursuit of goals – that we take to be constitutive of personhood. As such, we should include them in our definition of personhood. Sebo has championed a protracted legal campaign in New York State to have two chimpanzees, Kiko and Tommy, recognised as persons.
Here’s what Sebo had to say in a recent New York Times op-ed:
Sometimes when we are overwhelmed by the complexity of an issue, it can help to start by stating a simple truth and going from there. In this case, the simple truth is that Kiko and Tommy are not mere things. Whatever else we say about the nature and limits of moral and legal personhood, we should be willing to say at least that. The only alternative is to continue to accept an arbitrary and exclusionary view about what it takes to merit moral and legal recognition. Kiko and Tommy deserve better than that, and so do the rest of us.I wonder if these two different debates – the limits of human personhood and the scope of animal personhood – have implications for each other. Perhaps those who defend the rights of the unborn and severely incapacitated humans must also acknowledge the need to afford greater legal recognition to intelligent non-human animals. And perhaps those who advocate for a definition of personhood that includes intelligent animals should also include those at the margins of human life.
XAVIER SYMONS
Deputy Editor
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