Razones y normatividad en animales no humanos

Abstract

According to intellectualist approaches to reasons and normativity, non-human animals lack a genuine sensitivity to reasons. In that sense, in contrast to human beings, they cannot be considered normative creatures. Against intellectualism, in this paper, we hold that when a creature arrives at a new doxastic state by carrying out a certain type of reasoning, the premises of it constitute genuine reasons for her. We are interested in reasoning as a personal level process, which requires a certain kind of intelligence, implicit knowledge, and some (partial) understanding of the reasons by which the creature arrives at a new belief. However, this sort of reasoning requires neither the possession of epistemic concepts nor the possession of meta-representational competencies, as the intellectualists hold. Thus, if some non-human animals –such as great apes— have the capacity to carry out this kind of reasoning, they can be credited with a practical ability to use reasons and a (partial) cognitive access to them. In this sense, they could also be taken to be normative animals.