Animal Agency

Pablo Verde Ortega 

Western thought and science are not known for their kindness toward the animal kingdom. Without needing to resort to the harsh views of Descartes and other canonical authors on animals, we can see in much more recent times how biology, psychology, and philosophy have offered oversimplified, if not mechanistic (see Mechanicism), views of animals and their behaviors. However, in recent decades, ethology has put forward another narrative in which animals are endowed with agency, understood as the capacity to act and intervene in the world. 

This post will explore in what sense we can affirm that animals are agents, and to do so, we will start from strictly biological definitions of agency (Okasha, 2023). Thus, we exclude other notions of agency, such as those derived from actor-network theory, not because they lack interest or theoretical value, but because they are too broad and say little about the (biological) specificities of animals and their potential agency. 

It should also be noted that, while it is already difficult to write an entry on plant agency without addressing the internal diversity of the Plant Kingdom, it is even more complicated to condense the immense variety of the Animal Kingdom into a single entry that will inevitably be oversimplified. This is all the truer given that most studies on animal agency have been conducted on mammals and birds. Studies on the agency of animals more distantly related to humans are much scarcer. For this reason, it might be more appropriate to title the entry “some forms of agency in some animals,” although we will try to cover as many studies and animal realities as possible. 

“Agency” is described in many ways and with varying degrees of depth, so in this entry we will distinguish three levels of agency, from least to most complex: 

1) Agency in the narrowest sense. 

2) Behavioral or intelligent agency. 

3) Moral agency (or subjectivity). 

Agency in its minimal sense refers to the fact that organisms do not merely have things happening to them, but also do things themselves, even if only at a reactive and instinctive level (this definition is derived from Dretske, 1991). It is intuitive to attribute this level of agency to all animals, since, as living beings, they perform at least the metabolic actions (ingestion, digestion, reproduction) that can be considered “minimal agency.” It is they who carry these out through their own internal means, rather than external forces causing them to occur. Strictly speaking, some non-biological entities (such as advanced technologies) may count as agents of this type, and not even most skeptics of animal capacities would deny that animals are agents at this basic level. 

Behavioral/intelligent agency refers to agency that goes beyond the reactive or instinctive level we take for granted in any biological organism. It implies that action in the world is characterized by some form of behavioral flexibility, is goal-oriented, and is based on an adaptive perception of the environment that includes reliable processes of information acquisition, processing, and integration (Humphreys, 1979).  

This has been well established by decades of ethological research across a wide range of species. Concha Mateos (2016) provides an exhaustive synthesis of the capacity for perception and attention, memory and learning, and causal and inferential reasoning in mammals and birds (her work deals with animal cognition, but all the studies she cites are conducted on mammals and birds; therefore, it is necessary to be specific in order to avoid generalizations that are not empirically supported by her sources). 

Beyond the chordates, cephalopods also demonstrate cognitive abilities, such as spatial learning or the anticipatory planning of hunting tactics (Hunt, 2017). We might even find traces of cognition—more specifically, associative learning—in taxa as distant as the cnidarians (Cheng, 2021). In turn, it is worth mentioning the collective or swarm intelligence of some insects as an example of intelligent agency (Garnier et al., 2007), in this case distributed or group-based and not restricted to ontogenetic individuals.  

Finally, we come to a moral agency, which would require animals to possess some sense of what is fair and unfair and of empathy, as well as collective rule systems. What is at stake is the possibility that animals act on motivations we might consider normative. To do this, we must start from a notion of normativity and morality that is as un-intellectualized as possible (Rowlands and Monsó, 2017): there is no need for a complex metacognitive exercise about a motivation to be motivated to do something, nor to philosophize about the customs and traditions of a community in order to adapt to them. And this is also true for humans: if we are part of a social circle, we simply follow its codes or face correction or punishment for not complying with them; the same applies when practicing a sport or a ritual. But we rarely explicitly question the existence or reasons behind these codes or reflect on them. 

Beyond the terminological debate, recent evidence from ethology supports the thesis that at least some animals are moral agents. Monsó and co-authors (2018, p. 284) provide a comprehensive review of the literature on various moral behaviors identified in animals of several species. These range from altruistic and helping behaviors in rats, pigeons, and primates to attitudes of consolation and empathy in times of distress in primates, canids, corvids, elephants, parakeets, and voles, as well as instances of aversion to inequity (which would suggest some sense of what is fair and unfair) in chimpanzees, various monkey species, dogs, and rats.  

With regard to adherence to group rules, Monsó and Andrews (2022) provide, on pages 32–37 of their article on the moral psychology of animals, an exhaustive overview of behaviors in chimpanzees and other primates that might suggest this collective capacity: rejection of infanticide, mutual support, protocols for announcing the discovery of food among group members, mating rituals, adaptation to the customs of other groups by “migrant” individuals, arbitrary conventions, preference for one’s own group… Vincent and co-authors (2019) provide a similar review of both chimpanzees and dolphins, which can be found starting on page 28 of their text. 

At this final level of agency, research is focused on vertebrates and especially on mammals, so it is difficult to extend it further. Further research is required to analyse whether agency or moral subjectivity, as outlined here, can also be found in other taxa of the animal kingdom. 

It is now largely uncontroversial to assert that animals are agents in the first and second senses. It may, however, be more contentious to speak of agency in the third sense. In either case, the underlying controversy is the age-old ethological debate over anthropomorphism: to what extent is it scientifically valid to attribute qualities we once considered exclusively human to other species? Are we not projecting our anthropocentric biases and misinterpreting the evidence when it might be better to describe it using less loaded terms? (Scotto, 2024) (see Anthropocene). 

This risk is real, and any scientist or philosopher interested in animal behavior must keep it in mind. However, there is also the opposite risk, anthropodenial (de Waal, 1999), that is, the refusal to use human terms for animal behaviors or abilities despite having evidence that would allow for the analogy. Both attitudes, taken to extremes, can be a burden, so it is best to avoid them equally. 

The position defended in this entry is that we have now gathered sufficient evidence to be able to speak of animal agency at the three levels previously identified without falling into illusory anthropomorphism (although the specific degree of agency will depend on each species; not all animals possess the same agency). Nevertheless, evidence is never independent; it is filtered and contextualized by the researcher’s theoretical framework. Therefore, we must evaluate not only the quantity of evidence provided but also the quality of the theories or hypotheses within which it is framed. 

One way to do this is by answering the question that Despret (2018) poses regarding any theory (she does so by contributing to the debate on whether chimpanzees are capable of mourning): “What does this commit us to?” (p. 184). In the case of theories of animal agency, they commit us to research and experiments that take seriously the animals under study, ensure their well-being, and strive not to dehumanize them. This gives rise to scientific proposals that allow us to “create, make perceptible, relationships that other terms silenced, or to which they gave a different meaning” (p. 191). In other words, they offer more complex views of animals that have fostered innovative contributions from ecological humanities. 

Viewing animals as agents broadens the scope of what is possible in human-animal relationships. It is not merely a rejection of the mechanistic view that permits any mistreatment or instrumental use of animals; rather, it goes even further than traditional animal rights discourse. This latter view interprets animals as sentient beings whose suffering and death we must prevent, but it continues to relegate them to a passive position (the term used to refer to them is, in fact, “moral patients”). We run the risk of narrowing the horizon to the “harm-do no harm” dichotomy, which depends unilaterally on human will. 

Consequently, in addition to classical animalism, new approaches have emerged that urge us to “become with” (Haraway, 2008) animals in order to highlight—and, where appropriate, expand—the diverse range of activities that humans can engage in alongside animals as active participants. Activities ranging from work (dogs and humans herding a flock) to emotional bonds (animals as friends or family members), including recreational activities (circus shows featuring animals, sometimes under abusive conditions) or creative endeavors (Ortiz Robles, 2016, invites us to consider animals as agents who have participated, in their own way, in the writing of many human literary works). 

In conclusion, the different levels of animal agency are not only plausible from a scientific standpoint, but also desirable from a normative perspective and highly fruitful for the ecological humanities. 

Bibliography: 

Cheng, K. (2021). Learning in Cnidaria: A systematic review. Learning & Behavior, 49, 175–189. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-020-00452-3  

Despret, V. (2018). ¿Qué dirían los animales… si les hiciéramos las preguntas correctas? Cactus.  

Dretske, F. (1991). Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. MIT University Press. 

Garnier, S., Gautrais, J. & Theraulaz, G. (2007). The biological principles of swarm intelligence. Swarm Intelligence, 1, 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11721-007-0004-y  

Haraway, D. (2008). When species meet. University of Minnesota Press.  

Humphreys, L. G. (1979). The construct of general intelligence. Intelligence 3(2), 105–120. doi:10.1016/0160-2896(79)90009-6 

Hunt, E. (28 March, 2017). Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods. The Guardian. Extraído de: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/28/alien-intelligence-the-extraordinary-minds-of-octopuses-and-other-cephalopods

Mateos, C. (2016). Cognición animal: un nuevo enfoque sobre los mecanismos del comportamiento. En J. F. Carranza Almansa (Coord.), Etología adaptativa: el comportamiento como producto de la selección natural (pp. 545-580). UCOPress. 

Monsó, S., Benz-Schwarzburg, J. & Bremhorst, A. (2018).  Animal Morality: What It Means and Why It Matters. Journal of Ethics, 22, 283–310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-018-9275-3  

Monsó, S. & Andrews, K. (2022). Animal moral psychologies. En M. Vargas & J. Doris (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology. Oxford University Press 

Okasha, S. (2023). The concept of agent in biology: motivations and meanings. Biological theory, 19, 6-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-023-00439-z 

Rowlands, M. & Monsó, S. (2017). Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm. En L. Kalof (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies (pp. 320-339). Oxford University Press. 

Scotto, C. (2024). The Anthropocentric Bias in Animal Cognition. ArtefaCToS. Revista de estudios sobre la ciencia y la tecnología, 13(1), 85-116. 

Ortiz Robles, M. (2016). Literature and Animal Studies. Routledge. 

Vincent, S., Ring, R. & Andrews, K. (2019). Normative Practices of Other Animals. En A. Zimmerman, K. Jones, & M. Timmons (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Moral Epistemology. Routledge.