Soul of a Dog

by KATZ, JON

• ISBN13: 9781400066292
• ISBN10: 1400066298
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-18
• Publisher: Villard

Summary

The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Dog Days" ponders the question of whether animals have souls, through stories of his own dogs and the farm animals he lives with.

Author Biography

JON KATZ has written eighteen books—six novels and twelve works of nonfiction—including Izzy & Lenore, Dog Days, A Dog Year, A Good Dog, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. A photographer, a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, and a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, he writes a column about dogs for Slate.com and cohosts an award-winning show Dog Talk on Northeast Public Radio. Katz lives on
Bedlam Farm in upstate New York.

Excerpts

Chapter One


 Dogs and Souls

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. —James Thurber

Until recently, i’d never spent much time with aristotle, one of the world’s pioneer thinkers. When I finally sat down with him, I found his essays tough going but rewarding; his ideas came as something of a jolt.

Like many of the early philosophers and scholars, Aristotle took a hard, clear line when it came to animals and souls. He exalted the rational being that a human had the potential to become. There was nothing like it, he wrote. A human could develop morality and responsibility. Since animals aren’t widely believed to possess those traits (not even in our contemporary animal-worshipping culture, although that’s changing), he argued that humans had a higher status, that human values and attributes—including the soul—couldn’t and shouldn’t be attributed to animals.

What made humans distinct from other living things, Aristotle believed, was that very ability to reason about ethics, to be held morally accountable for their decisions. Our ability to perceive what was right, and to struggle to do right rather than wrong, was our most distinguishing characteristic.

Animals (and children) weren’t able to determine right from wrong, Aristotle believed, and thus existed on a different plane. One could no more attribute human consciousness to animals than to trees.

Religious scholars, sorting out questions of faith and the afterlife, carried these arguments further and codified them. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas established Aristotle’s ideas as part of Christian doctrine, which states clearly that animals, lacking reason, don’t have immortal souls. Animals couldn’t read the Bible, accept God, or worry about heaven and hell. Therefore, they bore no responsibility for their choices. They were beasts, under our control, subordinate.

Mainstream Christianity, writes contemporary theologian Andrew Linzey (who believes that animals do have souls) remains “firmly humanocentric.”

Maybe so, but in the United States at least, the faithful are creating their own animal theology. Society’s broader view of animals has shifted radically. Scientists’ investigations suggest more intelligence and consciousness among animals than Aristotle or Aquinas could have perceived. Animals, particularly dogs and cats, are moving toward the center of our emotional lives. It sometimes seems that our love, even adoration, of animals is approaching the dimensions of religion itself.

A number of studies in recent years have indicated that the occasional border collie, elephant, or chimpanzee shows signs of self-awareness, some ability to see itself as an indi?vidual apart from the others of its species, though most researchers are candid about this work being far from conclusive.

Meanwhile, liberal theologians like Linzey, animal-rights activists like philosopher Peter Singer, and many millions of pet owners and lovers profoundly attached to their animals are reshaping the way we view other species, and are developing their own theologies.

I’ve been asking dog and cat lovers for years if they believed their animals had souls. By now I’ve met few dog owners who would consider their companions thoughtless, subordinate beasts, incapable of reason or self-awareness. Quite the opposite—I meet people all the time who tell me in considerable detail what their dogs and cats are thinking, feeling, and planning, and who find the very idea that their companion animals might be barred from heaven heretical.

Anthropomorphizing isn’t merely a trend in our culture but an epidemic. Some animals who have not learned to live with and love humans (raccoons, for example) do n

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Excerpted from Soul of a Dog: Reflections on the Spirits of the Animals of Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz
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