為什么要告訴大猩猩羅賓·威廉姆斯的死訊

為什么要告訴大猩猩羅賓·威廉姆斯的死訊

According to press reports, Koko, the gorilla adept at sign language, seemed saddened to hear the news of the death of Robin Williams, whom the gorilla met once in 2001 (and bonded with immediately). I cannot fathom the ethical reasoning behind telling Koko about Williams’s death. What is the point of telling her about the death of someone she met once, 13 years ago? The press reports dwelt on the fact that she appeared sad. I don’t think any of us can know if she was sad or not — but even if this news opens the possibility of making her unhappy, it seems cruel to bring this into her life. What moral purpose does it serve? RITA LONG, OAKLAND, CALIF.

根據(jù)媒體報道，擅長符號語言的大猩猩科科(Koko)聽說羅賓·威廉姆斯(Robin Williams)的死訊后表示出悲傷，她是在2001年遇到威廉姆斯的(而且馬上就喜歡上了他)。把威廉姆斯的死訊告訴科科，這背后的正當理由是什么?我無法理解。告訴她某個13年前曾經(jīng)遇到過的人死了?媒體報道所基于的事實是：她看上去很悲傷。我不覺得我們能知道她是否真的悲傷——但是，就算這個新聞中說的她不開心是有可能的，讓她了解這回事似乎也很殘忍。這件事的道德目的是什么呢?麗塔·朗(Rita Long)，奧克蘭，加利福利亞。

Let’s start by looking at this from a slightly wider angle: What is the moral purpose of “talking” to a gorilla about anything? What’s the ethical justification for teaching Koko sign language and trying to communicate human ideas that have no bearing on her life?

讓我們從一個更為廣泛的角度開始：和大猩猩“談話”有什么道德目的?教科科符號語言，試著把對她的生活沒有意義的人類觀點傳輸給她，這有什么正當理由?

The best possible answer to that question is that we might learn something that will amplify our understanding of both apes and of ourselves. We are not talking to this gorilla to make idle conversation. We are communicating with this gorilla to learn about consciousness. And if Koko were authentically saddened by the news of Robin Williams’s suicide, we would learn a great deal.

對于這個問題，最好的答案或許是，我們可以從中學到某些東西，拓展對猿類和對我們自身的認識。我們不是和這只大猩猩閑聊。我們和她交流，是為了研究意識。如果科科真心為羅賓·威廉姆斯的自殺感到悲傷，我們能從中學到很多東西。

Koko met Robin Williams only once. And since an ape can’t comprehend the concept of “celebrity,” that meeting should be no more intrinsically meaningful than any one-time interaction Koko shared with anyone else. It’s not as if Koko sits around constantly rewatching “Moscow on the Hudson.” So if Koko was still impacted by that 2001 meeting in the year 2014, it would suggest something pretty profound about ape consciousness. I mean, can gorillas vividly recall and contextualize every interaction they experience? Do gorillas feel empathy for all mammals equally? Do gorillas have the ability to sense (and mentally catalog) specific interactions with “special” individuals (and did Robin Williams fall into that class)? Do gorillas simply want to please their human masters and reflexively display whatever emotion they assume is expected? Can gorillas comprehend what death is? Do they understand that they, too, will die (and that death, though natural, justifies sadness)? If any of these questions could be irrefutably affirmed, everything we think about gorillas would need to be re-examined, along with our entire relationship with all nonhuman mammals. So the moral question might not be “Is it wrong to tell Koko about a human’s suicide if that information will make her sad?” The moral question might be “If we tell Koko about a human’s suicide and her sadness is rational and authentic, what else are we obligated to tell her?”

科科只遇到過羅賓·威廉姆斯一次。因為猿類無法理解“名人”這個概念，那次會面可能和科科其他的臨時一次性會面沒有本質(zhì)區(qū)別。科科好像也不是常常坐在那兒一次又一次地看《哈得遜河丘上的莫斯科》(Moscow on the Hudson)。所以如果到了2014年，科科仍然對2001年的會面有印象，這可以揭示出猿類意識中非常有意義的東西。我的意思是，大猩猩能否生動地回憶起他們的互動，以及當時的情景?大猩猩是否能對其他哺乳類動物產(chǎn)生同等的移情?大猩猩是否有能力感受到與某些“特殊”人物的特定互動(并在心理上分類)，如果可以，羅賓·威廉姆斯屬于這一類人嗎?大猩猩是否只是希望取悅?cè)祟愔魅?，并且相?yīng)地展現(xiàn)出主人所期待的感情?大猩猩能理解死亡嗎?他們能理解他們自己也會死嗎(死亡盡管是自然的，但它能解釋悲傷的合理性嗎)?如果這些問題可以被確鑿無誤地證實，我們就需要重新審視我們目前對大猩猩的全部觀點，以及我們同人類之外的哺乳動物的全部關(guān)系。所以這件事中的道德問題或許不是“如果告訴科科一個人自殺了會讓她悲傷，那么這是不是錯的?”而是“如果我們告訴科科一個人自殺了，而她的悲傷是理性而真誠的，那么我們還有義務(wù)告訴她什么事情?”

Now, the counter to this reasoning is simple: Gorillas are believed to have the cognitive ability of a 3- or 4-year-old human. This means telling Koko about the death of Williams is akin to telling a 3-year-old child that a random uncle she met last Christmas is now dead and buried, and that this event is tragic. Framed in those terms, the whole idea seems cruel (and suggests that anything we’d supposedly “learn” from such an exchange could just as easily be deduced through common sense). Yet shielding her might be even less humane.

現(xiàn)在，對于做這件事的理由的反駁非常簡單：人們認為大猩猩的認知能力相當于三四歲的孩子。這意味著告訴科科威廉姆斯的死訊類似于告訴一個三歲的孩子，某個她去年圣誕節(jié)見過的什么叔叔死了，被埋葬了，這件事是個悲劇。在這個思維框架下，整件事顯得很殘忍(而且讓人覺得我們理應(yīng)從這種事中“學到”的東西可以輕易從常識中推斷出來)。但是如果向她隱瞞或許更不人道。

“I would question the ethics of not telling Koko about this death,” says the veterinarian Vint Virga, the author of “The Soul of All Living Creatures” and the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine article about the interior lives of animals. “I would set aside the issue of the animal’s cognitive intelligence and focus on the concept of an animal’s emotional intelligence, which studies continue to show is much greater than we previously imagined. Animals and humans both experience joy and sadness throughout their life. Why would you want to shelter a gorilla from that experience? I believe a gorilla absolutely has the ability to understand the loss of someone who was important to her, and animals are often able to deal with grieving and loss more effectively than humans.”

“我會質(zhì)疑不告訴科科這個死訊背后的倫理意義，”獸醫(yī)文特·沃加(Vint Virga)說，他著有《所有生物的靈魂》(The Soul of All Living Creatures)一書，最近《紐約時報雜志》一篇關(guān)于動物內(nèi)心世界的文章也報道了他。“我想把動物的認知能力放在一邊，專注討論動物的情感能力——研究持續(xù)表明，動物的情感能力要比我們之前想象的強得多。動物和人類的生命中都會經(jīng)歷喜悅與悲傷。我們?yōu)槭裁匆虼笮尚善帘芜@種體驗?我相信，一只大猩猩完全有能力理解失去某個重要的人的感受，動物處理悲傷和喪失的能力通常比人類要好。”

Virga argues that the only reasons for not telling Koko this information would be if we thought the death itself was insignificant or wanted to spare the ape from emotional distress. He thinks the latter motive is shortsighted. “There is nothing inherently wrong with stress,” he told me. “All living things need a degree of stress for their health and well-being. Just because an animal shows the recognition of loss doesn’t mean it’s being inordinately distressed. It just means animals feel things.”

沃加說，如果不告訴科科這件事，理由只可能是，我們覺得這個死訊本身不重要，或者不想讓這只大猩猩感到悲傷。他覺得后一個理由是短視的。“壓力本身并沒有錯，”他告訴我。“為了自身的健康與幸福，所有生物都需要某種程度的壓力。動物表現(xiàn)出對喪失的認識，這并不意味著它極度悲痛，這只意味著動物能感受到東西。”