While some sources and beliefs assert that only humans deliberately commit suicide, other scientific sources note ongoing debate, potential precursors in animals, or lack of proof that non-human animals commit suicide.
: Many people believe that only humans have the cognitive and behavioral capacities needed for suicidal behavior, such as reflexive subjectivity, free will, intentionality, or awareness of death. Three counterarguments — based on (i) negative emotions and psychopathologies among nonhuman animals, (ii) the nature of self-destructive behavior, and (iii) the problem of model fidelity in suicide research — suggest that self-destructive and self-injurious behaviors among human and nonhuman animals vary along a continuum.
Schaefer (1967) showed that mice can discriminate live from dead mice and lethal from nonlethal environments, and that they avoid a lethal environment; but the experiment lacked some controls. This might be a way to test whether mice would ever choose a lethal environment. Humans may also choose a potentially lethal environment unconsciously. [editorial note: This journal does not publish primary research that harms animals and should not be construed as encouraging it.] David Lester, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stockton University, is a suicidologist and author of over 100 books and 2,500 papers on the subject. www.drdavidlester.net Peña-Guzmán (2017) has provided a powerful argument for the possibility that animals can choose to die by suicide. However, is it possible to prove that an animal can commit suicide? There has been one approach to this problem that has potential for theory and research. Schaefer (1967), in an essay entitled “Can a Mouse Commit Suicide?”, first identified the basic issues involved in deciding whether an animal can commit suicide. (1) Can the animal discriminate between life and death or, to be more specific, between a live animal and a dead animal? (2) Can an animal discriminate between a lethal and a nonlethal environment? (3) Under what circumstances will an animal choose to enter a lethal environment? Schaefer demonstrated how these questions might be answered. To demonstrate that an animal can discriminate a dead animal from a live one, Schaefer used an operant conditioning technique in which one lever in a Skinner box produced food when a live mouse was the stimulus and a second level produced food when a dead mouse was the stimulus. Schaefer's mice learned this discrimination. To demonstrate that mice can discriminate between a lethal chamber and a nonlethal chamber, Schaefer allowed mice to choose to enter one of two chambers. In one chamber, they were electrocuted, while in the other, they were allowed to live. The behavior of these mice was observed by other mice. As long as the observed mouse was alive, one lever produced food. When the observed mouse was dead, a second lever produced food. The observing mice learned this discrimination. After learning the discrimination, the observing mice were allowed to enter the chambers. On test trials, the mice entered only the nonlethal chamber. They avoided the lethal chamber. Animal Sentience 2017.XXX: Lester on Peña-Guzmán on Animal Suicide 2 If these demonstrations can be replicated (no-one seems to have pursued Schaefer's ideas), it would be possible to investigate under what circumstances an animal might choose to enter the lethal chamber. In his demonstrations, of course, Schaefer failed to include controls for several factors. For example, are the mice learning to discriminate between a dead and a live stimulus mouse or merely a non-moving and a moving mouse? Would the observer mouse respond differently if, instead of observing mice killed, he observed mice waking from sleep? Perhaps it is the change in the state of the mice that led the observer mouse to avoid the lethal chamber rather than mice being killed? However, these problems could be overcome, and Schaefer's formulation of the problem enables us to plan a set of empirical studies to explore whether an animal could commit suicide. A second point to make concerns the role of the unconscious. Many explanations of suicidal and self-destructive behaviour in humans involve the role of the unconscious. Menninger (1938), a psychoanalyst who accepted the presence of a death instinct in the human psyche, felt that unconscious self-destructive and suicidal desires could motivate humans. For example, in some cases of victim-precipitated homicide, an individual may provoke a fight, say in a bar, and end up being killed by the opponent. In these cases, it may be possible to conceptualize the behaviour as suicidal even though the deceased had no conscious suicidal impulses.1 If suicidal and
other animals in that they commit suicide. One reason some people commit suicide is that they think they … without nuclear technology. Only humans go to war, deliberately commit suicide, or take part in genocide … pushes people toward suicide is burdensomeness.'” That is, people commit suicide when they believe themselves
other animals in that they commit suicide. One reason some people commit suicide is that they think they … without nuclear technology. Only humans go to war, deliberately commit suicide, or take part in genocide … Nature has prepared humans to use ideas. Humans and some other animals are social. Humans are far more cultural
Although my commentary begins with a report about a monkey committing suicide, I agree with the target article's concluding statement that we cannot currently prove that any animal has committed suicide. The author’s proposed continuist approach is based on animal behaviors reminiscent of symptoms preceding suicide in humans (e.g., deep depression and grief). However, in both humans and nonhuman animals, these are just potential precursors of suicide, and dying as a result of grief is not necessarily suicide. In the absence of supporting evidence, the continuist hypothesis of animal suicide is not sustained. David Eilam, Professor of Zoology and Head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Human and Animal Behavior at Tel-Aviv University, does research on spatial cognition in individuals and groups, compulsive behavior in animals and in OCD patients, and predator-prey interactions. david-eilam.weebly.com/ “He is alive for he cannot afford a funeral” (Persian proverb) The question of whether animals can commit suicide boils down to three possibilities, which by their very mere nature are mutually exclusive: (i) Animals cannot commit suicide; (ii) Animals can and do commit suicide but humans fail to see and understand it as such; and (iii) There is a broader meaning for the term suicide as applied in humans, which in animals includes suicidelike or suicide-precursor behaviors. There is only one description to date of an animal committing suicide in an act that seems to reflect self-awareness and free will but not necessarily an understanding of the finality of death. This case was published in British newspapers in 1932, and described how visitors to a recently-opened zoo witnessed a rhesus monkey putting his head through a noose that it had made from a rope hanging in its cage, and deliberately jumping to its death (Box 1). To my knowledge, this is the only reported case in which an animal apparently displayed rational preparation for an action that led to its death in a horrible replica of suicide in humans. It is nonetheless possible that this was merely a sequence of unintended activities with an unfortunate ending, and devoid of any explicit awareness of the consequential death. There are other anecdotal descriptions of animals jumping to their death, but these seem to have been more like an automated escape response or reckless risk-taking rather than a rational suicidal Animal Sentience 2017.096: Eilam on Peña-Guzmán on Animal Suicide 2 behavior. For example, when exposed to a snake, the banner-tailed kangaroo rat (Dipodomys spectabilis) spends extended periods within striking distance of the snake, frequently approaching the snake's head in nose-to-snout contact (Randall et al., 1995). While this and other life-risking behaviors of confronting a predator seem like intentional behaviors, they are remote from what might be considered as suicide-like behaviors. As Peña-Guzmán (2017) acknowledges in the conclusion of the target article: "we cannot currently prove that any animal has committed suicide as a matter of fact" (p. 18). Box 1: Tired of life, monkey kills himself “London, July 14, 1932. Sightseers at the Upton Zoo, Chester, witnessed an apparently deliberate suicide by a monkey. The monkey first gnawed through a six-feet rope hanging in his cage, tied one end to the bough of a tree, made a noose with the other end, inserted his head with great deliberation, pulled the slipknot tight, climbed the tree and jumped. Death was instantaneous. The keeper said that in a lifetime's experience he had not known an animal deliberately commit suicide. He is now guarding the monkeys, which might emulate their companion, thinking they had discovered a new game. The reason of the suicide is unknown. Had he domestic difficulties, or was he tired of life? Shocked spectators, expecting amusement, witnessed the tragedy.” c.f. Monkey Commits Suicide, 1932 The possibility that animals can and do commit suicide but that we fail to see and u
Abstract Amazingly, the genomes of all cells studied so far include genetic death programs that, when triggered, cause the cells to commit suicide. These programs underlie diverse processes in plants and animals. Importantly, in humans, programmed cell death is used to cull antibody-producing cells that react with our own tissues and allow our fingers to develop. Leaves and ripe fruit fall because a layer of cells dies at the right time to release them. Even bacteria commit suicide when the colony has outstripped its resources in a process called quorum sensing. Programmed cell death allows living organisms to leverage death to ensure survival.
Everything we examined (7) — 5 independent sources
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