为什么要告诉大猩猩罗宾·威廉姆斯的死讯

为什么要告诉大猩猩罗宾·威廉姆斯的死讯

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.

根据媒体报道，擅长符号语言的大猩猩科科(Koko)听说罗宾·威廉姆斯(Robin Williams)的死讯后表示出悲伤，她是在2001年遇到威廉姆斯的(而且马上就喜欢上了他)。把威廉姆斯的死讯告诉科科，这背后的正当理由是什么?我无法理解。告诉她某个13年前曾经遇到过的人死了?媒体报道所基于的事实是：她看上去很悲伤。我不觉得我们能知道她是否真的悲伤——但是，就算这个新闻中说的她不开心是有可能的，让她了解这回事似乎也很残忍。这件事的道德目的是什么呢?丽塔·朗(Rita Long)，奥克兰，加利福利亚。

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?

让我们从一个更为广泛的角度开始：和大猩猩“谈话”有什么道德目的?教科科符号语言，试着把对她的生活没有意义的人类观点传输给她，这有什么正当理由?

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.

对于这个问题，最好的答案或许是，我们可以从中学到某些东西，拓展对猿类和对我们自身的认识。我们不是和这只大猩猩闲聊。我们和她交流，是为了研究意识。如果科科真心为罗宾·威廉姆斯的自杀感到悲伤，我们能从中学到很多东西。

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?”

科科只遇到过罗宾·威廉姆斯一次。因为猿类无法理解“名人”这个概念，那次会面可能和科科其他的临时一次性会面没有本质区别。科科好像也不是常常坐在那儿一次又一次地看《哈得逊河丘上的莫斯科》(Moscow on the Hudson)。所以如果到了2014年，科科仍然对2001年的会面有印象，这可以揭示出猿类意识中非常有意义的东西。我的意思是，大猩猩能否生动地回忆起他们的互动，以及当时的情景?大猩猩是否能对其他哺乳类动物产生同等的移情?大猩猩是否有能力感受到与某些“特殊”人物的特定互动(并在心理上分类)，如果可以，罗宾·威廉姆斯属于这一类人吗?大猩猩是否只是希望取悦人类主人，并且相应地展现出主人所期待的感情?大猩猩能理解死亡吗?他们能理解他们自己也会死吗(死亡尽管是自然的，但它能解释悲伤的合理性吗)?如果这些问题可以被确凿无误地证实，我们就需要重新审视我们目前对大猩猩的全部观点，以及我们同人类之外的哺乳动物的全部关系。所以这件事中的道德问题或许不是“如果告诉科科一个人自杀了会让她悲伤，那么这是不是错的?”而是“如果我们告诉科科一个人自杀了，而她的悲伤是理性而真诚的，那么我们还有义务告诉她什么事情?”

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.

现在，对于做这件事的理由的反驳非常简单：人们认为大猩猩的认知能力相当于三四岁的孩子。这意味着告诉科科威廉姆斯的死讯类似于告诉一个三岁的孩子，某个她去年圣诞节见过的什么叔叔死了，被埋葬了，这件事是个悲剧。在这个思维框架下，整件事显得很残忍(而且让人觉得我们理应从这种事中“学到”的东西可以轻易从常识中推断出来)。但是如果向她隐瞒或许更不人道。

“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.”

“我会质疑不告诉科科这个死讯背后的伦理意义，”兽医文特·沃加(Vint Virga)说，他著有《所有生物的灵魂》(The Soul of All Living Creatures)一书，最近《纽约时报杂志》一篇关于动物内心世界的文章也报道了他。“我想把动物的认知能力放在一边，专注讨论动物的情感能力——研究持续表明，动物的情感能力要比我们之前想象的强得多。动物和人类的生命中都会经历喜悦与悲伤。我们为什么要向大猩猩屏蔽这种体验?我相信，一只大猩猩完全有能力理解失去某个重要的人的感受，动物处理悲伤和丧失的能力通常比人类要好。”

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.”

沃加说，如果不告诉科科这件事，理由只可能是，我们觉得这个死讯本身不重要，或者不想让这只大猩猩感到悲伤。他觉得后一个理由是短视的。“压力本身并没有错，”他告诉我。“为了自身的健康与幸福，所有生物都需要某种程度的压力。动物表现出对丧失的认识，这并不意味着它极度悲痛，这只意味着动物能感受到东西。”