Literature on the mental capacities and cognitive mechanisms of the great apes has been silent about whether they can act autonomously. This paper provides a philosophical theory of autonomy supported by psychological studies of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie chimpanzee behavior to argue that chimpanzees can act autonomously even though their psychological mechanisms differ from those of humans. Chimpanzees satisfy the two basic conditions of autonomy: (1) liberty (the absence of controlling influences) and (2) agency (self-initiated intentional action), each of (...) which is specified here in terms of conditions of understanding, intention, and self-control. In this account, chimpanzees make knowledge-based choices reflecting a richly information-based and socially sophisticated understanding of the world. Finally, two major theories of autonomy (Kantian theory and two-level theory) are rejected as too narrow to adequately address these issues, necessitating the modifications made in the present approach. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that some human-like social skills evolved in dogs during domestication as an incidental by-product of selection for “tame” forms of behavior. It is still possible, however, that the social skills of certain dog breeds came under direct selection that led to further increases in social problem solving ability. To test this hypothesis, different breeds of domestic dogs were compared for their ability to use various human communicative behaviors to find hidden food. We found that even primitive breeds (...) with little human contact were able to use communicative cues. Further, “working” dogs were more skilled at using gestural cues than were non-working breeds. This difference in performance existed regardless of whether the working breeds were more or less genetically wolf-like. These results suggest that subsequent to initial domesticating selection giving rise to cue-following skills, additional selection on communicative abilities in certain breeds has produced substantive differences in those breeds’ abilities to follow cues. (shrink)