Even in reading the title of the selection from Descartes, "Animals as Machines", I anticipate a certain hostile gut reaction as we begin to discuss Descartes' conception of the distinction between human and animal life. Given our inherent sense of the difference in kind between natural creatures and the artificial contraptions that normally go under the name of machine, this thesis naturally provokes objections, amplified no doubt by the affection most of us have felt for various animals (or even animals in general) at one time or another; we do not like to think of our pets as automatons. However, one should note the fairly comprehensive manner in which Descartes' addresses potential rebuttals to his argument, which make critique of this mechanistic view of animal life more fraught than it may seem at first.
In common with Aristotle, Descartes that human art is a sort of copy of nature; hence, to speak of animals as 'mere' machines is not equate a killer whale with a wind-up doll. Rather, artifacts of human design are phenomenally less complicated versions of the designs seen in the natural world (in the same manner as, Descartes might say, our powers of art pale compared to the creative intelligence of God, whose machines natural things are). They also posses the same sort of biological life humans do, yet do not preform any actions that cannot be explain in terms of passions; it is important to note here the sense of passion as something undergone, and hence not a matter of active agency. The faculty of language, Descartes notes, seems to set humanity apart categorically from all natural life. More broadly, while we might grant that animals possess a certain level of intelligence (varying of course from species to species), they do not seem to possess any reflective capacity, which is to rephrase Descartes' contention that they have no thoughts. Hence, to say that animals are machines is not to denigrate them but merely to day they are dependent on natural forces and not on reflective choices for their actions.
The most promising critique of Descartes' thesis seems to me to consist of a deflationary view of human consciousness rather than an exalted view of animal intelligence (that is, the opposite of what he argues his piece is about), but that is another story.
Patrick, I like your counter-argument that maybe we should remove some of the glory from the view of human language, thought, and soul. I think many poets would be enraged to read that "we must not confuse words with natural movements, the expressions of emotion, which can be imitated by machines as well as animals" (69).
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