Preface
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Pigs are sentient, capable of complex mental processes, and lead rich cognitive, emotional, and psychological lives.
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| Text: | |
| Key Points | 7 |
| Counterclaims | 2 |
| Advocacy Notes | 2 |
| Footnotes | 20 |
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| Companion Videos | 0 |
| Memes and Infographics | 0 |
| Presentation Slides | 0 |
| Flash Cards | 0 |
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Summary
A concise summary of the briefing (see below for citations).
Pigs demonstrate significant cognitive abilities and emotional complexity, highlighting their high level of sentience. They possess empathy and emotional intelligence, recognizing and responding to emotions in both pigs and humans. Studies show they can anticipate negative events through learned cues, exhibit stress responses in empathy with others, and have excellent long-term memory and object recognition skills, remembering objects for days and distinguishing between familiar and new items. They can also think abstractly, understanding symbolic representations of objects and actions.
Context
Places this topic in its larger context.
Sentience is the capacity to feel pain and experience emotions. It is significant because it serves as the criterion for determining whether living beings deserve moral consideration.
While sentient beings have differing levels of intelligence, these differences in intelligence are not morally relevant, as discussed in our briefing on animal rights.
Key Points
This section provides talking points.
Pigs lead empathetic and emotional lives.
Pigs can recognize and pick up on each other’s emotions.1
Pigs were trained to anticipate negative events when a certain piece of music was played. Others were not trained but exhibited similar stress responses to the nearby trained pigs when the music was played.2
There are multiple reports of pigs saving their owners, which is evidence of both intelligence and empathy.3 4
Pigs possess long-term memory and are good at object recognition.
Pigs can distinguish between objects and remember objects for days, an indication of long-term memory.5
Pigs can think abstractly.
Pigs can use tools.
Pigs have been recorded using tools, including sticks and bark to dig, and for other uses.8
Pigs are aware of themselves and others.
Pigs have been taught to play video games, controlling the joysticks with their mouths or snouts, providing evidence of self-awareness, as the pigs understood that their actions were causing the cursor to move. Many animals, such as dogs, do not show these capabilities.9
Pigs can discriminate between individuals, whether human or other pigs.10
Pigs are able to find food that was only visible in a mirror.11
Pigs have a sense of the future.
Pigs can anticipate the future, as evidenced by one study that found that they reacted negatively to high-pitched vocalizations when they knew an associated negative event was coming.12
Pigs are cognitively complex.
Dr. Donald Bloom of Cambridge University claimed that pigs “have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly [more so than] three-year-olds”13 14
Pigs have been taught to play video games, controlling the joysticks with their mouths or snouts.15
Pigs also engage in play, which is considered to be an indication of cognitive complexity.16
When raised without enough stimulation, pgs can develop behavioral abnormalities.17
Pigs have been shown to make more positive decisions when given more stimulation, which is evidence that environmental enrichment can make them more optimistic.18
Pigs are skilled at using spatial information—navigating mazes, for example.19
Counterclaims
Responses to some yes but retorts.
Claim: Pigs may be intelligent, but they’re still just animals.
Intelligence should not be the sole basis for moral consideration. Sentience—pigs’ ability to experience pain, joy, and fear—makes them deserving of ethical treatment. Just as we don’t judge humans’ worth by intelligence, we shouldn’t do so for animals
Claim: Farmers treat pigs humanely, so sentience isn’t a problem.
Even in the best farming conditions, pigs’ natural needs—like forming strong social bonds, exploring their environment, and rooting—are restricted. Their sentience makes confinement and slaughter inherently harmful, regardless of how “humane” the practices claim to be. See our briefing on Pig Injustices and Suffering for details.
Supplementary Info
Additional information that may prove useful.
Distinguishing between interrelated terms:20
- Sentience is about the capacity to have subjective experiences.
- Cognition involves the processes of acquiring and applying knowledge.
- Consciousness pertains to the awareness of oneself and one’s environment.
- Intelligence relates to the ability to learn and solve problems.
Further Study
Sources providing a deeper understanding of the topic or related topics.
Advocacy Resources
Information to help with outreach and advocacy.
Additional media and advocacy resources are on the way, though not every briefing will feature every type of media.
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Advocacy Notes
Tips for Advocacy and Outreach
Use questions to encourage reflection, such as:“If we acknowledge pigs feel joy, fear, and pain, how can we justify causing them harm for food we don’t need?”
Make It relatable by drawing parallels to pets: Compare pigs’ intelligence and emotional capacity to dogs or cats, as people often feel more empathy for animals they relate to.
Footnotes
Our sources, with links back to where they’re used.
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018 ↩︎
- Use this google search for specific examples ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Root-Bernstein, Meredith, Trupthi Narayan, Lucile Cornier, and Aude Bourgeois. “Context-Specific Tool Use by Sus Cebifrons.” Mammalian Biology 98 (September 2019): 102–10. ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- ‘New Slant on Chump Chops’, Cambridge Daily News , 29 March 2002 quoted in Marco Kaisth, “Eating Stupid Pigs,” Philosophy Now, 2017; Also quoted in Curado, Manuel, and Steven S Gouveia. Automata’s Inner Movie: Science and Philosophy of Mind, 2019, 301. ↩︎
- An argument in support of the 3-year-old quote: Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018 ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015). ↩︎
- A number of online dictionaries were consulted to arrive at these distinctions, including Websters and Cambridge. ↩︎
