Abstract
The goal of this paper is to establish a hierarchical level of deception which does not apply only to humans and non-human animals, but also to the rest of the living world, including plants. We will follow the hierarchical categorization of deception, set forth by Mitchell (1986), in which the first level of deception starts with mimicry, while the last level of deception includes learning and intentionality, usually attributed to primates. We will show how such a hierarchy can be attributed to bacteria, plants, and fungi, see that self-deception is not inherent only to humans, and then connect the evolutionary roots of deception with the philosophical notion of intentionality.
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Notes
In philosophy, intentionality is usually connected to directedness or aboutness related to a certain object. However, animals certainly display directedness towards objects in their surroundings, but that does not mean we have to credit them with thought (Beisecker, 1999, p. 281). Dennett’s levels of intentionality seem to at least try to clarify between different levels of such a concept.
An illustrative example is reported by Forbes (2009, p. 51) citing Poulton (1890): “A Batesian mimic may be compared to an unscrupulous tradesman who copies the advertisement of a successful firm, whereas Mullerian mimicry is like a combination between firms who adopt a common advertisement to share expenses”.
One might object by stating that Mitchell’s (1986, p. 24) classification seems to point out active perception or reaction to the q being provided (do p given q), but he employs the word registration correctly since there does not have to be any active perception involved (even though it usually is) except for a basic reaction, which might be seen in terms of any biological system.
We could go even further in developing the theory of mind and think about what the alarm call does for mental state or mental images. For example, the sound of an alarm call might conjure a mental image of a leopard in a vervet monkey. In such case, we would be talking about representations in such a theory of mind, which would make it comparable to the human mind in some degree.
I would like to thank Reviewer 2 for pointing this out.
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Šekrst, K. Everybody Lies: Deception Levels in Various Domains of Life. Biosemiotics 15, 309–324 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-022-09485-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-022-09485-9