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Against Morgan’s Canon
Abstract
Conwy Lloyd Morgan&s;s Canon remains widely accepted primarily because it is seen as a bulwark against a natural bias of human beings towards explaining animal behavior in terms of sophisticated, human-like cognitive capacities, when the relevant behavior might be the product of less sophisticated causes. The chapter distinguishes four formulations of the Canon that one can find explicitly or implicitly in the literature. They are the prohibitive canon, the conservative canon, the restraining canon and the cautionary canon. The categorical anti-cognitivism embodied in the Prohibitive Canon has received much criticism. The logic thought to motivate Morgan&s;s Canon actually runs against the Conservative Canon. If the problem Karin D&s;Arcy and other advocates of the Canon are concerned with is researchers endorsing explanations of animal behavior without due attention being paid to alternatives, we can see that the asymmetry built into the Restraining Canon is quite inappropriate as a response.
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“However the ordering implied by Morgan's Canon is unclear, in part because the premise that evolution has produced a series of increasingly complex creatures does not hold up under scrutiny (Hodos and Campbell, 1969; Fitzpatrick, 2017).”
From Understanding Agent Complexity Through Affordances (2025) · cites this paper as Fitzpatrick, 2017
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- Morgan’s key statement of the Canon can be found in C. L. Morgan , An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (London: Walter Scott, 1894), which is widely cited but rarely read. It provides a fascinating insight into the philosophical and methodological problems facing early comparative psychologists. R. Boakes , From Darwin to Behaviorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), and G. Radick , The Simian Tongue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), are useful guides to Morgan’s life and work and the historical context from which Morgan’s Canon emerged. S. Shettleworth , Fundamentals of Comparative Cognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), and K. Andrews , The Animal Mind (New York: Routledge, 2015), provide accessible introductions to current debates over the methodological problems of comparative psychology and the role accorded to Morgan’s Canon in dealing with them.
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Andrews, K. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108616522 · Cited by 95
Not null enough: pseudo-null hypotheses in community ecology and comparative psychology
Bausman, W. C., & Halina, M. (2018) · Biology & Philosophy · doi:10.1007/s10539-018-9640-4 · Cited by 53
Comparative Thinking in Biology
Currie, A. (2021) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108616683 · Cited by 41
Chimpanzee normativity: evidence and objections
Fitzpatrick, S. (2020) · Biology & Philosophy · doi:10.1007/s10539-020-09763-1 · Cited by 35
Self-citationCurrie, A. (2021) · Erkenntnis · doi:10.1007/s10670-020-00370-w · Cited by 19
Metadata
- Authors
- Fitzpatrick, S.
- Corresponding author
- Fitzpatrick, Simon
- ORCID
- Fitzpatrick, Simon
- Venue
- The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2017-07-06
- Pages
- 437-447
- OpenAlex
- W4240120337
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 8.27
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy of Biology and Scientific Explanation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › General Psychology › Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- animal cognition, cognitive biases, alternative explanations
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- Fitzpatrick, S. (2017). Against Morgan’s Canon. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315742250-43
