Locke’s story about the parrot is supposed to illustrate that something can be a rational animal even though it has no soul.

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Question restatement: The prompt presents Locke’s parrot story and asks whether it is meant to show that something can be a rational animal even if it lacks a soul.
Option 1: True. This choice claims that Locke’s parrot story conveys that an entity can be a rational animal without possessing a soul. In a careful reading, this misstates Locke’s broader position. Locke is often concerned with distinguishing human rationality tied to having a rational soul from the more mechanical or observational capacities of animals. He tends to reserve “rational animal” status for humans who possess a rational soul, and he notes that animals may imitate or appear to reason without true understanding or the presence of a soul. Thus, interpreting the parrot as evidence that a non-souled creature can be truly rational diverges from Locke’s emphasis on the distinction between genuine rational agency and mere training or imitation.
Option 2: False. This option asserts that the parrot story does not illustrate that a rational animal can lack a soul, i.e., it does not support the claim in option 1. This aligns with a reading of Locke that genuine rationality is tied to the possession of a rational soul, and that apparent rational behavior in animals (such as a parrot repeating or seemingly reasoning) does not equal true rationality. The parrot’s abilities are best understood as signals of learned behavior, conditioning, or linguistic imitation rather than proof of true rational nature arising without a soul. Consequently, the parrot story would not be offered as evidence for rational animals existing without souls, but rather as a point of contrast with human rationality.
Additional nuance for considering both options: Some readers might worry about whether Locke sometimes uses examples of animal cognition to probe the boundaries of what counts as reason. However, the standard reading emphasizes the distinction between human rationality (tied to a rational soul) and attributions of reason to animals based on behavior that can be explained without attributing full rational nature. Therefore, the parrot’s case is typically used to illustrate the limits of attributing true rationality to animals rather than to demonstrate that animals can be rational without a soul.

PHL210Y5 Y LEC0101 Quiz #12

Locke’s story about the parrot is supposed to illustrate that something can be a rational animal even though it has no soul.

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