Chickens in Metaphysics

We have already touched on some of the things that make the "chicken or egg?" question a philosophical bombshell.

Asking why the chicken crossed the road is asking why we do anything. What is motivation, what is our will, how do we decide to choose one course of action over another?

Why chickens have been chosen to carry the banner in this investigation is not quite clear to me, but from the quality of the questions that we pose them (why? How? Where? What?) we must suspect that they know more than they are letting on.

Usually, if a chicken crosses the road it will be because it wants to. It will probably be after food, but it may just be following the chicken in front of it. Then again, it may have been chased or is running from a threat, real or percieved.

Chickens are motivated for many of the same reasons that people are; food, pleasure, curiosity, fear, are big motivators. Roosters like sex, hens appear to prefer avoiding it.

Chickens invented the pecking order, but they are also very sociable. They just feel better when everyone knows their place. It may be strange to think of feathered creatures as herd animals, but a flock is a feathered herd, even as a school is a finned one.

Dr. Lesley Rogers finds that chickens are neurologically and cognitively on par at least with dogs and cats. In our links you can find out why it may make us feel better to assign chickens to a kind of existential hell. Chickens may not be metaphysical in and of themselves, but the human/chicken interface is certainly one full of questions.

Chickens have their little habits and behaviors. They have distinct personalities. They seem to have an alarming mix of conditioned and volitional behaviors. They are smart, curious and pretty good survivors. What we are attempting to transform them into - souless food devices - says a lot more about us than it does about them.