Do animals have souls?

I was first introduced to the question as to whether animals had souls when I was eight years old. I had recently been deemed unfit for public education for pulling the school fire alarm... an action I still stand by as I was the one who started the fire. I was placed in my grandfather's care for a short while. One day, he took me to the "Elliot Garrison Senior Center and Amateur Philosophy-Crafts Club," his favorite haunting grounds at the time. There, he and his fellow club members plied themselves with drink as they debated ethical codes and great moral dilemmas. They probed the very foundations of human logic.

It was an especially raucous afternoon, as I recall. The subject discussed was Peter Singer's book, "Animal Liberation." About half the group believed animals to be conscious creatures possessed of self-awareness. The other half favored Descartes' argument that animals are fleshy mechanisms with no soul at all. After a lengthy battery of dialogue back and forth, someone mentioned that since children are closest to the basic nature of mankind, they are in the best position to solve the quandary based on their initial instinctual reaction when confronted with an animal.

The club members murmured in general agreement that that most certainly was the case. So my grandfather hoisted me up onto a table, proclaiming "Here is a child!"

Someone else produced a sheep.

It was placed on the table. We were made to face off. At first, the sheep and I just sort of stood there awkwardly. I didn't know what to do. Neither did the sheep. Someone from the Descartes camp shouted "Slap that sheep!" I assume that to slap the sheep would have proved the sheep to have no soul and that slapping it was not a moral outrage to a child.

In rebuttal to the proponent of Descartes, a Singer supporter screamed "Kiss the sheep! Kiss it you little bastard!"

Within seconds, the entire room degenerated into a roaring mass, shouting, "Slap that sheep!" "Kiss the sheep! It loves you!" "Slap the shit out of that soulless lamb!" "Kiss it! Slap it with smooches!"

The commotion built up. I couldn't take it anymore. I turned to my grandfather. He just sat there pounding the scotches away, shaking his head at me.

So what did I do? I slapped that sheep. Right across his face. The Descartes mob threw up their hands in hurrah. The Singer group bowed their heads in somber defeat. The child had spoken. Sheep had no souls.

My grandfather drove me back to his place. After a long silence in the car, he asked me why I slapped the sheep (he was in favor of Peter Singer). I said I didn't know whether sheep had souls or not. I didn't much care. But I guiltlessly slapped that sheep when I remembered that it was the very same sheep who told me to burn down the school. And I would never forgive him for leading me astray.

I've been in and out of hospitals ever since.