Pavlov's Dogs Preferred Liberty

from COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society, by Peter R. Breggin, MD

“Liberty can be considered a need. Even the mechanistic psychologist I. Pavlov postulated a “freedom reflex” in animals to describe their distress upon being confined or restrained. Pavlov does not show great empathy for the animals he experimented upon and tortured, so it is astonishing that he could recognize their impulse for freedom.”

We tried out experimentally numerous possible interpretations, but though we had

had long experience with a great number of dogs in our laboratories we could not

work out a satisfactory solution of this strange behaviour, until it occurred to us at

last that it might be the expression of a special freedom reflex, and that the dog simply

could not remain quiet when it was constrained in the stand. This reflex was overcome

by setting off another against it -- the reflex for food. We began to give the dog the

whole of its food in the stand. At first the animal ate but little, and lost considerably in

weight, but gradually it got to eat more, until at last the whole ration was consumed.

At the same time the animal grew quieter during the course of the experiments: the

freedom reflex was being inhibited. It is clear that the freedom reflex is one of the most

important reflexes, or, if we use a more general term, reactions, of living beings. This

reflex has even yet to find its final recognition. In [Henry] James's writings it is not even

enumerated among the special human "instincts." But it is clear that if the animal

were not provided with a reflex of protest against boundaries set to its freedom, the

smallest obstacle in its path would interfere with the proper fulfilment of its natural

functions. Some animals as we all know have this freedom reflex to such a degree that

when placed in captivity they refuse all food, sicken and die.