Status Of Non-human Animals Research Articles

Future Wars and Their Morale in Post- and Transhumanist Discourse

Post- and transhumanism postulate the end of anthropocene, and advocate the necessity of reflecting on the role of technology, status of non-human animals or machines in human life. In the forecasts of post- and transhumanists, one can identify possible future participants, the character, and the way of conducting modern wars. It was hypothesized that there is probably no consensus in the minds of post- and transhumanists about the definitional considerations of the concepts of "posthumanism" and "transhumanism," as is the vast majority about the nature of future wars and the "morale" of their participants.

Using Focus Groups to Explore Public Perceptions of Legal Rights for Animals

ABSTRACT A robust debate regarding the ideal legal status of nonhuman animals has been taking place for some time among legal scholars, philosophers, animal scientists, social scientists, and humanists. Significantly less attention has been paid, however, to exploring how members of the public conceptualize the legal treatment of animals, including what they see as the primary merits and drawbacks of proposed animal rights frameworks. Using focus groups with a non-activist population, this research explored how members of the public conceptualize the treatment of animals in society, generally, and under the law, specifically. From there, it set out to investigate how they responded to key concepts and messages used by advocates, as well as opponents, of animal legal rights. The findings help explain how individuals activate an interconnected mix of psychological and cultural norms, interpersonal and inter-species experiences, and mediated communication connections to form attitudes toward different categories of animals. What takes shape is an often contradictory set of beliefs about what animal legal rights could or should entail, as well as which animals are deserving of legal protections. While respondents hoped for a world in which animals were treated with greater respect, and they generally saw welfare-oriented legal protections of animals as valuable, when thinking about actual implementation, their support for animal legal rights was tempered by a set of intuitive and logistical misgivings. Primary objections centered on questions of how legal lines could be drawn to include certain species but not others, as well as the pragmatics of how animals could advocate for a defense of their own rights. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings for researchers, as well as legal and advocacy practitioners.

Making Veterinary Ethics More Ethical

Abstract Andrew and Clair Linzey’s Animal Ethics for Veterinarians collects numerous recent articles in the Journal of Animal Ethics. It offers readers a diverse set of chapters covering key issues relating to veterinary ethics: animal agriculture, animal research, veterinary oaths, complementary and alternative medicine, animal cruelty, and more. This review article discusses the book’s themes within the larger context of veterinary medicine and veterinary ethics. Compared to existing works in veterinary ethics, the book is less focused on clinical and professional issues and more focused on the ways in which veterinary medicine intersects with fundamental topics in animal ethics. Its contributors challenge veterinarians to rethink traditional stances on the moral status of nonhuman animals and the ethical defensibility of numerous practices with which veterinarians are commonly involved. As the profession has historically been conservative on animal welfare issues, the book is a welcome addition to the literature.

Animal Studies, Decoloniality and San Rock Art and Myth

SummaryAnimals occupy an ambivalent position in relation both to Western capitalist modernity and to decoloniality, one of modernity's most vehement opponents. Paradoxically, animals are equally central to and yet marginalised by these discourses, both of which are thoroughly anthropocentric. Racist discourses thrive on "animalising" groups of people, which can only work if the status of nonhuman animals is diminished. Modern agribusiness values nonhuman animals merely as resources. The meat industry profits from killing hundreds of millions of animals daily and is one of the main drivers of climate change and environmental destruction. In its relentless pursuit of profit, Western capitalist modernity destroys not only indigenous cultures but also the environments that sustain them, including indigenous fauna and flora. Ngũgĩ argues that Africans prior to colonialism had rich oral literary traditions, often centred on animals, which colonialism dismembered. This article explores the animal figure central to traditional San rock art and myth to see if this can form an imaginative basis for regaining respect for nonhuman animals. Until nonhuman animal lives are respected the attitudes that fuel both racism and environmental destruction will persist.

Betraying Animals

This paper presents a new way of thinking about the relationship between humans and the nonhuman animals in their care. Most ethical analysis of the treatment of nonhuman animals has focussed on questions of moral status, justice, and the wrongness of harming them. This paper does something different, it examines the role played by trust in interspecies relationships. In both agriculture and laboratory settings, humans deliberately foster trusting relationships with nonhuman animals. An intrinsic feature of the trusting relationship in these settings is that it is created in order to be exploited and betrayed. However, little consideration has been given to asking what a deliberate betrayal of another species says about the character of those who carry out the betrayals. This paper argues that regardless of the moral status of nonhuman animals, a willingness to foster trust in order to exploit the vulnerability of a nonhuman suggests a serious character flaw. Our failure thus far to apprehend systematic forms of betrayal indicates a moral blind-spot when it comes to other species.

Animals: A History ed. by Peter Adamson, and G. Fay Edwards

Reviewed by: Animals: A History ed. by Peter Adamson, and G. Fay Edwards Gary Steiner Peter Adamson, and G. Fay Edwards, editors. Animals: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiv + 454. Hardcover $99.00; paperback $34.95. Recent years have seen a proliferation of publications on the status of nonhuman animals in philosophy, some of them single-authored monographs and quite a few others taking the form of anthologies. Anthologies always present the reader with challenges, and in the case of this volume, the challenges are significant. While it is admirable that the editors have brought together essays on a variety of important thinkers and topics related to animals in the history of philosophy, the essays in this volume exhibit a conspicuous tendency to polemical (which is to say, exaggeratedly one-sided) readings of philosophers, as well as a tendency to ignore or pass over very quickly some extremely important work that has been done over the past generation. Perhaps the most troubling drawback to this volume is that some key issues are dealt with in passing by different essays, but never receive any sort of in-depth treatment that would serve the reader in further research. The editors provide a brief introduction that covers a vast array of issues and questions in fairly short order. The volume would have benefited from an introduction that examined and provided more guidance to the reader on central issues, such as the sorts of intelligence that nonhuman animals possess if we assume that their cognitive abilities must consist in more than mere sensory awareness while not being as sophisticated as human rationality. This issue is broached in a number of the contributions, but it is never thoroughly discussed. Instead, it is typically resolved with a solution that oversimplifies the philosopher’s or historical tradition’s views. Aristotle, for example, is best known for having excluded nonhuman animals from political community with humans on the grounds that nonhuman animals [End Page 566] lack logos (reason/language). Less well-known, but discussed by Devin Henry, the author of the contribution on Aristotle, is the fact that Aristotle wrote many hundreds of pages in his zoological writings emphasizing the sophisticated cognitive abilities of nonhuman animals, not infrequently using terms such as phronêsis and synesis in characterizing nonhuman animal intelligence. Henry acknowledges these remarks in the zoological texts but dismisses them on the grounds that Aristotle notes in those texts that there is something analogous to human rationality in nonhuman animals. This dismissal is a bit too hasty; it militates too strongly against the ambivalence about animal intelligence exhibited in Aristotle’s writings, and it leaves unanswered the question of what form nonhuman animal intelligence can take if we see it as more than mechanistic but less than full-blown human rationality. A similar one-sidedness is evident in the essay on Plutarch and Porphyry, where Fay Edwards argues strongly for the conclusion that these thinkers’ primary motivation was human welfare rather than any direct concern for nonhuman animals. The author’s argument rests on the idea that neither Plutarch nor Porphyry ascribes human rationality to nonhuman animals. While this is true, it begs the question of what the term ‘rationality’ meant for these thinkers as well as whether and to what extent they were open to the possibility that some nonhuman animals possess some sort of rationality. Porphyry opens Book 3 of On Abstinence with a very interesting discussion of the different forms of logos and the proposition that many nonhuman animals are capable of logos, even if not of logos that can be understood by human beings. Plutarch presents some extraordinarily thought-provoking anecdotes about nonhuman animal ingenuity, and while many of these might seem contrived at first blush, contemporary ethological research has made more and more of these anecdotes seem less far-fetched and worthy of serious reflection. The reader would have benefited from a discussion of some of these anecdotes; doing a lot more to show both sides of controversies such as this one would have put the reader in a position to make up her own mind about the thesis urged by the author of this essay. The...

Contemporary animal advocacy in Italy

In spite of the great tradition in social movement studies, Italy completely lacks any contribution regarding animal advocacy from the point of view of political sociology. This is despite the fact that, as in the rest of Western societies, interest in the wellbeing, rights and status of non-human animals is growing. This can be seen both among the general population and in the very varied organised forms of welfare and activism. In this article, we will investigate this internal differentiation, starting from an initial stratification in welfare, protectionism and anti-speciesism, and focusing in particular on the following two aspects: ethical values; and political ‘careers’ and multi-membership affiliations. The investigation was accomplished by means of 20 semi-structured interviews and an online questionnaire answered by 704 volunteers and activists. The tripartition hypothesised was confirmed, although with a few exceptions: more progressive values emerged among anti-speciesists, and conservative positions among protectionists and welfarists, but the overall spectrum is characterised by utilitarian perspectives. Similarly, previous experience in the specific field of animal advocacy is typical of the protectionist area, while anti-speciesists also come from other opposition movements.

Zwierzę jako absolutny Inny-otwieranie nie/możliwości

The starting point for consideration is to put the Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy into question whether the status of “absolute Otherness” may also belong to the Other other than man. On the basis of the thought of Levinas it receives a negative responseand it is because of his involvement in the so-called anthropological machine (which he shares with Martin Heidegger and some other critics of metaphysics). But it is, however, possible to open the (broadly defined) phenomenological ethical thought drew on the achievements of Levinas to the question of the animal. This attempt might be centered around the proposals of Jacques Derrida, the author of the essay The Animal That Therefore I Am (More To Follow), where he spoke about the singularity of each animal, the problematic status of border between man and animal,and the being-with animals as a full-fledged modality of being. This is a provocative thought which asks us about our attitude to such issues as “responsibility” and “responsiveness”, “carno-phallogocentrism”, or the status of non-human animals. Derrida’s thought is here very close to some kind of phenomenological language, but it is rather the phenomenology of the otherness than the phenomenology of intentional subject. The same phenomenology that we find in Bernhard Waldenfels’s or John D. Caputo’s writing.

Milieus and Sexual Difference

Irigaray's critique of the phallocentric subject's implicit dependence on the maternal-feminine “outside” is compelling. Her postulation of nonhierarchical sexual difference gives the relational world of woman specificity and Irigaray brings the subject's worldview to earth as merely the relation of the male human to the world. But the focus of her transvaluation remains largely anthropocentric; and she maintains too many aspects of the privilege of the subject's sovereignty as proper to male subjectivity. I suggest that, we need to extend Irigaray and to think sexual difference beyond the human. Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson and Jakob Von Uexküll, I argue that we need to think life beyond the constitution of the organism as the continuous enmeshment of different milieus. Sexual difference is a force of differentiation that articulates relationships between organisms and organs as crucial aspects of many milieus that make up the Earth. Along with the sexually differentiated aspects of milieus, there are rhythms of difference constitutive of milieus that are not sexed. The first section of the essay describes Irigaray's conceptualization of sexual difference between humans. Then I turn to her engagement with the status of nonhuman animals in “Animal Compassion.” I suggest her approach in this essay is too anthropocentric and move to a discussion of Uexküll's thinking on milieus as a way to extend the concepts of difference and sexual difference into posthuman contexts. The essay concludes by reading Irigaray's concept of difference with Deleuze and Bergson.

Making a Killing, Bob Torres

Making a Killing, Bob Torres

Before the law: humans and other animals in a biopolitical frame

Animal studies and biopolitics are two of the most dynamic areas of interdisciplinary scholarship, but until now, they have had little to say to each other. Bringing these two emergent areas of thought into direct conversation in Before the Law, Cary Wolfe fosters a new discussion about the status of nonhuman animals and the shared plight of humans and animals under biopolitics. Wolfe argues that the human-animal distinction must be supplemented with the central distinction of biopolitics: the difference between those animals that are members of a community and those that are deemed killable but not murderable. From this understanding, we can begin to make sense of the fact that this distinction prevails within both the human and animal domains and address such difficult issues as why we afford some animals unprecedented levels of care and recognition while subjecting others to unparalleled forms of brutality and exploitation. Engaging with many major figures in biopolitical thought - from Heidegger, Arendt, and Foucault to Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and Derrida - Wolfe explores how biopolitics can help us understand both the ethical and political dimensions of the current questions surrounding the rights of animals.

Neuroscience and the Problem of Other Animal Minds

ABSTRACTA recent argument in the neuroethics literature has suggested that brain-mental-state identities (one popular expression of what is commonly known as neuroreductionism) promise to settle epistemological uncertainties about nonhuman animal minds. What's more, these brain-mental-state identities offer the further promise of dismantling the deadlock over the moral status of nonhuman animals, to positive affect in such areas as agriculture and laboratory animal science. I will argue that neuroscientific claims assuming brain-mental-state identities do not so much resolve the problem of other animal minds as mark its resolution. In the meantime, we must rely on the tools available to us, including those provided by such behavioral sciences as cognitive ethology, comparative psychology, and ethology as well as the neurosciences. Focusing on captive animal research, I will also argue that humane experimentalists do not doubt that many of their research subjects have minds (in some substantive sense of that term). In that light, to suggest that the resolution of the problem of other animal minds would change the scientific use of animals misses the point at issue. Instead, what is required is a 'sea change' in the perceived grounds for human moral obligations to nonhumans. It is difficult to see how brain-mental-state identities could be the deciding factor in this continuing issue in applied ethics.1. IntroductionThe epistemological problem of other animal minds is a subspecies of the problem of other minds familiar to any undergraduate philosophy student (or science fiction aficionado). Given that I only seem to have direct access to my own mental states (e.g., my beliefs, desires, emotions, feelings), how do I know that others, including other nonhuman animals (hereafter animals), have minds1 or minds relevantly different than, or similar to, my own? The epistemic uncertainty implied by these questions remains even after granting minds to fellow humans. The practical implications of this problem seem clear. Animal welfare efforts in conservation biology, agriculture, scientific research, and the pet industry (and this list is not exhaustive) are predicated on understanding the needs of the relevant animals qua subjects who can fare well or badly (Dawkins 2005; Grandin 2010; McMillan 2005; Orlans 2002; Sherwin 2006; Sherwin et al. 2003). To fare well or badly as subjects presumes subjectivity and this brings us to questions (much like those above) about their minds (e.g., Dawkins 2005; 2008).A recent argument in the neuroethics literature (Farah 2008) receiving increasing notice (Allen 2010; Buchman and Reiner 2009; Fins et al. 2008; Wu 2008) (hereafter the Cognitive Neuroscience or CN Argument) has suggested that an assumed metaphysical materialism, common in the contemporary cognitive neurosciences and elsewhere, implies that neuroscientific evidence provides (note the present tense) a different kind of evidence that is in principle more informative than what traditionally grounds ascriptions of mental states to others. This evidence, which assumes certain brain-mental-state identities, can settle epistemological uncertainties about animal minds once and for all. Such a monumental event, it is argued, would dismantle the deadlock over the moral status of animals and so morally advance their treatment in such areas as captive research (e.g., the laboratory) and agriculture (Farah 2008).In what follows I will contend that neither of these claims is particularly persuasive, though not because of a skepticism of animal minds. The apparent strength of the CN Argument arises from both the assumption that certain brain states are identical to certain mental states and that evidence of such brain states provides direct evidence of minds, in contrast to the kind of indirect (largely behavioral) evidence traditionally used to justify ascriptions of mental states. I will argue that the attraction of this claim for proponents of the CN Argument is grounded in a confusion of epistemic and metaphysical considerations relating behavior, brain states, and mental states. …

Le regard de l’animal chez Jean-Loup Trassard et Jacques Derrida

As the notion of human singularity continues to erode, non-human animals have ceased to be amorphous objects and have acquired subjectivity in their own right. The agrarian ethic of the writer Jean-Loup Trassard has always respected the ontological status of non-human animals. His short stories, in particular, evoke uncanny encounters linking people and animals, proving that the imagination has a role to play in combating speciesism. Jacques Derrida's experience of otherness when confronted by his eat's bottomless gaze shatters his human ability to conceptualize the animal's existence. In the works of both Trassard and Derrida, such fluidity and vulnerability take the reader to the limits of anthropomorphism and contribute to animal rights discourse.

The Reception of Peter Singer’s Theories in France

AbstractPeter Singer’s views on the status of nonhuman animals have attracted both attention and intense controversy in many Western countries, including the United States, Canada, and Germany. The reactions to his theories in France are less well known. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of critical responses to Singer by French academics and thinkers. How have they received Singer’s contention that we must bring nonhuman animals within the sphere of moral concern? Do French scholars agree with his utilitarian argument on marginal cases, his definition of the term “person,” his defense of the Great Ape Project? Finally, is he considered in France a brilliant and groundbreaking ethicist, a dangerous extremist, or somewhere in between?

Abuse of nonhuman animals rights in the context of Zimbabwes Agrarian reforms (2000 - 2006): An ethical perspective

The paper explores the history of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals in Zimbabwe and how her chaotic agrarian reforms that started in the year 2000 have impacted on the rights of nonhuman animals. It also attempts to make some comparisons between the moral status of nonhuman animals in Western tradition and traditional Zimbabwean societies. Finally, the paper explores the impact of Zimbabwe’s agrarian reforms on nonhuman animals’ rights to unhindered access to land for habitation and a life free of human induced suffering. Key words: Human, nonhuman, rights, land, reform, moral, Zimbabwe, Western, traditional, indigenous.

動物權益問題

動物權益問題

A Feeling for the Language

The author proposes that animal experimentation is one part of a master narrative involving presumptions about Western medical care, knowledge acquisition, and the object status of nonhuman animals. Drawing on Cohn’s analysis of the language of nuclear defense, the author applies her insights to Dunayer’s path-breaking work on speciesist language. She identifies profound connections between Cohn’s and Dunayer’s analyses, specifically “take the high ground and hold it,”“the disappearance of the victim,” and “squeeze out all available space for feeling.” The author sketches some of these connections and concludes by suggesting some of the ecofeminist implications of Dunayer’s work, specifically ecofeminism’s critique of dualistic cultural constructions that, for instance, oppose emotion to rationality. Coining the term pathophobia —the refusal to feel and thus the refusal to engage with the suffering of animals—the author suggests why master narratives will always be pathophobic.

The Carnivore Strikes Back

Since philosophers began thinking seriously about the moral status of non-human animals, many of the practices we once took for granted have come to be condemned as unjustifiable, among them our reliance on animals as a food source. While the arguments which have been adduced in support of moral vegetarianism invoke quite different (indeed incompatible) moral frameworks, they begin with a common concern for the welfare of animals. In the real world of practising vegetarians, this concern tends to be subordinated to considerations of health or food scarcity. Philosophical vegetarians need not deny, and have not denied, the importance of these further considerations. But among philosophers the case for moral vegetarianism has rested primarily on arguments from animal welfare.