Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies 0199927146 9780199927142
Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies 0199927146 9780199927142
(p. iv)
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Page 1 of 2
Preface
Preface
Edited by Linda Kalof
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Page 1 of 1
List of Contributors
List of Contributors
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Kate Nattrass Atema is the director of the Global Companion Animals Program at
the International Fund for Animal Welfare, chairperson of the International Compan
ion Animal Management (ICAM) Coalition, Faculty Fellow at Tufts University School
of Veterinary Medicine, and a contributing lecturer on animal welfare for Edinburgh
University’s online animal welfare and ethics course.
Page 1 of 6
List of Contributors
Sue Donaldson is coauthor (with Will Kymlicka) of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of An
imal Rights, and a cofounder of the Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics
research initiative at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada.
David Favre teaches property, international environmental law, and animal law at
Michigan State University, and has been a national and international scholar of ani
mal law since his first law review article on wildlife rights appeared back in 1981.
Erica Fudge is professor of English studies at the University of Strathclyde, and di
rector of the British Animal Studies Network.
Page 2 of 6
List of Contributors
Carol Gigliotti is a writer and scholar whose work challenges the current assump
tions of creativity and offers a more comprehensive understanding of creativity
through recognizing animal cognition, consciousness, and agency.
Linda Kalof is a professor of sociology, environmental science, and policy and com
munity sustainability, and the director of the interdisciplinary graduate specialization
in animal studies at Michigan State University.
Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s Uni
versity in Kingston, Canada, and coauthor, with Sue Donaldson, of Zoopolis: A Politi
cal Theory of Animal Rights.
Lori Marino is founder and executive director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Ad
vocacy and was formerly a senior lecturer at Emory University and a faculty affiliate
at the Emory Center for Ethics.
James B. Mason is an attorney and the author of An Unnatural Order: Roots of Our
Destruction of Nature.
Page 3 of 6
List of Contributors
Mike Michael is a sociologist of science and technology, and a professor at the De
partment of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney.
Susana Monsó is affiliated with the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of
Science at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, as well as the
Unit of Ethics and Human-Animal Studies at Messerli Research Institute, Vienna.
Michael Paul Nelson holds the Ruth H. Spaniol Chair in Renewable Resources and
is a professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at Oregon State University.
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List of Contributors
Boria Sax is the author of fifteen books, including Imaginary Animals: The Mon
strous, the Wondrous and the Human.
James A. Serpell is the Marie A. Moore Professor of Animal Ethics and Welfare at
the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
John Vucetich is associate professor of wildlife ecology in the School of Forest Re
sources and Environmental Science at Michigan Technological University and codi
rector of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Study.
Paul Waldau is a professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, where he is the
director of the master of science graduate program in anthrozoology.
Page 5 of 6
List of Contributors
(p. xiv)
Page 6 of 6
Introduction
Introduction
Linda Kalof
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory
Online Publication Date: Oct 2016 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.37
This chapter introduces the field of animal studies as an interdisciplinary scholarly en
deavor to understand the relationship humans have with other animals. That relationship
is mapped into five major categories, reflected in the titles of each of the handbook’s five
parts: “Animals in the Landscape of Law, Politics and Public Policy”; “Animal Intentionali
ty, Agency, and Reflexive Thinking”; “Animals as Objects in Science, Food, Spectacle and
Sport”; “Animals in Cultural Representations”; and “Animals in Ecosystems.” The chap
ters in each part are summarized and key issues in the “animal question” are explicated.
Chapter topics include animals in research, entertainment, law, political theory, public
policy, agency, tourism and ecology. Concluding remarks include an appeal for altruistic
coexistence for all beings in the earth’s ecosystem.
Keywords: politics, legal status, public policy, no-kill shelters, agency, intentionality, human-animal bond, property,
critical animal studies, coexistence
THE publication of an Oxford Handbook marks a watershed moment in the current think
ing and research on a major scholarly topic, and we celebrate the inclusion of The Oxford
Handbook of Animal Studies in that hallowed archive. This is a critical turning point in
time, when the “animal question” has assumed a priority position in the discourse of poli
tics, ethics, public policy, and law, changing the relationship humans have with other ani
mals in ways that will never again be the same as they were before. Intellectual struggles
with the animal question began in earnest in the 1970s, and in the last few decades, ani
mal studies has flourished, becoming an established area of inquiry in a staggering array
of academic disciplines. Thematic sections on the relationship between humans and other
animals are now part of academic professional societies, and numerous undergraduate
programs offer both majors and minors in animal studies, and master’s and doctoral stu
dents can specialize in animal studies at Michigan State University, in what is the first but
surely not the last animal studies graduate program at a research university.
The remarkable flourishing of animal studies is due to the widespread recognition of (1)
the commodification of animals in a wide variety of human contexts such as the use of an
imals as food, labor, and the objects of spectacle and science; (2) the degradation of the
Page 1 of 21
Introduction
natural world, a staggering loss of animal habitat, and species extinction, and (3) our in
creasing need to coexist with other animals in urban, rural, and natural contexts. These
themes are mapped into five major categories that structure this handbook into five
parts: “Animals in the Landscape of Law, Politics, and Public Policy”; “Animal Intentionali
ty, Agency, and Reflexive Thinking”; “Animals as Objects in Science, Food, Spectacle, and
Sport”; “Animals in Cultural Representations”; and “Animals in Ecosystems.” Each catego
ry is explicated in chapters written by international scholars from diverse backgrounds,
including philosophy, law, history, English, art, sociology, geography, archaeology, environ
mental studies, cultural studies, and animal advocacy. While some chapters fit well into
one category, others resisted easy classification, representing the fluid, multifaceted na
ture of animal studies work. With that caveat in (p. 2) mind, the five categories and their
constitutive chapters are a good overview of the most authoritative and up-to-date sur
veys of animal studies scholarship.
We begin with Gary Francione and Anna Charlton’s chapter, “Animal Rights,” which pro
vides an overview of the history and key concepts of animal rights and animal ethics.
They note that because the history of animal rights is filled with contradictions, misuses,
and inconsistent developments, an abolitionist approach to animal rights that rejects all
animal use is necessary. They argue that animals matter morally and therefore cannot be
used as resources and that even domesticated species should not be brought into exis
tence for human use, no matter how humanely the animals are treated. The abolitionist
Page 2 of 21
Introduction
approach also rejects animal welfare reform and “single-issue” campaigns to prohibit par
ticular animal uses, such as for fur or foie gras. Finally, they explain why veganism is con
sidered the moral baseline for the abolitionist approach and is the only rational response
to the notion that animals have moral value. The sole cognitive characteristic that is im
portant in the abolitionist approach is sentience, or subjective awareness; sentient ani
mals are beings with interests (preferences, wants, and desires).
In “Animals in Political Theory,” Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka argue that situating an
imal rights in a political theory of democracy, citizenship, and sovereignty provides a
unique model of justice in the relationship between humans and other animals. (p. 3) Don
aldson and Kymlicka critique both animal welfarist and animal rights positions for trying
to strengthen the moral status of animals without considering their political status. In
deed, it is this lack of political inclusion that explains the general failure of animal advo
cacy movements based only on morality. They make three key points about the limitation
of traditional animal rights theory and the promise of a political theory of animal rights:
(1) animals not only have intrinsic moral status but also morally significant relationships
and memberships that generate distinctive rights and obligations; (2) we cannot avoid the
exercise of power by ending the domination of domesticated animals or leaving free-living
animals alone, and we need to acknowledge the inevitability of asymmetric power and
hold that power accountable; and (3) justice requires not only reducing suffering but also
recognizing animals as intentional beings who have the ability to communicate their own
desires.
David Favre also advocates giving domestic animals more visibility in the political and so
cial arena. In his chapter, “Animals as Living Property,” Favre proposes changing the legal
status of domestic animals from “personal property” to a new legal category, “living prop
erty.” He argues that the legal system lags behind the public in its attitudes toward ani
mals, as in the case of divorce, when companion animals are legally categorized as per
sonal property, and the fact of ownership determines who is awarded custody of the ani
mal. Classifying animals as “living property” acknowledges that animals have their own
interests and rights and that ownership is not as important as the animal’s best interests,
which is consistent with public sentiment that companion animals have the right to be
placed with a caring human. Living property status provides animals with the legal rights
(1) not to be held for or put to legally prohibited uses, (2) not to be unnecessarily harmed,
(3) to be given adequate support for physical and mental well-being, (4) to have adequate
living space, and (5) to be properly owned. Ultimately, what constitutes acceptable use of
an animal who is living property is a political decision, and the legal system must in
evitably address issues by species or public sentiment. The allocation of legal rights to do
mestic animals not only allows issues of animal rights and legal personhood to be directly
addressed but also has the potential to shape new human-animal relationships.
Page 3 of 21
Introduction
were buried with a variety of small mammals with whom they appeared to have had a
special relationship in life. The human-companion animal relationship is “mutualistic,”
conferring adaptive benefits on both humans and other animals. It has been documented
that living with companion animals benefits humans’ physical and mental health (and re
duces expenditures on health care) and stimulates positive social interactions and rela
tionships with others. Serpell notes that human-animal relationships sometimes have a
negative impact on society: dog bites, for example, are a public-health problem (most
bites are from known dogs who bite children); companion animals can transmit zoonotic
diseases to humans; cat predation on wild bird species has depleted avian biodiversity;
(p. 4) animal waste pollutes parks and natural areas; and feeding the seventy-five million
companion dogs in the United States is a significant environmental burden. Failed hu
man-animal bonds produce millions of animals who are abused, abandoned, relinquished
to shelters, and prematurely euthanized. Purebred dogs often develop debilitating health
and physical problems, and the exotic animal trade creates widespread suffering and
death among wild animal populations. Serpell concludes that the failed human-animal
bond is an ethical issue that needs to be taken into account when weighing the benefits
and costs of our relations with companion animals.
Leslie Irvine addresses one of the major outcomes of the failed human-animal bond in her
chapter, “Animal Sheltering,” a history of the social and cultural significance of sheltering
that reveals how the presence of animals in society shapes public policy, laws, and institu
tions. The first animal shelters emerged in response to the social problem of free-roaming
animals, particularly dogs, in urban areas. A bounty system made catching and killing
dogs appealing to “unsavory characters” and created an incentive to steal pets to in
crease earnings. The brutality of methods used to dispose of surplus animals gave rise to
a humanitarian movement that had no problem with killing animals and was only con
cerned with the means of killing. Today, the practice of killing healthy animals is the most
important issue in animal sheltering. A conservative estimate of the number of animals
who die in shelters annually is just under three million, making shelters the leading cause
of death for US companion animals and giving rise to the no-kill shelter movement, which
has reconfigured the practices of sheltering. The first no-kill sanctuary for animals
opened in 1984, and ten years later, the nonprofit Maddie’s Fund was established to cre
ate a no-kill nation. The social transition from the mass killing of strays to rehabilitation
and rehoming in shelters is reflective of changing beliefs about the emotional value of
dogs and cats, who are now widely believed to deserve ethical consideration. Irvine con
cludes that “the institution of sheltering highlights the position of animals in the intricate
relationship between public policy and private morality.”
Homeless animals are also the focus of Arnold Arluke and Kate Atema’s chapter, “Roam
ing Dogs.” They illustrate that the stigma attached to free-roaming dogs is a social issue
that throughout history has incited negativity and a projection of unsafe, unkempt spaces.
Arluke and Atema describe the global efforts among disadvantaged communities to re
solve the problem of roaming and unhealthy dogs. Historically, relations with roaming
dogs have been limited to strategies meant to curtail populations and improve the aes
thetics of human-dominated spaces, often through killing and disposal. Roaming dogs are
Page 4 of 21
Introduction
widely considered pariahs in the human community; they are unaccepted creatures, un
deserving of compassion, recipients of brutality, and instigators of social conflict over
such issues as waste management and property divisions. These conflicts can involve
politicians, animal-welfare advocates, city administrators, and citizens who take sides on
a contentious issue, with dogs often killed as a result of polarized positions. The variabili
ty in community relationships between humans and roaming dogs can be influenced by
humane interventions into dog-related problems, including vaccination, sterilization, par
asite control, helping sick or injured animals, and public outreach. The authors conclude
that changing the perception that roaming dogs are problematic pests (p. 5) can revital
ize a community, bringing an increase in friendly interactions and stronger connections
between humans and roaming dogs, such as including the dogs as part of rather than sep
arate from the human community.
How is it that some animals are so poorly regarded by humans? In a leap back into pre
history, Jim Mason’s chapter explicates the history of the human disrespect for animals
and nature. In “Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions,” Mason argues that before domestication reduced animals to slaves and
commodities, humans regarded them with a sense of kinship and continuity with the liv
ing world. With the advent of domestication, misothery became a “cultural device”
shaped by art, myth, ritual, and religion that provided humans with a sense of “suprema
cy and a license to exploit animals and nature.” Evidence of the transition from totemic
(animal- and nature-affirming) culture to domestic culture (misothery) is found in the epic
poem Gilgamesh and on Mesopotamian cylinder seals that depict conflict between hu
mans (culture) and animals (nature). In contemporary culture, humans detach themselves
from domestic animals through concealment or distancing, such as making invisible
slaughterhouses, feedlots, and animal confinement facilities. Mason concludes that the
human contempt for our own animality is at the root of all alienation from animals and na
ture and that our exploitation of animals and nature is destroying the living world.
Page 5 of 21
Introduction
In “Animals as Legal Subjects,” Paul Waldau also laments the human-animal dualism that
removes humans from the scientific category of “animal.” He argues that an enriched
awareness of animals as legal subjects would challenge human exceptionalism and the
view that humans are to dominate over all that is nonhuman, a perspective that legal sys
tems permit and encourage through use of the concept of property. While Favre retained
the use of the word “property” in his categorization of animals as “living property,” Wal
dau argues that it is the very designation of “property” that is most problematic as a hu
man-centered, potent, and influential concept. Expanding the understanding of animals
as legal subjects would be consistent with the realization that nonhuman animals have
their own subjectivities, interests, emotions, and intelligence. (p. 6) We are reminded that
the future is ours to shape: we can recognize or deny that humans can be earth-centered
and caring about fellow animals, and the choice will make a difference in the future of
both humans and nonhumans.
Promoting an earth-centered world is also the goal of Carol Gigliotti’s chapter, “The
Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies.” Gigliotti views crit
ical animal studies (CAS) as a way to achieve global justice for animals, humans, and the
earth. She argues that as a “decidedly different approach” to animal studies, CAS is open
ly committed to veganism, animal rights, and the understanding that “the pursuit of ani
mal liberation and human liberation are one and the same.” Adopting a vegan position is
an acknowledgement that animals are fellow beings with agency and should not be ob
jects for human use. She argues that CAS reveals the intersections of the global problems
of political, economic, and social inequality and poverty; the animal industrial complex;
and environmental and climate degradation. Meat consumption is at the center of the
CAS critique of global injustice; it causes environmental damage from intensive animal in
dustries, diverts grains to feed animals instead of people, and subjects animals and em
ployees to the dangerous, unhealthy, and unjust working conditions in slaughterhouses
and meatpacking plants. Finally, genetic technology has reframed and repurposed ani
mals as objects solely for human use. Gigliotti concludes that compassion and justice are
necessary to end the misery of others, and we must acknowledge that social justice in
cludes all species.
Part I ends with Josephine Donovan’s chapter, “Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics:
The Feminist Care Perspective,” an exemplary segue to Part II on animal agency. Donovan
focuses on the need to understand the standpoint of animals and their communications,
which is necessary to any theory about their treatment. She argues that humans do ani
mals a great disservice by ignoring their voices, and feminist care theory contends that
we are ethically obligated not only to listen to what animals are telling us but also to act
accordingly. Care theory advocates three ways to understand animal communications and
language: sympathy, empathy, and attentiveness. Donovan makes the important point that
the values and practices associated with a feminist care ethic should be part of official
discourses and institutions, and not limited to women and personal domestic relation
ships and devalued as sentimentalist. Learning how to listen to animals through inter
species dialogue has the potential to transform the human treatment of animals. As a po
Page 6 of 21
Introduction
litical theory, feminist care theory provides a foundation for animal ethics through inter
species dialogue and the development of an understanding of animals’ wishes.
In “Cetacean Cognition,” Lori Marino provides an overview of the key elements of reflex
ive thinking in dolphins (language, pointing and reference, self-awareness, innovation and
imitation, body image, self-recognition, self-imitation, and metacognition). Dolphins are
cognitively sophisticated as reflexive, self-aware, and introspective animals. They can un
derstand pointing as a reference to an object, perform well on tasks that require self-
awareness and engage in actions that demonstrate that they know who they are, under
stand the concept of imitation, mimic arbitrary sounds and human behaviors, remember
prior behaviors to produce a new behavior, learn to move or use specified body parts in
specified ways, and recognize themselves in a mirror. In the social setting, dolphins have
unique capacities and propensities (social complexity, networking, and culture) that illus
trate “their cognitive functions provide scaffolding for their complex social capacities”
and that they can only thrive as reflexive thinkers in a natural social group. In captivity,
dolphins suffer psychological disturbances and abnormalities, poor health, and high mor
tality rates. Because dolphins have a “communal sense of self,” they must live in social
groups that provide opportunities for role-taking and fluid, multilevel interactions, includ
ing planning for the future and transmitting culturally learned behaviors, such as the use
of tools and the learning of dialects.
Page 7 of 21
Introduction
Chris Pearson discusses animal intentions in “History and Animal Agencies,” although his
focus is on domestic animals (primarily horses and dogs), not wildlife, and thus his exami
nation of animal agency is necessarily linked with human action. Pearson begins with an
overview of rationality as the foundation of the difference between humans and other ani
mals, and describes the hybrid, boundary-blurring work of Bruno Latour and Donna Har
away that challenges the human-animal divide and provides the opportunity to examine
animal agency. Animals shape society and history as agents who can enable or stop activi
ties, although intentionality and consciousness are not prerequisites of agency. For exam
ple, notes Pearson, horses unintentionally shaped society (p. 8) and history by powering
industrial, commercial, and agricultural life in the nineteenth century and in warfare. The
role of technology is evident in the horses’ “agential mix” in the presence of saddles, har
nesses, and carts; thus animal agency was an intermingling of human and nonhuman
agents and technology. Intentionality-based agency—that is, the ability to engage in self-
directed and purposeful action in their environments and in relationships with other
agents—is a continuum of characteristics that all animals (humans, dogs, apes, horses,
cats) have in varying degrees. Documenting animal agency is problematic for historians
who work with verbal, written, and visual sources, and Pearson doubts that an animal’s
perspective, motivation, and experience can be understood from sources produced by hu
mans. However, it is possible to record animals as purposeful and capable agents from
such sources. Further, it is doubtful that animal agency can be “resistance behavior” be
cause they do not have language; “animals may individually challenge the particular cir
cumstances in which they find themselves … but this is not resistance in the political
sense.” Animals, he argues, are not political. Pearson concludes that even with the limita
tions on what we can know about animal agency, historians should continue to uncover
animal influence and abilities to challenge the paradigm of human exceptionalism.
The potential for historians to document animal agency is also discussed in Erica Fudge’s
chapter, “What Was It Like to Be a Cow? History and Animal Studies.” Fudge argues that
the animal’s point of view can be understood historically using the findings of animal wel
fare science and ethology. For example, an animal history of agriculture recognizes ani
mals as actors and helps us to understand how livestock shaped their environments and
how humans and other animals coexisted in emotional and economic relationships. Fudge
emphasizes that animal agency does not require self-reflexive intentionality and says that
animals “are to be negotiated with.” Animal agency must be understood in the historical
context, with historical worldviews kept central in the analysis. The point of view of wild
animals is particularly difficult for the historian to assess, as tigers and sharks for exam
ple appear “in the archive only when they attack.” However, some scholars have been
successful in understanding how wild animals make their own histories. A good illustra
tion is the coexistence of humans and the lions of India’s Gir Forest. The lions live in close
proximity to humans, and that shared landscape is made possible because of the lions’ ca
pacity to learn from experience and to transmit those lessons to the next generation,
avoiding lethal conflict with humans. Another problem for the historian is recording ani
mal agency in groups; what is their existence as “intraspecific social beings,” as members
of the herd, pack, or flock? While there may be little direct evidence of animals’ experi
Page 8 of 21
Introduction
ences, agricultural history records the connection between herd size and individual ani
mal behavior. Fudge agrees with Pearson that it is impossible to set aside the human per
spective, but she believes a “hybrid history,” which acknowledges humans and animals as
co-constituents in shaping history, is possible and perhaps the best that historians can do:
“an imperfect history is better than no history at all.” She proposes “itstory” as a way to
(1) give subjectivity to animals, who are usually objectified in discourse as “it” or
“that” (rather than “her” or “who”), and (2) remind us that history is made by both hu
mans and animals and that understanding is based on (p. 9) companionship. She empha
sizes the work of Vinciane Despret (What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Ques
tions? 2016) who argues that research questions should focus on what animals do, what
they think about, and what they want. Fudge concludes by returning to the question of
what it is like to be a cow, but she acknowledges that all she can know is the animal’s ex
perience of being with humans. That experience, along with the animal’s experience of
being with other animals and the human’s experience of being with the animal, consti
tutes a history that engages all participants in a story.
In “Animals as Sentient Commodities,” Rhoda Wilkie tackles the problem of the contradic
tory status of livestock, who are regarded both as property and as sentient beings, and
the resulting perceptual dilemma for the human workers who care for them. The mix of
economic considerations and an affinity for livestock relations creates tension in the ani
mal production context that has conceptual, emotional, ethical, and practical contradic
tions. For example, the stockperson faces contradictory roles as an economic producer,
on the one hand, and a steward of livestock, on the other, and must grapple with the
dilemma of “the cultivation of animal health for the purpose of death.” Understanding
both the productive and nonproductive aspects of the stockperson’s role deepens the ap
preciation of the challenges, paradoxes, and ambivalence he or she faces in working with
animals who are sentient commodities. Finally, the discrepancy between the legal and
perceived status of animals and the concept of “sentient commodities” provides a more
nuanced understanding of the complex relationship humans have with other animals.
In “Animal Work,” Jocelyn Porcher elaborates on the argument made by Wilkie that work
ing with animals is a complex human-animal relationship. Work is the primary tie that
binds humans and other animals, and Porcher laments an agriculture without livestock,
or a human world without any domestic animals. In the abolitionist perspective, work re
lations between humans and animals are “reduced to their most basic expression, that of
the production of meat.” Echoing Jim Mason’s concern in “Misothery” and Ralph
Acampora’s phenomenological “corporeal commonality,” Porcher notes that humanity was
shaped by powerful ties with animals but is now “evolving toward a self-constructed hu
man model in which we reject the part of us that is animal.” But while Mason views do
mestication as the process that separated humans from animals, and Francione and
Charlton argue for the abolishment of domestication, Porcher considers domestication
central to our relationship with other animals. For example, there are intersubjective re
lations between humans and animals at work. The subjective involvement of animals in
work includes education by both humans and conspecifics, inter- and intraspecies com
munication, affection and friendship, obedience to (and the power to negotiate) work
Page 9 of 21
Introduction
rules, and the capacity to take initiative. Animals are actors in the work they perform, and
they have a need to be recognized for doing effective work. Porcher concludes that in the
face of arguments supporting the elimination of all domesticated animals, it is critical
that we understand work as an essential component of the human-animal bond.
In “Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm,” Mark Rowlands and Susana
Monsó address animal agency by challenging the notion that reflexive thought (p. 10) re
quires a complex suite of cognitive abilities and psychological states. They recommend an
“aponoian” framework (leaving intelligence and thought aside) to question the impor
tance of the capacity for reflexive thought, which is believed to be necessary for many
other psychological abilities in animals. The authors do not argue that animals lack intelli
gence, but rather that “seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as com
plex as they seem.” Animals are thought to lack cognitive abilities (such as conscious
ness, beliefs, emotions, empathy, and moral judgment) because of the “implausibly
(over)intellectualist account” of what those abilities consist of. For example, the argu
ment that animals cannot have beliefs depends on two errors made in the process of over
intellectualization: premature meta-articulation and the making/tracking confusion. In the
assumption that animals do not have beliefs, premature meta-articulation is the blurring
of awareness of the content of a belief (what the belief is about) with awareness of a be
lief (a state of affairs or the way the world is). The making/tracking confusion is the as
sumption that attributing beliefs to an animal can be legitimate only when the animal is
capable of entertaining a given claim or making a given judgment. However, making
sense of an animal’s behavior does not require the animal make a judgment; all that is re
quired for attribution of a belief to be explanatory is that “there is an appropriate relation
of tracking … between the thought the animal actually thinks and the thought we at
tribute to her.” The authors conclude that philosophers and scientists should avoid over
complicating animal cognitive abilities.
Page 10 of 21
Introduction
portant ethical arguments in each of these objectifying scenarios, and cost-benefit analy
sis is particularly relevant in scientific and agricultural contexts. Simply put, animals con
tinue to be used in research because it is believed that their use produces benefits for hu
mans and other animals that outweigh the harm done to the (p. 11) animal victim. In the
agricultural context, the importance of improving animal welfare pales in comparison to
the importance of making a profit. Institutions that use captive wildlife to attract human
audiences, such as zoos, aquariums, and circuses, also objectify animals, although some
zoos such as the Detroit Zoo focus primarily on animal welfare and rescue. We have a
long tradition of displaying wild animals for human entertainment, and the infamous Ro
man arena hunts combined the use of exotic animals as both spectacle and sport. Some
contemporary animal sports closely resemble those of the ancients, such as the hunting of
trophy animals in enclosed areas and bullfighting. Even when animals are “free-roam
ing,” hunting them as objects of nature is morally questionable. As Matt Cartmill argues,
humans are also animals and it is inappropriate for them to seek out and kill animals of
other species.
The first chapter in Part III addresses scientific research on animals. In “The Ethics of An
imal Research: Theory and Practice,” Bernard Rollin argues that there are two compo
nents of scientific ideology that have dismissed ethics as meaningful in scientific research
that uses animals: logical positivism, or the belief that proper science rests on verifiable
claims based on empirical evidence, and skepticism about the ability to study the exis
tence of consciousness. Mental states, such as animal thoughts and feelings, cannot be
scientifically studied because they are not “intersubjectively observable,” and therefore
they are not of concern to scientists. There are, however, moral issues in the use of ani
mals in science; both invasive and noninvasive research cause pain and suffering. Al
though there is no morally relevant difference between intellectually disabled humans
and some animals, research on challenged humans takes place only after the informed
consent of either the individual or the guardian has been obtained; but no informed con
sent is required from animals. The most defensible argument for the use of animals in re
search is that it produces benefits for humans and other animals, a utilitarian perspective
that renders both invasive and noninvasive animal research morally acceptable. Rollin
notes that this exception gives rise to another moral issue: why do we continue to con
duct animal research that produces more costs than benefits? The ethical arguments
against animal research have resulted in the passage of legislation in the United States
that “bespeaks a society in transition … society does not wish to see innocent animals suf
fer, [but] it is also not yet prepared to risk losing the benefits of animal research.” Al
though animal use in science continues, many countries have adopted laws and policies to
address an increased social concern for the welfare of laboratory animals. For example, in
the United States, the Animal Care and Use Committee is charged with approving scien
tific projects involving animals. Its review of research proposals includes consideration of
the mental states of the animal, including pain, suffering, distress, and control of stress,
in addition to the cost and benefit to the animals. Recently, there has been a decrease in
some unnecessary research, such as cosmetic testing, brutal laboratory exercises in med
ical and veterinary schools have declined, and new surgical techniques using cadavers
Page 11 of 21
Introduction
and models have increased. The new laws and policies on animal research (1) emphasize
that society views invasive animal research as a moral issue, (2) thwart the scientific ide
ology that precludes scientific engagement with ethics, and (3) lead to the understanding
that animals suffer and that suffering needs to be controlled.
Animals in the agricultural setting is the focus of Paul Thompson’s chapter, “The
(p. 12)
Ethics of Food Animal Production.” He summarizes two traditions in the ethics of food an
imal production: the “dietetic” approach, which critiques the consumption of animals, and
the “productionist” approach, which addresses the food animal production system and an
imal health and well-being. Thompson focuses primarily on the productionist approach
and contemporary livestock production, describing the pros and cons of husbandry sys
tems that confine animals who are raised for meat or produce products for human con
sumption, such as egg-laying hens and dairy cows. The welfare of the animals in food pro
duction systems is the focus of the Brambell Committee’s Five Freedoms: food animals
are to be guaranteed freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom
from pain, injury or disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear
and distress. The Five Freedoms are benchmarks or gradients for animal well-being, not
absolute criteria. In assessing how animal welfare can be improved, a “consensus ap
proach” framework organizes the five freedoms into three broad categories: animal
minds (affective states), animal bodies (veterinary health), and animal natures (ability to
engage in species-typical behaviors). The bodies-minds-natures framework can be used to
compare livestock production systems, but there are tradeoffs so that some systems do
well on one parameter but poorly on another (for example, concentrated animal feeding
operations [CAFOs] score well on bodies but fail on minds and natures). Cost efficiency
makes alternatives to the contemporary confinement systems difficult to achieve—as
Thompson argues, “livestock producers do not keep their animals as a charity project,”
and the cost of the care they give to the animals must be recovered from the market. Fur
ther, increased prices for meat, milk, and eggs fall unfairly on the poor who spend the
greatest portion of their income on food. Thompson concludes that while changes in the
productionist approach could impact the conditions of animals in food production sys
tems, the approach is “inherently vulnerable” to the profit motives of the food industry
and animal producers.
In “Animals as Scientific Objects,” Mike Michael turns on its head the notion that the ex
perimental animal is a “passive, inert, discrete substance” external to social processes. In
his view, the animal object becomes emergent with capacities and properties that arise
from the experimental event, suggesting the possibility of a new ethical relation to the an
imal. Michael emphasizes that the scientific animal object is enacted in a variety of ways
both inside the laboratory (self-selection of scientists, distribution of care for laboratory
animals across personnel) and outside the laboratory (production of standardized animal
bodies, enactment of animal models that attract public, clinical, and scientific support
ers). While animals become scientific objects through the process of their production and
their circulation as commodities and models, the animal is also enacted as an object of
ethical calculation in the form of cost-benefit analysis, which is the dominant mode of eth
ical assessment and the default measure of the value of scientific interventions. Those
Page 12 of 21
Introduction
who cannot do cost-benefit analysis lack “bioethical maturity.” However, both animals and
scientists are enacted in the scientific endeavor, and because animals are living creatures
they have the capacity for a kind of resistance, or shrewdness, or “undisciplined corpore
ality” that can evoke a reaction in the scientist (p. 13) that de-objectifies the animal. Expe
riencing the animal as shrewd could result in treating animal models more holistically,
opening new meanings of science and possibilities for a co-becoming for scientists and
animals.
Randy Malamud bemoans the objectification of animals as spectacle in “The Problem with
Zoos.” He argues that while zoos claim that they inspire people to be respectful of ani
mals and to conserve the natural world, in reality they are “prisons for kidnapped, alien
ated, tortured specimens.” Animals are kept in unsuitable compounds, captive breeding
programs provide only a few more generations of endangered species because of the lack
of sufficient gene pools, and there is no evidence that the ecological education provided
by zoos has an influence on zoogoers. Malamud believes that it is impossible for any zoo
(whether derelict or designed to be a natural habitat for animals) to be good—ethically,
ecologically or intellectually. Although some interventions for distressed animal species
are useful, such as sanctuaries and preservation projects, the zoo as an institution is
about “commerce and spectatorship, captivity and constraint, so it cannot facilitate better
understanding of or care for animals.” Zoos encourage the belief in human exceptional
ism and that humans control and are situated above the ecosystem in which they live.
Zoos function to make animals visible, always available to us, and on our terms. The early
years of zoos included the display of “captive spectacles” meant to devalue and ridicule
both human and nonhuman others. While the human displays are now unacceptable both
politically and ethically, animals continue to be exploited as zoo spectacles. Malamud
closes on a hopeful note about the influential documentary Blackfish, which exposed the
plight of captive orca whales at SeaWorld and gave rise to a wellspring of public opposi
tion to animal captivity.
In “Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control,” John Vucetich and Michael P. Nel
son apply a basic tool in scholarly ethics, argument analysis, to examine the appropriate
ness of hunting wolves. Following Mason’s “misothery” argument, the authors note that
the extermination of wolves in the mid-twentieth century was fueled by hatred and con
tempt for wolves, in particular, a hostility toward wolf predation on foods for which hu
mans compete (livestock, deer, elk, and moose). Wolves have now begun to repopulate in
parts of the United States, and numerous states have introduced proposals to allow wolf
hunting; these have been controversial, pitting wolf-hunting advocates against wolf-hunt
ing opponents. Vucetich and Nelson claim that hunting comes under moral consideration
because it is wrong to kill a sentient creature without an adequate reason, and just be
cause we can hunt wolves (even while maintaining the health of ecosystems), this does
not imply that we ought to hunt them. While appropriate hunting methods emphasize the
fair chase and clean kill of a sentient creature who will be eaten, wolves are not eaten, so
other justifications are offered for hunting them. For example, advocates of wolf hunting
claim that wolves reduce the abundance of the ungulates humans want to hunt. Applying
argument analysis, Vucetich and Nelson claim that the ungulate-abundance justification
Page 13 of 21
Introduction
is wrong. They note that elk populations have increased in some areas along with the in
crease in wolf abundance. Another argument for hunting wolves is that it would enhance
wolf conservation. The authors argue that killing wolves does not promote tolerance for
them, poaching is not a threat (p. 14) to wolf populations, attitudes are more negative
when legal lethal control is allowed than when wolf protections are in place, and hunting
an animal does not promote respect for that animal. The “recreation and tradition argu
ment” is also found inadequate as a reason for hunting wolves. Wolf hunting is not a tra
dition in the United States and hunting wolves as trophies is not to kill for sustenance but
to kill for fun or to celebrate violence. Other arguments for wolf hunting include reducing
the threat to human safety (almost universally false), reducing the threat to livestock
(wolf predation on livestock is trivial, and non-lethal methods of predation intervention
are effective), and concern that wolf populations will grow out of control (humans should
resist their obsession to control nature). Vucetich and Nelson encourage the application
of argument analysis to controversial issues in the public discourse and note that the in
capacity to use valid, sound reasoning is a failure of academia and administrators. It is
important to create a citizenry capable of making decisions based on logical rigor, partic
ularly when making judgments about our relationship with the natural world.
from the mid-1300s. During the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci’s animal fables described
country life from the animals’ perspectives, with animals given both voice and a point of
view in the stories. While some contemporary cultural representations of animals contin
ue the tradition of sending moral messages and giving voice and subjectivity to animals,
other depictions of animals have taken on a decidedly different tone, as noted below.
In “Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art,” Joe Zammit-Lucia cri
tiques the degradation of animals as “mere artistic material” that objectifies them and re
gards them without compassion. He argues that the moral considerability of the animal is
compromised by the “dehumanization, sensationalism, and the provision of moral cover
by powerful art institutions.” Some of the current practices in the use of animals in art in
clude the display of dead or taxidermied animal bodies, the torture and killing of live ani
mals, and the creation of modified animals, such as Eduardo Kac’s fluorescent rabbit. The
author addresses the ethical questions that arise from these uses, the motivations of the
artists, and the contentious relationship of the art world with animal welfare proponents.
Artists’ motivations can range from a commitment to respect the creation of life (as in the
fluorescent rabbit), the desire to illustrate the power we have over animals and other hu
mans (as in an installation of goldfish in blenders that visitors could turn on if they
wished), and to provide evidence of the number of animals and humans who live in undig
nified conditions (as in the gallery display of a sick and emaciated street dog in
Nicaragua). There are two moral imperatives in the use of animals in art: freedom of
artistic expression and the limits of acceptable moral behavior. Zammit-Lucia finds the
absolutist position of opposing all censorship untenable because censoring one type of
artistic endeavor automatically leads to the censorship of all others; each situation must
be evaluated individually and on its own merits. Sensationalism allows animal abuse in
contemporary art—animal abuse in art is a way for artists to achieve notoriety and be
“guaranteed immortality—destined to live on in the pages of articles and books like this
one” and discussed at conferences as a topic on ethics and freedom of expression. Animal
abuse in contemporary art is also upheld by the provision of moral cover. The reframing
by powerful individuals and organizations of potentially unethical behavior as harmless
behavior absolves the artist of moral responsibility and positions the work in defense of
freedom of expression, “a worthy cause.” Zammit-Lucia proposes that moral considerabil
ity can be given to animals in contemporary art when (1) the art world catches up with
social changes emphasizing values and ethics; (2) individuals from inside the art world
come forward to engage in thoughtful criticism of art that uses animals; and (3) institu
tions can establish policies and processes to ensure the protection of animals in the arts.
tradition from the contest literature of the seventh century BCE to the European tale of
“Reynard the Fox.” Aesopian fables thrive because of their adaptability: they have been
used to illustrate Christian morals, Jewish morals, the need to preserve pagan culture,
and life in a feudal court; they have also been referenced in political rhetoric and scientif
ic writing. Fables are similar to fairy tales in that both are nonanthropocentric, consist of
talking animals and inanimate objects such as trees and streams, and are attributed to
writers from marginalized groups (fables were thought to be written by slaves, fairy tales
by peasants who were mostly women). Sax argues that fairy tales represented a “perspec
tive that was opposed to highly systematized varieties of paganism, Christianity, and
deism” with local or household characters such as Scotland brownies and Scandinavian
trolls. The tales of the Brothers Grimm have clear boundaries (between evil and good, na
ture and culture, animals and people, women and men, and commoners and royalty), cre
ating a need for characters to shape-shift between human and animal identities. Contem
porary folklore includes Aesopian fables retold as urban legends, such as the deer who is
shot but revives and runs away with the rifle stuck in his antlers; the ape-like creature
called Bigfoot; a wolf-like (or sometimes lizard-like) monster called Chupacabra who
sucks the blood of his victims; and the Loch Ness monster. Sax concludes with a discus
sion of four paradigms: animism, totemism, analogism, and naturalism. As the naturalistic
paradigm, with its focus on anthropocentrism, recedes in importance, the other para
digms come in from the margins. Folklore can embrace cultural alternatives to anthro
pocentrism and provide models for balanced human-animal relations.
1970s, the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites was an established
science. A critical scientific component of archaeozoology (along with radiocarbon dating,
isotope analysis, molecular biology, and archaeogenetics) is comparative osteology, the
comparison of the skeletal remains of known species with animal remains from archaeo
logical sites. Clutton-Brock describes examples of archaeozoological investigations of
mammals, including pigs from the Swiss Neolithic lake dwellings, dogs of Ice Age Europe,
dingoes of Australia, European wild aurochs, and the Sanga cattle of Africa. The excava
tion of pig remains reveals important aspects of their domestication in the prehistoric
era, including the effects of climate on successful pig husbandry. The presence of pig re
mains, for example, is dependent on the amount of rainfall in an area, with no pig re
mains found in dry, arid regions unless there was evidence of irrigation at the site. In ad
dition, prohibitions against eating pork among the Middle East ruling elite (who farmed
large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats) were likely the result of the fact that pig farming
was done by the lower class, so that elites and lawgivers viewed pigs as unclean. Excava
tions have also revealed important information about the domestication of dogs, who
were long thought to be 14,000 years old; whereas, now it is argued that the first dogs
are as old as 26,000 years. The ancestry of the Polynesian domestic dog, the Australian
dingo, and the New Guinea singing dog is traced through mtDNA analysis to South Chi
na, with a migration route through mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Archaeozoolo
gy also benefits the contemporary management of domesticates, such as the conservation
of ancient, native livestock breeds who have evolved in adaptation to specific environ
ments. Archaeozoological studies have also verified hypotheses about human-animal set
tlement patterns, including the theory that nomadic pastoralism always develops after
settled farming depletes resources and the land can no longer sustain crops or animals.
Finally, archaeozoology has recently been linked with ethology for a better understanding
of the biology and behavior of the wild progenitors of living species and to promote im
provements and standards in animal welfare.
Anita Guerrini’s chapter, “Animals and Ecological Science,” focuses on the scientific study
of animals in ecosystems with an emphasis on populations rather than individuals. Guerri
ni provides an extensive overview of the transition of natural history to ecology, and she
describes work with wild wolves and fish to illustrate the domain of modern ecological
science. Noting that much ecological science is carried out in laboratories (which can be
as invasive as other types of animal research) and with computer models, it is distinctive
ly oriented toward field research. The cultural history of the wolf is a good example of the
policy and politics surrounding the value of wildlife and how field studies help us under
stand wolves as a species connected to a “unified system of integrally (p. 18) related
parts”—the ecosystem. Largely extirpated as vermin in the United States by the 1930s,
wolves were reintroduced successfully to the Yellowstone ecosystem in the mid-1990s.
Their role as keystone predators who preyed on herbivores was demonstrated in the in
crease in biodiversity in the Yellowstone ecosystem, including an increase not only in veg
etation but in other animal species as well, such as beavers and songbirds. In a move
away from a focus on populations, Guerrini recounts the story of OR-7, a radio-collared
lone wolf from Oregon who traveled more than a thousand miles in search of a mate.
Page 17 of 21
Introduction
Jane Desmond’s chapter, “Staging Privilege, Proximity, and ‘Extreme Animal Tourism,’”
describes “hyperprivileged tourism” as a way humans can gain some proximity to wildlife
while ensuring the protection of the animal’s natural environment and ecosystem. For
those who can afford to travel to exotic places to encounter wildlife, relative closeness to
wild animals can be achieved without interfering with them. These “Edenic” encounters
are different from both mass tourism (such as zoo visits or whale watching) and supple
mentary animal tourism (tours to geographic locales that peripherally engage animals,
such as camel rides by the Nile). The main focus of extreme animal tourism is to experi
ence wild animals in their natural habitats. Since tourism is one of the largest industries
in the world, Desmond argues that the role animals play in the global economy is an im
portant subject of study for animal studies scholars. While it is likely that all living beings
are influenced somehow by the human presence on the planet, extreme animal tourism
depends on an authentic wildness, and part of the lure of the extreme encounter is the
“fulfillment of the fantasy” that wild animals live their lives outside the influence of hu
mans. Desmond describes two examples of extreme animal tourism: encounters with
wildlife in the Galapagos Islands and in Antarctica. In the Galapagos, wildlife is abundant
and includes giant tortoises, Sally Lightfoot crabs, sea iguanas, land iguanas, and blue-
footed boobies; visiting humans have the perception of “being immersed in the animals’
world.” The Galapagos tourist experience is controlled by Ecuadorians, who closely moni
tor tourists’ behavior to be sure they do not feed the animals, scare them with loud noises
or aggressive movements, or get within six feet of them. Wildlife is also abundant in
Antarctica’s uninhabited landscape, which supports whales, flying squas, seals, and huge
groups of animals. These groups are so large that one’s experience of wildlife is a walk
through a colony of 10,000 penguins—the scale of animal habitation in Antarctica “literal
ly dwarf(s) any human presence.” Some animals, (p. 19) the penguins for example, are
aware of the tourists but are not bothered by their presence because, according to the
guides, they have not recently experienced humans as a threat or danger—there are a
thousand penguins to one human, and the humans are in the penguins’ world. Extreme
animal tourism is “the perfect meeting ground for human fantasies of animal life to take
place” and an important dimension of the commodification and political effects of the re
lationship between humans and other animals.
Page 18 of 21
Introduction
Terry O’Connor’s chapter, “Commensal Species,” focuses on animals who benefit from
their proximity to people by using the modified or constructed human environment for
food and living space. Species who are successful at adapting to human habitations are
labeled “commensal” because they are animals who share our table and eat with us.
There are three forms of commensal adaptation: by exploiting human food stores, scav
enging food waste, and taking advantage of food opportunities that attract primary feed
ers who then become prey for opportunistic predators (such as peregrine falcons who
feed on the pigeons who gather to exploit garbage and food handouts). There is a behav
ioral coevolution between humans and commensal animals. Our “cultural decisions”—
whether to put garbage in bins, incinerators, or landfills, and whether to build in brick or
wood and to roof in tile or thatch—condition the behavioral responses of animals in tak
ing advantage of food and space opportunities. O’Connor notes that the research on com
mensal species is important because of their proximity to human spaces, encouraging
study by both professional scientists and citizen scientists. Citizen science can generate
large quantities of valuable data on animal neighbors, such as the Big Garden Birdwatch
in the United Kingdom, which has been recording species frequencies in January for thir
ty-four consecutive years and collects records from over 500,000 observers every year.
Commensal animals are also important indicators of ecosystem health, adding to our un
derstanding of human environmental impact. For example, a recent decline in UK spar
row populations has been linked to reduced breeding success, which in turn was caused
by a shortage of invertebrate prey in the United Kingdom. Insects are in decline because
of habitat disruption and climate change. O’Connor discusses familiar commensal ani
mals, including rats, mice, foxes, and pigeons who are found in most human settlements
all over the world. Humans have varied reactions to commensal species; some regard
them as friendly neighbors, others as freeloading pests. In addition to the use of techno
logical innovation to encourage the presence of commensals, such as the squirrel-proof
bird feeder, humans have developed ways to discourage and displace unwanted commen
sals, such as the spiked ledges on buildings that deny pigeons a secure perching ledge.
However, O’Connor emphasizes that commensal animals show how coexistence between
humans and other animal species can be achieved. We have lived with commensal ani
mals for 10,000 to 30,000 years, and their successful adaptation can be bolstered by mod
ifying human settlements to allow more species to adapt and sustain populations along
side us. Such modification should be an important policy priority because of the dense hu
man population in urban or other anthropic environments. Further, contact with animals
is considered to be beneficial to humans, particularly to children, who learn to respect
and care for animals through direct experience with them. Commensal animals give hu
mans experience (p. 20) with wildlife, something different from our more common interac
tions with domestic animals.
In “Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems,” Marcus Owens and Jennifer
Wolch elaborate on O’Connor’s work on commensal species and argue that a considera
tion of nonhuman animals is vital to a robust urban theory. In an overview of interspecies
interactions in the urban context, the authors discuss animals who work in cities, the
problem of abandoned and stray animals, the relationship between urbanization and meat
Page 19 of 21
Introduction
consumption, and backyard animal husbandry. The authors describe theories of the more-
than-human urban ecosystem and note that a posthuman approach to cities and spatial
ethics is needed to understand human interactions with animal others who share urban
spaces and “deserve explicit consideration in urban development, design, and planning
decisions.” After a discussion of animals in nineteenth-century US cities, Owens and
Wolch turn to the design and planning of ecological frameworks and “metabolic” con
cepts of urban landscapes, such as the pig city and agropark projects in the Netherlands
and the ARC Wildlife Overpass Competition in Vail, Colorado. Urban spaces are also mod
ified to encourage nonhuman use without excluding human uses, including multispecies
design ethnography, which addresses how animals inhabit architectural spaces. Urban
wild animals are subject to stressors, including predation by domestic dogs and cats;
changes in diurnal cycles to avoid human activity, which may impact food availability; and
anthropogenic noise and light disturbances. Wildlife benefit from restoration ecology and
protected landscapes, such as the rewilding projects in urban zones, including the Oost
vaarderplassan in the Netherlands and the Schöneberger Südgelände in Berlin. Owens
and Wolch conclude with a discussion of cites and urbanization as “major motors of
change” and the four dynamics that may determine the future of urban animal ecology:
climate change; efforts to help urban areas adapt to environmental change such as green
infrastructure strategies; human migration, economic inequality, and geopolitical con
flicts that intervene in human-animal relations; and increased ethical consideration for ur
ban animals and a search for ways to include them in decision-making processes—ani
mals should have rights to the city, and the city in turn should provide “them shelter, sus
tenance, and safe passage.”
We close with Stephen R. L. Clark’s chapter, “Animals in Religion,” which is an appeal for
morality and altruistic coexistence for all beings in earth’s ecosystem. Clark considers
“animals” to belong to the category “eukaryotes,” which comprises all living organisms
except bacteria—“ ‘we’ are all eukaryotes together, all living things together, momentary
expressions of an ongoing, branching lineage, the Life of Planet Earth.” Clark argues that
treating “others as you would wish to be treated if you were they” can be imagined but is
not actually possible if beings cannot transform into an Other. Altruistic concern then is
an attempt to live a dream, as is all “religion,” in Clark’s view, including atheistical hu
manism. Thus, “ ‘being religious’ is trying to ‘live the dream,’ acting out and reinforcing
the imagination of a world where all is done for the best.” There are four ways of “dream
ing animals,” or showing altruistic concern for them: triumphalist humanism, traditional
good husbandry, transformation/metempsychosis, and an awakening to the real presence
of others. In triumphalist humanism, humans alone are (p. 21) of interest; all other ani
mate things are seen in light of human purpose and are treated as having no lives of their
own. Good husbandry is the requirement that humans care for nonhumans but within the
limits set by human interests. Metempsychosis is the transformation of a being from one
corporeal existence to another, a condition of constantly shifting human and nonhuman
states, as in reincarnation. Awakening to the presence of others is the process of reject
ing the anthropocentric world in favor of a world where all beings—our friends, our ene
mies, animals, and the inanimate—are revered. (p. 22)
Page 20 of 21
Introduction
Linda Kalof
Page 21 of 21
Animal Rights
Animal Rights
Gary L. Francione and Anna E. Charlton
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory
Online Publication Date: Aug 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.11
The term “animal rights” is used broadly and often inconsistently in discussions of animal
ethics. This chapter focuses on seven topics: (1) the pre-nineteenth-century view of ani
mals as things and the emergence of the animal welfare position; (2) the work of Lewis
Gompertz and of Henry Salt; (3) the Vegan Society, the Oxford Group, and Peter Singer’s
animal liberation theory; (4) Tom Regan’s animal rights theory; (5) the abolitionist animal
rights theory; (6) animal rights and the law; and (7) animal rights as a social movement.
Herein, “rights” describes the protection of interests irrespective of consequences. The
chapter’s position that veganism (not consuming any animal products), is a moral base
line follows from the widely-shared recognition that animals have moral value and are not
merely things; veganism is the only rational response to that recognition.
Keywords: animal rights, animals and law, social movement, abolitionist theory, veganism, Oxford Group, Lewis
Gompertz, Tom Regan, Henry Salt, Peter Singer
THE term “animal rights” is used by animal advocates, institutional exploiters, and the
media to refer to any position that is thought to be favorable to animal interests. So, if an
animal advocacy organization promotes more “humane” slaughter, it will likely be charac
terized by media as an “animal rights” campaign. In talking about making veal production
more “humane,” Randy Strauss, the president and chief executive officer of Strauss Veal
and Lamb International, states, “Animal rights are important.”1 Peter Singer, author of
Animal Liberation,2 is often described as “the father of the animal rights movement,”3
even though he is a utilitarian who rejects the notion of moral rights. Some animal advo
cates maintain that “animal rights” is properly applied only to a position that promotes
the abolition of all animal use, however supposedly “humane.” So the concept of “rights”
is used in discussions of animal ethics to refer to different, and often conflicting, posi
tions.
This chapter focuses on seven topics: (1) the pre-nineteenth-century view of animals as
things and the emergence of the animal welfare position; (2) the work of Lewis Gompertz
and Henry Salt; (3) the Vegan Society, the Oxford Group, and Peter Singer’s theory of ani
Page 1 of 20
Animal Rights
mal liberation; (4) Tom Regan’s theory of animal rights; (5) the abolitionist theory of ani
mal rights; (6) animal rights and the law; and (7) animal rights as a social movement.
Humans have interests in that there are all sorts of things we prefer, desire, or want.
Some of those interests are idiosyncratic, such as an interest in playing golf or an interest
in a particular sort of music. But some are shared and considered very important as a so
cial, cultural, and, perhaps, even spiritual matter. For example, interest in freedom or lib
erty, free speech and thought, education, health care, basic nutrition, and so on, matter to
most people and the way we protect those interests goes to our very understanding of
personhood.
There are two basic ways that we can protect these important interests.
First, we can protect them to the extent that they promote consequences that we
(p. 26)
like. For example, we can say that we will protect the interest in free expression depend
ing on how we feel about the content of speech; that is, as long as most of us agree with
the content of speech or, at least, do not disagree too much with the content, we will pro
tect speech. Alternatively, we could say that we should protect the human interest in free
expression even if we disagree with the content. The latter sort of protection is what we
are talking about when we talk about rights.4
Although the topic of rights can become complicated and involve all sorts of twists and
turns through philosophy, law, jurisprudence, and political theory, for the purposes of this
chapter, protecting an interest with a right involves the idea that the interest is important
and should be protected even if the consequences militate against protecting it. For ex
ample, we talk about the right of free speech, which is another way of saying that we pro
tect the interest in self-expression and in contributing to the marketplace of ideas, even if
there would be considerable benefits if we did not protect it. This is not to say that the
right is absolute; we do not protect defamation or yelling “fire” in a crowded movie the
ater when there is no fire. It is only to say that we cannot generally limit speech for con
sequential reasons alone.
Some people, including some prominent “animal rights” advocates, reject the idea of
moral rights altogether. For example, utilitarians maintain that what is right or wrong is
dependent on consequences and that no interests are protected by moral rights.
mans could use animals as they saw fit and could impose pain, suffering, and death on
them without violating any moral or legal obligation that they owed directly to the ani
mals. There could be a legal obligation not to injure another’s cow, but that was an oblig
ation to the owner of the cow not to damage that person’s property.6 To the limited de
gree that cruelty to animals was thought morally wrong, it was because humans were
thought to have moral obligations of kindness to other humans and cruelty to animals
would make it more probable that they would not satisfy those obligations. So, again, the
obligation concerned animals, but was not owed to animals.
There was a sense in which animals were thought to be things in the literal sense of be
ing indistinguishable from inanimate objects. René Descartes (1596–1650) is convention
ally thought to have denied that nonhuman animals were sentient—that is, (p. 27) subjec
tively aware—and instead thought that they were “automatons, or moving machines”7
that God created and that were not really different from inanimate objects. That is,
Descartes did not regard nonhuman animals as being conscious and having subjective or
perceptual awareness, including the ability to experience pain and suffering. If Descartes
was correct as an empirical matter, then animals could have no interests; that is, there is
nothing that they could prefer, desire, or want, and we could not adversely affect their in
terests because they would have none to affect. It would, therefore, make no sense to talk
about moral or legal obligations that humans owe to nonhumans. We could, as Immanuel
Kant and Thomas Aquinas did, talk about obligations to be kind to animals because not
doing so would lead us to be unkind to other humans, but those obligations would merely
concern, and not be owed, to animals.
Some scholars dispute whether Descartes really believed that animals were not sentient.
But if he did believe it, then he was unusual in Western thinking because, for the most
part, people have believed that animals are sentient and have interests. They have in
stead argued that we can treat animals as if they are things, and ignore their interests,
because they are inferiors whose interests simply do not count as a moral matter. This in
feriority involved spiritual inferiority, or the notion that nonhuman animals were not, like
humans, made in the image of God and were not endowed with souls, and that animals
were created by God for humans to use, or cognitive inferiority, the notion that animals
lacked rationality, abstract thought, symbolic communication, self-awareness, or the abili
ty to make or respond to moral claims. In many cases, these inferiorities were combined.
For example, John Locke (1632–1704) maintained that animals were inferior beings creat
ed by God for our use and that they were incapable of using abstract concepts.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a paradigm shift occurred. Al
though there were others producing interesting work on animal ethics in this time
period,8 two particularly influential architects of this shift were the utilitarians Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). As utilitarians, Bentham and
Mill believed that we ought to act so as to maximize the pleasure or happiness for all af
fected and that, in assessing consequences, we must be impartial and not favor interests
based on irrelevant criteria, including race and sex. They included species as an irrele
vant criterion and argued that relying on the sorts of cognitive differences that had been
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used to exclude animals from the moral community was no different from relying on race
to justify slavery. For example, Bentham, in a passage that was actually in a footnote in
his 1781 book, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, but is probably
one of the most frequently quoted passages in animal ethics, stated that “the question is
not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”9 Bentham and Mill
agreed that there were significant differences between the minds of humans and the
minds of nonhumans, but maintained that nonhumans can, like humans, suffer, and that
we cannot ignore animal suffering based simply on species. This did not mean that they
saw these cognitive differences as irrelevant. On the contrary, they believed that those
differences were extremely important in at least two respects.
First, although Bentham objected to the use of animals for amusement or entertainment,
he argued that animals are not self-aware and, therefore, it was perfectly fine for (p. 28)
us to kill and eat them as long as we minimized their suffering, as they live in a sort of
eternal present and are not aware of what they lose when we take their lives. If we use
animals for food, “we are the better for it, and they are never the worse. They have none
of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery which we have.”10 Bentham also
maintained that we actually do animals a favor by killing them, as long as we do so in a
relatively painless manner: “The death they suffer in our hands commonly is, and always
may be, a speedier, and by that means a less painful one, than that which would await
them in the inevitable course of nature… . [W]e should be the worse for their living, and
they are never the worse for being dead.”11 If, as Bentham apparently maintained, ani
mals do not as a factual matter have an interest in continuing to live, and death is not a
harm for them, then our killing of animals would not per se raise a moral problem as long
as we treated and killed them “humanely.”
Second, Mill pointed out that in balancing human and animal interests, it was important
to keep in mind that humans had supposedly superior mental faculties, so that they had a
higher quality of pleasure and happiness; human interests had a greater weight in any
balancing. For example, he maintained that in calculating pleasure and pain as part of
any weighing process, we must take into account that humans “have faculties more ele
vated than the animal appetites,” and he expressed agreement with ethical views that as
sign “to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral
sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.”12
According to Mill, “A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capa
ble probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points, than
one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink in
to what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.”13 Animals lack a “sense of dignity,
which all human beings possess in one form or other.”14 Moreover, humans have “a more
developed intelligence, which gives a wider range to the whole of their sentiments,
whether self-regarding or sympathetic.”15 As a result, “[i]t is better to be a human being
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”16
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The utilitarians rejected moral rights for humans and nonhumans; instead, they embraced
impartiality or equal consideration—treating similar cases similarly. But in accepting that
humans could morally justify continued animal use, it may be the case that the framework
for animals they sought to establish structurally prevents the equal consideration of ani
mal interests. Although Bentham was what we now think of as an “act utilitarian” who re
jected rules in favor of appealing to the principle of utility on a case-by-case basis, he op
posed human slavery.17 He recognized that although particular slave owners might treat
their slaves well, slavery threatened to reduce humans to economic commodities “aban
doned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.”18 He arguably recognized that if
each human were to count for one and none for more than one, then human slavery pre
sented a structural problem: the interests of slaves, who were chattel property, were un
likely ever to be perceived as counting for as much as the interests of the owners of
slaves. To put the matter simply, because slaves were chattel property, they would always
count for less than one because their interests would always (p. 29) be accorded less
weight than would those of their owners. How could their interests be evaluated impar
tially when it was those who owned the slaves who did this evaluation?
Animals are, like slaves, chattel property—things that are owned. Although Bentham
claimed to reject the idea of animals as things, he did not challenge the status of animals
as property because he did not believe that animals had an interest in not being used as
human resources but only had an interest in being used in a way that minimized their suf
fering. But it is no more possible for the interests of animals who are property to be treat
ed impartially, or accorded equal consideration, than it is for slaves to be accorded equal
consideration or to have their interests evaluated impartially. The property status of ani
mals acts to prevent us from seeing animal interests as similar to human interests in the
first place, and always serves as a good reason to ignore or devalue any interest that may
be perceived as similar.
So, although the nineteenth century saw a paradigm shift away from the historically dom
inant view that animals were things that had no moral value, that shift was limited by the
fact that that the emerging framework did not reject the use of animals as human re
sources, and regarded animals as having qualitatively inferior sentient experiences that
deserved less weight than human interests. This substantially ensured that animals would
never benefit from the principle of impartiality or equal consideration.
Bentham and Mill favored legislation that prohibited certain sorts of animal use for enter
tainment or sport and sought to minimize the “cruel” treatment of animals, and the anti
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cruelty laws and other animal welfare laws that presently exist in the United States,
Great Britain, and most other Western countries can be traced directly to the utilitarian
thinkers of early nineteenth-century Britain. As will be explained in section VI, because
animals are chattel property, animal welfare laws cannot be said to provide anything
more than a right not to be subjected to gratuitous suffering.
The first was Lewis Gompertz, who was born in 1783/4 in England and who, in
(p. 30)
1824, wrote a book, Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes,20 which re
mains one of the most progressive and radical books on animal ethics ever written, yet is
virtually unknown. Gompertz believed that the feelings of animals were morally equal to
the feelings of humans. He was a vegan who rejected the use of animals for any purpose
that was not in the animal’s interest. He refused to ride in carriages drawn by horses.
Gompertz believed that it was morally acceptable to eat or skin animals who died a natur
al death, but that we could not justify deliberate killing. Although he did not consume
meat, dairy, or eggs, he did wear clothing obtained from animals because of the (then)
lack of suitable alternatives. But he acknowledged the immorality of any animal use that
involved deliberate killing. Gompertz was concerned about human rights issues, including
class differences and social inequality, and the treatment of women and prisoners. He was
an inventor, and he made significant improvements on the bicycle as a way of avoiding
the use of horses for carriage. In many ways, Gompertz was a remarkably progressive
person.
The second exception was Henry Stephens Salt, born in 1851, who wrote Animals’ Rights:
Considered in Relation to Social Progress, which was published in 1892.21 Salt was a so
cial reformer and conservationist, and was among the first writers to talk about “animal
rights”22 as a matter of both morality and law. Salt believed that animal welfare laws re
flected notions of moral rights and would confer legal rights. He opposed the use of ani
mals for most purposes. Although it is said that he was a vegan, he focused on meat and
was not openly critical of dairy and eggs. Gandhi acknowledged that Salt had influenced
him, and Salt’s circle of acquaintances included some of the most important intellectuals
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of the day, such as George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, and Leo Tol
stoy.
The first was the emergence of the Vegan Society in Britain in 1944, the inaugural
newsletter of which stated: “We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built
(p. 31) on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploita
tion of slaves, and we believe the spiritual destiny of man is such that in time he will view
with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals’ bodies.”23 Donald
Watson, a founding member of the Society, proposed veganism not only in order to re
spect the moral value of animals, but also because it offered a solution to the crisis of
greed and violence that affected and afflicted humankind and threatened ecological disas
ter. In many ways, Watson and the early Vegan Society were reminiscent of the views of
Lewis Gompertz.24
The second, often-ignored, development was the important work that was done in the late
1960s by what has been called the Oxford Group. Oxford University postgraduates
Roslind and Stanley Godlovitch, inspired by an essay written by writer and feminist cam
paigner Brigid Brophy in the Sunday Times in 1965, formed a group to discuss animal
ethics. A collection of essays edited by Rosalind and Stanley Godlovitch, and John Harris,
and entitled Animals, Men and Morals: An Enquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-
Humans,25 was published in 1971 and included essays by the editors as well as Brophy,
Ruth Harrison, Richard Ryder, Maureen Duffy, David Wood, and others. Although Singer
was at Oxford at the time and was acquainted with members of this group, he was not a
part of it and did not contribute to the book. Nevertheless, the credit for inaugurating the
modern animal rights movement is given almost exclusively to Singer.
Singer, like Bentham, is an act utilitarian and maintains that the morally correct action is
that which will maximize the satisfaction of preferences (as distinguished from happiness
or pleasure) of those affected, including nonhuman animals. Like Bentham, Singer rejects
moral rights. His position is better described as involving “animal liberation” although, as
mentioned earlier, Singer is often referred to as “the father of the animal rights move
ment.” Like Bentham and Mill, Singer very clearly regards animal life as having less val
ue than human life. For instance, he maintains that “[i]t is not arbitrary to hold that the
life of a self-aware being, capable of abstract thought, of planning for the future, of com
plex acts of communication, and so on, is more valuable than the life of a being without
these capacities.”26 He states that “in the absence of some form of mental continuity it is
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not easy to explain why the loss to the animal killed is not, from an impartial point of
view, made good by the creation of a new animal who will lead an equally pleasant life.”27
That is, Singer, like Bentham, argues that because animals do not know what it is they
lose when we kill them, they do not have any interest in continuing to live and, therefore,
death is not a harm to them. They do not care that we use and kill them for our purposes.
They care only about not suffering as a result of our using and killing them. Singer does
not object to animal use per se and, indeed, describes himself as a “flexible vegan” who
will eat animal products when he travels, visits the home of others, or is in the company
of people who would find his insistence on not eating animal products to be annoying or
disconcerting.28
Singer maintains that similar human and nonhuman interests in not suffering ought to be
treated in a similar fashion, as required by the principle of impartiality or equal consider
ation. He claims that because humans have “superior mental powers,”29 they will in some
cases suffer more than animals and in some cases suffer less, but he acknowledges
(p. 32) that making interspecies comparisons is difficult, at best, and perhaps even impos
sible. That is, although Singer does not adopt Mill’s more categorical position that the
pleasures of the human intellect are almost always to be given greater weight, Singer’s
view about the relationship between “superior” human cognition and assessments of suf
fering comes very close to that and undercuts the ability to make impartial assessments
of competing interests, virtually guaranteeing that human interests will always prevail.
Singer’s view that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in their lives because they
are not self-aware leads him to distinguish among species of nonhumans and to treat as
special or privileged those animals who are closer to humans because they are, at least
arguably, self-aware in a way relevantly similar to humans. Singer co-edited The Great
Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity, which proposed that the nonhuman great apes
“have mental capacities and an emotional life sufficient to justify inclusion within the
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community of equals.”30 Singer argues that because these nonhuman animals are geneti
cally and cognitively similar to human animals, they deserve greater legal protection than
other nonhumans, who he, along with Bentham and others, believes live in “a kind of eter
nal present.”31
The life of a self-aware human has, for Singer, greater moral value than the life of a hu
man who is mentally disabled and not self-aware or an animal who is not self-aware.
Singer recognizes a sort of presumption against using “normal” humans as replaceable
resources because the life of a self-aware human is unique and cannot easily be replaced
by another life. Singer has recently acknowledged that, in addition to nonhuman great
apes, elephants, dolphins, and some birds appear to have mental continuity and other
species may as well, but, at least with respect to animals other than nonhuman great
apes, he has thus far failed to recognize that this should establish a presumption against
all use and killing that is similar to the presumption he has against using “normal” hu
mans as the replaceable resources of others. The likely explanation for this failure is that
Singer regards normal humans as a group to have a relevantly similar level of mental con
tinuity that would provide a direct reason not to use them as replaceable resources.
The strength of the reason not to kill self-aware nonhuman animals “will vary with
(p. 33)
the degree to which the animal is capable of having desires for the future,”32 and even if
the animals we usually eat are self-aware, “they are still not self-aware to anything like
the extent that humans normally are.”33 Therefore, a category-type presumption against
animal use would not fit with his analysis.
Accordingly, Singer defends the notion that it is morally defensible to eat animals so long
as they are provided a reasonably pleasant life and a relatively painless death, and he
supports the advocacy efforts of large organizations that promote “humane” animal use.
In 2005, he made a public statement, joined by almost all of the large animal protection
organizations in the United States, expressing “appreciation and support” for the “pio
neering” efforts by a large supermarket chain, Whole Foods Market, to develop supposed
ly more “humane” standards for farm animals.34 In short, Singer promotes the notion that
the primary problem with animal exploitation is not that we use them but how we use
them. Singer maintains that it is possible to apply the principle of equal consideration—
that we should treat similar interests similarly—to nonhuman interests in suffering, and
that it is not necessary to abolish the property status of nonhumans in order to accord
them equal consideration.
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value but as lacking any inherent value themselves, and that individuals should not be
viewed solely as means to the end of maximizing what the utilitarian regards as morally
valuable (happiness, pleasure, preference satisfaction, and so on).
Regan maintains that all moral agents have equal inherent value because the alternative
is some version of a “perfectionist” theory of justice according to which what individuals
are due depends on the extent and degree to which they possess “special” characteris
tics, such as intellect, creativity, heroic character, and the like. The attribution of equal in
herent value to at least some moral patients, including normal mammals aged one year or
more, is required because both agents and certain patients are, to use Regan’s term,
“subjects-of-a-life,” which means that they possess complex awareness and preference au
tonomy. Both agents and patients have a “welfare” in that things can go better or worse
for them. Regan argues that there is no nonarbitrary way of distinguishing the moral
worth of agents and patients, or human moral patients from nonhuman moral patients.
Regan argues that the respect principle requires that we treat those who have inherent
value in ways that respect that value. In the case of subjects-of-a-life, respecting that
(p. 34) value requires that we not treat them solely as means to ends in order to maximize
desirable consequences. This is similar to the Kantian notion that we must treat other
persons as ends in themselves and not merely as means to ends, but, unlike Kant, it re
quires us to include moral patients, including nonhuman animals, in the moral communi
ty. The respect principle allows us to derive the harm principle, which says that, as a pri
ma facie matter, we disrespect the inherent value of a subject-of-a-life by harming her or
him. Regan distinguishes between basic and acquired moral rights, the former being uni
versal (if any being has a basic moral right then any other being who is relevantly similar
has the right) and equal (any being who has a basic right has it to the same degree as any
other being who has it). Acquired rights depend on voluntary acts and social institutions
for their existence. Regan maintains that all subjects-of-a-life have the basic right not to
be treated exclusively as means to ends and that recognition of this right requires that in
stitutionalized exploitation be abolished, and not merely regulated.
Regan’s theory encounters serious difficulty, however, when he considers the issue of how
to resolve “exceptional cases” presenting the issue of whether to override the rights of
the few or those of the many.36 Regan says that if harm suffered by morally innocent be
ings is roughly comparable, it is better to override the rights of the few as opposed to the
rights of the many. If, however, some beings will suffer a greater harm in a particular situ
ation, then, absent special considerations, it is better to override the rights of the many if
the harm suffered by the few will make them worse off than any of the many. This leads
Regan to say that if we are in the proverbial lifeboat with a dog and a human and have to
decide whether to throw out the dog or a large number of dogs or the human, the harm
suffered by the human will be worse than that of any of the dogs because a human has
more “opportunities for satisfaction” than a dog does, so death is a greater harm for the
human. The problem is that even if, as Regan maintains, such exceptional circumstances
exclude institutionalized exploitation—that is, the conflict is between right holders and
not between humans who are right holders and animals who do not have the basic right
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not to be treated exclusively as means to the ends of humans—if animals are qualitatively
different from humans in that humans have greater opportunities for satisfaction, then
there is a nonarbitrary way of differentiating humans from nonhumans, and that would al
low for institutionalized exploitation at least in some exceptional circumstances.
The abolitionist approach rejects all animal use. The doctrinal basis for this rejection is
that all humans, irrespective of their particular characteristics, have a fundamental,
(p. 35) pre-legal moral right not to be treated exclusively as the resources of others. It is
this right that rules out the chattel slavery of humans. To have moral worth entails the re
jection of the status of chattel property that allows the life and fundamental interests of a
human to be valued at zero by the slave owner. We cannot justify failing to extend this
one right to nonhumans unless we arbitrarily declare that animals have no moral value
whatsoever, a position that most people already reject. Therefore, if animals matter
morally, we cannot treat them exclusively as resources, and recognizing the right not to
be property would rule out all institutionalized exploitation of animals. Abolitionists (as
the term is used herein) reject domestication and maintain that nonhumans ought not to
be brought into existence for human use, however “humanely” we treat them.
There is a sense in which we can arrive at largely the same conclusion without invoking
the notion of rights.38 We share a moral intuition that we should not impose “unneces
sary” suffering and death on sentient beings; that other things being equal, the fact that
an act causes or results directly in the suffering of a sentient being is something that
counts against that act as a moral matter. There is, of course, a great deal of disagree
ment when it comes to what satisfies the necessity element here; but we generally agree
that we cannot characterize pleasure, amusement, or convenience alone as involving any
necessity or compulsion.
The abolitionist perspective is that the overwhelming amount of animal use involves only
pleasure, amusement, or convenience. The most significant animal use in terms of both
numbers of animals involved and cultural importance is the use of animals for food. We
kill an estimated 60 billion land animals and an estimated trillion aquatic animals annual
ly for food. Eating animal foods has generally been justified, at least in part, on grounds
of human health and sound nutrition. Those grounds have, however, largely been discred
ited, and it is now recognized that a vegan diet is sufficient for health. Indeed, an increas
ing number of mainstream health-care professionals are claiming that animal foods are
detrimental to human health. And there can no longer be any serious question about
whether animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. The best justification for the stagger
ing amount of suffering and death involved in the use of animals for food is that animal
foods taste good, we are used to eating them, and they are convenient. Therefore, there is
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Our only use of animals that is not transparently frivolous, and analysis of which requires
rights language, involves the use of animals to cure serious human illnesses. Putting
aside that there are serious issues about the benefits for human health that are supposed
ly obtained from vivisection, and that there is increasing consensus that many human ill
nesses are related to the consumption of animal products, we cannot justify using animals
in experiments for which we would not be able to justify using similarly situated humans.
We regard humans as having a fundamental right not to be used exclusively as resources.
We cannot justify failing to extend this right to nonhumans.
Second, a corollary of the rejection of animal use is that abolitionists do not sup
(p. 36)
port campaigns for the reform of animal use. That is, abolitionists do not support cam
paigns for more “humane” treatment of animals as a supposed incremental step on the
road to eventual abolition. The abolitionist approach rejects regulatory campaigns for
both theoretical and practical reasons.
As a practical matter, animal welfare reform does not work, largely as a consequence of
the status of animals as chattel property. It costs money to protect animal interests, and
we generally only protect their interests when there is a resulting benefit, which is almost
always economic. The property status of animals has the effect of limiting in a structural
way the benefits that may be provided to animals. Most reforms do little more than modi
fy practices in ways that may, for example, increase housing costs but lower veterinary
costs and have the overall effect of improving production efficiency for institutional users.
Even in situations in which production costs are increased, the increase rarely exceeds
the elasticities of demand, so the market for animal products is not adversely affected.
Welfare reform, therefore, does nothing to eradicate the property status of animals and,
at best, creates niche markets for supposedly higher-welfare animal products. There is no
historical evidence that regulation leads to abolition; indeed, given the present extent and
character of animal use, it would seem that the contrary is the case—animal welfare mea
sures make the public feel better about animal exploitation, and this encourages contin
ued animal use.
Moreover, if the animal movement promoted an abolitionist perspective and did not cam
paign for welfare reform that necessarily portrays the supposedly reformed process of
production as normatively desirable, institutional users would respond by making precise
ly the same sorts of minor, largely cost-effective welfare improvements for which many
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animal organizations presently campaign in an effort to convince the public to reject the
abolitionist perspective. However, animal organizations would no longer be complicit in
promoting these welfare reforms and the resulting supposedly more “humane” animal
products as normatively desirable, which actually reassures the public that consuming
these products is morally acceptable or that the consumption of these products suffices to
discharge our moral obligation to animals.
The abolitionist approach to animal rights, in addition to rejecting animal welfare reform
campaigns, rejects single-issue campaigns that seek to prohibit particular animal uses.
For example, abolitionists generally do not promote campaigns against fur or foie gras.
Such campaigns convey the idea that certain forms of exploitation are worse than other
forms and, in a culture in which animal use is morally acceptable as a general matter, us
es that are not targeted are implicitly represented as morally acceptable.
Third, the abolitionist approach sees abolition as the goal of animal ethics and sees cre
ative, nonviolent vegan advocacy—not welfare reform—as the means to that end. (p. 37)
The abolitionist approach regards veganism as the moral baseline and maintains that we
cannot draw a morally coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products,
such as dairy or eggs, or between animal foods and the use of animals for clothing or oth
er products. If animals matter morally at all, we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using
them. If individuals regard themselves as abolitionists, they cannot consume any animal
products anymore than an abolitionist with respect to human chattel slavery could own
slaves. The abolitionist approach sees veganism as the only rational response to the idea
that animals have moral value. That is, if animals have moral value and are not things
that exist exclusively as resources for humans, as means to human ends, then we cannot
justify eating, wearing, or using them.
Fourth, the abolitionist approach links the moral status of nonhumans with sentience
alone and not with any other cognitive characteristic. Sentience is subjective awareness;
there is a someone who perceives and experiences the world. A sentient being has inter
ests—that is, preferences, wants, or desires. If a being is sentient, then that is necessary
and sufficient for the being to have the right not to be used as a means to human ends,
which, correlatively, imposes on humans the moral obligation not to use that being as a
resource. It is not a matter of “humanely” using that animal. Although less suffering is
better than more suffering, no use can be morally justified.
Although Singer maintains that sentience is necessary and sufficient for moral considera
tion, he does not think that sentience alone is sufficient to support a presumption against
use as a replaceable resource that he accords to all “normal” humans and that would re
quire veganism at least as a prima facie matter. That is, because humans are self-aware
and forward looking, it is a tragedy when they are killed, and Singer’s presumption acts
in a similar way to a “right to life.” As mentioned above, although Singer thinks that non
human great apes, dolphins, and elephants are similar to humans in this regard in terms
of having a humanlike awareness of self, there is doubt as to other animals, and this leads
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Singer to reject the notion that veganism is any sort of moral baseline. Regan’s subject-of-
a-life concept links moral value with preference autonomy
The abolitionist approach rejects these positions and maintains that any being who is sen
tient is self-aware for the purpose of saying that such a being has a prima facie objective
interest in continuing to live, regardless of what that being thinks about that interest. Hu
mans have an obligation not to treat such a being exclusively as a resource, irrespective
of the degree of “humane” treatment.
Fifth, the abolitionist approach to animal rights rejects speciesism because, like racism,
sexism, heterosexism, and classism, it uses a morally irrelevant criterion (species) to dis
count and devalue the interests of sentient beings. But any opposition to speciesism
makes sense only as part of a general opposition to all forms of discrimination. That is, we
cannot oppose speciesism but claim that animal rights advocates do not have a position
on these other forms of discrimination. Opposition to speciesism requires that we oppose
all discrimination.
Sixth, the abolitionist approach incorporates the principle of nonviolence and rejects vio
lence as a means to achieve justice for animals. The abolitionist approach views the prob
lem of animal exploitation as one of violence and does not view more violence as a (p. 38)
solution to the problem. Moreover, the abolitionist approach recognizes that any advoca
cy of violence against institutional animal exploiters would inevitably be arbitrary given
that those who consume animal products are not relevantly distinguishable from a moral
standpoint.
There have been a number of responses to the abolitionist approach. Political philosopher
Will Kymlicka and his coauthor Sue Donaldson have criticized the abolitionist position for
involving only a negative right of non-use and for not accommodating or providing for
positive human-nonhuman relationships that are not based on exploitation or property
status.39 Political theorists Robert Garner40 and Alasdair Cochrane have argued that the
property status is not inconsistent with according animals appropriate moral and legal
consideration.41
Although there were some early anti-cruelty statutes, the first significant legislative effort
occurred in 1822 with what was known informally as Martin’s Act, named after its spon
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sor, Richard Martin, and formally as An Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment
of Cattle, which imposed a fine (and imprisonment if the fine was not paid) on those who
wantonly or cruelly beat, abused, or ill-treated any horse, mare, gelding, mule, ass, ox,
cow, heifer, steer, sheep, or other cattle, Martin’s Act triggered more legislation aimed at
dealing with animal cruelty, and animal welfare laws are now ubiquitous throughout the
world.
There are two sorts of laws and regulations that apply to animals. There are general laws,
such as anti-cruelty laws, that apply generally to animals and that require “humane”
treatment and prohibit the infliction of “unnecessary” or “unjustified” suffering. There
are also specific laws that may apply only to particular species, such as a law that pro
tects wild horses, or only to particular uses, such as laws that regulate the use of animals
in biomedical experiments or testing, or that pertain only to certain sorts of treatment,
such as how slaughter is to be performed.
These laws reflect the utilitarian thinking that gave rise to the welfarist position in the
first place. That is, the assumption that underlies them is that animals do not have a
morally significant interest in continuing to live. They are properly thought of as re
sources for our use. But animals do have morally significant interests in not suffering and
animal welfare laws prohibit the imposition of unnecessary suffering. So although these
laws forbid causing unnecessary suffering in animals, “necessity” is not understood in
terms (p. 39) of whether the particular use itself is necessary, but only whether some as
pect of treatment is necessary. This means that the prohibition on unnecessary suffering
is applied to uses that are not themselves necessary. This is nowhere more evident than in
the use of animals for food, which, as discussed previously, cannot be characterized as
“necessary” in any meaningful sense.
To the extent that anti-cruelty laws even apply to the use of animals for food (many laws
explicitly exempt this use altogether), the only question is whether particular treatment is
necessary given that the use is not necessary. Therefore, the focus is on whether there is
unnecessary unnecessary suffering. This is also the case in other contexts, including the
use of animals for clothing, and entertainment, including sport hunting. Given that the us
es are themselves transparently frivolous, all the suffering imposed incidental to them is
unnecessary and the only thing that is prohibited is unnecessary suffering that is not nec
essary. And that translates into a prohibition on gratuitous suffering.
As a matter of law, animals are chattel property. Animals are, like other property, bought
and sold. They have no intrinsic or inherent value and have only extrinsic or external val
ue. It costs money to protect animal interests, and the law generally requires protection
only in situations in which there is a benefit—usually economic—that results. For exam
ple, the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, a United States law that requires that large ani
mals be stunned and rendered unconscious before being slaughtered, explicitly recog
nized that animals who were not stunned incurred more carcass damage and caused
more injuries to workers. When the law intervenes in matters involving animals, it is usu
ally to correct some economic inefficiency and to facilitate efficient animal exploitation.
Page 15 of 20
Animal Rights
“Necessary” suffering is linked to what is required to facilitate efficient use. Not surpris
ingly, the standard for “humane” treatment is largely determined by what is regarded as
customary in the particular industry. The law assumes that rational property owners will
not generally have any incentive to harm their animal property gratuitously.
The second sort of organization usually (although not always) characterizes itself as an
“animal rights” group and promotes some version of the idea that animal use is not
morally justifiable and should be abolished or, at least, substantially reduced. The prima
ry example of a group in this category is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PE
TA), which uses the slogan, “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for en
tertainment, or abuse in any other way,” a sentiment that would never be expressed by
one of the traditional welfarist organizations. But despite taking what is supposedly a po
sition that is ideologically different from the traditional welfarist organizations, PETA and
groups like it still promote welfare reform campaigns that are often indistinguishable
from what traditional welfarist groups promote.
Some groups like PETA maintain that they support welfare reform only as a means to the
end of abolishing or significantly reducing animal use. This position, which has been char
acterized as new welfarism by critics45 and as animal protectionism or animal regulation
Page 16 of 20
Animal Rights
There are many animal advocates who pursue their advocacy apart from involvement in
any organization. The abolitionist movement is largely a grassroots effort.
In conclusion, “animal rights” is a concept that has multiple meanings. Some maintain
that as a strength; some see it as impeding any progress in the quest for justice for non
humans.
Notes:
(1.) Bryan Salvage, “Revolutionizing the Veal Industry,” Meat Processing, December 2006,
15.
(2.) Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, rev. ed. (New York: Avon, 1990).
(3.) See, e.g., Greg Neale, “Peter Singer: Monkey Business,” Independent, December 3,
2006, accessed June 9, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/peter-
singer-monkey-business-426768.html
(4.) For a further discussion of the concept of rights, both generally and in the context of
animal rights, see Gary L. Francione, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the
Dog? (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2000), xxvi–xxxi.
(5.) For an excellent discussion of the moral status of nonhuman animals in the Western
philosophical tradition, see Gary Steiner, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The
Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2005).
(6.) See, generally, Gary L. Francione, Animals, Property, and the Law (Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press, 1995), 121–133.
(7.) John Cottingham, et al. trans., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), 139.
(8.) See, e.g., John Lawrence, A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses, and on
the Moral Duties of Man Towards the Brute Creation (London: T. Longman, 1796); Joseph
Ritson, An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty (London: Richard
Phillips, 1802); Thomas Young, An Essay on Humanity to Animals (London: T. Cadell, Jun.
and W. Davies, 1798). The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley included an extended footnote in his
1813 poem Queen Mab concerning not consuming animal foods that became a free-stand
ing pamphlet titled A Vindication of Natural Diet.
(9.) Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781;
New York: Hafner, 1948), 310–311n1.
Page 17 of 20
Animal Rights
(12.) John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1879), 11.
(17.) Mill, on the other hand, was what we would now refer to as a “rule utilitarian” who
argued in favor of rules that were justified by the principle of utility even if following
those rules would not maximize utility in a particular case.
(19.) Bentham used this expression in “Anarchical Fallacies: Being An Examination of the
Declarations of Rights Issued During the French Revolution,” in, The Works of Jeremy
Bentham, vol. 2, ed. John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), 501. Even if Bentham
did not believe in the natural right not to be a slave, he was at least what we would now
call a “rule utilitarian” with respect to slavery (see note 17).
(20.) (London: Westley and Parrish, 1824). The Edwin Mellen Press republished the book
in 1997.
(21.) (London: George Bell & Sons, 1892). The Society for Animal Rights republished the
book in 1980.
(22.) For example, Edward Nicolson used the notion of “rights” in his book, The Rights of
An Animal: A New Essay in Ethics (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1879).
(23.) The inaugural issue of the newsletter of the Vegan Society and an interview with
founder Donald Watson can be found at http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/source-ma
terials-on-donald-watson/#.VARvQKP_naE.
(24.) See Gary L. Francione’s entry on Donald Watson in Cultural Encyclopedia of Vege
tarianism, ed. Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2010),
261–262. It should be noted that the authors of this chapter have been sharply critical of
the Vegan Society precisely because of the authors’ view that the Vegan Society has aban
doned Watson’s position that veganism is a moral imperative and has, instead, embraced
a “flexitarian” approach. See, e.g., “A Moment of Silence for Donald Watson, Founder of
the Vegan Society,” http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/moment-silence-donald-watson-
founder-vegan-society/#.VANGDKP_naE.
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Animal Rights
(28.) See Dave Gilson, “Chew the Right Thing,” Mother Jones (May 3, 2006), accessed
June 9, 2015 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/chew-right-thing; “Singer
Says,” Satya (October 2006), accessed June 9, 2015 http://www.satyamag.com/oct06/
singer.html
(30.) Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, (eds.), The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Hu
manity (London: Fourth Estate, 1993), 5.
(31.) Rosamund Raha, “Animal Liberation: An Interview with Professor Peter Singer,” The
Vegan (Autumn, 2006), 19.
(32.) Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011), 119.
(36.) For a discussion of this matter, see Gary L. Francione, Animals as Persons: Essays on
the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 210–
229.
(37.) For a selection of essays that discuss the abolitionist approach to animal rights, see
Francione, Animals as Persons. See also Gary L. Francione’s essay, “The Abolition of Ani
mal Exploitation,” in Gary L. Francione and Robert Garner, The Animal Rights Debate:
Abolition or Regulation? (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 1–102; Francione,
Introduction to Animal Rights; Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website, http://
www.AbolitionistApproach.com; Gary Steiner, Animals and the Moral Community: Mental
Life, Moral Status, and Kinship (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
(38.) See Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton, Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the
Morality of Eating Animals. (Newark, NJ: Exempla Press, 2013).
(39.) Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s
chapter in this volume, “Animals in Political Theory.”
(40.) See Robert Garner’s essay, “A Defense of a Broad Animal Protectionism,” in The Ani
mal Rights Debate, 103–174. See also Robert Garner, Animals, Politics and Morality, 2nd
ed. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004).
Page 19 of 20
Animal Rights
(41.) Alasdair Cochrane, Animal Rights Without Liberation: Applied Ethics and Human
Obligations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
(42.) For a discussion of animals and the law, see, generally, Francione, Animals, Property,
and the Law; Francione, Animals as Persons, 67–128.
(44.) For a discussion of the modern animal rights movement, see Gary L. Francione, Rain
Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (Philadelphia, PA: 1996);
Francione, Animals as Persons, 67–128. See also the essays on various animal organiza
tions on the Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website, http://
www.AbolitionistApproach.com.
Gary L. Francione
Anna E. Charlton
Page 20 of 20
Animals in Political Theory
Western political theorists have largely ignored the animal question, assuming that ani
mals have no place in our theories of democracy, citizenship, membership, sovereignty,
and the public good. Conversely, animal ethicists have largely ignored political theory, as
suming that we can theorize the moral status and moral rights of animals without draw
ing on the categories and concepts of political theory. This chapter traces the history of
this separation between animals and political theory, examines the resulting intellectual
blind spots for animal ethics, and reviews recent attempts to bring the two together. Situ
ating animal rights within political theory has the potential to identify new models of jus
tice in human-animal relations, and to open up new areas of scholarship and research.
Keywords: political theory, democracy, citizenship, membership, animal rights, animal ethics, sovereignty
POLITICAL philosophy has been largely silent on the animal question, viewing it as an is
sue for ethicists but irrelevant to the core topics of political philosophy, such as theories
of political community, democracy, boundaries, citizenship, the public good, civil society,
sovereignty, and constitutionalism. Virtually all of the work done in contemporary politi
cal philosophy continues to assume that we can theorize these issues without taking ani
mals into account. And, to be fair, this indifference is largely reciprocated. The vast bulk
of the work done in animal ethics, whether based on animal welfare or animal rights, has
not considered it necessary or helpful to connect animal ethics to the core concepts of po
litical philosophy.
In one sense, this is surprising, since politics is often defined as the study of the exercise
of coercive power. Political theory has been concerned, above all, with determining when
the exercise of power is legitimate, and with distinguishing legitimate authority from
tyranny. Political theorists ask, when is it legitimate for some to exercise power over oth
ers? and how can relations of power be held accountable to norms of justice? As Augus
tine famously put it, both a legitimate state and a band of robbers exercise coercion; what
Page 1 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
distinguishes a legitimate state is that it aspires to justice and governs in the interests of
the governed.
Viewed this way, one might think that governing animals would be a paradigmatic focus
for political theory. Consider domesticated animals. They are comprehensively controlled
by modern states. Every aspect of their lives—their physical confinement and transporta
tion, their sex and reproduction, their ownership and sale, their diet and health, their
killing—is minutely governed by state regulations. Indeed, the expansion and consolida
tion of modern states was in many ways driven by the expansion of control over domesti
cated animals.1 Yet virtually none of this exercise of state power over animals is in the in
terests of the animals being governed. Rather, state power operates to authorize the use
and harm of animals for human benefit.2 Insofar as political theory seeks to replace tyran
ny with legitimate authority—and to replace the naked exercise of (p. 44) power with jus
tice—then the governance of domesticated animals seems like an obvious and pressing is
sue for political theory.
Why, then, has political theory ignored the animal question? One reason is that politics
has been defined, not only as the exercise of coercive power, but also as the exercise of a
uniquely human capacity to deliberate collectively about the goals and purposes of gov
ernment. When Aristotle famously defined humans as a “political animal,” he explained:
Now that man is more of a political animal than bees or other gregarious animals
is evident. Nature, as we say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal
who she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an
indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their
nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to
one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expe
dient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and unjust. And it is a char
acteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust,
and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a fam
ily and a state.3
For Aristotle, only those with “the power of speech” to “set forth the just and unjust” can
be party to a political relationship or members of a political community. Other animals
may have “the perception of pleasure and pain,” but they are incapable of articulating
and deliberating their interests and claims in propositional form and are therefore dis
qualified from being “political” animals. As Steiner notes, this idea that the capacity for
“linguistic agency” is a precondition for membership in a political association runs deep
in the Western tradition, from the ancient Greeks to today, and has been invoked as
grounds for excluding animals from theories of politics.4
So, while the goal of political theory is to replace tyranny with legitimate authority, the
scope of this requirement is restricted to linguistic agents. Indeed, the absence of linguis
tic agency has been invoked, not just to exclude animals from political theory, but to justi
Page 2 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
fy tyrannical rule over them, and to justify using and harming them for human benefit.
Here again is Aristotle:
When there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men
and animals … the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for
all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master … [I]ndeed, the use
made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies
minister to the needs of life.5
As this passage indicates, the historical exclusion of animals from politics has often gone
hand-in-hand with the exclusion of humans perceived as deficient in linguistic agency. We
will return to this point later. But the equation of politics with linguistic agency is perva
sive, and this helps to explain why political theorists have ignored the animal question.
Contemporary animal ethicists and animal advocates have had to confront this
(p. 45)
Aristotelean legacy, but it is interesting to note how they accept parts of that legacy even
as they challenge other parts. Aristotle in effect makes two claims about animals: (1) that
their lack of linguistic agency excludes them membership in a polis; (2) that their lack of
linguistic agency makes them by nature slaves, to be used for the needs of others. Con
temporary animal advocates typically challenge the second claim but leave the first un
touched. Indeed, animal advocates have often gone out of their way to deny that a com
mitment to animal rights requires challenging the first claim.6 Against the background of
a Western tradition that ties politics to linguistic agency, to say that animal rights in
cludes political rights or that it involves seeing animals as our co-citizens, is seen as a re
ductio ad absurdum of the animal rights cause. In Brian Barry’s words, “[N]obody—from
the most fervent animal liberationist to the most unrepentant carnivore” believes that ani
mals are “fitted by nature to enjoy civil and political rights.”7
The aim of most animal advocacy, therefore, is not to include animals in the polis, but
rather to sever political status from moral status. Aristotle may be right that animals are
ineligible for political status owing to their lack of linguistic agency, but he is wrong to in
fer that humans are therefore morally entitled to enslave animals. Animals have moral
rights that are independent of political status. On this view, the animals who live among
us will always be aliens and subjects rather than citizens politically speaking, since they
lack linguistic agency. Nevertheless, in virtue of their intrinsic moral status, they should
not be seen merely as resources for human societies to use, but as beings with their own
moral worth that sets limits on how we may use and harm them. These moral limits may
take the form of “welfarist” proposals for more humane treatment or the more radical
“rights” proposal to abolish all forms of human use of animals; but in either case, the goal
is to strengthen the moral status of animals without challenging their lack of political sta
tus.
This strategy seeks to protect animals while leaving untouched the traditional Western
view that politics is an exclusively human activity based on linguistic agency. This helps
explain why the animal question has been debated extensively in ethics, with its richly
elaborated theories of moral status and moral rights, but remains largely invisible in po
Page 3 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
litical philosophy, with its theories of citizenship, governance and popular sovereignty. In
short, the assumption that “animals cannot be citizens”8 is widely shared both in tradi
tional political theory and in the contemporary animal advocacy movement.
Recently, however, various authors have challenged the exclusion of animals from politi
cal theory, arguing that animals must be situated in our theories of citizenship, democra
cy and sovereignty.9 According to these authors, we need to challenge the Aristotelian
legacy at a deeper level, questioning his initial premise that only humans qualify as politi
cal animals. Human-animal relations can be understood as forms of political association,
and the basic concepts and categories of political theory can illuminate normative issues
of human-animal relations, helping us to identify the relevant forms of injustice and the
appropriate remedies.
In this chapter, we explore this new development, and consider what political theo
(p. 46)
ry might offer to animal ethics and animal studies more generally. As we will see, viewing
human-animal relations through the lens of political theory opens up new vistas that draw
on, and may also help inform, other fields of animal studies, including geography, sociolo
gy, ecology and animal ethics.10
How, then, can we explain the political theory turn in animal ethics? Part of the explana
tion is the recognition that animal advocacy based on appeals to moral status without po
litical inclusion has largely failed. The discouraging fact is that more animals today are
confined, harmed, and killed for human benefit than 50 years ago when the current ani
mal rights movement emerged, and this despite the fact that we have ever-more sophisti
cated moral arguments and empirical evidence for the claim that animals possess morally
salient capacities. If progress is to be made, it seems that new strategies and new visions
may be required. And since ideas of citizenship and sovereignty have galvanized powerful
social justice movements around the globe, it is natural to ask whether these ideas can be
deployed in defense of animals.
But in addition to this strategic argument, the turn to political theory reflects a growing
awareness of the intellectual limitations of traditional animal rights theory. Animal ethics
has been preoccupied with a surprisingly narrow set of issues, to the neglect of other im
portant demands and dilemmas in human-animal interactions. We will mention three such
limitations that have helped spur the interest in political theories of animal rights.
Page 4 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
Until recently, many philosophers working on animal ethics have focused on one central
question—namely, what is the intrinsic moral status of animals (typically grounded in the
possession of sentience), and what moral claims flow from this intrinsic status? Propo
nents of animal welfare and of animal rights disagree about how to characterize these
moral claims, and in particular about whether animals have the sort of moral status that
makes it illegitimate for us to harm them for our benefit. But they generally agree that
the answer to this question is determined by a theory of intrinsic moral status.
The moral significance of intrinsic capacities is important, but so, too, are issues
(p. 47)
arising from the different types of relationships humans have with different animals. For
example, domesticated dogs evolved from wild wolves and possess similar forms of sen
tience. If this were all that mattered ethically, we would have the same obligations to
dogs as to wolves. But our relationship to dogs is historically very different, and we have
specific obligations to them in virtue of the ways in which we have brought them into our
society and bred them to be dependent on us. Dogs, we might say, are members of a
shared human-animal society in a way that wolves are not, and they therefore should
have membership rights, as well as the rights owed to all sentient beings. We need a theo
ry of membership, as well as a theory of intrinsic status.
This is a familiar point in the human case. We owe certain things to all human beings in
virtue of their intrinsic moral status: these obligations are typically framed in the lan
guage of universal human rights. But we also have distinct obligations to those people
who are members of our society: obligations that are typically framed in the language of
citizenship rights. Indeed, it is these latter obligations—the rights of citizenship rather
than universal human rights—that have been the main focus of Western political theory.
By contrast, in the animal case, we have richly elaborated theories of universal animal
rights based on intrinsic moral status, but no comparable theories of membership rights.
We have good theories about what we owe to both wolves and dogs in virtue of their in
trinsic capacities, but few theories about what we owe specifically to dogs in virtue of the
way they have been incorporated into our societies.
Describing domesticated animals as members of a shared society may seem naïve given
that they have been brought into human societies as a caste group to serve us. The histo
ry of relations between humans and domesticated animals is one of domination and ex
ploitation, and the goal of animal advocacy must be to end the subordination and sacrifice
of nonhuman animals to serve human purposes. And here we face an important choice.
Do we end subordination by fully recognizing the membership rights of domesticated ani
mals or by severing our connections with them?
For many theorists, particularly “abolitionists,” the way to end domination is to stop exer
cising power over animals. We should empty the cages, liberate captive animals (through
re-wilding or gradual extinction), and cease ownership and exploitation.11 As for free-liv
Page 5 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
ing animals, we should “let them be.”12 The goal is not to exercise power more responsi
bly or more justly but to renounce power entirely. Palmer calls this the “laissez-faire intu
ition” in animal rights theory.13 This approach is prevalent because many animal rights
theorists doubt that power can ever be exercised justly. Given animals’ vulnerability, de
pendence, and lack of linguistic agency, and also given the profound self-interest humans
have in using animals for our own ends, relationships with them will inevitably degener
ate into tyranny. Justice, on this view, requires severing all relationships with animals in
what Acampora calls “species apartheid”: humans living among humans; (p. 48) animals
living among animals.14 This view, implicitly or explicitly, dominated much of animal
ethics in the late twentieth century.15
But this laissez-faire intuition, with its vision of species apartheid, is untenable. It fails
even a minimal test of empirical feasibility. There is no possible world in which animals
are not constantly affected (for better or worse) by us. Humans will inevitably be making
decisions that affect animals’ environments, their mobility (on land, sea, and air), their
food and water sources, and the risks they face. Any plausible theory of animal rights,
therefore, must consider how the exercise of power can be rendered just, and how it can
be responsive to the good of those who are subject to that power.
Species apartheid is also morally untenable. It ignores the fact that we have acquired
moral responsibilities toward particular groups of animals due to our own past actions,
including responsibilities to attend to needs arising through domestication or through hu
man-induced changes to habitat. Our previous actions have made some animals vulnera
ble to new types of harm and risk. To simply “let them be” at this point in history is to
wash our hands of moral responsibilities we have inherited.
The challenge, then, is to think about how ongoing relations can be rendered more just,
which is to say, more responsive to the interests of the animals involved. If it is neither
empirically feasible nor morally acceptable to sever our relations with animals, we need
to ask how these ongoing relations can be reconstructed so that they are as responsive to
the will and interests of animals as to our own will and interests. And this in turn requires
thinking about animals in a different way, as agents and co-creators of our shared world.
Unfortunately, animal advocacy has been dominated by a focus on animals as passive vic
tims of human domination, and on the suffering this involves, rather than on their agency
and potential as co-creators of a shared world. This is quite explicit in Peter Singer’s
claim that his “focus has always been on animals’ capacity to suffer, from the time I start
ed thinking seriously about the ethics of how we treat them.”16 Elsewhere, Singer states
that we “do enough if we eliminate our own unnecessary killing and cruelty towards oth
er animals.”17 Inspired by this focus on suffering, the goal of advocacy has been to high
light (1) that animals are sentient beings who suffer terribly in factory farms or animal
laboratories (for example); (2) that this suffering is unnecessary, since humans can flour
Page 6 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
ish without using animals; and (3) that imposing this unnecessary suffering violates the
intrinsic moral worth of animals, as well as our duty to minimize harm.
This is a powerful and important set of claims, but it provides no clear basis for thinking
about how to reconstruct our relations with animals. Certainly, we should stop “unneces
sary killing and cruelty,” but what then? A focus on suffering by itself may not rule out
many forms of captivity or animal exploitation. Indeed, the focus on suffering can even be
used to justify maintaining animals in zoos or enclosed in factory farms on the grounds
that they are thereby protected from the hazards of predation, exposure, or starvation.18
If we want to truly restructure our relations with animals, we need to explore how
(p. 49)
to empower animals to define the terms of their relationships with us. We need to recog
nize animals as intentional beings, able to express their own good, to communicate it, and
to competently pursue activities and relationships that are meaningful to them. As
Jonathan Balcombe notes, ever since Bentham insisted that the question is, “can they suf
fer?” animals have been characterized primarily as “pain-avoiders” rather than “pleasure-
seekers”19—or, we might add, knowledge-seekers or experience-seekers or relationship-
seekers. Any plausible account of justice in human-animal relations needs to consider
how to enable animals to seek out positive goods that are meaningful to them, and to re
structure our relations with them in the light of this animal agency. In short, we need to
ask what kind of relationships they want to have with us (if any), and create the circum
stances for them to explore different options, express preferences, and exert’ meaningful
control over their lives. At a strategic level, the focus on reducing suffering seems under
standable given the enormous pain and suffering we needlessly inflict on animals. But jus
tice requires supplementing this focus on passive suffering with a commitment to enable
animal agency, including the ability to coauthor the terms of their relationship with us.
In short, it is increasingly recognized (1) that animals not only have intrinsic moral status
but also morally significant relationships and memberships that generate distinctive
rights and obligations; (2) that we cannot avoid the exercise of power by “letting them
be,” but need to acknowledge the inevitability of asymmetric power and hold that power
accountable; and (3) that justice requires not only reducing suffering but also supporting
animal agency.
Taken together, these three insights push us in the direction of a distinctly political theory
of animal rights. To be sure, versions of these points are also recognized in other recent
approaches to animal ethics, such as care ethics,20 ecofeminism,21 capability ethics,22
virtue ethics,23 or posthumanist ethics.24 These all start from the premise that continued
relations between humans and animals are inevitable, and that the central challenge is to
reform these relationships in light of our ethical duties toward animals in ways that are
responsive to animals’ agency. These approaches do not, however, envisage according a
new political status to animals. While they have broadened the focus beyond intrinsic
moral status to also include relational moral obligations, they nonetheless maintain the
traditional view that animals cannot be citizens, and that animals have moral claims with
out being members of the polis. In the end, like Singer and Regan, they implicitly accept
Page 7 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
Aristotle’s claim that linguistic agency is a precondition for political status, even as they
reject Aristotle’s views about the moral status of those who lack linguistic agency.
It would take us too far afield to canvass all of these relational alternatives to political
theories of animal rights. Some are potentially compatible with, and supplementary to,
rights-based political theories.25 Many others, however, have borne out the fears of aboli
tionists that relational theories that permit and valorize ongoing human-animal relations
are dangerous for animals when framed as alternatives to rights. The rhetoric of care,
partnership, stewardship, and even love is invoked by theorists who defend the (p. 50)
raising and killing of animals for food or medical research, or who deny that animals have
basic interests in freedom, self-determination, or even continued life.26 Whatever their in
tent, by failing to guarantee basic rights, these approaches open the door to continued
exploitation of animals as a caste group serving human interests.
A clear example is the work of Martha Nussbaum.27 Nussbaum emphasizes the impor
tance of animals pursuing their species-specific capabilities, including capabilities for
pleasure and play and social relationships, hence, the duty of human caregivers is to en
able such actions. But Nussbaum also thinks that humans are morally entitled to kill ani
mals for food or for scientific research. As Schinkel notes, while Nussbaum states that
“one of the central entitlements of animals is the entitlement to a healthy life,” what she
really means is that animals have “the entitlement to a healthy life until we eat them.”28
Like other theories that fail to guarantee basic rights to animals, her theory ends up as a
rationalization for animal exploitation. We would not claim that this is the inevitable out
come of any relational approach that seeks to recognize animals’ moral status without al
so seeking political inclusion, but it is a recurrent pattern, and as we will discuss, there
are reasons to think that political inclusion and moral rights work best together.
In short, traditional abolitionist animal rights theory endorses firm protection of basic
rights to life and liberty for animals, but it is attached to a fantasy of species apartheid in
which humans can sever relationships with, and renounce power over, animals. Many wel
farist, care, virtue, posthumanist, and capability alternatives to animal rights theory ac
cept the inevitability and desirability of ongoing human and animal relations, but do not
guarantee animals basic rights. In effect, we are offered a choice of rights without rela
tionships, or relationships without rights. This is the gap that a political theory of animal
rights seeks to fill.
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tion of political order is that of the territorial nation-state, and so this is the starting point
for most of the current work on political theories of animal rights.
This prevailing political order is defined by territorially bounded states, each of which de
rives its legitimacy from ideas of popular sovereignty or national self-determination. Ac
cording to this conception, the world is composed of “peoples” who inhabit different terri
tories. They have the right to govern themselves and their territory, and the nation-state
is the vehicle by which peoples enact these rights of self-government. (p. 51) This concep
tion of the nation-state emerged first in Europe, but with decolonization has replicated it
self around the world.
How can we locate animals within this conception of political order? We have elsewhere
argued that animals, like humans, occupy three distinct statuses:30
Domesticated Animals
Domesticated animals have been brought into human societies through confinement and
selective breeding. We’ve made them dependent on our care, foreclosing any (immediate)
option of a more independent existence. We have coerced their participation in our
schemes of social cooperation, exploiting them for food and labor. They are members of
our shared society, but as a subordinated class intended to serve us. Every dimension of
their lives is governed and regulated by a human political order,31 a political order de
signed to be responsive to human interests, not animal interests. They are tyrannized, in
short.
How do we transform caste hierarchy into relations of justice? As in human cases of caste
hierarchy, justice requires recognizing the full and equal membership of subordinated
groups, and citizenship is the tool we use to convert relations of caste hierarchy into rela
tions of equal membership. Domesticated animals should be recognized as full members
and co-citizens of society, sharing in the same rights as human citizens to protection (ba
sic rights to life and liberty), provision (social rights), and participation (the right to have
a say in how society is structured). Under these conditions, the exercise of power entailed
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in governing a shared human-animal society can be legitimate, not tyrannical, because so
ciety is dedicated to the flourishing of all of its members.
Enabling domesticated animals to “have a say” and to exercise control over their lives is a
challenge, given their lack of linguistic agency. But it’s important to emphasize that this
challenge does not arise solely in relation to domesticated animals. As noted earlier, one
consequence of the Aristotelian legacy that ties politics to linguistic agency is (p. 52) that
many humans, such as young children or people with atypical cognitive abilities, have
been excluded from the polis for most of history. This political exclusion persisted even in
times when society purported to respect the moral standing of these groups. In this re
spect, their position historically was structurally similar to that proposed by many con
temporary animal advocates: young children and others outside the adult neurotypical
“norm” were seen as having a moral status but were ineligible for political participation.
Today, however, we recognize that this approach is inadequate and unfair. Justice re
quires political inclusion of all members of society, regardless of their linguistic/rational
capacities. This is explicit in the provisions of recent UN conventions regarding the rights
of the child and the rights of people with disabilities.32 In both cases, it is assumed that
children (even very young children) and those with disabilities (even severe intellectual
disabilities) are not just vulnerable individuals who have needs for protection and provi
sion, but are also members of society, involved in dense webs of trust, communication,
and cooperation with others, and as such have rights of participation, which include be
ing socialized into and helping to shape social norms, practices, and environments. Partic
ipation means sharing in power, not just being subjected to it. This is the so-called 3P
model—protection, provision, and participation—which has revolutionized thinking about
the rights of children and people with cognitive disabilities over the past 30 years.33
This model is a decisive repudiation, even reversal, of the Aristotelian vision of politics
and citizenship. For Aristotle, individuals deserved to be recognized as members of a po
litical association because they possessed the capacity to participate through linguistic
agency. But this is backward. Individuals have the right to participate because they are
members of society: membership is the morally primary notion, and enabling participa
tion (insofar as possible) is one of the duties we owe to all those who are members of a
shared social world.34 Citizenship is not a prize awarded to those who pass some test of
cognitive “normalcy” or linguistic agency, but is a political status owed to all those who
are members of society and who therefore have a right to shape its future.
Of course, precisely how we enable participation will depend on the capacities of the indi
viduals involved and their social context. Where individuals possess linguistic agency, en
abling participation may be more straightforward (or familiar), involving traditional forms
of political activity such as voting and writing petitions. Where members of society lack
linguistic agency, implementing their rights and responsibilities of membership requires
developing new ways of engaging the subjectivity of these co-citizens, focusing less on
the ability to articulate or understand propositions, and more on attending to their “var
ied modes of doing, saying and being.”35 We must look beyond classical forms of political
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activity to think more broadly about what it means to have a say in how decisions affect
ing one’s life are made. As children’s rights advocates say, we need to take decision-mak
ing to the spaces and places that are meaningful for children—we need “child-sized
spaces” of citizenship—that hold to account the exercise of power in those spaces and
places. Some examples, in the case of young children, are decisions about health inter
ventions, schooling, recreational opportunities, or custody decisions. (p. 53) While young
children or people with cognitive disabilities may not be capable of giving “informed con
sent” as defined in the law, they are certainly capable of expressing preferences and mak
ing decisions in a variety of ways. Their input, even their “assent,” is often now legally re
quired.
So we are already committed as a society to building new models and relations of citizen
ship that are inclusive of the full range of human diversity, beyond linguistic agency, and
there is no conceptual obstacle to extending this commitment to our animal co-citizens as
well. Models of trusteeship, interpretation, “dependent agency,” and supported decision-
making are being developed to promote this vision of citizenship for domesticated ani
mals,36 drawing in part on comparable experiences with promoting citizenship for hu
mans who lack linguistic agency. While not capable of propositional speech, it is impor
tant not to underestimate domesticated animals’ capacities for communication, coopera
tion, and agency. Domestication is only possible for animals capable of entering into rela
tions of trust, reflexive communication, and norm sensitivity with humans. We cannot
have this sort of shared sociability with many of the animals on the planet, but we can
with domesticated animals. Indeed, some of the most interesting work in animal studies
in recent years has focused on this intricate web of interspecies sociability that links hu
mans and domesticated animals.37 Thus, domestication not only makes the extension of
co-citizenship morally necessary, but also possible.
In sum, we argue that (1) humans and domesticated animals will be involved in ongoing
relationships and forms of society; (2) as long as domesticated animals are members with
us of a shared community, they need the rights of citizens; and (3) participation is funda
mental to citizenship, and so our obligation to domesticated animals is not only to protect
them and to provide for species-typical behaviors, but also to find ways for them to partic
ipate in shaping the norms and activities of the mixed human-animal societies we share.
Citizenship in this sense, combining membership rights and participation rights, is the
crucial step needed to convert existing caste relations into relations of justice.
Wilderness Animals
Most animal species on the planet are not domesticated, and a model of co-citizenship
based on the capacity for interspecies communication, cooperation, and sociability is not
possible or appropriate with most nondomesticated animals. This does not mean, howev
er, that human relations with nondomesticated animals cannot be seen as having a politi
cal dimension. In our view, it is useful to distinguish two broad categories of nondomesti
cated animals: those whom we might call truly wild or wilderness animals, who are tied to
specific territories or ecological niches and who try to live independently of humans; and
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those whom we can call “liminal” animals because they adapt to live among us in urban
or suburban spaces. We will discuss each in turn.
Wilderness animals live on their own territory, typically avoiding human contact as much
as possible. These are the animals for whom the “laissez-faire intuition” is most (p. 54) ap
propriate. As a general rule of thumb, we do best by simply “letting them be.” But the re
ality is that this rule of thumb has proven incomplete and ineffective in countering the in
justices humans inflict on wilderness animals. Even when they are not directly harmed by
being hunted or captured or subject to wildlife management regimes, their territory is
regularly subject to human invasion, colonization, displacement, and habitat destruction.
Historically, human societies have treated wild animal lands as terra nullius that we can
pollute, denude, degrade, and occupy without justification.38
How can we prevent this injustice? In intrahuman politics, we attempt to block this kind
of aggression by recognizing the rights of “peoples” to their own territory and to autono
my within that territory. These rights are the key components of the principle of sover
eignty that regulates relations among different peoples or states; they accord bounded
political communities the right to maintain themselves as viable, self-governing societies
in traditional territories or homelands. Sovereignty protects them from outsiders who
would expel them, steal their land and resources, turn them into client states, or impose
unfair burdens on them (such as cross-border pollution). Sovereignty also provides a se
cure basis from which to negotiate fair terms of cooperation (e.g., trade and mobility
rights) and forms of assistance or intervention that do not undermine autonomy.
We argue that the same principles should apply to wilderness animals. Wild animal com
munities should be seen as having a sovereign “right to place” that blocks human aggres
sion, and our relations with these communities should be governed, not by brute force,
but by norms of international justice—a true “law of peoples” between human and animal
communities.
Just as many people find it incoherent to think of domesticated animals as “citizens,” so,
too, many find it baffling to think of wilderness animals as “sovereign.” For just as the
Western tradition of political theory says that only linguistic agents can be citizens, so,
too, the tradition says that only certain kinds of societies can be sovereign—in particular,
those with formal institutions of self-rule and codified law. Societies—human or animal—
that lack such formal institutions are seen as ineligible for the protections of sovereignty.
This indeed was the pretext under which European colonizers asserted imperial rule over
many indigenous peoples, who were said to lack the formal legal institutions required to
claim sovereignty.
But here again, we have already moved well beyond this traditional account of the pre
conditions of sovereignty. Consider the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. It accords rights of self-determination to all indigenous peoples, whether or not
they have formal state structures. They are owed sovereignty because they have funda
mental interests in the rights to territory and autonomy, and in being protected against
forms of colonization, displacement, and environmental destruction, regardless of the
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presence or absence of particular forms of codified law. Sovereignty is not a prize award
ed to those societies that pass some test of institutional completeness or structural com
plexity; it is a shield accorded to those who have interests in territory and autonomy.
Of course, precisely how we uphold these rights of sovereignty will depend on the
(p. 55)
diverse ways in which human and animal societies organize themselves. Where formal
state structures exist, it may be relatively straightforward to use existing institutions of
international law to develop and enforce sovereignty rights. In the case of indigenous
peoples who do not possess their own internationally recognized state, new structures
are being developed. And so, too, we need to be innovative in designing new frameworks
to uphold the sovereignty of wilderness animals. While some wilderness animals live in
discrete habitats, others migrate over extensive areas of land, water, or air. But various
models of partial, overlapping, interstitial, and substate sovereignty rights have been de
veloped in the human case, along with ideas of mobility corridors and international com
mons that can address these complexities in ways that uphold underlying rights to territo
ry and autonomy. Recent work has begun to extend these ideas to animals, in terms of
both the protections of territorial-based self-determination39 and the limits of these pro
tections.40
Liminal Animals
Not all animals can be neatly categorized as either our co-citizens (full members of a
shared cooperative scheme) or as members of some other sovereign society (other na
tions occupying distinct territories). Countless animals (rats, mice, squirrels, sparrows,
raccoons, coyotes, and many others) live among us, but not as part of a shared coopera
tive scheme as with domesticated animals. Currently, these liminal animals have no pro
tection from human violence. They are often treated as pests, invaders, and aliens, and
are ruthlessly killed or expelled. In this respect, they share similar vulnerabilities to
groups of liminal humans, who live among us without participating in a common citizen
ship, including migrant workers, foreign visitors, or isolationist religious groups, such as
the Amish. Such “denizens”—that is, those who are resident without being citizens—are
all vulnerable to being stigmatized and exploited.
One way to limit this vulnerability is to ensure that denizens have the option of becoming
citizens. However, many denizens do not wish to become citizens, but prefer a looser rela
tionship of tolerant coexistence involving fewer mutual obligations. Consider the Amish:
they have consistently sought to be exempted from both the rights and responsibilities of
American citizenship in order to maintain a traditional religious way of life that requires
distance from the larger American society. They want to be residents of the United States
without being active members of a shared cooperative scheme with other American citi
zens, and the US Supreme Court has affirmed that this is a legitimate and constitutionally
protected interest.
We argue that this kind of arrangement makes sense for many liminal animals. They, too,
have a way of life that involves physical proximity to human society but social distance
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from it. It is doubtful that they would benefit from (or be capable of) being incorporated
into the kinds of cooperative citizenship relations we can have with (p. 56) domesticated
animals. Co-citizenship provides robust rights of provision, protection, and participation,
but it also imposes robust obligations to adhere to citizenship norms of cooperation and
reciprocity. To incorporate liminal animals into these civic norms would require massive
coercion and interference in their ways of life. What nondomesticated animals living
among us need is secure denizenship: they need to be protected from our violence, our
negligence of their interests, and our refusal to recognize their secure rights of residency.
They need tolerant co-existence or conviviality rather than intimate cooperation. Recent
work in multispecies ethnography and animal geography illuminates these relationships
in ways that can ground a political theory of animal denizenship.41
Future Directions
We have provided just a sketch of how one might apply the categories and concepts of po
litical theory to the issue of animal rights, but hopefully it gives an indication of the po
tential richness of this new terrain. Political theory offers many ways of conceptualizing
forms of political association and political inclusion—multiple ways of defining the demos,
each with its forms of membership and autonomy—each of which has been theorized in
diverse theoretical traditions, including liberalism, civic republicanism, Marxism, conser
vatism, and postcolonialism. We have barely begun to scratch the surface of how we
might apply these ideas to theorize diverse patterns of human-animal relations.
In our view, there is great potential here, in the first instance to overcome an impasse in
animal ethics. For the past 40 years, animal ethics has often wavered between two ex
tremes. In its pessimistic Foucauldian moments, the relation between humans and domes
ticated animals is seen as inherently and always already oppressive and dominating (dis
ciplining and policing), with no potential for fundamental change. Interspecies relations
are fundamentally locked into a framework of violence, with humans asserting a right to
dominate animals as a continuing spoil of interspecies war.42 Against this background, the
extinction of domesticated animals (and a commitment to leave wild animals alone) may
appear as the only hope for ending the carnage.
In more naïve (or self-serving) moments, animal ethicists search for and celebrate minor
enhancements of animals’ welfare or freedom, reflected in the rise of free-range-chicken
farms, cooperative horse training methods, or “enrichment” for zoo and lab animals—all
of which are taken as evidence of “partnership,” “cooperation,” and even “love.”43 Yet
these reforms and perspectives leave untouched, and indeed are complicit in, the system
atic exploitation of animals to serve human interests, in large part because they take as
given that the purposes of human-animal relations are always already fixed by humans.
What has been largely absent is any serious attempt to explore the vast territory between
these two extremes, a territory in which animals would be seen as coauthors of (p. 57)
their relations with humans, whether as co-members of a shared society, in which cooper
ative activities would be as responsive to their interests and purposes as to ours, or as
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members of separate societies working out the terms of peaceful coexistence with us. And
it is here, above all, that political theory is valuable. Political theory is committed to the
model of a society that belongs to all its members, whose ground rules are jointly shaped
by those members, and that thus provides a vital resource for reimagining our relations
within and between interspecies communities.
The promise of political theory is evident in the children’s rights and disability rights
movements. As noted earlier, discussion of these groups also wavered between pes
simistic declarations of Foucauldian domination and optimistic celebrations of minor pa
ternalistic reforms. What was needed, and what has emerged, was a reframing of
children’s rights and disability rights as an issue of citizenship, not just paternalistic wel
fare reform, and this, in turn, was made possible by a reframing of citizenship as a matter
of membership and participation in place of the Aristotelian model that ties citizenship to
linguistic agency.
Similarly, the fate of indigenous peoples, long trapped between the forces of colonial dis
possession and paternalistic welfare reform, has been reframed as an issue of self-deter
mination, a shift that was itself made possible by a reframing of self-determination as a
matter of territory and autonomy.
It is perhaps not surprising that animal rights theory has lagged behind children, disabili
ty, and indigenous studies in theorizing these terrains. In the case of animals, it is still
possible—however implausibly—to deny that some animals count as members of our
shared society and that others form separate societies with interests in self-determina
tion. But when this recognition happens, political theory will offer a rich set of concepts
and practices for thinking about their membership, participation and coexistence rights.
There are many challenges facing this political theory turn in animal ethics, and it is too
early to tell how successfully they can be addressed. We will conclude by simply flagging
some likely areas of future debate. We will start with challenges raised by critics of ani
mal rights, and then consider some challenges that arise from the animal rights camp.
Capacities
As with any theory of animal ethics, skeptics will ask whether animals really possess the
capacities that the theory presupposes. As noted earlier, a political theory of animal rights
is a two-level theory combining a baseline commitment to certain universal basic rights
for all sentient animals with group-differentiated citizenship rights for domesticated ani
mals, sovereignty rights for wilderness animals, and denizenship rights for liminal ani
mals. As a result, the capacity question arises at different levels. At the baseline level of
defending universal rights, we need to defend both the existence of and the moral signifi
cance of animal sentience or consciousness. But, of course, this is a challenge facing all
animal ethics; it is not unique to the political theory approach.
quires a more complex story about capacities. Consider domesticated animals. Even if we
reframe citizenship as a matter of membership and participation rather than linguistic
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A similar issue arises with respect to sovereignty rights for wilderness animals. Even if
sovereignty is reframed as a matter of interests in territory and autonomy rather than for
mal law-making, it still presupposes certain capacities beyond sentience. In particular, it
presupposes that wilderness animals are competent to address the challenges they face,
including socializing their young to be able to manage risks of predation and securing
food and shelter, as theories in evolutionary biology and ethology would tend to predict.
Here too, however, some critics are skeptical about this competence, and wonder
whether wilderness animals should not instead be seen as living in the equivalent of
failed states, a permanent humanitarian catastrophe calling for extensive intervention.46
Addressing these capacity questions will require linking animal ethics to wider debates in
animal-welfare science, ethology, and human-animal studies. But a political theory per
spective might also lead us to ask different questions than those that currently dominate
in these broader fields. On the one hand, as noted earlier, traditional animal ethics has fo
cused primarily on the capacity to suffer. Animal ethicists have therefore carefully attend
ed to scientific findings about animals’ capacity to suffer, which is seen as sufficient to es
tablish their intrinsic moral standing and therefore sufficient to condemn existing uses of
animals by farmers, researchers, and hunters. They have avoided speculating about other
capacities, such as the capacity for interspecies sociability, communication, and agency;
for mutual relationships with humans; or for coauthorship or self-determination, since
this risks the charge of sentimentality and anthropomorphism for no strategic gain. In
this sense, traditional animal ethics has been quite parsimonious, both with respect to sci
ence (it makes no assumptions about animals’ capacity to be agents in their relations to
humans and to coauthor these relations) and with respect to ethics (it makes no assump
tions about animals’ interests beyond avoiding suffering). The net result, however, has
been to render invisible the potential for a more genuinely just relationship between hu
mans and animals based on ideas of shared membership and participation or coexistence.
imals from their families and confining them in labs, they are of little benefit in sorting
out how we should relate to animals. What matters, morally and politically, is not their
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comparative intelligence or mental age, but their capacities for participating in and nego
tiating interspecies social life (if domesticated) or for living autonomously (if wild).
So a political theory of animal rights makes distinctive assumptions about animal capaci
ties that are in some respects speculative, since they have not been the focus of much ex
isting research. As noted earlier, a political theory of animal rights asks, above all, what
sorts of relationships animals want to have with us, and how we can elicit and respond to
their preferences in this regard. It is a sad comment on the state of research that so few
people, whether in animal ethics or animal welfare, have taken this as their guiding ques
tion.
Anthropomorphism
If critics of animal rights doubt that animals have the required capacities, defenders of
animal rights often have a different concern about the political theory turn—namely, that
the very concepts of a political theory, such as citizenship, sovereignty, and denizenship
are fundamentally and inescapably “human” in origin and in functioning, and that we
therefore do symbolic violence to animals when we attempt to subsume them under our
categories. Are we not denying their authentic otherness when we think of domesticated
animals as our co-citizens, or wilderness animals as sovereigns?
Like the question of sentience, the issue of applying human categories and concepts to
animals is one that confronts all versions of animal ethics. One hears related criticism
about using any words that situate animals as agents in a shared social world, such as
worker, teacher, friend, parent, soldier, colleague, ally, rebel, leader, or, more simply, per
son. And so, too, for concepts describing the virtues and vices of citizens and persons
(love, hatred, generosity, empathy, greed, self-restraint, tolerance, loyalty, treachery,
courage). The claim seems to be that these words and concepts, in their archetypal form,
and at their conceptual core, are human based—originating in human relations, learned
first through application to human others. Only later do we analogize, or extend these
concepts to animals, doing violence in the process both to the concepts and to animal be
ing.
It would take a separate chapter to address this concern; we would just note that this
criticism rests on a double misunderstanding. On the one hand, it is simply not true that
these concepts emerged in an exclusively human context. They emerged in contexts that
were always already interspecies, and are often learned and illustrated in relation to hu
man-animal relations. Children often learn what friendship, family, trust, cooperation, and
loyalty are by reference to their relations with animals, and it is only later, as a result of
ideological indoctrination into human supremacist doctrines, that children learn to ex
clude animals from the scope of these terms.47 It is this moment of ideological exclusion,
not the original inclusion, that does violence both to the terms and to animals.
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our goal is to ensure that our relations with animals are in response to their subjective
good, then we need concepts and categories that compel us to attend to their subjective
good. And that is precisely what the concepts of citizenship and sovereignty do.
Cosmopolitics
Finally, skeptics might object to applying political theory to animals because they are
skeptical of the benefits of political theory concepts even in the human case. We noted
earlier that one motivation for the political theory turn in animal ethics is the perception
that ideas of citizenship and sovereignty have served as powerful tools in the struggle for
justice by various human groups. But there are those who argue that these concepts are
obsolete even in the human case, and that we need a new “cosmopolitics” for both hu
mans and animals.
As noted earlier, the starting point of modern political theory is the division of the world
into distinct “peoples” who inhabit different territories, and who have the right to govern
themselves and their territory through the institution of the nation-state. Struggles for so
cial justice have typically taken the form of citizenship struggles (for full membership in a
territorial nation-state) or national liberation struggles (for decolonization and territorial
self-rule) and have been inspired and guided by concepts of citizenship and sovereignty.
But a growing number of critics argue that this Westphalian conception of the world or
der is obsolete, and indeed repressive, in an era of globalization. It is said to lead to vio
lent conflicts among states over territory, and to oppressive exclusions within states, as
immigrants, refugees, and other individuals deemed alien are denied citizenship. A better
world, it is argued, is one where we abandon ideas of territorial sovereignty and bounded
citizenship and instead think of a cosmopolitan world without boundaries, and without in
siders or outsiders.
From this perspective, it seems perverse to extend to animals a set of political concepts
that may be crumbling in the human case. Rather than treat citizenship and sovereignty
as somehow the default categories for thinking about social life, we should instead view
the animal question as an opportunity to explore fundamental alternatives, whether of a
more anarchist or cosmopolitan variety. Rather than ask which animals are our co-citi
zens and which are sovereigns or denizens, we should instead seek a world in which
these distinctions are not used in relation to either humans or animals.48
We expect this cosmo-political critique to be an exciting area of future work in the field. It
is too early to tell precisely what this cosmopolitan alternative would look like, and how it
would address issues of mobility, membership, and democracy. We would only note that
many animals may have important interests in the recognition of boundaries. Humans
have proven able to roam freely across the globe and to survive in a remarkable diversity
of environments. Many animals, however, are tied to specific ecological niches, and there
fore need a secure “right to place”; or, they are tied to specific humans who love and care
for them and therefore need stable community structures. We might find, paradoxically,
that while humans outgrow their attachment to bounded (p. 61) political communities, the
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ideas of rights to place, to membership, and to interdependent autonomy are crucial for
our fellow creatures.
Notes:
(1.) Kim Smith, Governing Animals: Animal Welfare and the Liberal State (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
(2.) There are animal-welfare laws whose ostensible purpose is to curb the worst excess
es of exploitation that, in reality, do not give animals legal protection from harm, but
rather give legal protection and ideological cover to the corporations and scientists who
harm animals. See Gary Francione, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal
Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
(3.) Aristotle, Politics, The Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, ed. Robert Hutchins (Chicago: Ency
clopedia Britannica), 446. On the foundational significance of this view for the Western
philosophical tradition, see Julian Franklin, “Animal Rights and Political Theory,” in Ox
ford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy, ed. George Klosko (Oxford Universi
ty Press, 2011); Gary Steiner, Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism (New York: Co
lumbia University Press, 2013); Dinesh Wadiwel, The War against Animals (Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 2015).
(4.) Steiner, Animals, 196. “Linguistic agency” should not be confused with broader no
tions (shared across many species), such as the ability to communicate or to engage in
prudential reasoning. Linguistic agency refers to a very specific capacity to articulate and
deliberate reasons in propositional form.
(6.) E.g., Steiner, Animals; Ted Benton, Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights, and So
cial Justice (London: Verso, 1993).
(7.) Barry, “Equality,” in Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd ed., ed. Lawrence Becker and Char
lotte Becker (London: Routledge, 2001), 481.
(9.) Recent books that inform this political theory turn include Smith, Governing Animals;
Robert Garner’s The Political Theory of Animal Rights (Manchester: Manchester Universi
ty Press, 2005); and A Theory of Justice for Animals: Animal Rights in a Nonideal World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Alasdair Cochrane’s An Introduction to Ani
mals and Political Theory (New York: Palgrave, 2010) and Animal Rights without Libera
tion: Applied Ethics and Human Obligations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012);
Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011); Siobhan O’Sullivan, Animals, Equality and Democracy
(New York: Palgrave, 2011); and Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Na
tionality, Species Membership (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). For a
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collection of essays on this political turn in animal ethics, see Marcel Wissenburg and
David Schlosberg, eds., Political Animals and Animal Politics (London: Palgrave, 2014).
(10.) Needless to say, animal advocacy has always been intensely political. Most authors
who demand greater protection for animals insist that it requires legal reform, even if
such reform does not take the form of including animals as members of political associa
tion. And this struggle for legal reform inevitably generates what we can call “animal poli
tics”—for example, we can study the political alliances that promote or resist recognition
of animals’ moral rights (e.g., Garner, Political Theory, 2005) or the effectiveness of differ
ent political campaigns to promote recognition of animals’ moral rights (e.g., Nick
Cooney, Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us about Spreading Social Change,
Brooklyn, NY: Lantern Books, 2010), or the role of animal advocacy in intersectional
analyses and politics (e.g., Carol Adams and Lori Gruen, eds., Ecofeminism: Feminist In
tersections with Other Animals and the Earth, New York: Bloomsbury, 2014). We can even
talk about “animals in political theory,” in the sense of asking whether the regnant politi
cal ideologies are able to endorse the recognition of the intrinsic moral rights of animals.
For example, we can ask whether it might be easier for liberals than for Marxists to rec
ognize the intrinsic moral status of animals (Garner, Political Theory; Cochrane, An Intro
duction), or whether animals can be included in a Rawlsian social contract (Mark Row
lands, Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice, London: Palgrave, 2009). These litera
tures link animals and politics, but do so in a way that accepts that the goal of animal ad
vocacy is recognition of intrinsic moral status or as moral “patients” but not their inclu
sion in our conceptions of political community and citizenship. In this chapter, by con
trast, we focus on a more specific and novel way in which animals and political theory can
be linked—namely, by viewing human-animal relations as themselves forms of political as
sociation and therefore using the concepts of political theory to identify what justice re
quires. This means evaluating human-animal relations not solely according to metrics of
intrinsic moral worth, but also according to political theory criteria, such as political
membership, citizenship, social cooperation, democratic inclusion, or accountability.
(12.) E.g., Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983); Peter Singer, Animal liberation (New York: Random House, 1975).
(13.) Clare Palmer, Animal Ethics in Context (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).
(14.) Ralph Acampora, “Oikos and Domus: On Constructive Co-Habitation with Other
Creatures,” Philosophy and Geography 7 (2005): 219–235.
(15.) For an early critique of the “hands off” approach, and the need to develop a theory
of positive interspecies relationships, see Susan Isen, “Beyond Abolition: Ethical Ex
changes with Animals in Agriculture,” Between the Species (1985): 17–24.
(16.) Singer quoted in Jonathan Balcombe, “Animal Pleasure and Its Moral Significance,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science 188 (2009): 208–216.
Page 20 of 23
Animals in Political Theory
(17.) Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (London: Cape, 1990), 227.
(20.) J. Donovan and Carol Adams, eds., The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). See also Donovan’s chapter in this volume,
“Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective.”
(23.) E.g., Rosalind Hursthouse, “Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of the Other
Animals,” in The Practice of Virtue: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Virtue Ethics,
ed. Jennifer Welchman (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2006), 136–154.
(24.) E.g., Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2007).
(25.) E.g., some contributions to Donovan and Adams, Feminist Care Tradition; Adams
and Gruen, Ecofeminism.
(26.) See, for example, Haraway, When Species Meet; Kathy Rudy, Loving Animals: To
ward a New Animal Advocacy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011); Sandra
Laugier, ed., Tous Vulnerables? Le “care,” les animaux et l’environement (Paris: Payot &
Rivage, 2012).
(28.) Anders Schinkel, “Martha Nussbaum on Animal Rights.” Ethics and the Environment
13, no. 1 (2008): 53.
(29.) Pers Svärd, “Animal National Liberation?” Journal of Animal Ethics 3 (2013): 201–
213.
(32.) Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and Convention on the Rights of Per
sons with Disabilities (2006).
(33.) The addition of the third P (participation) to contemporary children’s rights and dis
ability rights movements reflects a conscious reorientation of these movements around
“citizenship as the central organizing principle and benchmark.” See Michael Prince, Ab
sent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2009, 3).
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Animals in Political Theory
(34.) For defense of this membership-based model of citizenship, see Joseph Carens,
“Membership and Morality: Admission to Citizenship in Liberal Democratic States,” in Im
migration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America, ed. Rogers
Brubaker (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989); Monique Lanoix, “The Citizen in
Question,” Hypatia 22, no. 4 (2007): 113–129.
(35.) Bren Neale, “Introduction: Young Children’s Citizenship,” in Young Children’s Citi
zenship: Ideas into Practice, ed. Bren Neale (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2004),
15.
(36.) Eva Meijer, “Political Communication with Animals,” Humanimalia 5, no. 1 (2013):
28–52; Anne Marie Matarrese, “The Boundaries of Democracy and the Case of Non-Hu
mans,” In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics and Societies 5 (2010): 55–71; Laura Valentini,
“Canine Justice: An Associative Account,” Political Studies 62, no. 1 (2014): 37–52;
Clemens Driessen, “Animal Deliberation”, in Wissenburg and Schlosberg, Political Ani
mals and Animal Politics; and our “Rethinking Membership and Participation in an Inclu
sive Democracy: Cognitive Disability, Children, Animals,” in Disability and Political
Theory, ed. Barbara Arneil and Nancy Hirschmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), forthcoming.
(37.) E.g., Julie Urbanik and Mary Morgan, “A Tale of Tails: The Place of Dog Parks in the
Urban Imaginary,” Geoforum 44 (2013): 292–302. See also Leslie Irvine, “Animals and So
ciology,” Sociology Compass 2, no. 6 (2008): 1954–1971.
(38.) Jennifer Wolch, “Anima Urbis,” Progress in Human Geography 26, no. 6 (2002): 721–
742.
(39.) Robert Goodin, Carole Pateman, and Roy Pateman, “Simian Sovereignty,” Political
Theory 25, no. 6 (1997): 821–849; John Hadley, “Nonhuman Animal Property: Reconciling
Environmentalism and Animal Rights,” Journal of Social Philosophy 36 (2005): 305–315.
(40.) Oscar Horta, “Zoopolis, Intervention, and the State of Nature,” Law, Ethics and Phi
losophy 1 (2013): 113–125; Eleni Panagiotarakou, “Right to Place: A Political Theory of
Animal Rights in Harmony with Environmental and Ecological Principles,” The Ethics Fo
rum 9, no. 3 (2014): 114–139.
(41.) E.g., Wolch, “Anima Urbis”; Agustin Fuentes, “Naturalcultural Encounters in Bali:
Monkeys, Temples, Tourists, and Ethnoprimatology” Cultural Anthropology 25, no. 4
(2010): 600–624; Erin Luther, “Tales of Cruelty and Belonging: In Search of an Ethic for
Urban Human-Wildlife Relations,” Animal Studies Journal 2, no. 1 (2013): 35–54.
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Animals in Political Theory
(44.) Emma Planinc, “Democracy, Despots and Wolves: On the Dangers of Zoopolis’s Ani
mal Citizen,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 47, no. 1 (2014): 1–21. See also our re
sponse in the same issue.
(45.) See also Jocelyne Porcher’s chapter in this volume, “Animal Work,” which notes that
domesticated animals are capable not just of prescribed forms of “coordination” with hu
mans, but also of “cooperation,” which reflects mutually negotiated rules.
(47.) Nicole Pallotta, “Origin of Adult Animal Rights Lifestyle in Childhood Responsive
ness to Animal Suffering,” Society and Animals 16 (2008): 149–170. Gail Melson, Why the
Wild Things Are: Animals in the Lives of Children (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2001).
(48.) E.g., Alasdair Cochrane, “Cosmozoopolis: The Case against Group-Differentiated An
imal Rights,” Law, Ethics and Philosophy 1, no. 1 (2013): 127–141; Steve Cooke, “Perpetu
al Strangers: Animals and the Cosmopolitan Right,” Political Studies 62, no. 4 (2014):
930–944.
Sue Donaldson
Independent Scholar
Will Kymlicka
Will Kymlicka is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy in the
Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University Canada.
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Animals as Living Property
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Feb 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.14
For all recorded history domestic animals have been considered objects within the legal
system, classified as personal property, the primary focus being on what an owner can do
with property or how an owner can protect property from intrusions of others or the gov
ernment. More recently, our society has developed a new perspective, focusing not on the
owners’ rights but on the animals themselves and what level of protection and concern
they should be given, regardless of the issue of ownership. To aid in the process of giving
animals more visibility within the legal system, it is necessary to remove them from the
category of personal property and place them in a new category of “living property.” Once
this happens, the allocation of legal rights to domestic animals can begin on a clean slate
allowing the issues of animal rights and legal personhood to be directly addressed.
Keywords: animal studies, domestic animal, personal property, living property, ownership, animal rights, legal
personhood
Introduction
SINCE the beginning of recorded history, the lives of individual humans have been inter
twined with those of animals. Animals have been and still are a source of food, a source of
work support, a source of wonder about the world, and a source of companionship. Over
most of history, food and working animals received the most social concern and, there
fore, visibility within the legal system. These animals came to have economic value and
were quickly folded into the realm of property law. A fundamental distinction was made
about those considered domestic animals and those categorized as wild animals. Initially,
the law had very little to say about wild animals, as they were not owned by anyone. In
deed. the focus of the law was on how to obtain title to a wild animal, not the status of the
animal in its natural state. Domestic animals were “things” possessed by individuals that
had commercial value to individuals and thus were placed in the category of personal
property (as opposed to real property/land). Companion animals had almost no visibility
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Animals as Living Property
in the legal system, as the noneconomic values of companionship were not of importance
to society at the time.
Today, there has been almost a reversal of the social focus on domestic animals. Most hu
mans never see the animals they eat, so the commercial value of animals is important on
ly to the large corporations that control our food chain. In developed countries very few
animals provide labor for human work needs, so, again, the general public has no experi
ence with these animals. However, the companion animal has become visible and impor
tant in the lives of millions of humans. The value of the companionship is difficult to trans
late into economic numbers but is nevertheless real to many humans. However, the laws
that relate to the human use of animals have changed only a little, not yet fully reflecting
the social change.
Beyond the value of animals to humans, there is more acceptance of the idea that
(p. 66)
animals have intrinsic value as beings independent of any human ownership and that they
deserve more visibility and protection within the legal system. Perhaps they should not be
property at all, but independent beings with their own legal visibility. The consequences
of the elimination of the property status would be profound for both humans and animals.
This chapter will consider what it means for an animal to be property and propose a mid
dle ground between the old view of animals as personal property and the suggested new
status of not being property at all. It is possible and useful to conceptualize domestic ani
mals as a new category of property: “living property.” Within the conceptual space creat
ed by this new category, their legal status may be considered on a clean slate. The prima
ry attribute in this new status that would be different is forthright acknowledgment of a
duty toward the well-being of domestic animals by humans. Generally, with personal prop
erty, the owner has no duty toward the property itself.
Law does not stand independent of the human society of which it is a part. As social atti
tudes change the law can and will change as well. Social attitudes toward animals, as
documented within this book, have already changed. It is time for the law of property to
evolve as well.
One point of clarification before proceeding further concerns the phrase “legal rights.” It
is a loaded phrase, with very different meanings depending upon who speaks the term
and what tones and emotions they use when speaking it. Often, it really means: in my
world animals have ethical status. Or perhaps it means: I want better welfare outcomes
for animals. Still others mean: animals should be freed from the slavery of property law
and have all the appropriate legal rights, just as a child might. Indeed, several writers as
sert that as property, animals cannot have any personality within the law. These individu
als cluster under the title of abolitionist and seek a future in which all animals have full le
gal personality, which will occur only when they are removed from the legal status of be
ing personal property.1 In this chapter, the term animal rights will refer to something
more than better welfare outcome and denote some level of legal personality, legal visibil
ity in the legal system. By the end of this chapter, some legal rights for animals will have
been suggested, but not equal status with humans. The critical focus before considering
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Animals as Living Property
which rights might be acknowledged is supporting the underlying premise that animals
can be the holders of any legal rights at all.
While the United States is the source of legal concepts and materials, the ideas of this
chapter apply in any common law country, such as Canada or Australia. The common law
countries are those that have rooted their legal system in the British legal system. Con
cepts of real and personal property for the common law evolved beginning with the Nor
man Conquest of 1066, and include the Magna Carta (1215), the statute Quia Emptores
(1267) and the Statute of Uses under King Henry VIII (1536).2 While the civil law system
has many of the same concepts, there is no attempt here to distinguish how the civil law
system would look at these concepts.
A cat is also personal property, but a cat does have a life independent of the owner. The
cat is actually closer to a daughter than to a car in many (but not all) attributes, such as
having a capacity for affection and to feel pain and to suffer. Notwithstanding the differ
ences between a car and a cat, the law begins the legal discussion by saying that they are
both personal property.
All thinking humans understand the fundamental difference between a car and a daugh
ter; the daughter is alive, and there is a duty of respect and responsibility owed to child
by the parents. This duty is acknowledged in moral philosophy and religion as well as the
law. It is the ethical (and religious) beliefs that shape the law. While the parents have ex
tensive control over the lives of their children, the law does draw lines and will step in to
protect children from parents who are abusive or significantly neglectful toward them.
When the interests of a child, as understood by broader society, is at conflict with those of
their parents, the law has the capacity to appoint guardian ad litems who have the duty to
represent the child’s best interest before a court or administrative hearing. The court will
consider or even be directed by the interests of the child over those of the parent. No
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Animals as Living Property
such process exists for cars. The car has no interest independent of the human owner.
The car has no legal personality, but the child does.
So there are these two categories: personal property, in which cars exist, and legal per
sons, in which the daughter exists. The cat is a mixture of the two but, at present, as the
legal system currently exists, must be forced into one or the other category. Is the cat
more like the car or the daughter? In the realm of personal ethics, millions of humans
have adopted the position that companion animals are more like the daughter than the
car. As a result of this belief, they accept responsibilities and obligations toward the com
panion animals. The legal system is hedging its bets, keeping them as personal property,
yet imposing legal duties of care under the anti-cruelty criminal laws of all the states
within the United States and other Common Law countries that are not required (p. 68) of
other types of personal property. Of course, humans are also hedging their ethical bets,
since they give this enhanced ethical status to companion animals but not to food or
working animals. But that is another story line.
Let us consider several awkward positions in which animals exist in our legal world as
they straddle the legal categories of personal property and legal personality. The longest
standing example is that of our anti-cruelty laws. Beginning with the New York law of
1867, animals have been protected against the unnecessary infliction of pain and suffer
ing (including overloading, torture, animal fighting, and abandonment). These laws are
not concerned with the human owners, but on the quality of life of individual animals.3 As
stated by one judge in an 1877 case,
This statute is for the benefit of animals, as creatures capable of feeling and suf
fering, and it was intended to protect them from cruelty, without reference to their
being property, or to the damages which might thereby be occasioned to their
owners.4
Indeed, in the vast majority of states the criminal limitation on human abuse of animals is
not limited to domestic animals but includes wild animals (but most often today, the
statutes protect only vertebrate animals). The duties of the laws specifically apply to the
owners of animals, not just to prevent harm but also to provide adequate care for ani
mals. This duty is imposed on owners of a particular subset of personal property; it does
not apply to all personal property. There is no law making it a crime to hit your car or to
fail to get an oil change when needed.
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Animals as Living Property
when the human is found guilty of an animal crime, the court has the power to remove
the animal from the home of the wrongdoer.
Another context of conceptual difficulty within the legal system is in the awarding of pri
vate damages for inflicting harm on an animal. If a troubled teenager strikes a six-year-
old human, there are possible criminal charges that might lead to jail time and civil cases
with monetary awards for the harmed child. The teenager can be sued for the injury to
the human child by the child and perhaps the parents of the child. But if the troubled
teenager strikes a poodle with the same force and effect, there may be criminal charges,
but the poodle does not have the capacity to file a suit for her personal pain and suffer
ing. Therefore, at present there is no legally provided mechanism for the animal’s pain
and suffering. This problem exists because animals are not yet legal persons for this pur
pose. The legal system does allow the owner of the poodle to recover damages for the
harm inflicted on the animal. But the “value” with which this calculation is made is (p. 69)
primarily the economic value of the animal. So, if the teenager tortured the poodle and
this is not seen by her owner, the owner would most often be able to recover only the fair
market value of the poodle.5 Not only is the animal’s pain and suffering not acknowledged
in the legal system, but the owners of companion animals usually receive no compensa
tion for their very valuable loss of relationship with their animals.
While a number of lower court opinions have allowed damages beyond the traditional
measures of the common law, in the past decade every state supreme court that has con
sidered the issue has refused to change the common law rules,6 always with the caveat
that if change is sought, it must be taken by the legislature, not the courts.
As a final example of the disconnection of the law from social expectations is the award
ing of property during human divorces in which companion animals are entwined. In most
courts, because animals are categorized as personal property, when the property of a cou
ple is split up, it is on the basis of ownership, not on the basis of what would be in the
best interests of the animal. It makes no difference to the law in this context if the legal
owner of the animal is not the caregiver and has little interest in the animal and may pro
vide poor living conditions for the animal. Most people would support the idea that com
panion animals are more like children than are cars and that the courts should take into
account the interests and needs of an animal in deciding who gets possession of the ani
mal in a divorce decree. The legal system lags behind the evolving attitudes of the public.
Legal Evolution
Progress for animals within the law will not come from revolution, but by evolution. There
are centuries of experience that show how this can work, both for the issue of who should
hold legal rights and which legal rights they might expect. While property law is often
slow to change, it does change over time as the moral and ethical perspectives of society
change.
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Animals as Living Property
At any stage in human history the prevailing institution of property is chiefly an in
heritance from the past. This inheritance, however, is subject to constant change.
These changes represent efforts to workout adaptations to the new problems pre
sented by new ingredients in the political, economic, and philosophical atmos
phere of the moment. The fact of change is an ever-present phenomenon in soci
ety.7
There are two key points to be briefly made here. The first is that society can change who
is a legal person, and the second is that different categories of legal persons often have
different or more limited categories of rights. Indeed, legal rights often arrive in a piece
meal fashion, as lawmakers see fit. The most obvious example of the first point is the
transformation of African Americans from the nonperson status of slave to freedom
(p. 70) and legal personhood. The legal realization of the status change is reflected in the
As an example of the second point, consider the legal status of women relative to proper
ty ownership several hundred years ago in the laws of the United States. When a woman
married a man, the common law view at that time was that the woman’s property inter
ests were merged into those of the man, and the man had the full power of disposition of
property that had previously been under the control of the unmarried woman.8 This be
gan to change in the 1840s, with the adoption of Married Women Acts.
The social order upon which the concept of legal unity between husband and wife
was predicated no longer exists. During the nineteenth century, Married Women’s
Emancipation Acts were passed in all American jurisdictions. These were designed
to confer upon married women a separate legal personality and to give them a
separate legal estate in their own property. They conferred upon a wife the capaci
ty to sue or be sued without joining the husband and, generally, as far as third per
sons were concerned, made the wife separately responsible for her own torts.
From an early date it was recognized that a primary purpose of these statutes was
to free the wife’s property from the control of her husband.9
Significant change occurred with the changing view of equality of women in society. But it
was, indeed, a slow process of change in the law over decades of small steps forward.10
An even starker difference reflecting the different status of men and women deals with
the legal right to have a voice in the political process, the right to vote. The moral and po
litical battle by which women obtained the right to vote has been well covered by other
writers of legal history.11 Two points follow from this long battle. First, clearly, women
were always legal persons, but they were not treated equally with men. Thus, the legal
system is capable of handling legal persons with different sets of rights. Second, the legal
system is capable of piecemeal change in deciding which legal rights should be allocated
to which legal persons.
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Animals as Living Property
A New Category
While the prior material shows that the slow process of evolution in social attitudes is un
derway on behalf of animals, there is the need for a more dramatic break, to make clear
we are moving into new conceptual territory. To state the obvious, the key distinction be
tween animals and other physical objects with the category of personal property is that
animals are alive. They have DNA-driven existence that endows them with self-interests
and a desire for continued life and the reproduction of their species’ next generation of
life. Obviously, there are many categories of life in the world of biology. For the purposes
of this chapter, the focus shall be limited to just a few categories of animals: mammals,
birds, reptiles, and lizards. Insects can be put off until another time. The selection of
these (p. 71) categories of animals who shall be within the new property category reflects
the present legal system’s definition of animal when drafting new, felony-based criminal
laws. The line is drawn at vertebrates primarily because there is strong neurological in
formation supporting the concept that all these animals experience pain in roughly the
same way that humans experience pain. Therefore, there is reason to think this limitation
of the definition of animals as living property would have greater political acceptability.
The critical social/political question is whether or not the law should intervene when hu
mans do not adequately accommodate the needs and interests of their companion animal.
The anti-cruelty laws stand as a testament to the social judgment that some duties are
owed to all animals (e.g., prohibitions on torture), and additional duties owed if you are
the owner or keeper of an animal (e.g., the duty to provide food and water). As suggested
previously, a number of people find these duties insufficient and ineffective in providing
the care that many animals need and, therefore, seek expanded options for the protection
of animals through the legal system. If we keep the criminal law as the sole method of
protection for animal interests, then retaining animals in the category of personal proper
ty is acceptable. But, if new avenues are sought to support animals, then remaining in the
legal status of personal property is a significant barrier. Animals need a separate status.
As the chrysalis must leave its cocoon to be the butterfly, so animals must leave the cate
gory of personal property to move into their next stage within the legal systems of the
world. This should be done by creating the suggested fourth category of property: living
property. The key advantage and fear of this new category is that the characteristics, re
lationships, and duties are not yet decided, and much fear may exist because of the risk of
the unknown in taking this path. It most likely will result in limitations on human actions
that did not previously exist. On the other hand, there is great exhilaration in thinking
about all the different public policy issues and the balancing of human and animal inter
ests that will challenge us as we move forward; the thrill of successfully meeting the un
known. It is an intellectual and social challenge of the highest level. It is opening the door
to change: who will step through, and who will seek to close the door?
Let us push on a bit further, as perhaps some details will persuade those at the door that
the fear of the unknown should not stop them from stepping though. First is a considera
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Animals as Living Property
tion of the methods of changing the legal system. Next, the issue why the law should be
changed will be touched upon, and finally, what the new laws might look like.
Constitutional Change
The highest level of law is the constitution of a country. Constitutions are built upon exist
ing social beliefs and concepts. The US and the state constitutions presuppose the exis
tence of real and personal property as understood within the Common Law of England
before the creation of the United States. Indeed, the categories of real and personal prop
erty are present as far back as ancient Roman law. As an example, the ever important
Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution (and Art. 10 § 2 of Michigan (p. 72) Constitu
tion) limits the government’s power to take title to property without defining the term
property. Courts have made it clear that the term in this constitutional context does in
clude animals.
It necessarily follows that Immi (dog) was property protected by the Fourth
Amendment and that Officer Eberly’s destruction of her constituted a Fourth
Amendment seizure under the Fourth Amendment.12
The category of intellectual property also arises in the US Constitution, Article I, Section
8(8). Thus, the US Constitution could be amended to acknowledge a new status for ani
mals. This is unlikely in the foreseeable future because of other political factors and is not
necessary as a first step, given that the fifty states are fully capable of addressing the is
sue.
Legislative Change
Governments that possess the full power of sovereignty in common law countries have
the power to make changes in the legal system, so long as these do not conflict with the
constitution of the sovereign. In the United States, this power over property exists at the
state level, and not the federal level. For example, the state of North Carolina has adopt
ed a statute that allows private individuals and organizations to have the power to sue an
animal owner who is violating the state criminal cruelty laws and to remove the animal
from the owner for failure to comply.13 Additionally, states have adopted trust laws that
allow some categories of animal to be beneficiaries of a trust, giving these animals legal
personhood in this one circumstance.
Court Opinion
In 2013, the US organization PETA sought to change the property status of killer whales
under the US Constitution, but the case failed to do so.14 At the end of 2013, the Nonhu
man Rights Project filed three lawsuits in the State of New York asserting that chim
panzees could not be held in limiting conditions because they are legal persons.15 While
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Animals as Living Property
the case was not successful at the trial court level, appeals of the lawsuit are presently
underway.
edged that animals have self-interests of their own, and that some individuals neverthe
less do not acknowledge or respect these interests, the law needs to directly address the
issue of which uses of animals are unacceptable, which are acceptable with government
regulation, and which do not rise to the level of social concern requiring any legal inter
vention.
Society can decide that the use of primates in scientific research is not justified without
reaching the question of whether the use of rats is justified. As in New Zealand, a law can
be adopted that implements a ban on the research use of primates in laboratories.16
Likewise, it is possible to judge that the keeping of primates as pets should not be al
lowed without a decision about the keeping of parakeets.
A key characteristic that distinguishes living property from other forms of property is that
there can be a legal duty toward living property that will be enforced by courts. While
some duties of noninterference will be imposed upon nonowners, this is more in the
realm of tort and criminal law, and is therefore not to be considered in this chapter. In the
world of property law, the duty toward the animal by the owner is of both a positive and
negative nature. As already suggested by some of the comprehensive state anti-cruelty
laws, it is both a duty of not imposing harm as well as a duty of providing care.
This chapter does not propose what the full extent of the owner’s duty might be; rather, it
seeks to establish that there is a duty, and that this duty is owed to the animal. The read
er can envision more of the colors and contours of this new paradigm if a duty toward an
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Animals as Living Property
animal is viewed in the light of the legal duty of parents to their child. This is particularly
easy when the animal is a pet, as many pets are treated as a child in a family. Good par
ents understand and provide for the needs of the child, even though the child does not as
sert these needs or may even assert needs that are in fact counter to their long-term best
interests. (For example, the child wants unlimited computer time, the dog wants unlimit
ed treats, and both want to play in the street.) The judgment of the parents has to be ac
cepted as presumptively lawful, but there are limits after which the government will seek
to intervene to protect the interests of the child. The government, or private individuals
authorized by the state, can be allowed to intervene to protect the interests of animals
outside the criminal law system.17
It might be noted that there is not a heading in this chapter about the duties of ani
(p. 74)
mals toward humans. This arises, in part, out of the practical perspective that animals
may have difficulty in understanding human interests. Just as the law imposes no duty up
on human infants who do not yet understand external obligations or consequences of
choices of action, it would also be inappropriate to require of animals actions that they
cannot understand. One clear exception to the general statement arises in the case of
dangerous dogs. Under many dangerous-dog laws, after some semblance of due process,
dogs can and are sentenced to death for violations of the statute obligations imposed up
on them not to harm humans.18 For all practical purposes, the dog could well be consid
ered the defendant in the proceeding, since it is the dog’s very life that can be at risk.
Animal Rights
A primary reason for the creation of the new category living property is that within this
space it will be possible to consider legal rights for those living beings within the catego
ry. No one would suggest legal rights for cars or chairs. While animals remain personal
property it is difficult to have a discussion about rights for some personal property and
not others. It is true that as the category of living property was defined earlier, not all liv
ing things may be within the new category. There may be ethical duties owned to exclud
ed animals, such as jellyfish and beetles, but that is not the focus of this chapter, which is
limited to domestic vertebrate animals. At a primary level, this chapter asserts the legal
principle that living property has the capacity to hold legal rights. There are two key at
tributes of a rights holder in the legal system. First, to some degree, the interests of the
rights holder have to be part of the legal consideration of any conflict of which they are a
part. Second, remedies for breaches of rights have to flow directly to the rights holder
who was harmed. Because many of the most important potential legal rights for animals
will deal with living conditions, the availability of injunctive relief to prohibit certain con
ditions and the right to have ownership transferred will be more important to their rights
than money awards; however, financial awards may well be appropriate in certain circum
stances. If a puppy is to have the full legal right to not be tortured by humans, then a civil
suit must be allowed in which the pain and suffering of the puppy are the focus of the in
Page 10 of 17
Animals as Living Property
quiry and the relief in question, perhaps the award of all veterinary costs plus $1,000 in
emotional damages will flow to the benefit of the puppy.
While these two steps suggest that a rights holder is present, the ultimate characteristic
of a legal rights holder is that the legal right may be asserted directly by the holder of the
right within the legal system. This gives legal personality to the rights holder and assures
that the first two characteristics are realized. It is possible to also allow such a suit to
proceed with human plaintiffs, but those seeking legal rights for animals prefer that the
action be in the name of the puppy.
This chapter does not suggest that there should be a magical point in time at which all
animals (as defined earlier) will receive all the legal rights suggested in the next section,
(p. 75) “A Few Legal Rights.” Rather, this section suggests a broad frame of reference by
which to understand and organize present and future legal rights. This chapter is like the
picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle box. Seeing the picture does not predict when, if
ever, all the pieces inside will come together, but having the picture will aid in the
process. Particular legal rights will arrive by the legislature or by court opinions, as
pieces of the puzzle. The puzzle itself will remain unfinished for quite some period, but it
is time to begin the assembly enterprise.
This list has been derived from the pondering of the author. It is not the definitive list for
all time, but a starting list to initiate further discussion. A prior effort on behalf of agricul
tural animals resulted in a list referred to as the “five freedoms.”19 While many of the
concerns within those five freedoms are also found in the preceding list, the proposed list
is not a derivation of that list and is meant to have much broader application.
An example of each of the above should help demonstrate the possible scope of each
right.
1. Not to be held for or put to legally prohibited uses. The list of prohibited uses will
become longer as society becomes more protective of animal interests. An initial list
might include dogs on the race track, horsemeat for human consumption, great apes
for research, pigeons for target practice, elephants in zoos, or constrictor snakes as
pets.
The list of prohibited uses can be developed by using the general principle that a use
should not constitute a significant interference with the well-being of the animals in
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Animals as Living Property
volved. For example, a fair case can be made that the use of greyhound dogs at the
race track is detrimental to almost all the dogs within the industry, without any sig
nificant advantage to humans. Nearly 30,000 young greyhounds are killed in North
America every year when they are no longer able to win or place. Approximately
5000 to 7000 farm puppies are culled annually, and more simply “go missing” with
out being registered to an owner.20 The human interest in gambling, which seems to
be the primary motivation for such races, can be satisfied hundreds of other ways;
there is no need for thousands of dogs to suffer for the (p. 76) realization of that hu
man interest. Therefore, legislative prohibitions on the racing of dogs could easily
be, and have been, adopted in several states. On the other hand, the keeping of dogs
for breed shows might be judged as not to interfere with the significant interests of
the dogs. But perhaps a full study of dogs in breed shows and of all the dogs bred
with the hope of entering breed shows should be done with an eye toward the overall
quality of life for the broader set of dogs, not just the winners.
2. Not to be unnecessarily harmed. The right not to be harmed, not to experience
pain and suffering, is the oldest and most obvious of legal rights for some animals.
The original New York law made it a crime for any person to “torture, torment, de
prive of necessary sustenance, or unnecessarily or cruelly beat, or needlessly muti
late or kill … any living creature.”21 Torture, by definition, is unacceptable infliction
of pain and suffering; often, the use of poison is also a flat prohibition.22 Notice that
the prohibitions against pain, suffering, and death are usually qualified by the terms
such as unjustified or unnecessary. This means that the legislature has recognized
that a balancing of the interests of the animals against the interests of the humans
will have to be judged by the jury or judge to determine what is acceptable within
their society. For example, in one case the defendant was found guilty of charges
stemming from a videotaped incident wherein defendant cut off the heads of three
live, conscious iguanas and allegedly cooked and consumed the animals. The tape of
the incident was broadcast by Manhattan Neighborhood Network in a show entitled
“Sick and Wrong.” While eating the iguanas might have been a justified reason for
their death, making a tape for showing the public was not.23
3. To be given adequate support for physical and mental well-being. There are many
state and some federal laws dealing with the issue of care. The providing of water
and food is obvious, and was part of the New York 1867 law.24 Today’s duty of care
laws can be much more expansive. In the state of Michigan, duty of care is defined as
“the provision of sufficient food, water, shelter, sanitary conditions, exercise, and vet
erinary medical attention in order to maintain an animal in a state of good health.”25
The laws presently do not address the social needs of many animals. Herd animals
like sheep and cows clearly prefer being with others of the same species and having
a friendly human owner is not a substitute for a companion of the same species; yet,
requirements of companionship are not presently part of the law. At a broader level,
we have not yet had a discussion about a duty to provide for the mental well-being of
animals. For example, if an infant animal has a supporting mother, for how long
should the infant stay with the mother? The well-being of the infant animal, not profit
maximization for the owner, should be the dominant factor in such a decision.
Page 12 of 17
Animals as Living Property
Page 13 of 17
Animals as Living Property
This issue can arise in either the civil law or criminal law context. While the law should
continue to presume that humans can own animals, upon a showing of a particular hu
man not being able to do so, the law should not hesitate to step in and transfer ownership
away from the incapable to the capable, and enjoin future ownership of animals. This will
be done without compensation to the owner, with noncompensation being in (p. 78) effect
a civil fine for failure to provide the necessary living conditions. An extreme fact pattern
that raises this issue is seen in the cases of animal hoarding. The North Carolina statuto
ry language is one example of what is possible:
[I]f the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that even if a permanent
injunction were issued there would exist a substantial risk that the animal would
be subjected to further cruelty if returned to the possession of the defendant, the
court may terminate the defendant’s ownership and right of possession of the ani
mal and transfer ownership and right of possession to the plaintiff or other appro
priate successor owner. For good cause shown, the court may also enjoin the de
fendant from acquiring new animals for a specified period of time or limit the
number of animals the defendant may own or possess during a specified period of
time.29
A specific context in which the issue of who is an appropriate owner of an animal arises is
that of a divorce proceeding in which the husband and wife have a dispute as to who
should have title and possession of the pet. In this case, prior ownership is not as impor
tant as is the right of the animal to have a caring owner. Thus, when a court makes a deci
sion about a pet, the primary factor should be: what is in the best interest of the animal?
30
Conclusion
It is an exciting time of change within the legal system. Animals are of growing impor
tance to millions of individuals. The old molds of thought are inadequate to consider the
enhanced social status that many now give to at least some animals. Rather than stretch
ing the existing concepts beyond their natural shapes, it will be most useful to create a
new space in which to consider these pressing public issues. The concept of living proper
ty is an umbrella large enough to allow considerable development of new ideas about the
relationships between domestic animals and humans, whether the focus is animal welfare
or animal rights.
Further Reading
Favre, David. “Equitable Self-Ownership for Animals.” Duke Law Journal 50 (2000): 473–
502.
Favre, David. “Living Property: A New Status for Animals within the Legal System.” Mar
quette Law Review 93 (2010): 1021–1071.
Page 14 of 17
Animals as Living Property
Grandin, Temple, and Catherine Johnson. Animals Make Us Human. Boston and New
York: Houghton Miffin/Harcourt, 2009.
Susstein, Cass R., and Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.). Animal Rights. Oxford: Oxford Univer
sity Press, 2004.
Notes:
(1.) Gary L. Francione, “Animals, Property, and Personhood,” in People, Property, or Pets?
ed. Marc D. Hauser, Fiery Cushman, and Matthew Kamen (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue
University Press, 2006), 77.
(2.) William B. Stoebuck and Dale Whitman, The Law of Property, 3rd ed. (St. Paul, MN:
West Group, 2000).
(3.) David Favre and Vivien Tsang, “The Development of Anti-Cruelty Laws during the
1800s,” Detroit College Law Rev 1993 (1993): 1.
(5.) David Favre, “Damages for Harm to Pets,” Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights,
(New York: Wolters Kluwer, 2011), ch. 4.
(6.) Goodby v. Vetpharm, Inc., 974 A.2d 1269, 1273–74 (Vt. 2009); Kondaurov v. Kerdasha,
629 S.E.2d 181, 187 (Va. 2006); Strickland v. Medlen, 397 S.W.3d 184 (Tex. 2013).
(7.) Richard R. Powell, The Law of Real Property, vol. 1 (Michael Allan Wolf ed., 2009),
§2.06. Powell on Real Property § 2.06 (Michael Allan Wolf ed., LexisNexis Matthew Ben
der, digital book available through LexisNexis).
(8.) Joshua Williams, Principles of the Law of Real Property, 5th ed. (Philadelphia, PA: T. &
J. W. Johnson & Co., 1879), 223.
(9.) “Husband and Wife,” American Jurisprudence, vol. 41, 2nd ed. (St. Paul, MN: West
Group, 2005), § 3.
(10.) Norma Basch, In the Eyes of the Law: Women, Marriage and Property in Nineteenth-
Century New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Kathleen S. Sullivan, Con
stitutional Context: Women and Rights Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America
(Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2007).
(11.) Doris Weatherford, A History of the American Suffragist Movement (Santa Barbara,
CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998).
Page 15 of 17
Animals as Living Property
(14.) Tilikum ex rel. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v. Sea World Parks
& Entm’t, 842 F. Supp. 2d 1259 (S.D. Cal. 2012); Joanna Zelman, “PETA’s SeaWorld Slav
ery Case Dismissed by Judge,” Huffington Post, February 9, 2012, http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/peta-seaworld-slavery-_n_1265014.html (accessed
July 22, 2014).
(15.) Charles Siebert, “Should a Chimp Be Able to Sue Its Owner?” New York Times Mag
azine, April 23, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/magazine/the-rights-of-man-
and-beast.html?ref=magazine (accessed July 22, 2014). Also see, http://
www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/category/courtfilings/ (accessed July 22, 2014).
(16.) Peter Sankoff, “Five Years of the ‘New’ Animal Welfare Regime: Lessons Learned
from New Zealand’s Decision to Modernize Its Animal Welfare Legislation,” Animal Law
Review 11 (2005): 7–9.
(17.) William A. Reppy Jr., “Citizen Standing to Enforce Anti-Cruelty Laws by Obtaining
Injunctions: The North Carolina Experience,” Animal Law Review 11 (2005): 39.
(18.) David Favre, “Dangerous Dogs,” Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights, (New
York: Wolters Kluwer, 2011), ch. 5, 170−177.
(19.) David Favre, “The Five Freedoms,” Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights, (New
York: Wolters Kluwer, 2011), ch. 8, 280−283; Farm Animal Welfare Council, “Five Free
doms,” http://www.fawc.org.uk/freedoms.htm (accessed July 22, 2014).
(20.) Michael Atkinson and Kevin Young, “Greyhound Racing and Sports-Related Vio
lence,” in Between the Species: Readings in Human-Animal Relations, ed. Arnold Arluke
and Clinton Sanders, (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), 213-224.
(21.) Act of Apr. 12, 1867, ch. 375, § 1, 1867 New York Laws 86 (current version at N.Y.
Agric. & Mkts. § 353).
(23.) People v. Voelker, 658 N.Y.S.2d 180, 181 (N.Y. Crim. Ct. 1997).
(24.) Act of Apr. 12, 1867, ch. 375, § 1, 1867 New York Laws 86 (current version at N.Y.
Agric. & Mkts. § 353).
(26.) Tom Hundley, “New Zoo Display Lets Chimps Be Themselves,” Chicago Tribune. De
cember 13, 1989, 6.
Page 16 of 17
Animals as Living Property
(27.) Alan Feuer and Jason George. “Police Subdue Tiger in Harlem Apartment”, New
York Times, October 5, 2003, 35. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/nyregion/police-
subdue-tiger-in-harlem-apartment.html? (accessed July 22, 2014).
(30.) Lauren Magnotti, “Note, Pawing Open the Courthouse Door: Why Animals’ Interests
Should Matter When Courts Grant Standing,” St. John’s Law Review 80 (2006): 455.
David Favre
Page 17 of 17
The Human-Animal Bond
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory
Online Publication Date: Jul 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.31
Social bonds between people and their pets are more popular than they have ever been.
Yet archaeological and anthropological evidence suggests that human-pet bonds have ex
isted throughout history, enduring despite their relative lack of practical utility or materi
al value for humans and, in this sense, presenting a challenge to evolutionary theory. Cit
ing abundant research, the chapter shows that the human-pet relationship should be re
garded as “mutualistic,” conferring adaptive benefits on both participants For humans,
animal companionship promotes social engagement and alleviates the debilitating mental
and physiological effects of psychosocial stress. Animal-assisted therapeutic interventions
for people with a variety of cognitive, emotional, and physical disabilities are also becom
ing increasingly widespread. For animals, the human-animal bond has opened a new eco
logical niche and allowed dramatic increases in population size. However, the chapter al
so raises a number of ethical concerns related to animal welfare, public health, and envi
ronmental impact.
Keywords: dogs, cats, pets, attachment, social support, oxytocin, animal-assisted intervention
Introduction
HUMAN-ANIMAL bond is a popular umbrella term applied to the kinds of social attach
ments that typically develop between people and their pets (or companion animals). Hu
mans can, of course, form this bond with other categories of animals, such as working
dogs and horses, or even laboratory rodents or dairy goats,1 but those attachments tend
to be more distant and may be actively avoided, perhaps because they tend to interfere
both psychologically and morally with our ability to exploit such animals for nonbenign
purposes.2
Human-pet attachments are exceedingly widespread and popular. Estimates vary, but
Americans appear to keep roughly 75 million pet dogs and 80 million pet cats, not to men
tion many million pet birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. According to a 2012 survey,
about 63 percent of US households contain at least one pet, and 45 percent keep more
Page 1 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
than one.3 In the European Union, the numbers are also impressive: 60 million dogs, 80
million cats, and so on.4 Pet numbers are also increasing rapidly in a number of develop
ing nations, such as Brazil, Thailand, and Turkey, according to the 2014 Euromonitor In
ternational.
Although pet keeping is probably more popular nowadays than at any time in the past, it
is clear that this intriguing human behavior is neither modern in origin nor confined to
more affluent, “westernized” societies.
The idea that late Paleolithic and early Neolithic hunter-gatherers may have kept tamed
wild animals as pets is entirely consistent with the observed behavior of more recent
hunting and foraging peoples. According to numerous reports by explorers and anthropol
ogists, pet keeping among hunter-gatherers and subsistence horticulturalists is (or was)
the norm rather than the exception. These pets are typically captured as young animals
by hunters, and then adopted and cared for, especially by women and children. Often, the
animals are the objects of intense emotional attachments; they are well cared for during
life, and sometimes mourned and buried formally when they die. Strong moral taboos
against killing or eating pets also exist, even when the animal belongs to a species that is
hunted routinely for meat.7 Indeed, pet keeping is so ubiquitous among preagricultural
societies that several authors have proposed that these early human-animal bonds were
the precursors to animal domestication.8 If this turned out to be the case, pet keeping
would need to be credited with initiating one of the most far-reaching ecological and cul
tural revolutions in the history of our species.
The prevalence of pet keeping in the post-Neolithic and early archaic periods is difficult
to assess because of a scarcity of documentary evidence. However, available written and
artistic depictions suggest that the practice has been maintained throughout human his
tory, although its popularity may have waxed and waned somewhat unpredictably over
time and from place to place. Many prominent ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans
evidently kept pets of various types ranging from dogs and cats to cage birds, and even
fish. Pet dogs and cats were also frequent occupants of the imperial households of both
China and Japan. In Europe and colonial North America, pet keeping did not become
Page 2 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
widely respectable until the eighteenth century. Medieval and Renaissance moralists and
theologians appear to have regarded most kinds of physical intimacy between people and
animals as morally suspect, and typically condemned the practice of keeping animals ex
clusively for companionship.9 In extreme cases, indulging in human-animal bonds could
even attract accusations of witchcraft. In Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, it was widely believed that witches made use of “familiar spirits” as personal
agents of malefice. These “familiars” depended on the witch for protection and nourish
ment and were commonly thought to take the form of small animals, such as cats, dogs,
mice, or toads. Any person already suspected of witchcraft could attract far greater suspi
cion by displaying affection for a pet, and it is clear from the court records of the period
that evidence of pet ownership was commonly cited during witch trials.10
Perhaps because of such prejudices, pet keeping remained chiefly the province of the up
per classes and ruling élite until the early modern period when the emergence of Enlight
enment attitudes and an urban middle class saw the gradual spread of pets into most sec
tors of Western society.11 This change in animal-related attitudes and behavior can be
partly attributed to the steady movement of Europeans and Americans out of (p. 83) rural
areas and into towns and cities at this time. This urban migration tended to distance
growing sectors of the population from direct involvement in the consumptive exploita
tion of animals, thereby eliminating the need for value systems designed to segregate hu
mans and nonhumans into separate moral domains.12
The potential therapeutic or socializing influence of the human-animal bond was also first
recognized during this period. The English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), for ex
ample, advocated the keeping of pets to encourage children to develop empathy and a
sense of responsibility for others. The York Retreat, the first mental institution to employ
pet animals as a therapeutic medium, was founded in England during the eighteenth cen
tury, and by the Victorian era, pet animals were a relatively established feature of British
mental institutions.13
Page 3 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
nually providing for their pets’ health and welfare, and yet it is sometimes difficult to
identify or measure any obvious quid pro quo.
It could be argued, of course, that people in wealthy, industrialized nations spend abun
dant time and resources engaging in any number of activities that appear to convey no
obvious benefits other than personal enjoyment: watching movies or sporting events,
gambling in casinos, or buying and wearing designer-label clothing, to name just a few.
And it may be that keeping animals as pets is just another of these superficially pointless
things that humans do for fun when they can afford it. If that were the case, however, one
would predict that pet keeping would be absent or at least rare among less affluent soci
eties or groups that lack the resources to squander on luxuries. In reality, and as previ
ously outlined, human-pet attachments appear to be widespread, regardless of whether
our focus is on nonaffluent subsistence hunter-gatherers16 or homeless people living im
poverished lives on urban streets.17
This apparent lack of utility associated with pet keeping poses an interesting explanatory
challenge to evolutionary biologists and psychologists, since Darwin’s theory posits that
natural selection should only favor the maintenance and spread of human behavior that
contributes either directly to individual survival and reproductive success or to the
(p. 84) “fitness” of close genetic kin.18 In response to this challenge, a number of different
ideas have been proposed to account for the enduring popularity of the human-animal
bond.
Bonds or Bondage?
One obvious solution to the evolutionary problem posed by “the bond” is to argue that
pets are in fact simply living at their owners’ expense and that people derive no benefits
—and probably some harm—from engaging in these relationships. Proponents of this view
depict dogs, cats and other companion animals as social parasites that exploit the “hard-
wired” aspects of human parental behavior—such as our propensity to be protective and
nurturing toward infants—in order to obtain, as it were, a free ride. They also point to the
small size, neotenic or pedomorphic facial features, and infantilized behavior of many dog
breeds as evidence of selection for phenotypic traits that enhance these animals’ ability
to trigger human parental responses.19
While difficult to refute, the social parasitism hypothesis assumes that people who keep
pets must either be at an adaptive disadvantage compared with non-owners, or that the
fitness costs of keeping pets are relatively trivial compared with the potential risks of be
ing too discriminating with regard to potential objects of parental care.20 However, no
compelling evidence exists that people’s survival or lifetime reproductive success is ad
versely affected by pet ownership, and the relative costs of keeping pets, at least for some
individuals, seem to be far from trivial. This suggests that either the theory is wrong or
that it needs to be modified. It may be more appropriate, for example, to characterize pet
keeping as a case of mutualism rather than parasitism: in other words, as a relationship in
which both partners derive mutual benefits from their association. One example of a natu
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The Human-Animal Bond
rally occurring mutualistic relationship is that between various coral reef fish and the
diminutive cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus. Pairs of wrasse stake out territories on
coral reefs where they are visited by other fish for periodic “cleaning”—that is, the re
moval of ectoparasites and dead tissue from their mouths and gills. During the process,
the larger fish, some of whom are highly predatory, remain passive and allow the wrasse
to do their work unmolested.21 Human-pet relationships may belong in a similar category.
However, if this is the case, it is important to be clear about the kinds of mutual benefits
that are being exchanged. The advantages to the pets may seem obvious, but we also
need to ask what humans obtain from the company of pets that might potentially offset
the costs of caring for them.
Some of these studies focused specifically on the short-term influence of interactions with
pets on people’s physiological responses, including heart rate, blood pressure, and circu
lating levels of hormones, such as cortisol and the so-called bonding hormone oxytocin.
The majority of these experiments have found that when people interact with their pets,
their levels of autonomic arousal tend to decrease to resting levels or slightly below, and
that circulating oxytocin levels tend to increase. Other studies that have examined risk
factors for cardiovascular disease, such as serum triglycerides and cholesterol, in large
population samples have found significantly lower risks in pet owners compared with non-
owners.23 In prospective studies, the acquisition of a new pet has been found to be associ
ated with improvements in owners’ mental and physical health, and with sustained reduc
tions in their tendency to overreact to stressful situations and stimuli.24 Pet owners also
appear to be more resilient in the face of stressful life events, resulting in fewer health
problems and fewer visits to doctors for treatment.25 Significantly, pet owners who report
being very attached to their pets tend to benefit more from pet ownership than those who
are less attached, and dog owners tend to do better than cat owners, perhaps because the
attachment for dogs, on average, seems to be stronger.26 Because of their need for regu
lar exercise, dogs can also serve as a stimulus for physical activity. Several studies have
demonstrated higher levels of walking and overall physical activity in dog owners com
pared with non-dog owners, and some have found significant associations between dog
Page 5 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
walking and lower body weight and reduced risks of diabetes, hypertension, hypercholes
terolemia, and depression.27
Human-animal bonds may also benefit people indirectly by stimulating positive social in
teractions and relationships with others. For instance, numerous experimental studies
have demonstrated that people of all ages, including those with physical disabilities, en
joy more frequent and more positive interactions with strangers when accompanied in
public by a dog than when unaccompanied.28 Community-based surveys have also deter
mined that pet ownership is positively associated with social interaction among neighbors
and with perceptions of neighborhood friendliness. After adjusting for demographic fac
tors, pet owners also tend to score higher on measures of “social capital” and civic en
gagement than non-owners.29
Finally, as well as being good for individual pet owners, human-animal bonds may have a
positive economic impact on society as a whole. In one study that explored these effects,
a random, stratified sample of 1011 Australians was surveyed (p. 86) by telephone for in
formation about pet ownership and their use of healthcare services. It was found that pet
owners, on average, made 12 percent fewer doctor visits annually than non-owners. Us
ing an extrapolated estimate of the total number of Australian pet owners, and “number
of doctor visits” as a proxy for overall health system usage, the study’s author calculated
that pet ownership was associated with a potential saving of $988 million/year, or 2.7 per
cent of Australia’s total national health expenditure.30 A later study by the same author
used similar data from two large, representative national surveys—the German Socioeco
nomic Panel (SOEP) and the Australian International Social Science Survey (ISSS-A)—to
calculate the hypothetical increase in healthcare expenditure if pet ownership were to be
abolished in both countries. In Germany, with relatively low rates of pet ownership
(37.7%) but high healthcare costs, the study projected a 2.56 percent increase in doctor
visits if pets were banned, resulting in a €5.59 billion increase in national health expendi
ture. In Australia, with higher rates of pet ownership (64.3%) but lower health costs, the
equivalent analysis projected a 7.19 percent increase, equivalent to a $3.86 billion in
crease in costs.31
Both studies were correlational and therefore unable to determine if the apparent rela
tionship between pet ownership and better health was a causal one. However, a subse
quent analysis used longitudinal data from the same two surveys to demonstrate appar
ent causal relationships between pet ownership and improved health. In both countries,
the data consisted of self-reported pet ownership and self-reported health (number of
doctor visits in the preceding year) collected from the same individuals in 1996 and 2001,
respectively. The results from Germany suggested that pet owners averaged 7.5 percent
fewer doctor visits in 2001 than non-owners, even if they had the same standard of health
in 1996. They also showed that people who “always” had a pet (in both 1996 and 2001)
made significantly fewer doctor visits than people who had ceased to have a pet or had
“never” had one during the same five-year period. When the pet owning and non-owning
samples from Germany were matched to adjust for demographic differences, the pet own
ers averaged 24 percent fewer doctor visits compared to the non-owners. The results
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The Human-Animal Bond
from Australia, though less robust, indicated that pet owners made 11 percent fewer doc
tor visits than non-owners, and confirmed that those who owned pets in both 1996 and
2001 were significantly healthier than those who either ceased to own a pet during the
period or never owned one.32
Further confirmation of a causal link between pet ownership and health savings comes
from a survey of 3031 younger women in China, where private ownership of dogs was ef
fectively banned until 1992, creating a unique natural experiment on the potential health
impact of the human-animal bond. The results indicated that the women who acquired
dogs after 1992 reported fewer doctor visits, took significantly more exercise, considered
themselves fitter and healthier, and slept better than the non-dog owners. Furthermore,
these health outcomes were positively correlated with dog owners’ self-reported attach
ments to their dogs.33
Samuel Corson and Elizabeth Corson, a husband and wife team of psychiatrists at Ohio
State University, were the first researchers to test Levinson’s ideas empirically. In the
1970s they set up what they called a “pet-facilitated psychotherapy” (PFP) program with
in the psychiatric unit where they worked, and selected 47 withdrawn and uncommunica
tive patients, most of whom had failed to respond favorably to more conventional treat
ment methods. Each patient was then encouraged to help with the daily care and exercise
of a colony of laboratory dogs who lived adjacent to the hospital. At the end of the study,
the Corsons reported “some improvement” in all of the patients, although they published
details of only five subjects, all of whom had improved markedly. Their assessment of the
value of the PFP program was, however, unambiguously positive. Animal-assisted inter
ventions (AAIs), they argued, helped patients to develop self-respect, independence, and
self-confidence and transformed them from, “irresponsible, dependent psychological in
valids into self-respecting, responsible individuals.” As Levinson had predicted, the dogs
acted as social catalysts, forging positive links between the subject and other patients
and staff on the ward, and thus creating a “widening circle of warmth and approval.” The
dogs were able to induce such changes, according to the Corsons, by providing patients
with a special kind of nonthreatening, nonjudgmental affection that “helped to break the
vicious cycle of loneliness, helplessness and social withdrawal.”35
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The Human-Animal Bond
The Corson study initiated a wave of research in Europe and North America during the
late seventies and eighties that sought to identify and quantify the benefits of AAIs across
a wide variety of patient groups and therapeutic settings. Regrettably, many of these ear
ly studies suffered from a variety of design flaws. In 1984, a thorough review of the avail
able literature on AAIs found only six controlled experimental trials of the therapeutic val
ue of animals, all of which focused on adult or elderly populations. The authors concluded
that the studies showed that pets had either “no impact or produced relatively small ther
apeutic gains.” They also noted that none of the studies revealed dramatic therapeutic re
sults similar to those noted in isolated case reports.36 Nineteen years later, in 2003, a
meta-analysis of 112 relevant studies was still able to identify only (p. 88) nine (six involv
ing control groups and three pre-/posttreatment designs) that reported sufficient statisti
cal information to enable the calculation of effect sizes. All nine studies were published
after the original 1984 review and, as before, all were conducted with adult and/or elder
ly populations. However, in contrast to the previous assessment that these interventions
had only minor therapeutic value, the meta-analysis found an average effect size of 0.76,
which would generally be considered large.37
A second meta-analysis of AAI research published in 2007 identified 49 studies that met
the eligibility requirements for this type of study. Four distinct outcome groups were iden
tified for analysis, involving: studies that applied AAIs to children with autism spectrum
disorders (ASDs); those that focused on medical outcomes, such as heart rate, blood pres
sure, motor skills, or coordination; those that examined various emotional well-being indi
cators, such as anxiety, depression, or fear; and those that looked for effects of AAI on ob
servable behaviors, such as aggression, violence, compliance with rules, or verbal resis
tance. For the symptoms of ASDs, the analysis found treatment effect sizes in the high
range (Cohen’s d = 0.72), in the low to moderate range for various emotional well-being
indicators (d = 0.39), and in the moderate range for medical effects and observable be
haviors (d = 0.51). Use of dogs in AAIs was consistently associated with moderately high
effect sizes, compared with the effects of other therapy animals such as horses, aquari
ums, and dolphins, but the nature of the presenting problem (e.g., medical, behavioral,
mental health) did not seem to influence outcomes. Also, in the four studies that com
pared AAIs with other, more conventional treatments, effect sizes for AAIs were either
similar or superior to those of the other interventions.38
The possible mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of AAIs are the subject of on
going investigation, although the social-bonding hormone oxytocin has again been impli
cated in the process.39 Future research will continue to refine our understanding of these
mechanisms, as well as the particular ways in which they influence different subject (pa
tient) populations in different therapeutic contexts.
Page 8 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
The mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of human-animal bonds may be similar
to those thought to be responsible for the social-buffering effect in human relationships.
At least four published studies have demonstrated significant increases in plasma oxy
tocin levels in human subjects during and following interactions with their own (but not
with unfamiliar) dogs,47 and in one, both the owners’ and the dogs’ oxytocin levels were
positively correlated, and associated with the owners’ subjective assessments of the quali
ty of the relationship.48 Another study detected significantly elevated levels of oxytocin
metabolites in the urine of dog owners who received greater amounts of visual attention
(gaze) from their dogs in an experimental trial. When questioned, these owners also pro
fessed stronger attachments to their more attentive dogs.49
The social-buffering idea may also go some way toward explaining the relatively recent
and continuing explosion in the popularity of pets among industrialized nations in the last
40 to 50 years. In the United States, for instance, the results of a variety of social and
public-health surveys have documented the gradual collapse or fragmentation of tradi
tional social support systems, particularly since the 1960s. Such trends have been
marked by a substantial rise in the number of people living alone, especially in urban ar
eas; escalating divorce rates and an increase in the number of couples choosing to have
fewer children or none at all; people spending less and less time socializing with their
friends, or getting involved in their local communities; and families dispersing geographi
Page 9 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
cally so that fewer close relatives now live within easy reach.50 It seems plausible to ar
gue in light of these trends that the rising popularity of human-animal bonds at least part
ly reflects people’s attempts to augment their traditional support systems using nonhu
man animals.
The very large numbers of pets who now coexist with humans can also have a damaging
impact on the environment. The depletion of wildlife resources to supply the exotic pet
trade, the impact of free-roaming cat predation on wild bird species, and the pollution of
parks and natural areas with animal waste are all obvious examples.55 Even supplying the
dietary needs of pets may impose a significant environmental burden. According to one
calculation, a medium-size family dog eats about 360 pounds of meat and 210 pounds of
cereal annually, while another estimate suggests that America’s 75 million pet dogs may
consume as many calories as roughly 35 million people. Producing this much food would
require the equivalent of approximately 20 thousand square miles of farmland.56
Page 10 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
While species such as dogs and cats have undoubtedly benefited numerically from their
association with humans, many individual animals pay a significant price in terms of com
promised health and welfare. Failed human-animal bonds result in millions of pets being
abandoned, relinquished to shelters, and/or euthanized prematurely each year, and many
thousands are abused, neglected, or mistreated by their owners for various reasons, rang
ing from ignorance to deliberate cruelty.57 Many purebred dog breeds are afflicted with
painful and debilitating health problems either due to inbreeding or line breeding or se
lection for extreme standards of physical conformation.58 Commercial pet “farming” is on
the rise as the demand for some pets exceeds the supply, while the exotic pet trade caus
es widespread suffering and death among wild animals (p. 91) during capture, transport,
and subsequent acquisition by owners with little knowledge of proper husbandry and
care.59 Even the most affectionate and caring human-animal bonds may cause unneces
sary animal suffering when, for example, an overly attached owner insists on futile veteri
nary interventions to keep his or her terminally ill pet alive at all costs.60
All of these negative aspects of the human-animal bond raise important ethical dimen
sions that need to be considered when weighing the benefits of our relations with com
panion animals against the perceived costs.
Further Reading
Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton Sanders, Regarding Animals. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Uni
versity Press, 1996.
Beetz, Julius A., Kurt Kotrschal, Dennis C. Turner, and Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg. Attachment
to Pets: An Integrative View of Human-Animal Relationships with Implications for Thera
peutic Practice. Göttingen and Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe, 2013.
Herzog, Harold. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think
Straight about Animals. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
Katcher, Aaron H., and Alan M. Beck. New Perspectives on Our Lives with Companion An
imals. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
Manning, Aubrey, and James A. Serpell. Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspec
tives. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
McCardle, Peggy, Sandra McCune, James A. Griffin and Valerie Malholmes. How Animals
Affect Us: Examining the Influence of Human-Animal Interaction on Child Development
and Human Health. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2011.
McCardle, Peggy, Sandra McCune, James A. Griffin, Layla Esposito, and Lisa Freund. Ani
mals in Our Lives: Human-Animal Interaction in Family, Community and Therapeutic Set
tings. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing, 2011. (p. 97)
Page 11 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
Podberscek, Anthony L., Elizabeth S. Paul, and James A. Serpell. Companion Animals and
Us: Exploring the Relationships between People and Pets. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer
sity Press, 2000.
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Rowan, Andrew N. Animals and People Sharing the World. Hanover, NH: University Press
of New England, 1988.
Wilson, Cindy C., and Dennis C. Turner. Companion Animals in Human Health. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998.
Notes:
(1.) Hank Davis and Dianne Balfour, The Inevitable Bond: Examining Scientist-Animal In
teractions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
(2.) James A. Serpell, In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human Animal Relationships
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
(3.) “Surveys Yield Conflicting Trends in US Pet Ownership,” VIN News Service, accessed
September 14, 2014, http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=31369.
(4.) “Facts and Figures 2012,” FEDIAF (European Pet Food Federation), accessed June
19, 2014, http://www.fediaf.org/facts-figures/.
(6.) J.-D. Vigne, J. Guilaine, K. Debue, L. Haye et al., “Early Taming of the Cat in Cyprus,”
Science 304 (2004): 259; Darcy F. Morey, “Burying Key Evidence: The Social Bond be
tween Dogs and People,” Journal of Archaeological Science 33 (2006): 158–175; Simon J.
M. Davis and F. Valla, “Evidence for Domestication of the Dog 12,000 Years Ago in the
Natufian of Israel,” Nature 276 (1978): 608–610.
(7.) Philippe Erikson, “The Social Significance of Pet-Keeping among Amazonian Indians,”
in Companion Animals and Us: Exploring the Relationships between People and Pets, ed.
Anthony L. Podberscek, Elizabeth Paul, and James A. Serpell (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 2000), 7–27; James A. Serpell, “Pet Keeping and Animal Domestication: A
Reappraisal,” in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism and Preda
tion, ed. Juliet Clutton-Brock (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 10–21; Frederick J. Simoons
and James A. Baldwin, “Breast-Feeding of Animals by Women: Its Socio-Cultural Context
and Geographic Occurrence,” Anthropos 77 (1982): 421–448.
(8.) Francis Galton, Enquiry into Human Faculty and Its Development (London, Macmil
lan, 1883); Carl Sauer, Agricultural Origins and Dispersals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1952); Serpell, “Pet Keeping and Animal Domestication,” 10–21.
Page 12 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
(9.) Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (London and New
York: Routledge, 1994); Serpell, “In the Company of Animals,” 43–59; James Serpell, “Ani
mals and Religion: Towards a Unifying Theory,” in The Human-Animal Relationship, ed.
Francine de Jong and Ruud van den Bos (Assen, Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 2005),
9–22.
(10.) James A. Serpell, “Guardian Spirits or Demonic Pets: The Concept of the Witch’s Fa
miliar in Early Modern England, 1530–1712,” in The Animal/Human Boundary, ed. Angela
N. Creager and William Chester Jordan (Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press,
2002), 157–190.
(11.) Katherine C. Grier, Pets in America: A History (Chapel Hill: University of North Car
olina Press, 2006); Harriet Ritvo, “The Emergence of Modern Pet-Keeping,” in Animals
and People Sharing the World, ed. Andrew N. Rowan (Hanover, NH: University Press of
New England, 1986); Salisbury, Beast Within; Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World:
Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983).
(12.) James A. Serpell and Elizabeth Paul, “Pets and the Development of Positive Attitudes
to Animals,” in Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives, ed. Aubrey Manning
and James A. Serpell (London: Routledge, 1994), 127–144.
(14.) James A. Serpell and Elizabeth Paul, “Pets in the Family: An Evolutionary Perspec
tive,” in Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Family Psychology, ed. Catherine Salmon and
Todd K. Shackelford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 297–309.
(15.) “The True Costs of Owning a Pet,” Forbes Magazine, accessed May, 2014, http://
www.forbes.com/2011/05/24/true-costs-owning-pet_slide_2.html.
(16.) Erikson, “Social Significance of Pet-keeping,” 7–27; Serpell, “Pet Keeping and Ani
mal Domestication,” 10–21.
(17.) Lynn Rew, “Friends and Pets as Companions: Strategies for Coping with Loneliness
among Homeless Youth,” Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 13 (2000):
125–132; Heidi Taylor, Pauline Williams, and Paul Gray, “Homelessness and Dog Owner
ship: An Investigation into Animal Empathy, Attachment, Crime, Drug Use, Health and
Public Opinion,” Anthrozoös 17 (2004): 353–368.
(18.) William D. Hamilton, “The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour,” Journal of Theo
retical Biology 7 (1964): 1–32; George C. Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection: A
Critique of Current Evolutionary Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1966).
Page 13 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
(19.) John Archer, “Why Do People Love Their Pets?” Evolution and Human Behaviour 18
(1997): 237–259.
(24.) Karen M. Allen, Barbara E. Skykoff, and Joseph L. Izzo, Jr., “Pet Ownership, but Not
ACE Inhibitor Therapy, Blunts Home Blood Pressure Responses to Mental Stress,” Hyper
tension 38 (2001): 815–820; James A. Serpell, “Beneficial Effects of Pet Ownership on
Some Aspects of Human Health and Behaviour,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
84 (1991): 717–720.
(25.) Judith M. Siegel, “Stressful Life Events and Use of Physician Services among the El
derly: The Moderating Role of Pet Ownership,” Journal of Personality and Social Psycholo
gy 58 (1990): 1081–1086.
(26.) E. Friedmann and S. A. Thomas, “Pet Ownership, Social Support, and One-Year Sur
vival after Acute Myocardial Infarction in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial
(CAST),” American Journal of Cardiology 76 (1995): 1213–1217; Marcia M. Ory and Eliza
beth L. Goldberg, “Pet Possession and Life Satisfaction in Elderly Women,” in New Per
spectives on Our Lives with Companion Animals, ed. Aaron H. Katcher and Alan M. Beck
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 303–317; Serpell, “Beneficial Ef
fects of Pet Ownership,” 717–720.
Health and Physical Activity: A Critical Review of the Literature,” Health and Place 13
(2007): 261–272; Katherine D. Hoerster, J. A. Mayer, J. F. Sallis, S. Talley et al., “Dog Walk
ing: Its Association with Physical Activity Guideline Adherence and Its Correlates,” Pre
ventive Medicine 52 (2011): 33–38; Cindy Lentino, A. J. Visek, K. McDonnell, L. DiPietro et
al., “Dog Walking Is Associated with a Favorable Risk Profile Independent of a Moderate
to High Volume of Physical Activity,” Journal of Physical Activity and Health 9 (2012):
414–420; Serpell, “Beneficial Effects of Pet Ownership,” 717–720.
(29.) Lisa Wood, B. Giles-Corti, M. Bulsara, “The Pet Connection: Pets as a Conduit for So
cial Capital,” Social Science and Medicine 61 (2005): 1159–1173.
(30.) Bruce Headey, “Health Benefits and Health Cost Savings Due to Pets: Preliminary
Estimates from an Australian National Survey,” Social Indicators Research 47 (1999):
233–243.
(31.) Bruce Headey, M. Grabka, J. Kelley, P. Reddy et al., “Pet Ownership Is Good for Your
Health and Saves Public Expenditure Too: Australian and German Longitudinal Evi
dence.” Australian Social Monitor 5 (2002): 93–99.
(32.) Bruce Headey and Markus Grabka, “Pets and Human Health in Germany and Aus
tralia: National Longitudinal Results,” Social Indicators Research 80 (2007): 297–311.
(33.) Bruce Headey, Fu Na, and Richard Zheng, “Pet Dogs Benefit Owners’ Health: A ‘Nat
ural Experiment’ in China,” Social Indicators Research 87 (2008): 481–493.
(35.) Samuel A. Corson and Elizabeth O’Leary Corson, “Pet Animals as Nonverbal Com
munication Mediators in Psychotherapy in Hospital Settings,” in Ethology and Nonverbal
Communication in Mental Health, ed. Samuel A. Corson and Elizabeth O’Leary Corson
(New York: Pergamon; 1980), 83–110.
(36.) Alan M. Beck and Aaron H. Katcher, “A New Look at Pet-Facilitated Therapy,” Jour
nal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 184 (1984): 414–421.
Page 15 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
(40.) Glyn M. Collis and June McNicholas, “A Theoretical Basis for Health Benefits of Pet
Ownership,” in Companion Animals in Human Health, ed. Cindy C. Wilson and Dennis C.
Turner (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998), 105–122; Thomas Garrity and Lauren Stallones,
“Effects of Pet Contact on Human Well-Being: Review of Recent Research,” in Companion
Animals in Human Health, ed. Cindy C. Wilson and Dennis C. Turner (Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage, 1998), 3–22; J. Virués-Ortega and G. Buela-Casal, “Psychophysiological Effects of
Human-Animal Interaction: Theoretical Issues and Long-Term Interaction Effects,” Jour
nal of Nervous and Mental Disease 194 (2006): 52–57.
(41.) W. Eriksen, “The Role of Social Support in the Pathogenesis of Coronary Heart Dis
ease: A Literature Review,” Family Practice 11 (1994): 201–209; Ralf Schwarzer and Nina
Knoll, “Functional Roles of Social Support within the Stress and Coping Process: A Theo
retical and Empirical Overview,” International Journal of Psychology 42 (2007): 243–252.
Page 16 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
(45.) Zoe R. Donaldson and Larry J. Young, “Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and the Neurogenetics
of Sociality,” Science 322 (2008): 900–904; Lim, “Neuropeptide Regulation of Affiliative
Behavior,” 506–517.
(49.) Miho Nagasawa, T. Kikusui, T. Onaka, and M. Ohta, “Dog’s Gaze at Its Owner In
creases Owner’s Urinary Oxytocin during Social Interaction,” Hormones and: Behavior 55
(2009): 434–441.
(50.) S. P. Morgan and M. G. Taylor, “Low Fertility at the Turn of the Twenty-First Centu
ry,” Annual Review of Sociology 32 (2006): 375–399; Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
(51.) Joan B. Silk, J. C. Beehner, T. J. Bergman, C. Crockford et al., “The Benefits of Social
Capital: Close Social Bonds among Female Baboons Enhance Offspring Survival,” Pro
ceedings of the Royal Society B 276 (2009): 3099e3104, doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0681;
Joan B. Silk, J. C. Beehner, T. J. Bergman, C. Crockford et al., “Strong and Consistent So
cial Bonds Enhance the Longevity of Female Baboons,” Current Biology 20 (2010):
1359e1361, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.05.067.
(52.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dog Bites, http://www.cdc.gov/
homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/index.html, accessed August 18, 2014.
(53.) A.E. Kaye, J. M. Belz, R. E. Kirschner, “Pediatric Dog Bite Injuries: A 5-year Review
of the Experience at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,” Plastic and Reconstructive
Surgery 124 (2009): 551–558; Ilana Reisner, Frances S. Shofer, and Michael L. Nance,
“Behavioral Assessment of Child-Directed Canine Aggression,” Injury Prevention 13
Page 17 of 18
The Human-Animal Bond
(2007): 348–351; H. B. Weiss, D. I. Friedman, and J. H. Coben, “Incidence of Dog Bite In
juries Treated in Emergency Departments,” Journal of the American Medical Association
279 (1998): 51–53.
(54.) Bruno Chomel and Ben Sun, “Zoonoses in the Bedroom,” Emerging Infectious Dis
eases 17 (2011): 167–172.
(55.) Emma Bush, Sandra E. Baker, and David W. Macdonald, “Global Trade in Exotic Pets
2006-2012,” Conservation Biology 28 (2014): 663–676; Raymond Coppinger and Lorna
Coppinger, Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and: Evolu
tion (New York: Scribner, 2001), 235; Gail Rosen and Katherine Smith, “Summarizing the
Evidence on the International Trade in Illegal Wildlife,” EcoHealth 7 (2010): 24–32; Scott
Loss, Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra, “The Impact of Free-Ranging Domestic Cats on
Wildlife of the United States,” Nature Communications 4 (2012): 1396, doi:10.1038/
ncomms2380.
(56.) Coppinger and Coppinger, Dogs, 233–235; Brenda Vale and Robert Vale, Time to Eat
the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009).
(57.) Arnold Arluke, Just a Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty and Ourselves
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006); Elizabeth A. Clancy and Andrew N.
Rowan, “Companion Animal Demographics in the United States: A Historical Perspec
tive,” in The State of the Animals 2003, ed. Deborah Salem and Andrew Rowan (Washing
ton, DC: Humane Society Press, 2003), 9–26.
(58.) Lucy Asher, Gillian Diesel, Jennifer F. Summers, Paul D. McGreevy et al., “Inherited
Defects in Pedigree Dogs. Part 1: Disorders Related to Breed Standards,” Veterinary Jour
nal 182 (2009): 402–411; Jennifer Summers, G. Diesel, L. Asher, P. D. McGreevy et al., “In
herited Defects in Pedigree Dogs. Part 2: Disorders That Are Not Related to Breed Stan
dards,” Veterinary Journal 183 (2010): 39–45.
(59.) Staci McClennan, Keeping of Exotic Animals: Welfare Concerns (Brussels: Eu
rogroup for Animal Welfare, 2012).
(60.) Alan M. Beck and Aaron H. Katcher, Between Pets and People: The Importance of
Animal Companionship (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996), 195–208.
James A. Serpell
Page 18 of 18
Animal Sheltering
Animal Sheltering
Leslie Irvine
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Public Policy
Online Publication Date: Feb 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.12
American animal shelters house between six and eight million dogs and cats each year.
The question of what to do with millions of healthy but unwanted animals has animated
sheltering from the start. Responses reveal how the presence of animals in society shapes
institutions, laws, and policies. Pounds emerged to resolve the problems posed by stray
animals. Concern for animal welfare created the need and justification for shelters, as hu
mane alternatives to the pounds. Trends in pet-keeping and veterinary medicine shaped
twentieth-century sheltering practices, as shelter populations evolved from strays to un
wanted pets. Recently, criticism of high euthanasia rates engendered no-kill shelters. The
social and cultural significance of animal sheltering lies in the light it sheds on the chang
ing value of companion animals.
Keywords: animal studies, animal shelter, animal welfare, euthanasia, no-kill shelter, pet-keeping
IN the long arc of human-animal relationships, concern about the status of homeless cats
and dogs constitutes a recent development. Animal shelters have existed in the United
States for only about 150 years. Although the terms shelter and pound are often used syn
onymously today, they originated in differing missions and values. More precisely, they re
flected the changing status of companion animals and of attitudes toward their appropri
ate treatment. This chapter examines the social and cultural significance of animal shel
tering. From this perspective, sheltering reveals how the presence of animals shapes
many aspects of human experience, including our institutions, laws, and policies. More
over, the institution of sheltering highlights the position of animals in the intricate rela
tionship between public policy and private morality.
Throughout this chapter, I use the term shelter, except when pound is historically accu
rate. Today, when it comes to the treatment of animals, the name of the facility matters
little compared to the attitudes of the people who run it and of those who live in the sur
rounding community. Animals can receive harsh or humane treatment in either place. In
general, pounds come under the auspices of municipal governments, but to complicate
matters further, a city or town might call its animal control facility a shelter. Alternatively,
Page 1 of 17
Animal Sheltering
a city or town might not operate a dedicated animal control facility but, through a con
tractual arrangement, might house animals at a privately run shelter. The options hint at
the various means whereby communities respond to problems involving stray, injured, or
aggressive animals. Some have departments or agencies dedicated to animal control.
Others provide animal-related services through a police department or another arm of
government. In most cases, the funding for government-operated facilities comes largely,
although not exclusively, from fees for dog licensing, the redemption or adoption of ani
mals, and fines for animal control violations.1 A humane society, or a group dedicated to
the prevention of animal cruelty, might also operate a shelter. Some organizations, such
as the Humane Society of the United States and the American Humane Association, do
not run shelters but focus on animal advocacy. Often established as nonprofit organiza
tions, animal shelters might exist solely through donations, or they might receive partial
funding from a local government in exchange for providing (p. 99) shelter services. In
large cities, one might find a municipally run facility as well as a shelter operated by a lo
cal humane society.
Because the approximately five thousand animal shelters currently operating in the Unit
ed States function independently, generalizable research presents a challenge.2 Regional
studies, as well as studies of individual facilities, have examined several issues salient for
sheltering, overall. One primary concern involves understanding intake, or how animals
enter the shelter system. Consequently, a large body of research has analyzed the rea
sons owners give for relinquishing their pets.3 Because adoption rates represent another
important issue, studies have also analyzed people’s decisions to adopt shelter animals
and the factors that make an adoption successful.4 Another major concern has to do with
the health and welfare of animals housed in shelters. The practice of veterinary medicine
has yielded extensive research on topics relating to infectious disease management, ani
mal abuse, and sterilization programs.5 Additional research examines the organizational
culture of sheltering. For example, studies have investigated how organizational dis
course shapes the provision of services6 and the selection of cases for use in campaigns
to raise public awareness and funds.7 Other studies analyze how shelter workers under
stand animal welfare8 and how they interact with the public9 and with the animal resi
dents.10 Moreover, the nonprofit status and limited budgets of many shelters highlights
the need to understand the motivation, recruitment, and retention of volunteers.11
Without question, the practice of killing healthy animals constitutes the most important
issue in animal sheltering today, and the rise of no-kill shelters represents “one of the
most profound,” if controversial, responses.12 Because shelters use the term euthanasia,
which means intentionally ending a life to alleviate suffering, I also employ it here. How
ever, most of the animals who die in shelters do not require euthanasia in the true sense.
Although no definitive statistics enumerate the total number of animals killed annually,
conservative estimates put it at just under three million, making shelters the leading
cause of death for companion animals in the United States.13 Research on the topic has
investigated how shelter workers negotiate the incongruity of what Arluke14 aptly calls
the “caring-killing paradox” of their jobs.15 Other studies have evaluated shelters’ efforts
to minimize or eliminate the killing of animals.16 The discussion that follows examines
Page 2 of 17
Animal Sheltering
how the issue of killing animals engendered the first shelters and continues to shape shel
ter policies today.
Animals in Cities
Urbanization, which concentrated people in spaces designated exclusively for human ac
tivity, made animals into new social problems. Through the turn of the twentieth century,
animals of all kinds roamed the streets of most American cities.22 Horses and mules
played visible and valuable roles in the urban economy by hauling and providing trans
portation. People kept chickens, hogs, and dairy cows in whatever space they could find,
even in densely populated areas, so that families had milk, meat, and eggs. Many dairies
Page 3 of 17
Animal Sheltering
stabled their cows within city limits until the 1920s. Hogs continued to roam freely until
they were confined to a stockyard. When Charles Dickens wrote about New York in Amer
ican Notes, he famously referred to these abundant “city scavengers.”23 Adding to the
mix, cattle and sheep raised in the West and Midwest passed through urban stockyards
before going to slaughter.
Animals had no place in the clean, efficient, safe, modern cities envisioned by turn-of-the-
century politicians, however. Reforms centralized meatpacking and moved livestock to
less-populated areas. Cars and trucks gradually replaced urban horses and (p. 101) mules.
But not all animals could be so easily legislated out of cities. Packs of dogs ran free and
colonies of cats abounded. They reached the streets as strays or because their owners,
accustomed to allowing them to roam, had turned them loose to scavenge for food. Al
though some urban business owners appreciated the rodent control provided by cats,24
dogs often posed a nuisance by barking, howling, fighting, getting into garbage, dashing
in front of vehicles, and frightening or biting citizens. Some cities attempted to minimize
risk by requiring the muzzling of free-roaming dogs. New York had established such a law
by the 1830s, but because of poor compliance and lack of enforcement, it “failed to stop a
rising tide of unmuzzled dogs.”25 Fear of rabies eventually prompted many city govern
ments to authorize the capture of roaming dogs. Most people lacked a clear understand
ing of the disease, and so popular mythology held that rabies generated spontaneously.
Louis Pasteur would develop a post-exposure rabies vaccine for human victims of animal
bites in the fall of 1885, but until then, eliminating stray animals constituted the sole pre
ventive measure. City governments authorized the killing of dogs on the street and paid a
bounty for the carcasses. As one scholar noted, “Not surprisingly, paying people to kill
dogs was a misguided idea.”26 The bounty system made dog catching appealing to urban
street youths and “unsavory characters.”27 It also provided those who engaged in dog
catching with an incentive to steal pets to add to their earnings. Some cities established
pounds to move the brutality out of sight. They began authorizing constables or employ
ing “dog catchers” to capture and take stray dogs to the pound. One early account de
scribed the New York City dog pound as “a place of horror”28 and the image of the brutal
dogcatcher speaks to the demonization of the agents of animal control, which continues
today.29 The New York pound had “two sections—one divided into individual compart
ments for ‘the better class of dogs’ and the other, a large pen for ‘curs of low degree.’
Owners had 48 hours to rescue their dogs and pay a $3 fine.”30 Because anyone could
easily obtain a dog or cat from the street, few people searched for missing animals, and
no adoption programs existed to rehome those left unclaimed.31 In New York, dogs met
their fate by being loaded “up to 100 at a time … in a large iron cage and lowered into the
East River by a derrick.”32 Workers hoisted the cage up after six minutes. According to an
1877 article in the New York Times, dogcatchers drowned over 700 dogs on just one July
day.33 The pounds also sold unclaimed dogs in quantity to vivisectors for research. Pounds
often paid a bounty for each dog, especially during the summer months when, as popular
belief had it, rabies posed its highest risk.34 The pounds would then inform owners that
their dogs would be killed if not redeemed. Dogs were often stolen for the bounty and re
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deemed by their owners, only to be stolen again. Consequently, many city pounds owed
their existence to corruption, drawing revenues from the theft and ransom of pet dogs.
The commonplace brutality inflicted on animals in full view of the public influenced the
establishment of animal welfare organizations and the adoption of anticruelty laws.
(p. 102) Many of the protections commonly afforded to domestic animals, as well as to
Others saw matters differently. In 1858, two Philadelphia women, Elizabeth Morris and
Annie Waln, began catching and sheltering stray animals to spare them the brutality of
the city pound.42 They found homes for many animals and, at first, avoided killing those in
good health. They soon had more animals than they could rehome, however, and they be
gan to kill the unwanted ones using a lethal dose of chloroform, considered a humane al
ternative to the methods used in the pound. In 1888, they incorporated their organization
as the Morris Refuge Association for Homeless and Suffering Animals. Meanwhile, the
noted Philadelphian Caroline Earle White objected to the city pound’s role in supplying
animals for vivisection.43 White had helped to form the Pennsylvania SPCA, but gender
discrimination prohibited her from holding an office in the organization. She then formed
a “Women’s Branch” of the Pennsylvania SPCA. With support from Morris and Waln, the
members of the Women’s Branch established a “refuge for lost and homeless dogs, where
they could be kept until homes could be found for them, or they [could] be otherwise dis
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posed of.”44 Initially putting dogs to death using chloroform, they later developed a “car
bonous oxide” gas chamber. They also built the first facility referred to as an animal shel
ter.45 Moreover, the Women’s Branch initiated the first contract with a city government to
house strays and to humanely kill unclaimed animals. The City of Philadelphia paid $2500
toward the costs. This constitutes “the first attempt on the part of any society in the Unit
ed States to handle the problem of (p. 103) caring for surplus or unwanted small animals
and, as far as it can be ascertained, the first appropriation ever made by a municipality
for humane work.”46 Much later, in 1894, the ASPCA assumed responsibility for animal
control and sheltering in New York City, with funding coming from the revenues from new
dog licensing laws. It would perform these services for the next one hundred years. Other
cities soon followed. For example, the San Francisco SPCA, founded in 1890, took respon
sibility for animal control in 1905.
The first animal shelters thus emerged in response to a series of social and cultural
changes. Urbanization had made free-roaming pets and strays, particularly dogs, a social
problem. The violent solution to that problem conflicted with middle-class sensibilities
about the appropriate treatment of animals. The humanitarians objected to the brutal
methods used to kill the animals, not to the killing itself. The sheltering community would
not question the practice of killing animals until over a century later.
with dogs. The new “crop” met a growing demand, especially for purebred dogs. But not
all these animals turned out to match the hopes of their owners, and shelters struggled to
cope with the new problem they defined as “pet overpopulation.”51
The growing biomedical research community had a solution. Researchers had al
(p. 104)
ways experimented on stray animals, and they turned to the overflowing pounds and shel
ters to meet the increasing demand for animal subjects. Arguing that euthanasia wasted
animals who had value in research, the National Society for Medical Research successful
ly lobbied for the enactment of laws, known to as pound seizure laws, requiring that mu
nicipal pounds release their unclaimed animals to research facilities. The requirement to
relinquish dogs and cats, many of whom had been pets, for use in research first went into
effect in Minnesota in 1949.52 Initially, widespread public support for medical research
meant that pound seizure faced little opposition. When animal welfare advocates gained
access to laboratories, however, and exposed the appalling conditions the animals en
dured, the practice of using former or potential pets in research became controversial.53
Once again, objections targeted the means by which the animals were killed. Death in a
laboratory represented a cruel betrayal. However, shelters, perceived as places that pro
tected animals, also killed former or potential pets. A 1973 survey estimated that shelters
killed 13.5 million dogs and cats annually.54
Sterilization offered another way to reduce the population. Shelters and humane organi
zations had begun to educate the public about the need to spay or neuter their animals in
the 1950s, when affordable surgery became available to the public. They redoubled their
efforts in the 1970s.55 They collaborated with veterinarians to offer high-volume, low-cost
spay and neuter clinics. Some states began to require the sterilization of adoptable ani
mals in shelters so that no dogs or cats who left a shelter could contribute to the problem
that had led them there in the first place. By 1982, a follow-up survey of shelters estimat
ed that annual euthanasia numbers had decreased to between 7.6 and 10 million
animals.56
Although the discourse of sheltering had long portrayed a humane death as preferable to
lingering in a shelter or living as a stray, some animal welfare professionals eventually be
gan to condemn the practice of euthanasia altogether. The precise influences on this cur
rent of thought remain unclear, but the 1975 publication of Peter Singer’s book Animal
Liberation, and the subsequent growth of the animal rights movement, unquestionably
ranks among them.57 Although shelters are not animal rights organizations, and Singer’s
argument focused on animals used for food, the challenge he posed to long-standing justi
fications that excluded animals from ethical consideration had wide implications. In 1984,
the Best Friends Animal Society opened a sanctuary in Utah with the aim of ending the
killing of animals in shelters. In a 1989 essay, animal advocate Ed Duvin took the institu
tion of sheltering to task for “the prevailing mentality regarding the unconscionable
death toll.”58 He described sheltering as “as an assembly line of slaughter.”59 The same
year, the San Francisco SPCA gave up its contract to provide the city’s animal control ser
vices, which had involved killing unclaimed animals. The organization subsequently took
steps to end the euthanasia of healthy, adoptable animals. In 1994, the nonprofit
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Maddie’s Fund was created with the goal of creating a “no-kill nation.” By the end of the
decade, the no-kill movement had established itself on the social landscape.
Whereas animal sheltering had long consisted of a variety of facilities run as public or pri
vate concerns, or as a combination, and all performed euthanasia as more or less a neces
sary evil, the no-kill movement added another dimension to the mix. Some organizations
object to the term no-kill because it vilifies other organizations as “pro-kill.” In practice,
no-kill facilities euthanize animals with untreatable illnesses or injuries or non-rehabilitat
able behavioral issues, and even in facilities that continue to euthanize animals, “the why,
the how, and the circumstances of euthanasia vary considerably.”60 Serious, untreatable
health problems or unmanageable behavioral issues can justify euthanasia. Organizations
striving to reduce euthanasia rates have thus had to reconsider what constitutes an
“adoptable” animal. The specialty field of shelter medicine emerged to provide veterinary
care for homeless animals.61 By treating an increasing array of injuries, illnesses, and
conditions, as well as by spaying and neutering, shelter veterinarians have contributed to
the reduction in euthanasia rates. Some facilities implemented foster-care programs,
through which volunteers provide temporary housing for very young, injured, or ill ani
mals who would otherwise be killed. Because facilities taking a no-kill approach must pro
vide lifetime homes for animals, becoming sanctuaries in practice if not in name, some
have developed criteria to limit admission. Others accept every animal, regardless of age
or condition, prompting the designation “open admission.”
Arluke explains that although “everyone in the [no-kill] debate shares a passionate con
cern for the welfare of animals, a rift over this issue divides the shelter community.”62 To
try resolve it, a group of animal welfare professionals and shelter administrators met in
2004 “for the purpose of building bridges across varying philosophies, developing rela
tionships and creating goals focused on significantly reducing the euthanasia of healthy
and treatable companion animals in the United States.”63 They created the Asilomar Ac
cords, named for the California conference center at which the meeting took place. The
accords established principles, definitions, and metrics aimed at providing a common
ground on which organizations could reduce, if not end, the practice of shelter killing.
This statement appears in the guidelines:
We acknowledge that the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals is the sad
responsibility of some animal welfare organizations that neither desired nor
sought this task. We believe that the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals
is a community-wide problem requiring community-based solutions. We also rec
ognize that animal welfare organizations can be leaders in bringing about a
change in social and other factors that result in the euthanasia of healthy and
treatable animals, including the compounding problems of some pet owners’/
guardians’ failure to spay and neuter; properly socialize and train; be tolerant of;
provide veterinary care to; or take responsibility for companion animals.64
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nizing that returning stray animals to their homes can reduce euthanasia rates, many fa
cilities engage in “proactive redemption” by trying to locate the owners rather than wait
passively for the owners to search for their lost dog or cat. Facilities also promote, and of
ten provide, animal identification measures such as implanted microchips.66 In addition,
facilities have stopped “waiting patiently for customers to come to them and instead de
velop more aggressive adoption strategies.”67 This has meant improving public-relations
efforts, making adoptable animals more visible through print and social media, and bring
ing them to the people at community events, rather than waiting for people to visit the
shelter. In some cases, increasing adoptions has meant implementing open adoption poli
cies, which subject potential guardians to far less scrutiny than do traditional policies
that involve probing into guardians’ abilities to care for animals.68 The goal of increasing
adoptions has also meant making shelters appealing places for people to visit, rather than
death chambers or warehouses. The most progressive facilities incorporate such features
as natural light, air exchange, and radiant-heat flooring, which assist in disease and odor
control.69 Finally, the implementation of animal transfer programs attempt to match the
distribution of animals with potential adopters. In these programs, shelters in communi
ties with high sterilization rates, and thus lower numbers of animals coming from the lo
cal area, accept animals from shelters that might euthanize for lack of space or re
sources. The “destination” shelters typically have high adoption rates, in contrast to the
sending or “source” shelters, which often have little demand for adoptable animals and
euthanasia rates as high as 50 percent.70
Conclusion
The efforts to reduce or end the killing of animals in shelters are succeeding. To be sure,
the success is uneven, but an increasing number of facilities save 90 percent or more of
the animals taken in. In this and other aspects, twenty-first-century animal shelters differ
dramatically from the pounds of the nineteenth century. Stopping or reducing the killing
has reshaped goals and priorities of the institution of sheltering. Shelters now perform le
gal and social functions that incorporate them into the infrastructure of the surrounding
community. Along with housing and rehoming lost or unwanted animals, many have full
or partial responsibility for municipal animal control operations. Many shelters enforce
state and local laws by housing the animal victims in abuse cases until the court proceed
ing and by providing dog and cat licensing. In addition, some offer citizens who have been
displaced because of a disaster temporary housing for their pets. Some employ animal be
haviorists and trainers who offer consultations and classes to pet owners. Undoubtedly,
demographic factors, such as the socioeconomic status and education level of a region in
fluence the kind of facility found within a given community. Many organizations lack the
resources to offer much beyond housing lost and unwanted animals. Overall, however, the
no-kill ethic has profoundly reshaped sheltering as an (p. 107) institution. The evolution
from the mass killing of strays in pounds to their rehabilitation and rehoming in humane
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shelters parallels changing beliefs about the value and appropriate treatment of animals.
It reflects the social change through which dogs and cats gained emotional value and be
came deserving of ethical consideration.
In addition, developments within sheltering reveal both the shifting status of animals as
subjects of law and public policy and the roles animals have played in the creation of
those laws and policies. For instance, the presence of free-roaming dogs, in particular, in
fluenced the development of regulatory systems to ensure order and safeguard public
health. As urbanization increasingly made dogs problematic, they became both the rea
sons for new efforts at animal control and subjects of those efforts. In the bounty system,
whereby city governments paid for the capture of dogs, the role of animals in negotia
tions over rights becomes apparent. The bounty system represents the wielding of public
authority by one group of private citizens against another. It pitted dog owners, who had
assumed a right to allow their animals to wander, against those whose livelihood depend
ed on the killing of free-roaming dogs. In the criticism of the corruption of the pounds and
the criminality of the bounty system, the role of animals in negotiations over public
morality becomes apparent. Reform efforts, such as formally constituted governmental
departments staffed by uniformed animal control officers, reveal both the era’s reverence
for expertise and the ways that animals have influenced bureaucratic authority. Contrac
tual arrangements between shelters and municipal governments for the provision of ani
mal control further indicate how the presence of animals has shaped forms of governance
that bridge the public and private spheres. Pound seizure laws reveal the status of ani
mals as subjects of state power. Opposition to the laws, and their repeal or amendment in
many states, represents the redefining of that status and the reassertion of the mission of
animal shelters as places of protection. In these, and many other ways, examining the so
cial and cultural significance of animal sheltering not only sheds light on changing animal
welfare practices; it also reveals the far-reaching influence that animals have had on our
social institutions.
Further Reading
Harbolt, Tami. Bridging the Bond: The Cultural Construction of the Shelter Pet. West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2003.
Leigh, Diane, and Marilee Geyer. One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter.
Santa Cruz, CA: No Voice Unheard, 2003.
Notes:
(1.) See Stephen Zawistowski and Julie Morris, “The Evolving Animal Shelter,” in Shelter
Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff, ed. L. Miller and S. Zawistowski (Ames, IA: Black
well Publishing, 2004), 3–9.
(2.) From 1994 to 1997, the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy collected
data on shelters and “organizations believed to be sheltering” more than 100 dogs or cats
in the Unites States. The number totaled 5400. See http://www.petpopulation.org/
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statsurvey.html (accessed 6/22/14). The figure more commonly reported is 4700. See
Stephen Zawistowski, Julie Morris, M. D. Salman, and Rebecca Ruch-Gallie, “Population
Dynamics, Overpopulation, and the Welfare of Companion Animals: New Insights on Old
and New Data,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 1 (1998): 193–206.
(3.) Phillip S. Arkow and Shelby Dow, “The Ties That Do Not Bind: A Study of the Human-
Animal Bonds That Fail,” in The Pet Connection: Its Influence on Our Health and Quality
of Life, ed. R. Anderson, B. Hart and L. Hart (Minneapolis, MN: Center to Study Human-
Animal Relationships and Environments, 1984), 348–354; Natalie DiGiacomo, Arnold Ar
luke, and Gary Patronek, “Surrendering Pets to Shelters: The Relinquisher’s Perspective,”
Anthrozoös 11 (1998): 41–51; Philip H. Kass, John C. New Jr., Janet M. Scarlett, and Mo D.
Salman, “Understanding Animal Companion Surplus in the United States: Relinquishment
of Nonadoptables to Animal Shelters for Euthanasia,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare
Science 4 (2001): 237–248; Deborah D. Miller, Sara R. Staats, Christie Partlo, and Kelly
Rada, “Factors Associated with the Decision to Surrender a Pet to an Animal Shelter,”
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 209 (1996): 738–742; John G. New
Jr., Mo D. Salman, Janet M. Scarlett, Philip H. Kass, Jayne A. Vaughn, Stacy Scherr, and
William J. Kelch. “Moving: Characteristics of Dogs and Cats and Those Relinquishing
Them to 12 U.S. Animal Shelters,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 2 (1999):
83–96; Gary J. Patronek, Lawrence T. Glickman, Alan M. Beck, George P. McCabe, and
Carol Ecker, “Risk Factors for Relinquishment of Cats to an Animal Shelter,” Journal of
the American Veterinary Medical Association 209 (1996): 582–588; Gary J. Patronek,
Lawrence T. Glickman, Alan M. Beck, George P. McCabe, and Carol Ecker, “Risk Factors
for Relinquishment of Dogs to an Animal Shelter,” Journal of the American Veterinary
Medical Association 209 (1996): 572–581; M. D. Salman, John C. New Jr., Janet M. Scar
lett, Philip H. Kass, Rebecca Ruch-Gallie, and Suzanne Hetts, “Human and Animal Factors
Related to the Relinquishment of Dogs and Cats in 12 Selected Animal Shelters in the
United States,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 1 (1998): 207–226; Mo D. Sal
man, Jennifer Hutchinson, Rebecca Ruch-Gallie, Lori Kogan, John C. New Jr., Philip H.
Kass, Janet M. Scarlett, “Behavioral Reasons for Relinquishment of Dogs and Cats to 12
Shelters,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 3 (2000): 93–106; Janet M. Scarlett,
Mo D. Salman, John G. New, Jr., and Philip H. Kass, “Reasons for Relinquishment of Com
panion Animals in U.S. Animal Shelters: Selected Health and Personal Issues,” Journal of
Applied Animal Welfare Science 2 (1999): 41–57; Elsie R. Shore, “Returning a Recently
Adopted Companion Animal: Adopters’ Reasons for and Reactions to the Failed Adoption
Experience,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 8 (2005): 187–198; Elsie R. Shore,
and Kathrine Girrens, “Characteristics of Animals Entering an Animal Control or Humane
Society Shelter in a Midwestern City,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 4
(2001): 105–115; Elsie R. Shore, Connie L. Petersen, and Deanna K. Douglas, “Moving as
a Reason for Pet Relinquishment: A Closer Look,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare
Science 6 (2003): 39–52.
(4.) Leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004); Aline H. Kidd, Robert M. Kidd, and
Carol C. George, “Successful and Unsuccessful Pet Adoptions,” Psychological Reports 70
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(1992): 547–561; Linda C. Marston, Pauleen C. Bennett, and Grahame J. Coleman, “Adopt
ing Shelter Dogs: Owner Experiences of the First Month Post-Adoption.” Anthrozoös 18
(2005): 358–378; Laura Neidhart and Renee Boyd, “Companion Animal Adoption Study,”
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 5 (2002): 175–192; Emily Weiss, Katherine
Miller, Heather Mohan-Gibbons, and Carla Vela, “Why Did You Choose This Pet? Adopters
and Pet Selection Preferences in Five Animal Shelters in the United States,” Animals 2
(2012): 144–159.
(5.) Lila Miller and Kate Hurley, eds., Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters
(Ames, IA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); Lila Miller and Stephen Zawistowski, eds., Shelter
Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff (Ames, IA: Blackwell Publishing, 2012).
(6.) Leslie Irvine, “The Problem of Unwanted Pets: A Case Study in How Institutions
‘Think’ about Clients’ Needs,” Social Problems 50 (2003): 550–566.
(7.) Arnold Arluke, Just a Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty and Ourselves (Philadel
phia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006).
(8.) Nicola Taylor, “In It for the Nonhuman Animals: Animal Welfare, Moral Certainty, and
Disagreements,” Society & Animals 12 (2004): 317–339.
(9.) Sarah Balcom and Arnold Arluke, “A Comparison of Open versus Traditional Shelter
Approaches,” Anthrozoös 14 (2001): 135–150; Leslie Irvine, “Animal Problems/People
Skills: Emotional and Interactional Strategies in Humane Education,” Society & Animals
10 (2002): 63–91.
(10.) Janet Alger and Steven F. Alger, “Cat Culture, Human Culture: An Ethnographic
Study of a Cat Shelter.” Society & Animals 7 (1999): 199–218; Janet Alger and Steven F.
Alger, Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
Press, 2003); Deborah L. Wells and Peter G. Hepper, “The Behavior of Visitors towards
Dogs Housed in an Animal Rescue Shelter,” Anthrozoös 14 (2001): 12–18.
(11.) Sandra L. Neumann, “Animal Welfare Volunteers: Who Are They and Why Do They
Do What They Do?” Anthrozoös 23 (2010): 351–364.
(12.) Lila Miller, “Animal Sheltering in the United States: Yesterday, Today, and Tomor
row,” Veterinary Medicine 102 (2007): 656–663.
(13.) Merritt Clifton, “The Animal People 2013 Shelter Killing Report,” 2013, http://
www.yavapaihumane.org/assets/yavapaihumane/files/$cms$/100/1781.pdf (accessed
7/20/14).
(14.) Arnold Arluke, “Managing Emotions in an Animal Shelter,” in Animals and Human
Society, ed. J. Serpell (New York: Routledge, 1994), 145–165.
(15.) Arnold Arluke, “Coping with Euthanasia: A Case Study of Shelter Culture,” Journal
of the American Veterinary Medical Association 198 (1991): 1176–1180; Arnold Arluke
and Clinton R. Sanders. 1996. Regarding Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
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Press, 1996); Stephanie S. Frommer and Arnold Arluke, “Loving Them to Death: Blame-
Displacing Strategies of Animal Shelter Workers and Surrenderers,” Society & Animals 7
(1999): 1–16; Charlie L. Reeve, Steven G. Rogelberg, Christiane Spitzmüller, and Natalie
DiGiacomo, “The Caring-Killing Paradox: Euthanasia-Related Strain among Animal-Shel
ter Workers,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 35 (2005): 119–143; Charlie L. Reeve,
Christiane Spitzmüller, Steven G. Rogelberg, Alan Walker, Lisa Schultz, and Olga Clark,
“Employee Reactions and Adjustment to Euthanasia-Related Work: Identifying Turning-
Point Events through Retrospective Narratives,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare
Science 7 (2004): 1–25.
(16.) Joshua Frank, “An Interactive Model of Human and Companion Animal Dynamics:
The Ecology and Economics of Dog Overpopulation and the Human Costs of Addressing
the Problem,” Human Ecology 32 (2004): 107–130; Joshua Frank and Pamela Carlisle-
Frank, “Companion Animal Overpopulation: Trends and Results of Major Efforts to Reach
a ‘No-Kill’ Nation” (presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Associ
ation, San Francisco, CA, 2003); Francis E. Hamilton, “Leading and Organizing Social
Change for Companion Animals,” Anthrozoös 23 (2010): 277–292.
(17.) Zawistowski and Morris, “Evolving Animal Shelter”; Stephen Zawistowski, Compan
ion Animals in Society (Clifton Park, NY: Thompson, 2008).
(18.) John Duffy, History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866, vol. 1 (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1968); Jessica Wang, “Dogs and the Making of the American
State: Voluntary Association, State Power, and the Politics of Animal Control in New York
City, 1850–1920,” Journal of American History 98 (4) (2012): 998–1024.
(20.) See James Serpell, In the Company of Animals (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
(22.) See Enrique Alonso and Ana Recarte Vicente-Arche, with Claudia Alonso, “Pigs in
New York City: A Study on 19th Century Urban ‘Sanitation,’” Madrid: Instituto Franklin,
2008, http://www.institutofranklin.net/sites/default/files/fckeditor/
CS%20Pigs%20in%20New%20York.pdf (accessed 4/19/14); Katherine C. Grier, Pets in
America: A History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Hendrik Har
tog, “Pigs and Positivism,” Wisconsin Law Review 4 (1985): 899–935; Susan D. Jones,
Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Wang, “Dogs and the Making.”
(23.) Dickens, Charles, American Notes (London: Chapman & Hall, 1898), 101.
(25.) Benjamin Brady, “The Politics of the Pound: Controlling Loose Dogs in Nineteenth-
Century New York City,” Jefferson Journal of Science and Culture 2 (2012): 9–25, at p. 10.
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(28.) Roswell Cheney McRae, The Humane Movement: A Descriptive Survey, Prepared on
the Henry Bergh Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Education in Columbia Univer
sity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1910), 87.
(29.) See Arnold Arluke, Brute Force: Animal Police and the Challenge of Cruelty (West
Lafayette IN: Purdue University Press, 2004); C. Eddie Palmer, “Dog Catchers: A Descrip
tive Study,” Qualitative Sociology 1 (1978): 79–107.
(30.) Cynthia Crossen, “Dogs’ Role in Society Evolved; Their Catcher Never Won Our
Hearts,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 5, 2007, B1.
(31.) Martha C. Armstrong, Susan Tomasello, and Christyna Hunter, “From Pets to Com
panion Animals,” in The State of the Animals, ed. D. Salem and A. Rowan (Washington,
DC: Humane Society Press, 2001), 71–85.
(32.) Crossen, “Dogs’ Role in Society”; see also Diane L. Beers, For the Prevention of Cru
elty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights (Athens, OH: Swallow Press / Ohio Univer
sity Press, 2006); Zawistowski, Companion Animals.
(34.) Phil Arkow, “Animal Control Laws and Enforcement,” Journal of the American Veteri
nary Medical Association 198 (1991): 1164–1171; Brady 2012; Crossen, “Dogs’ Role in So
ciety”; Wang “Dogs and the Making.”
(35.) See James Turner, Reckoning with the Beast: Animals, Pain, and Humanity in the
Victorian Mind (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980); Harriet Ritvo, The
Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, 1987).
(36.) See Karen Halttunen, “Humanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-
American Culture,” American Historical Review 100 (1995): 303–334; Susan J. Pearson,
The Rights of the Defenseless: Protecting Animals and Children in Gilded Age America
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World:
Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800. London: Allen Lane, 1983); Bernard Oreste
Unti, “The Quality of Mercy: Organized Animal Protection in the United States 1866–
1930” (PhD diss., American University, 2002).
(38.) David Favre and Vivien Tsang, “The Development of Anti-Cruelty Laws during the
1800s,” Detroit College of Law Review 1 (1993): 1–35, at p. 9.
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(39.) Stephen Zawistowski, “The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani
mals (ASPCA),” in Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, vol. 1, 2nd ed., ed.
M. Bekoff (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2010), 13–16.
(40.) Marion S. Lane and Stephen L. Zawistowski, Heritage of Care: The American Soci
ety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Westport CT: Praeger, 2008).
(42.) Beers, For the Prevention of Cruelty; Sidney H. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders in
America (Albany: American Humane Association, 1924).
(43.) Coleman, Humane Society Leaders. White also founded the American Anti-Vivisec
tion Society in 1883.
(45.) Bernard Oreste Unti, “Caroline Earle White,” in Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and
Animal Welfare, ed. M. Bekoff and C. Meaney (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998),
362.
(46.) Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 181; see also Beers, For the Prevention of Cruel
ty; and Craig Brestrup, Disposable Animals: Ending the Tragedy of Throwaway Pets
(Leander, TX: Camino Bay Books, 1997).
(48.) Bruce Fogle, “The Changing Roles of Animals in Western Society: Influences upon
and from the Veterinary Profession,” Anthrozoös 12 (1999): 234–239, at p. 234.
(49.) Joe R. Held, Ernest S. Tierkel, and James H. Steele, “Rabies in Man and Animals in
the United States, 1946-65,” Public Health Reports 82 (1967): 1009–1018.
(51.) See Armstrong, Tomasello, and Hunter, “From Pets to Companion Animals”; but see
also Nathan J. Winograd, Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill
Revolution in America (Los Angeles: Almaden Books, 2007).
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(53.) The event that changed public opinion on the use of animals in laboratory research
involved the theft, and subsequent death, of a dog named Pepper in 1965. The owner saw
her picture in a magazine article on dog dealers. The family went to retrieve her from the
dealer’s “farm,” but was turned away. They contacted US Representative Joseph Resnick,
who was also denied entrance. Pepper died in an experimental procedure at Montefiore
Hospital in New York. Resnick subsequently introduced a bill that required the licensing
of dog dealers and their oversight by the US Department of Agriculture. Many states have
since repealed or amended pound seizure laws. Nineteen states ban the practice of pound
seizure altogether, and others leave the decision up to counties or municipalities. Cur
rently, only Oklahoma still requires the release of animals to research facilities.
(54.) Andrew N. Rowan and Jeff Williams, “The Success of Companion Animal Manage
ment Programs: A Review,” Anthrozoös 1 (1987): 110–122.
(55.) Elizabeth A. Clancy and Andrew N. Rowan, “Companion Animal Demographics in the
United States: A Historical Perspective,” in The State of the Animals II, ed. D. Salem and
A. Rowan (Washington, DC: Humane Society Press, 2003), 9–26.
(57.) Bernard Unti and Andrew N. Rowan, “A Social History of Postwar Animal Protec
tion,” in The State of the Animals, ed. D. Salem and A. Rowan (Washington, DC: Humane
Society Press, 2001), 21–37.
(58.) Edward S. Duvin, “In the Name of Mercy,” animalines 4 (1989): 11, at p. 3.
(60.) Arnold Arluke, “The No-Kill Controversy: Manifest and Latent Sources of Tension,”
in The State of the Animals II, ed. D. Salem and A. Rowan (Washington, DC: Humane Soci
ety Press, 2003), 67–83, at p. 68.
(61.) See Miller and Hurley, Infectious Disease Management; Miller and Zawistowski,
Shelter Medicine.
(66.) See Linda K. Lord, Thomas E. Wittum, Amy K. Ferketich, Julie A. Funk, and Päivi J.
Rajala-Schultz, “Search and Identification Methods That Owners Use to Find a Lost Dog,”
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 230 (2007): 211–216; and Linda
K. Lord, Walter Ingwersen, Janet L. Gray, and David J. Wintz, “Characterization of Animals
Page 16 of 17
Animal Sheltering
with Microchips Entering Animal Shelters,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association 235 (2009): 160–167.
(69.) Lucinda Schlaffer and Paul Bonacci, “Shelter Design,” in Shelter Medicine for Veteri
narians and Staff, 2nd ed., ed. L. Miller and S. Zawistowski (Ames, IA: Blackwell Publish
ing, 2012), 21–35.
Leslie Irvine
Page 17 of 17
Roaming Dogs
Roaming Dogs
Arnold Arluke and Kate Atema
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Keywords: roaming dog, dog population management, human-canine interaction, community impact, dog nuisance
A substantial but unknown proportion of the roughly estimated 500 million domestic dogs
worldwide are free-roaming or poorly supervised.1 While efforts in modern Western coun
tries to dramatically reduce the numbers of roaming dogs have been largely successful
(except in some dense urban or very rural environments),2 these dog populations are
common in many underdeveloped or developing nations3 because of the traditional cul
ture, a lack of emphasis on dog population control, and rapid urbanization.4
As is often the case, these dogs occupy a liminal position; they are considered out of place
and to not be in their prescribed role in society.5 Roaming dogs are perceived as neither
domestic nor wild6 and as quite separate from and foreign to the human community, occu
pying a status that defines them as problematic, outcast, sometimes illegal,7 whom resi
dents should avoid,8 control, or regulate,9 and perhaps even kill, because they are seen as
disorderly, dirty, dangerous, and not part of a fixed social relationship.10 There are numer
ous historical instances of roaming dogs being viewed as pariahs in the human communi
ty. They may be treated with indifference, scorn, and sometimes brutality, as has hap
pened to other species for shorter durations, such as the “great” French cat massacre in
Page 1 of 25
Roaming Dogs
the 1730s,11 the American sparrow “war” in the 1870s,12 and the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century extermination of wolves in the American plains states.13
For example, in some communities in India, the view of street dogs as separate from and
unwanted in the human community is embedded in the country’s political and legal histo
ry. Roaming dogs have long been considered outcasts in some communities to such an ex
tent that residents are often intolerant of them. In some regions of India, roaming dogs
have been given caste names that label them pariahs,14 a view that some say almost led
to a dog “genocide” by the Bangalore Municipal Corporation.15 This view of dogs stems
from postcolonial British rule that radically changed many aspects of life in India, includ
ing human-animal relations.16 Since early colonial times, the word pariah, derived from
paraiyar, a low-caste group found in the southernmost part of India, denoted any person
or animal who was widely despised or avoided. However, for (p. 114) British colonial
rulers, the word pariah applied to India’s lowest castes, human outcasts in general, and
also perhaps to India’s street dogs.
Although roaming dogs have been present in many societies for centuries, only recently
have researchers turned their attention to studying their welfare and impact on people.
Four decades ago, Beck’s seminal Ecology of Stray Dogs17 opened the door for re
searchers to study the behavior and health of these animals, the kinds of public health
and economic problems they cause, and the ability of veterinary interventions to manage
their numbers and physical condition. Despite the significance of this groundbreaking
work and the research that followed it, basic questions remain to be explored that would
allow us to fully understand not just the roaming dogs themselves, but their impact on hu
man society as well.
This chapter takes an original approach to understanding worldwide efforts to deal with
roaming and unhealthy dogs in economically disadvantaged areas. Rather than focus on
the ways these efforts impact dogs, as is typical in veterinary or epidemiological re
search, or on how these efforts might curtail the public-health and medical risks the dogs
pose,18 we explore how the dogs affect the social psychological and economic stability of
communities. More specifically, we review the adverse effects that roaming or unhealthy
dog populations can have on the human community, including negative or indifferent hu
man-canine relationships; weakened or conflicted social ties; decreased quality of life be
cause of dog nuisances, lack of safety; encounters with injured, dead, or suffering dogs;
and economic losses from reduced tourism; livestock predation; and disease manage
ment. Lastly, we review how dog population management can improve human community
welfare in ways that are as yet not well researched.
and reacted to by local residents along a continuum of lesser or greater tolerance that
will affect, and be affected by, the efficacy of humane interventions.
At one extreme, reports suggest that people sometimes strongly dislike roaming dogs,
seeing them as objects to be avoided or destroyed. For example, 26 percent of Samoans
questioned in one study said they believed that the “harming or killing of dogs was good
for Samoan society.”19 Support for these reports also comes from the passage of govern
mental laws that legally define dogs as unwanted pests that should be destroyed. In Ro
mania, a recently enacted eradication program, also known as the “slaughter law,” legal
ized the mass euthanasia of dogs to reduce the size of a dog population seen by many, but
certainly not all, citizens as a blight in need of elimination.20
Those who are intolerant of dogs on the street are often disinterested in them or
(p. 115)
treat them roughly; this can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by making the dogs less so
ciable or frightened of humans, which, in turn, can result in threatening behavior toward
humans. This antisocial behavior then reinforces the aversion or hatred that already ex
ists toward these dogs, preventing people from seeing them as capable of acting in
friendly and solicitous ways, and further justifying their disregard and mistreatment. It is
unsurprising, therefore, that in communities with more tolerant or caretaking individuals,
more sociable free-roaming dog populations are common, while in less tolerant communi
ties, less-sociable dog populations are common.
Some communities can have conflicting or even contradictory attitudes toward dogs. For
example, in Colombo City, Sri Lanka, Hasler and colleagues21 found that before humane
interventions, about 40 percent of respondents said they “liked dogs very much,” that
dogs are “valuable possessions,” and that “dogs add happiness to people’s lives”; where
as more than 50 percent said that they “don’t like having street dogs around on their
street,” and that “street dogs pose a danger to people.” And in Samoa, while 77 percent
of respondents said they “liked” roaming dogs, few said they cared for dogs who were not
theirs.22 This contradiction in caring behaviors is also expressed in cultures in which peo
ple will keep dogs when they are puppies but abandon them when they are more mature,
an act that is rarely punished by law.23
More caring relationships with roaming dogs can occur in communities in which people
form loose affiliations with dogs at the neighborhood level, rather than their being strong
ly connected to one family. This practice, which is widespread, is referred to as communi
ty dog-keeping.24 With weaker human-canine affiliations, there is tolerance or benign co
existence between residents and dogs on the streets, or even affection, as people may
feed the dogs and perhaps name or play with them but do not assume further responsibil
ity for their care. Community dog-keeping practices and tolerance for the animals may
vary by social class. For example, in the Bahamas, the term “potcake” is used to describe
local mixed-breed dogs on the streets who are looked down on—maligned as mongrels
and seen as lower-class by wealthier people who own purebred dogs and who blame the
potcakes, and the impoverished owners who care for them, for the nuisance the roaming
dogs cause.25 And yet, other residents may feel a stronger individual connection to the
Page 3 of 25
Roaming Dogs
dogs and assume ownership and responsibility for their care, even if this care is some
times different from what many North Americans and Europeans would expect. When
families allow their dogs to roam freely, there may be less personal contact with the fami
ly dogs, and potentially a less close relationship, as the dogs receive most of their social
attention from conspecifics as opposed to their human family.26 In parts of rural Mexico,
between 60 percent and 85 percent of households claiming to own dogs allow them to
roam, but also view them as a source of “protection” and companionship. However, anec
dotal and survey data suggest that in some locations, where roaming dogs appear to be at
least partially owned, many residents do not admit to allowing their dogs to roam, for ex
ample, in Ethiopia,27 Bosnia,28 Taiwan,29 and in the Bahamas,30 where 70 percent of own
ers deny that their dogs have access to the street, perhaps because they fear fines or pun
ishment.
While most people deny letting their own dogs roam, many residents believe that
(p. 116)
other people have abandoned or released dogs.31 This suggests that residents tend to un
derreport their own dog abandonment and to blame others for creating the roaming dog
population. Alternatively, other people suggest the converse when it comes to locating re
sponsibility for roaming dogs—namely, that there is a state of collective ignorance among
residents, who come to believe, often incorrectly, that most street dogs are unowned and
truly feral, except for those they take care of, when, in fact, their neighbors are thinking
and doing the same thing.32
Although the responsibility and care of dogs in these situations differ from many modern
Western pet-keeping patterns, in which dogs are typically confined and their movements
controlled by their owners, this does not prevent owners from being sufficiently attached
to their dogs to suffer both the emotional highs and lows associated with close human-an
imal relationships. The fact that these dogs roam means their owners will frequently lose
their pets and experience the trauma associated with these untoward experiences. For ex
ample, in Taiwan, where a significant number of dog owners either keep their dogs out
side their homes or allow them to wander off and become lost, more than one-third of dog
owners studied reported having lost a dog or having had one escape. In parts of Kenya,
dog-keeping is common, but residents cannot meet the animals’ basic needs33; owners
are forced to allow their dogs to forage for food since they cannot feed them properly at
home.34 In addition, the more dogs are allowed to wander the streets, the more likely it is
that they will be lost, injured, killed in traffic or by another dog, poisoned, abused, caught
by animal control authorities, or mistakenly “rescued” by concerned tourists who think
the dogs are truly unowned.
On the opposite end of the scale are dogs who are owned and kept close to home, but for
whom adequate care may not be available. One major barrier to providing adequate
guardianship can be poverty or lack of access to resources (especially veterinary re
sources),35 though poverty does not necessarily lead to dogs’ roaming, nor do the dogs of
poor people always roam. For example, in Dominica, many “passive” owners cannot af
ford to take their pets for veterinary care when they are sick, let alone for preventive
care, which almost no one can afford or even consider.36 Poverty may also prevent people
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Roaming Dogs
from reclaiming missing dogs from animal-control centers, which may be located in diffi
cult-to-reach locations and require payment of unaffordable fines.
Gender also influences how people take responsibility for dogs they consider to be theirs,
so that interest in and responsibility for dogs can vary within one family. In some soci
eties, it is common that one person—for instance, the male head of household—feels some
connection to the dog, but others in the family do not because of the gendered nature of
human–street dog relationships,.37 For example, in the Bahamas38 or Samoa, almost
three-quarters of dog owners are male.39 As Serpell40 observes, women in undeveloped or
developing nations may have more negative views of dogs because they and their chil
dren face disproportionate danger from roaming dogs.41 On the other hand, gender ex
pectations can make owners resist humane interventions, such as men who reject the
idea of neutering male dogs,42 although some studies provide contrary findings.43
Of course, the perception of dogs as a social problem should be put into a broader con
text by comparing it to other community problems, though few studies do this. Those that
do typically show that residents are sometimes more concerned about other issues. For
example, in Oaxaca, Mexico, one study’s respondents considered drug trafficking, drug
addiction, unemployment, and bad drainage to be their main problems; none considered
dog-related problems to be major, though when asked, most villagers acknowledged that
dogs were a problem, especially because of their large numbers and possible
aggression.48 Nevertheless, even when there is greater concern for other issues, dog-re
lated problems can still be a significant if not formidable social, public-health, and veteri
nary issue for the residents of many communities.
Dog bites can make residents feel unsafe or insecure because they fear attacks, mauling,
disease transmission, or even death, despite the fact that the vast majority of roaming
dogs are friendly or submissive to humans and pose no threat.49 For example, in
Guatemala, more than 80 percent of respondents claimed their families were afraid of
dogs because of the potential risk of physical harm and possible disease transmission.50
When certain areas of cities are deemed to be aesthetically unappealing or unsafe, resi
Page 5 of 25
Roaming Dogs
dents will view them as hotspots to avoid.51 Avoidance of these hotspots, in turn, de
grades residents’ quality of life by creating psychological and physical barriers to a
healthy lifestyle: there is reduced “walkability” in villages or towns or in the extent to
which residents feel that it is easy, pleasant, and safe to walk to goods, services, and
recreation52; use businesses and other city services; informally meet in public places and
social forums53; and bike or jog.54
Roaming dogs have been found to be one of several urban deterrents to walkability, along
with the physical incivilities of graffiti, garbage, litter, and the like,55 that might inhibit
some residents from walking or biking on certain streets, using particular parks, (p. 118)
or taking their own dogs for walks. For example, though the information is not often cited
in his Sri Lankan study, Dayaratne says that roaming and sometimes domestic dogs deter
pedestrians, especially children, the elderly, and the weak.56 Similarly, in a distressed sec
tion of Houston, roaming dogs were viewed as an environmental threat to public safety
that reduced walkability in that area of the city57; and in Sparks, Texas, 81 percent of
sampled residents claimed that dogs sometimes prevented them from walking outdoors.58
There are also reports of people in cities populated with roaming dogs, such as Bangkok,
Thailand, being warned to not walk down certain streets.59 Children, in particular, can
feel threatened around dogs, according to anecdotal and research reports. In an Arizona
community, children feared being attacked by dogs as they walked to school because of
packs of up to fifteen Chihuahuas that have allegedly chased children there.60 Indeed,
studies report that urban children in general fear roaming dogs, even in the absence of
rabies concerns.61
Fear of being bitten or mauled is even greater when there is concern about rabies trans
mission.62 This is especially true when there has been an outbreak of rabies, rather than a
generalized long-standing concern, or when neighbors or relatives die from rabies or
have to seek treatment for it.63 Conversely, rabies vaccination has been shown to mitigate
this fear.64 Fear of a rabies outbreak can swell into collective panic about roaming dogs,
leading to violent and deadly attacks by residents against large numbers of dogs whether
rabid or not. For example, in 2008 a deadly epidemic of rabies in Bali sent local residents
to the hospital and placed a death warrant on the heads of the rest of the canine popula
tion. Dogs were shot, beaten, and poisoned indiscriminately daily.65 And in 2010, panic
continued in Bali as the rabies death toll climbed and up to 300 residents a day were al
legedly bitten and injected with anti-rabies vaccine, leading to the formation of a 25-man
team that indiscriminately used strychnine darts to kill dogs suspected of having the dis
ease.66
Bites or threats of attack allegedly occur, with some frequency, in communities with
roaming dogs. For example, in Guatemala, 17 percent of residents studied reported hav
ing experienced at least one dog bite in the previous two years;67 in India, some towns es
timate an incidence of as many as 20,000 nonfatal dog bites a year; in Cambodia, 28 per
cent of respondents recalled being bitten within the previous five years;68 in the Ba
hamas, about a third of residents said they had been physically threatened by dogs in the
Page 6 of 25
Roaming Dogs
last five years;69 and in American Samoa, dog bites are the most frequently reported in
jury.70
However, in communities where bites occur with some frequency, residents do not always
consider biting to be a major problem, suggesting that people can accommodate to this
risk over time. For example, in Oaxaca, Mexico, even though more than one-third of vil
lagers had been bitten during their lifetimes, fear of being bitten by roaming dogs was
not viewed as a major community problem.71 One reason for this apparent anomaly is
suggested by Subasinghe and colleagues, whose study in Sri Lanka found that most dog
bites involved drunken and disorderly men who had provoked the dog or involved chil
dren hitting a dog with sticks. Therefore, most of the residents did not fear dogs.72
Hence, the actions of a few people might trigger the vast majority of dog bites, (p. 119)
such that most local residents feel safe around dogs on the street because they do not be
have this way with dogs.
When residents do consider biting to be a major problem, concern over attacks by roam
ing dogs is sometimes out of proportion to actual risk because of fear generated by high-
publicity media reports, though experts might argue that rabies bites are underreported.
Reports of street dogs killing people are rare and often unverified, making them unreli
able. For example, three fatal dog attacks have allegedly occurred in New Providence, the
Bahamas, since 1991, and all of them involved breeds appearing to be pit bulls or pit bull
mixes. Following a considerable outcry after the death of a young girl, officials spoke of
implementing an amended dog-license act, but no new laws have yet been passed.73
Moreover, when someone does die from a dog attack, local residents recall and general
ize that single horrific and grisly experience as evidence that roaming dogs pose a contin
uing threat of deadly bite attacks, even though only routine dog bites have occurred in
the interim.
Nuisance and irritation caused by roaming dogs can also diminish a community’s quality
of life. Research suggests that perceived disorder and daily hassles in general are a sig
nificant cause of distress in some neighborhoods.74 Other studies report a link between
depressive symptoms and the perception of one’s neighborhood as disorderly.75 In many
of these studies, neighborhood disorder includes not only predictable urban features un
related to animals, such as graffiti or being caught in a traffic jam, but also other features
that could easily extend to roaming dogs, such as being aggressed in public places or en
countering homeless/marginalized people or beggars, and even specific animal disorders
such as “stray animals and their mess.”76
Large and uncontrolled roaming dog populations probably contribute to residents’ per
ceptions of their cities as messy and decaying due to omnipresent sanitation problems,
continuous or episodic barking especially at night, harassment and stalking of pedestri
ans and bikers, messiness from spreading rubbish or knocking over trash bins, causing
traffic accidents, unsightliness and, as noted above, disease transmission and biting. In
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Samoa, almost 80 percent of respondents cited street dogs as a nuisance.77 In the Ba
hamas, Fielding observed substantial residential irritation with barking, especially at
night, which was the most commonly reported nuisance on a list of 29 human and animal
annoyances (daytime barking was seventeenth on the list), followed closely by dogs roam
ing on property.78 Many residents also cited garbage spilled by roaming dogs to be a com
mon nuisance. At least one of the three dog nuisances (i.e., barking, roaming on property,
and spilled garbage) was bothersome to 83.4 percent of the respondents.79 Other kinds of
public aesthetic and safety nuisances attributed to roaming dogs include scavenging for
food, causing road accidents, and fouling public places with feces.80
Doing something about perceived dog nuisances often means throwing stones at
(p. 120)
or even poisoning dogs, as in the Bahamas,81 as well as complaining to the neighbor pre
sumed to own the offending dog. The public will also complain to local authorities, but
not much happens until there is a dog attack or an incident of rabies is sensationalized in
the media, which in turn can spark government-sanctioned culling of dogs through mass
shootings, as in Israel,82 or lead citizens to take matters into their own hands by poison
ing or shooting dogs themselves. These inhumane efforts by municipal agencies or citi
zens, over the objections of NGOs and animal-welfare organizations, typically fail to ame
liorate the public’s concern, such as when culling fails to manage a rabies epidemic.83
However, there are significant cross-cultural differences in the extent to which residents
see roaming dogs as a nuisance, and some communities appear to largely tolerate or ig
nore the problems. For example, in Samoa, only a small percentage of the study respon
dents agreed that roaming dogs are sick, poorly behaved, and aggressive, or that they
bite and spread disease, while an even smaller percentage agreed that roaming dogs
were noisy, too numerous, interfered with traffic, and stalked people.84
A third way that roaming dogs diminish a community’s quality of life comes from the
anger, sadness, and frustration people experience when they witness dogs’ suffering and
from the subsequent desensitization, or “numbing,” to such distress they experience.
Some of the distress being witnessed is passive if no one has intentionally inflicted harm
on the dogs but the observer cannot afford to care for them; for example, roaming dogs
can have a protruding ribcage suggestive of starvation; severe, extensive skin disease; or
a physical injury or disability, though certainly not all of them appear this way. Some ani
mals might also seem miserable because they were intentionally harmed at some prior
time; in these cases, no human abuser is present, but the dog who was targeted for mis
treatment experiences protracted suffering in full view of passersby, including children,
who, for example, see poisoned dogs writhing in pain and dying horribly.85
Other suffering is more directly observed when residents witness the rough handling, in
tentional abuse, or destruction of roaming dogs rather than just the aftermath of abuse.
About a third of the study respondents in Samoa said that during their lifetime they were
aware of people who had harmed or killed dogs, most commonly because the dogs were
Page 8 of 25
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too aggressive, sick, or considered a nuisance.86 If such suffering is fairly common, peo
ple might become indifferent to it after seeing sick and dying dogs or witnessing the
abuse. Of course, the degree to which residents become indifferent to suffering because
of what happens to dogs may be diminished when there is extensive human suffering in
the same community. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that at least some residents who wit
ness suffering in dogs might experience mental distress associated with lowered quality
of life.87
A similar economically rooted tension occurs in some cultures when an owned dog with
rabies bites a neighbor, as in Tanzania.88 In these cases, the killing of the rabid dog is
rarely problematic, since most residents view it as the best solution. But owners often do
not want to admit that their dog was rabid because they are expected to pay for treat
ment if the dog bites a person or another dog. Paying for the medical care of bite victims
can be very expensive, given that average income is less than $1.50 a day; if, for example,
20 people need to be treated at $100 a course, this represents almost four years’ income.
Hampson89 claims that these situations can become quite contentious. She has traced hu
man rabies deaths where owners lied about their dogs to avoid having to pay for treat
ment (e.g., one showed doctors vaccination certificates from other dogs in the household
as evidence that the sick dog had been vaccinated). She has also observed a few court
cases in which a bite victim sought police support to force a neighbor to pay for treat
ment. Typically, these situations translate into strained relationships and bad reputations.
In extreme cases, social conflict over roaming dogs can become an emotional flash point
in the community, involving politicians, animal-welfare advocates and their opponents,
bureaucrats, city administrators, and everyday citizens who bitterly take one side of the
issue, and dogs often end up being killed as a result of these heated and polarized ex
changes. Ethnographic and journalistic reports from Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean de
scribe situations in which tension over roaming dogs approximates the moral panic often
reported in highly publicized contemporary cases of killing other animals, such as cats,90
or the historical cases of the massacre of rats, cats, and dogs due to fear of disease conta
gion,91 including rabies, even though the threat was more symbolic than actual.92 These
emotionally laden actions occur when people are motivated by fear of widely exaggerated
or nonexistent threats.93 For example, in one Northern Canadian community, panic en
sued when people, especially children, were purportedly “mauled” to death by “packs” of
Page 9 of 25
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dogs.94 Fearful residents in the affected towns then feel an urgent need to eradicate dogs,
whatever the method and regardless of the efficacy of their approach. Scores of dogs may
be shot and killed even if they are not dangerous to residents, while others die slow and
torturous deaths from severe wounds.
Roaming dog issues can also aggravate preexisting tensions among groups of peo
(p. 122)
ple in a community, further deterring the formation of community social ties and bonds.
For example, tourists are often disturbed by the apparent animal-welfare problems of
roaming dogs, when local residents are not.95 Like tourists, expatriates living in towns
plagued with roaming dogs often have a different perspective and sensitivity to the issue
that further separates them from local residents, as one study in Mexico reports.96
And finally, packs of unhealthy and threatening roaming dogs can prevent the formation
of social ties and lessen residents’ sense of community by reducing foot traffic or making
people avoid certain areas and therefore missing the possibility to interact with other res
idents and close neighbors. For example, residents in a New Zealand community said that
negative features of neighborhoods, such as problems with dogs, could reduce social
well-being by acting as barriers to establishing relationships with their neighbors97; and
in a low-income community in Chicago, unleashed neighborhood dogs were reported to
be a barrier to the physical activities and interactions of children.98
The Economy
Roaming dogs also create financial problems for some communities. For example, their
presence can cause a decline in the number of tourists visiting a country or in their use of
tourist businesses or services once there, and can increase marketing costs to compen
sate for adverse publicity. There can be a drop in tourist revenue if tourists become emo
tionally upset when they see roaming dogs who appear to be in wretched and unaccept
able condition because they are underfed, have a missing eye or limb or are otherwise
physically disabled, or suffer from an unsightly skin condition. For example, in Oaxaca,
Mexico, about half the tourists were concerned about dog welfare99 and in the Bahamas,
over 80 percent “felt sorry” for street animals perceived to be in “not good” condition,
and almost half said they “felt sad.”100 In another study, 34 percent of 1200 tourists,
when asked about their experience seeing roaming dogs at different destinations, gave
“upset” as their first answer.101
Potential or actual dog attacks, zoonotic infections, and irritations further add to a tourist
destination’s negative image. In the Bahamas, almost a quarter of tourists said they were
“frightened or concerned” for their safety,102 a concern also observed by Dolnicar.103 A
study of tourists visiting Bhutan found that roaming dogs often marred their travel expe
rience because at night the animals formed aggressive packs, resulting in fear among
tourists and sleep deprivation due to the constant loud barking.104 Tourists in Oaxaca,
Mexico, also reported problems with street dogs; one-half were concerned about feces on
the streets and beaches; one-third were concerned about zoonotic diseases and annoyed
when dogs begged for food at restaurants; and a few said they had been chased or bitten
Page 10 of 25
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by dogs.105 When a government agency issues an official warning about rabies, potential
tourists might think twice about visiting that country, reducing (p. 123) the influx of tourist
dollars, as happened when the Centers for Disease Control urged travelers to Bali “to be
on guard against rabies,” noting that two people had already died from the disease and
that about 100 people had reported being bitten by dogs each day there.106
There is a risk that negative experiences with roaming dogs will deter tourists from using
local businesses if people decide to avoid certain areas of towns. For example, in Samoa,
roaming dogs allegedly cost millions in local currency because tourists are kept awake at
night, annoyed, and frightened by them, so they do not use services, such as renting for
example, they will not bikes for fear they will be attacked and bitten when stopped at
traffic lights.107 There is also a risk they will not return to that destination and will share
their unpleasant experiences with their friends and family at home or post their bad sto
ries online for others to consider when planning a trip, possibly deterring future tourism
and the income it generates for the host countries.108
Roaming dogs can have a detrimental economic impact on communities in yet other ways.
There can be economic losses from livestock killed by dogs109 or rabies infection,110 as
well as losses from wildlife killed by dogs,111 although the latter’s economic value is diffi
cult to assess. Roaming dogs do not usually kill for food, but their attacks can indiscrimi
nately mutilate livestock and can, especially when done in packs, cause extensive damage
to vulnerable herds, such as sheep and goats, or even caged animals, such as poultry or
rabbits, who trample and suffocate each other while trying to escape.112
There also is the increased medical expense of managing zoonotic illnesses, such as hy
datid disease and rabies in particular.113 These costs stem from vaccination or treatment,
work lost because of disability or mortality from these diseases, and/or paying for a
neighbor’s rabies treatment. For example, with the latter, as noted above, local custom
expects owners of rabid dogs to pay for a neighbor’s treatment if bitten.114
and organizations ultimately organize their interventions is beyond the scope of this chap
ter, but we can discuss interventions that include, at minimum, vaccination or parasite
control, sterilization of owned or roaming dogs; public outreach, and some level of inter
vention for sick or injured animals.
We found that shifts resulting from interventions in such areas as the visible health of
owned or roaming dogs, the presence of puppies in the street (turnover/breeding), re
duced nuisance behaviors, and perception of reduced disease risk may improve the quali
ty of life of human residents. When animals begin to appear healthier and no longer pose
a major disease threat, tolerance for their presence has been shown to increase in the hu
man community, and some experts have witnessed community members feeling freer to
form close bonds with individual animals. These shifting attitudes may, in turn, lead to
even closer relationships, benefiting people who have not previously experienced such re
lationships.
One way that veterinary interventions can change community members’ attitudes to dogs
is to make street dogs more appealing as co-interactants. While vaccinating against ra
bies should allay the public’s fear of dog bites,116 sterilizing dogs may reduce the number
of dog bites that are due to maternal protective behavior. For example, in Jaipur, India, a
roaming dog sterilization program led to a significant decline in the number of animal
bites after 2003.117
Interventions, especially those targeting owned dogs, may also increase longevity and re
duce turnover of dog populations, increasing the time the humans with whom they inter
act have to develop stronger bonds with them. That such interventions can lengthen the
lives of street dogs has been reported by Plumridge and colleagues,119 who found that
neutered roaming dogs in the Bahamas had a higher average age than intact dogs, allow
ing for deeper human-animal bonds to form, since dogs who survive longer perhaps be
come less aggressive and more healthy.120 According to ICAM,121 in Colombo, Sri Lanka,
sterilized and vaccinated dogs showed increased body mass, and some became quite
obese, because of increased feeding by people who perceived them as “safe.” That such
interventions can foster more positive perceptions of roaming dogs, and presumably more
Page 12 of 25
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humane interaction with them, is supported by the research in (p. 125) Sri Lanka, where
conducting a mass rabies vaccination program improved perception of roaming dogs by
non-dog-owning respondents, such that they reported to “like” them more.122
Some dog population management efforts also improve the welfare of roaming dogs by
organizing, guiding, and empowering residents at the grassroots level to take responsibil
ity for dog-related problems, gain access to needed resources, and pressure local authori
ties to grapple with these issues. This community organization and motivation is often
necessary, since in many locations plagued with roaming dogs, residents feel disempow
ered and unmotivated to deal with the problems, even when the problems are viewed as a
community crisis. Weak or absent social ties, along with a lack of needed resources,
among residents, stakeholders, and local authorities means that attempts to manage
roaming dog problems can be ineffective if not inhumane because these groups have not
arrived at a mutually agreed on understanding of what actually causes the problems. For
example, Fielding123 argues that this lack of empowerment partly explains the failure of
Bahamians to rid their communities of various kinds of nuisances, including those from
roaming dogs, who were officially declared to be a nuisance in 1841.124 A majority of re
spondents in his study did nothing about these nuisances, even though some, such as
noise, were covered by the country’s penal code. Instead, only a few respondents said
they would contact the police about a dog; in fact, dog-related nuisances, compared to
other kinds of nuisances, were the least likely to be reported to the police.125
Educational interventions, such as role modeling more humane and compassionate behav
iors, may also change how residents think about and behave with roaming dogs. Anecdo
tal reports illustrate how educational interventions can help people to interact more ap
propriately with dogs who had been seen as “scary” or unfriendly. For example, in India,
Bhutan, and the Philippines, dog population management programs that primarily vacci
nate and sterilize dogs are also attempting to give street dogs a better life by increasing
the community’s tolerance of them.126 These interventions engage local residents by mod
elling humane interactions with dogs in public settings, personally introducing residents
to dogs, and encouraging residents to observe the positive dog behavior that results from
gentle handling.
Page 13 of 25
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cern and looking after of street dogs, probably because we got involved there.” Anecdotal
reports such as these suggest that humane organizational involvement in the community
can create a halo or positive chilling effect by letting residents know that veterinary care
is available and allowing residents to act in naturally caring ways. One expert reported
that among First Nations people of Northern Canada, humane interventions reinforce res
idents’ compassion, caring, and pride in their dogs by “validating” those feelings when
people bring their dogs to the veterinarian. “People shine,” she reports, “when you re
member their dog and you remember them, you can see there is pride.”
Discussion
When viewed collectively, the negative impacts of unmanaged dogs can be understood as
a symptom of a larger social problem or as a social problem by itself. Whether people
have become accustomed to these impacts or view them as a source of community con
cern, if not fear and dread, they can come to represent the undesired, if not dangerous.
As a result, these dogs are often distanced from and blend into the urban landscape as
one more feature of disorder and decay.
From this perspective, the negative impacts of roaming dogs are signals of urban decline
and danger, much like the concept of “broken windows,” a term originally coined by crim
inologists Wilson and Kelling,128 who described a breakdown of neighborhood social or
der129 and the incivility that follows graffiti, gangs, garbage, abandoned cars, empty lots,
and broken windows and are associated with alienation (i.e., numbing), less physical ac
tivity,130 and other poor health outcomes,131 as well as a general downward spiral of ur
ban decay. These features tell people that a place is less safe, has a poor sense of commu
nity, and has residents who are indifferent to what goes on in the neighborhood.
Research suggests that reversing or ameliorating incivility and public disorder can re
verse social disorganization and its resulting problems, such as reducing the fear of as
sault when walking the streets and increasing sociability among neighbors. For example,
converting vacant lots, which attract crime and intimidate residents, to community gar
dens132 and reducing gang presence have been shown to benefit communities by lower
ing neighborhood fear levels.133 Alleviating this type of disorder not only forces residents
to abandon their previously held norm of living with the disorder of dogs, but also encour
ages residents to rethink the propriety of other norms supporting public disorder in gen
eral, whether that is crime, graffiti, noise, or littering. When these cues are reduced, peo
ple perceive their community to be a safer, more compassionate, vibrant, connected, and
nicer place to live.
Changing the relationships of humans and roaming dogs can also serve as a community-
revitalization strategy. Less toxic, enhanced human-dog relationships might well serve as
an asset that strengthens the social fiber of communities. This starts by altering the per
ception of roaming dogs as pests or as objectified “clutter” on the streets, so that (p. 127)
Page 14 of 25
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more people interact with them as friends, develop stronger connections to them, and
bring them into the human community.134
Notes:
(1.) Yuying Hsu, Lucia Severinghaus, and James Serpell, “Dog Keeping in Taiwan: Its Con
tributions to the Problem of Free-Roaming Dogs,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare
Science 6 (2003): 1–23.
(2.) Rather than refer to these dogs as “stray” or “street,” we prefer the term roaming
because the former implies that they are truly homeless, without any human interest in or
assumption of responsibility for them. Anecdotal and survey data suggest otherwise for
many of these animals.
(3.) Jennifer Jackman and Andrew Rowan, “Free-Roaming Dogs in Developing Countries:
The Benefits of Capture, Neuter, and Return Programs,” in The State of the Animals IV,
ed. Deborah Salem and Andrew Rowan (Washington, DC: Humane Society Press, 2007),
55–78.
(4.) Minna Hsu, “Taiwan and Companion Animals,” in Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Re
lationships, vol. 2, ed. Marc Bekoff (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 613–615.
(5.) Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert, eds., Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies
of Human-Animal Relations (New York: Routledge, 2000).
(6.) See the chapter by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, “Animals in Political Theory,” in
this volume.
(7.) Margo DeMello, Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
(8.) Krithika Srinivasan and Vuay Nagaraj, “Deconstructing the Human Gaze: Stray Dogs,
Indifferent Governance and Prejudiced Reactions,” Economic and Political Weekly 42
(2007): 1085–1086.
(9.) For a discussion of the impact of urbanization on the development of laws to regulate
roaming dogs in nineteenth-century America, see Leslie Irvine’s chapter, “Animal Shelter
ing” in this volume.
(10.) Mark Jenner, “The Great Dog Massacre,” in Fear in the Early Modern Society, ed.
William Naphy and Penny Roberts (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997),
43–61; Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England,
1500-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
(11.) Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural His
tory (New York: Vintage, 1984).
Page 15 of 25
Roaming Dogs
(12.) Gary Alan Fine and Lazaros Christoforides, “Dirty Birds, Filthy Immigrants, and the
English Sparrow War: Metaphorical Linkage in Constructing Social Problems,” Symbolic
Interaction 14, no. 4 (1991): 375–393.
(13.) Arnold Arluke and Robert Bogdan, Beauty and the Beast (Syracuse: Syracuse Uni
versity Press, 2010).
(14.) Govindasamy Agoramoorthy, “Avoid Using Caste Names for India’s Beasts,” Down to
Earth, January 31, 2007.
(16.) Vanja Hamzic, “The (Un)Conscious Pariah: Canine and Gender Outcasts of the
British Raj” (unpublished paper, Centre for the Study of Colonialism, Empire and Interna
tional Law, University of London, September, 2013).
(17.) Alan Beck, The Ecology of Stray Dogs: A Study of Free-Ranging Urban Dogs (West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1973).
(18.) For a review of these public-health and medical problems, see Hans Matter and
Thomas Daniels, “Dog Ecology and Population Biology,” in Dogs, Zoonoses, and Public
Health, ed. Calum Macpherson, Francois Meslin, and Alexander Wandeler (New York:
CABI Publishing, 2000), 17–62; Jack Reece, “Dogs and Dog Control in Developing Coun
tries,” in State of the Animals III, ed. Deborah Salem and Andrew Rowan (Washington,
DC: Humane Society Press, 2005), 55–64.
(19.) M. Farnworth, K. Blaszak, E. Hiby, and N. Waran, “Incidence of Dog Bites and Public
Attitudes toward Dog Care and Management in Samoa,” Animal Welfare 20 (2012): 477–
486.
(20.) Christian Cotroneo, “Romania Stray Dog Slaughter Approved Amid Protests from
Animal Activists,” The Huffington Post Canada, September 12, 2013.
(21.) Barbara Hasler, Gregory Neville, Houda Bennani, Joshua Onono, and Jonathan Rush
ton, Evaluation of Rabies Control in Colombo City, Sri Lanka (London: Royal Veterinary
College, 2011).
(23.) Minna Hsu, “Taiwan: Animal Welfare Law,” in Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Rela
tionships, vol. 3, ed. Marc Bekoff (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 1015–1016.
(24.) Nikki Savvides, “Living with Dogs: Alternative Animal Practices in Bangkok, Thai
land,” Animal Studies Journal 2 (2013): 28–50.
Page 16 of 25
Roaming Dogs
(26.) Of course, more Westernized forms of pet-keeping can occur in less developed na
tions among upper-class residents who own pedigree dogs as status symbols. Savvides,
“Living with Dogs.”
(27.) A. Ortolani, H. Vernooij, and R. Coppinger, “Ethiopian Village Dogs: Behavioural Re
sponses to a Stranger’s Approach,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 119 (2009): 210–
218.
(28.) Elzemina Bojicic, interview with the author, February 28, 2014.
(31.) Hsu, Severinghaus, and Serpell., “Dog Keeping in Taiwan”; Michelle Morters, inter
view with the author, June 10, 2014.
(33.) P. Kitala, J. McDermott, M. Kyule, J. Gathuma et al., “Dog Ecology and Demography
Information to Support the Planning of Rabies Control in Machakos District, Kenya,” Acta
Tropica 78 (2001): 217–230.
(34.) Gary Patronek, Alan Beck, and L. Glickman, “Dynamics of Dog and Cat Population in
a Community,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 210, no. 5 (1997):
637–642.
(35.) Peter Omemo, “Responsible Dog Ownership Options,” in Dog Population Manage
ment (report of the FAO/WSPA/ICT expert meeting, Banna, Italy, March 14–19, 2011),
139–143.
(36.) Kelvin Alie, David Witkind, William Fielding, J. Maldonado, and Francisco Galindo,
“Attitudes toward Dogs and Other ‘Pets’ in Roseau, Dominica,” Anthrozoös 20 (2007):
143–154.
(37.) Ghenaim Al-Fayez, Abdelwahid Awadalla, Donald Templer, and Hiroko Arikawa,
“Companion Animal Attitude and Its Family Pattern in Kuwait,” Society & Animals 11
(2003): 17–28; Hsu, Severinghaus, and Serpell, “Dog Keeping in Taiwan”; Darryn Knobel,
K. M. Laurenson, R. R, Kazwala, L. I. Boden, and S. Cleaveland, “A Cross-Sectional Study
of Factors Associated with Dog Ownership in Tanzania,” BMC Veterinary Research 4
(2008): 5; B. Morris, The Power of Animals: An Ethnography (Oxford: Berg, 1998).
(42.) Roxana Cocia and Alina Rusu, “Attitudes of Romanian Pet Caretakers towards Steril
ization of Their Animals: Gender Conflict over Male, but Not Female, Companion Ani
mals,” Anthrozoös 23 (2010): 185–191.
(43.) J. K. Blackshaw and C. Day, “Attitudes of Dog Owners to Neutering Pets: Demograph
ic Data and Effects of Owner Attitudes,” Australian Veterinary Journal 71 (1994): 113–
116; William Fielding, D. Samuels, and Jane Mather, “Attitudes and Actions of West Indian
Dog Owners towards Neutering Their Animals: A Gender Issue?” Anthrozoös 15 (2002):
206–226.
(45.) Meg Lunney, Sonia Fevre, Enid Stiles, Sowath Ly et al., “Knowledge, Attitudes and
Practices of Rabies Prevention and Dog Bite Injuries in Urban and Peri-Urban Provinces
in Cambodia, 2009,” International Health 4 (2012): 4–9.
(46.) Margaret Slater, Antonio Di Nardo, Villa Pediconi, Dalla Ombretta, et al. “Free-
Roaming Dogs and Cats in Central Italy: Public Perceptions of the Problem,” Preventive
Veterinary Medicine 84 (2008): 27–47.
(47.) Deena Case, “Dog Ownership: A Complex Web?” Psychological Reports 60 (1987):
247–257.
(49.) Sreejani Majumder, Ankita Chatterjee, and Anindita Bhadra, “A Dog’s Day with Hu
mans: Time Activity Budget of Free-Ranging Dogs in India,” Current Science 106 (2014):
874–878.
(50.) Meg Lunney, Andria Jones, Enid Stiles, and David Toews, “Assessing Human-Dog
Conflicts in Todos Santos, Guatemala: Bite Incidences and Public Perception,” Preventive
Veterinary Medicine 102 (2011): 315–320.
(51.) Sarah Foster and Billie Giles-Corti, “The Built Environment, Neighborhood Crime
and Constrained Physical Activity: An Exploration of Inconsistent Findings,” Preventive
Medicine 47 (2008): 241–251; Burak Pak and Johan Verbeke, “Walkability as a Perfor
mance Indicator for Urban Spaces: Strategies and Tools for the Social Construction of Ex
periences,” Crowdsourcing and Sensing, vol. 1. Computation and Performance eCAADe
31/423–432, 2013; Delfien Van Dyck, Greet Cardon, Benedicte Deforche, and Lise Bour
Page 18 of 25
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(52.) M. Southworth, “Designing the Walkable City,” Journal of Urban Planning and Devel
opment 131 (2005): 246–257
(54.) Don Vargo, John DePasquale, and Agnes Vargo, “Incidence of Dog Bite Injuries in
American Samoa and Their Impact on Society,” Hawai’I Journal of Medicine & Public
Health 71 (2012): 6–12.
(55.) See, for example, Kathryn Kneckerman, Gina Lovasi, Stephen Davies, Marnie Pur
ciel et al., “Disparities in Urban Neighborhood Conditions: Evidence from GIS Measures
and Field Observation in New York City,” Journal of Public Health Policy 30 (2009): 264–
285; Ellen Seeley, “Comparing Walkability of Ethnically Diverse, Low-income
Neighborhoods” (unpublished dissertation, University of California, Davis, 2010).
(57.) Laura Solitaire, Lauri Andress, Carol Lewis, David Crossley et al., “A Health Impact
Assessment of Transit-Oriented Development at the Quitman Light Rail Station in Hous
ton, Texas” (unpublished study, Pew Charitable Trust, 2012_.
(58.) Jane Poss and Julia Bader, “Attitudes toward Companion Animals among Hispanic
Residents of a Texas Border Community,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 10
(2007): 243–253.
(60.) Frank Elaridi, “Chihuahuas Rampage in Arizona,” ABC news, February 18, 2014.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/02/chihuahuas-rampage-in-arizona/.
(61.) Olga Nikitina-Den Besten, “Cars, Dogs and Mean People: Environmental Fears and
Dislikes of Children in Berlin and Paris,” in Urban Trends in Berlin and Amsterdam, ed. K.
Adelhof, B. Glock, J. Lossau, and M. Schulz (Berliner Geographische Arbeiten, 2008), 116–
125.
(62.) Kaisen Bhanganada, Henry Wilde, Piyasakol Sakolsataydorn et al., “Dog Bite In
juries at a Bangkok Teaching Hospital,” Acta Tropica 55 (1993): 249–255; Songsri Kasem
pimolporn, Sutthictai Jitapunkul, and Visith Sitprija. “Moving towards the Elimination of
Rabies in Thailand,” Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand 91 (2008): 433–437;
Joy Leney and Jenny Remfry, “Dog Population Management,” in Dogs, Zoonoses and Pub
lic Health, ed. Calum Macpherson, Francois Meslin, and Alexander Wandeler (New York:
CABI Publishing, 2000), 299–332; Krithika Srinivasan, “The Biopolitics of Animal Being
and Welfare: Dog Control and Care in the UK and India,” Transactions of the Institute of
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(63.) Kevin Bardosh, Maganga Sambo, Lwitiko Sikana, Katie Hampson et al., “Eliminating
Rabies in Tanzania? Local Understandings and Responses to Mass Dog Vaccination in
Kilmbero and Ulanga Districts,” PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 8 (2014): e2935.
(64.) Sarah Cleaveland, Magai Kaare, Darryn Knobel, and M. Laurenson, “Canine Vaccina
tion-Providing Broader Benefits for Disease Control,” Veterinary Microbiology 117 (2006):
43–50.
(65.) nomadajourneys.com.
(66.) Roger Maynard, “Bali Targets Stray Dogs as 65 People Die from Rabies,” The Inde
pendent, July 4, 2010.
(69.) William Fielding, “Knowledge of the Welfare of Nonhuman Animals and Prevalence
of Dog Care Practices in New Providence, The Bahamas,” Journal of Applied Animal Wel
fare Science 10 (2007): 153–168.
(70.) Vargo, DePasquale, and Vargo, “Incidence of Dog Bite Injuries,” 6–12.
(73.) Kristen Burrows, Cindy Adams, and Jude Spiers, “Sentinels of Safety: Service Dogs
Ensure Safety and Enhance Freedom and Well-Being for Families with Autistic Children,”
Qualitative Health Research 18 (2008): 1642–1649.
(74.) Avshalom Caspi, Niall Bolger, and John Eckenrode. “Linking Person and Context in
the Daily Stress Process,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52, no. 1(1987):
184–195; James Garbarino and Deborah Sherman, “High-Risk Neighborhoods and High-
Risk Families: The Human Ecology of Child Maltreatment,” Child Development 51, no. 1
(1980): 188–198; Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, “Disorder and Decay: The Concept
and Measurement of Perceived Neighborhood Disorder,” Urban Affairs Review 34 (1999):
412–432.
(75.) Carl Latkin and Aaron Curry, “Stressful Neighborhoods and Depression: A Prospec
tive Study of the Impact of Neighborhood Disorder,” Journal of Health and Social Behav
ior 44 (2003): 34–44.
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(76.) E.g., Nuzrat Khan, Naghmana Ghafoor, Rabia Iftikhar and Maria Malik, “Urban An
noyances and Mental Health in the City of Lahore, Pakistan,” Journal of Urban Affairs 34
(2011): 297–315.
(78.) William Fielding, “Dogs: A Continuing and Common Neighborhood Nuisance of New
Providence, The Bahamas,” Society & Animals 16 (2008): 61–73.
(79.) William Fielding, “Perceptions of Owned and Unowned Animals: A Case Study from
New Providence,” Bahamas Journal of Science 6 (1999): 17–22.
(80.) Leney and Remfry, “Dog Population Management”; Srinivasan, “Biopolitics of Animal
Being.”
(81.) William Fielding, Jane Mather, and M. Isaacs. Potcakes: Dog Ownership in New Prov
idence, The Bahamas (West Lafayette: IN: Purdue University Press, 2005).
(82.) Deborah Court, “Unity and Conflict in an Israeli Village,” Contemporary Jewry 22
(2001): 1–17.
(83.) Merritt Clifton, “How Not to Fight a Rabies Epidemic: A History of Bali,” Asian Bio
medicine 4 (2010): 663–670.
(85.) Elly Hiby, “Bali Dog Cull Appeal,” YouTube, March 11, 2010.
(87.) Mesfin Araya, Jayanti Chotai, Ivan Komproe, and T. Joop, “Effect of Trauma on Quali
ty of Life as Mediated by Mental Distress and Moderated by Coping and Social Support
among Postconflict Displaced Ethiopians.” Quality of Life Research 16, no. 6 (2007): 915–
927.
(90.) Gregor Bulc, “Kill the Cat Killers: Moral Panic and Juvenile Crime in Slovenia,” Jour
nal of Communication Inquiry 26 (2002): 300–325.
(92.) Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian
Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
(93.) Erich Goode and Ben-Yehuda Nachman, Moral Panics: The Social Construction of De
viance (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
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(94.) “Stray Dog Solution Sought after Manitoba Girl Fatally Mauled,” CTV News, April
18, 2014, http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/stray-dog-solution-sought-after-manitoba-girl-fa
tally-mauled-1.1781791.
(95.) Eleanor Grennan and William J. Fielding, “Tourists’ Reactions to Non-human Ani
mals: Implications for Tourist-Animal Research in the Caribbean” (report to the Pegasus
Foundation, Concord, New Hampshire, April, 2008).
(97.) Erin Hill, Daniel Shepherd, David Welch, Kim Dirks et al., “Perceptions of Neighbor
hood Problems and Health-Related Quality of Life,” Journal of Community Psychology 40
(2012): 814–827.
(98.) Robin Jarrett, Douglas Williams, and Tolulope Olorode, “Neighborhood Influences on
the Physical Activity of Low-income African American Children: A Qualitative
Perspective” (unpublished study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign,
IL, www.liveablecities.org)
(101.) Diana Webster, “The Economic Impact of Stray Cats and Dogs at Tourist Destina
tions on the Tourism Industry,” Ridgewood, NJ: Cats and Dogs International (CANDi),
2013.
(103.) Sara Dolnicar, “Crises That Scare Tourists: Investigating Tourists’ Travel-Related
Concerns,” in Crisis Management in Tourism, ed. B. Prideaux, E. Laws, and K. Chon
(Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing, 2007), 98–109.
(104.) Paul Strickland, “The Roaming Dogs of Bhutan. Friend or Foe?” In CAUTHE 2013:
Tourism and Global Change: On the Edge of Something Big, ed. J. Fountain and K. Moore
(Christchurch, NZ: Lincoln University, 2013), 780–783.
(106.) “CDC Cautions of Rabies Risk in Bali, Indonesia,” Focus Taiwan, January 11, 2014,
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201401110012.aspx.
(107.) “Stray Dogs Costing Tourism Millions,” Samoa Observer, June 12, 2013.
(108.) Leney and Remfry, “Dog Population Management”; Srinivasan, “Biopolitics of Ani
mal Being”; Webster, “Economic Impact.”
(109.) P. Fleming and T. Korn, “Predation of Livestock by Wild Dogs in Eastern New South
Wales,” Australian Rangeland Journal 11 (1989): 61–66.
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(110.) T. Lembo, K. Hampson, M. Kaare, E. Ernest et al., “The Feasibility of Canine Rabies
Elimination in Africa: Dispelling Doubts with Data,” PloS Neglected Tropical Disease 4,
no. 2 (2010): e626.
(111.) Julie Young, Kirk Olson, Richard Reading, Sukh Amgalanbaatar et al., “Is Wildlife
Going to the Dogs? Impacts of Feral and Free-Roaming Dogs on Wildlife Populations,”
BioScience 61 (2011): 125–132.
(112.) Trotman, “Regional Realities: Impact of Stray Dogs and Cats on the Community,
Impact on Economy, Including Tourism, Impact on Livestock, Wildlife and the Environ
ment.”
(113.) Darryn Knobel, Sarah Cleaveland, Paul Coleman, Eric Fevre et al, “Re-evaluating
the Burden of Rabies in Africa and Asia,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 83
(2005): 360–368; Kinley Wangdi and Michael Ward, “Human and Animal Rabies Preven
tion and Control Cost in Bhutan, 2001-2008: The Cost-Benefit of Dog Rabies Elimination,”
Vaccine 31 (2012): 260–270.
(117.) J. F. Reece, S. K. Chawia, and A. R. Hiby, “Decline in Human Dog-Bite Cases during
a Street Dog Sterilization Programme in Jaipur, India,” Veterinary Record 172 (2013):
473.
(118.) Nikki Savvides, “Speaking for Dogs: The Role of Dog Biographies in Improving Ca
nine Welfare in Bangkok, Thailand,” in Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical
Writing, ed. Margot DeMello (New York: Routledge), 232.
(119.) Susan Plumridge, William Fielding, and Peter Bizzell, “A Description of the Clients
(Humans and Animals) of a ‘Free’ Neutering Programme in New Providence, The
Bahamas” (unpublished study, 2007).
(120.) However, some Bahamian caregivers believe that neutering dogs changes their
personalities (Fielding, Mather, and Isaacs. Potcakes), so it is unclear whether residents
will deepen their attachments to longer-lived street dogs if these dogs are perceived as
having different and undesirable personality changes.
(122.) Carole Sankey, Barbara Hasler, and Elly Hiby, “Change in Public Perception of
Roaming Dogs in Colombo City” (paper presented at 1st International Conference on Dog
Population Management, York, England, September 5, 2012).
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(123.) William Fielding, “Attitudes and Actions of Pet Caregivers in New Providence, The
Bahamas, in the Context of Those of Their American Counterparts,” Anthrozoös 21
(2008): 351–361.
(126.) Joy Lee. “Jamshedpur Communities Dog Population and Rabies Management
Project” (unpublished manuscript, July 31, 2013; Lee, telephone interview with author,
January 17, 2014.
(128.) J. Wilson and G. Kelling, “Broken Window,” Atlantic Monthly 211 (1982): 29–38.
(129.) L. Airey, “‘Nae as Nice a Scheme as It Used to Be’: Lay Accounts of Neighbourhood
Incivilities and Wellbeing,” Health Place 9 (2003): 129–137.
(131.) Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, “Disorder and Decay: The Concept and Mea
surement of Perceived Neighborhood Disorder,” Urban Affairs Review 34 (1999): 412–
432.
(132.) Ruth Landman, Creating Community in the City: Cooperatives and Community Gar
dens in Washington, D.C. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993); Jane Schukoske, “Community De
velopment through Gardening: State and Local Policies Transforming Urban Open
Space,” New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy 3 (2000): 35:351–
392.
(133.) Ronald Vogel and Sam Torres, “An Evaluation of Operation Roundup: An Experi
ment in the Control of Gangs to Reduce Crime, Fear of Crime and Improve Police Commu
nity Relations,” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management
21 (1998): 38–53.
Arnold Arluke
Kate Atema
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Kate Nattrass Atema, Program Director of the Companion Animal Programme, Inter
national Fund for Animal Welfare
Page 25 of 25
Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
Our worldview is made of animals. Our views of animals determine how we see nature—
the living world as well as our part in it. Pre-agricultural peoples were intrigued by ani
mals, their behaviors and powers. In these totemic societies, animals were seen as First
Beings, ancestors, and there was a sense of kinship and continuity with the living world.
Domestication upends that, and reduces animals from souls and powers to tools and com
modities. Agrarian societies invented misothery and other cultural devices to give hu
mans a sense of supremacy and a license to exploit animals and nature. Misothery impos
es a negativity in our worldview; we despise too much of the living world—including our
own animality, our sexuality, and our bodily functions. This is the root of all alienation.
I do not think [the cruelty of wolf killing] comes from some base, atavistic urge,
though that may be a part of it. I think it is that we simply do not understand our
place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.
AS Paul Shepard explained it in his 1978 book, Thinking Animals,3 animals empower our
speech. Consider these descriptors:
Jackass, bitch, worm, weasel, dog, pig, rat, turkey, chicken, snake, horse’s ass,
leech, shrimp, shark, toad, bird brain—nouns used to insult.
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Mousy, horsey, fishy, crabby, batty, catty, lousy, goosey, mulish, brutish, bestial,
sheepish—adjectives for undesirable traits and situations.
Joseph Clark lists some 5000 such expressions in Beastly Folklore.4 John Rodman, Barry
Lopez, and many writers have noted how often we use animals in speech meant to
(p. 136) demean and disparage.5 In Man and the Natural World, Keith Thomas notes many
ways in which animals have been associated with baseness and evil. Satan is depicted
with horns and tail—a mixture of beast and man; non-Europeans were “brutish savages”
and “filthy animals”; and the poor, the insane, criminals, one’s enemies—all were “beast
like.”6
This raises at least a couple of questions, why are animals so powerful in speech? and
why so much negativity about animals? Another good question is, is this a problem? We
shall see.
A number of writers have noted that our views of animals are the same as our views of
nature, or, as I prefer to call it, the living world.7 Animals have always helped us under
stand the living world because their bodies and behaviors give us a handy way to “see”
the vague, formless, chaotic rest of nature. “The terrain, the weather, the land forms, the
sky are distressingly continuous and blended.”8 Throughout our evolution as humans, ani
mals have given form, shape, and personality to nature, and, as such, they symbolize na
ture. True, other things in the world impressed us: dark forests, violent storms, moun
tains, waterfalls, caves, and other spectacular terrain features. But animals stirred emo
tions in ways that the rest of the world could not. Anthropologist Pat Shipman writes that
we are “more emotionally involved with animals” than plants because we have many
things in common.9
Because animals mean the world to us and because they stir such strong feelings, their
reduction through domestication and enslavement by the beginner farmers of the ancient
Middle East (the Near East to anthropologists) has cut a deep wound in the human psy
che and in the Western culture they founded. I emphasize that, for the human mind, not
all of nature is out there; there is human nature and nature within as well. We tend to see
our wilder passions, such as sexual lust, anger—what Plato called “the wild beast within
us”—and our various bodily functions as animalistic, that is, of an animal nature.10 Our
vague, shadowy ideas about nature—whether outer or inner—get embodied as animals.
Animals give us a way to keep them tangible. As such, animals still are, in Shepard’s
words, “a handle for abstractions.”11 Negativity about animals, then, spreads negativity
all around—in our worldview, in our views of ourselves.
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Origins
Our distant ancestors spent a half a million years admiring the fine points of the
old aurochs, the cow’s wild ancestors… . When we took the aurochs into our
homes and cow sheds, we deprived the animal of its otherness and double-crossed
ourselves.
It is virtually common knowledge now that the transition from forager to farmer that be
gan 10,000 years ago brought about the greatest psychic and cultural upheaval in the
200,000-year history of our species. It was “the worst mistake in the history of the human
race,” wrote popular science writer and University of California, Los Angeles (p. 137) pro
fessor of geography Jared Diamond in his now famous article of the same title in the May
1987 issue of Discover magazine.13 Others believe that the animal side of the agricultural
revolution was the much greater force in that upheaval.14 As Shipman puts it, “[T]he
process of domesticating an animal is much more intimate, personal, and psychologically
powerful than the process of domesticating a plant.”15 Let’s see why.
Consider the world of our distant ancestors, particularly their immediate environments,
some tens, even hundreds of thousands of years ago as our brains and minds were devel
oping. They lived out in nature—not separated from the elements and the living world as
we are today. They lived on the move, seeking food and avoiding danger, which gave them
extensive knowledge of the plants and animals in their territory. Although we call Homo
sapiens “modern humans,” they were nevertheless an extension of a longer, older line of
hominids—H. erectus, H. habilis, and so on,—who had many more hundreds of thousands
of years of essentially the same way of living in and among the other plant and animal life
around them. These very old life-ways were already there when Homo evolved, or mutat
ed, into sapiens—people like us having brains and minds with a greater capacity for won
dering, dreaming, thinking, and speech.
Early humans would have been intrigued by the animals around them—by the sounds,
movements, body shapes, and behaviors strikingly similar to their own. They watched ani
mals walk, run, eat, hide, climb, have sex, fight, play, sleep, urinate, defecate, give birth,
care for their young, and die. They saw that animals had eyes, ears, hair, blood, teeth, and
other organs, just like theirs. And they noted that some animals had impressive size,
speed, strength, and appearance and engaged in behaviors that humans did not. For ear
ly modern humans—I call them primal peoples—animals were the most fascinating and
awesome things in the world. They were wonderful for the flowering human mind and cul
ture. It is no wonder, however, that the earliest art, painted 32,000 years ago on cave
walls, is mostly animal figures. “Being like us and yet different,” writes biologist Paul
Shepard, these animal images “manifest that invisible otherness” that so intrigued primal
humans.16 This, the longest part of our evolution, the era of the development of the hu
man mind and culture before agriculture, was when animals were First Beings in their
primal people’s creation stories, when they regarded animals as totems, tribal ancestors,
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Animal Masters, and souls. This long era was “the way of the animal powers,” in the
words of mythologist Joseph Campbell.17
The Middle East was the epicenter of the domestication of large herd animals—sheep,
goats, cattle, horses, and camels. Their domesticators grew into societies that extended—
not often kindly—their influence far and wide.18 As Alfred Crosby says in Ecological Impe
rialism, “The most important contrast between the Sumerians and their heirs, on the one
hand, and the rest of humanity, on the other, involves the matter of livestock.”19 The
species and their variations are few, “but they are enormous from the sociological point of
view,” according to German sociologist and zoologist Richard Lewinsohn.20 The herder so
cieties—pastoralists to anthropologists—have some traits in common. They were obsessed
with their animals, for the herd was the source of their livelihood and of their pride, tribal
identity, and wealth. The herders’ ideologies and values serve to build (p. 138) up and
maintain the herd (wealth). Paul Shepard lists these characteristics: “[a]ggressive hostili
ty to outsiders, the armed family, feuding and raiding in a male-centered hierarchical or
ganization, the substitution of war for hunting, elaborate arts of sacrifice, monomaniacal
pride and suspicion.”21 Sociologists Jean Lenski and Gerhard Lenski list a few more:
“marked social inequality … hereditary slavery … raiding and warfare … [and] military
advantage over their less mobile agrarian neighbors.”22
But these are the characteristics of fully developed herder societies into the historical pe
riod. One has only to read about the empires of Alexander the Great, the Romans, and
Genghis Khan to understand how the tactics and ruthlessness of horse-mounted, herd-dri
ving warriors enabled them to control so much territory, and, it should be emphasized, to
shape so much of world history. Our task is to examine how they came to be this way.
When hunters and foragers came to control herds of animals, their movements, breeding,
and food supply, they needed some way to resolve their very old views of animals as awe
some First Beings and souls of the world. They needed to move from the worldview of The
Way of the Animal Powers to the new realities of an agrarian way of life based on exploit
ing animals—one in which people would come to control every aspect of animals’ lives. In
the Middle East, where exploitation of domestic animals was key to wealth building,
agrarian societies invented new ideologies to reconfigure views of animals. In these, the
essential message was to reduce and debase animals and nature and to elevate human
beings over them. The effect, spiritually speaking, was to turn the world upside down. Be
fore domestication, the powerful, mythic beings, the supernaturals, were animals, and
primal people held them in awe; after domestication, the supernaturals, the gods, became
more human-like, and people held animals in contempt. The agrarians’ god might be a liv
ing Sumerian or Assyrian king, or it might be Zeus, Jupiter, Aphrodite, Venus, Artemis, Di
ana, or any of the other human-shaped gods of Greek and Roman polytheism, or it might
be the superman Yahweh, God, or Allah of Middle Eastern monotheism. At any rate, ani
mal-using agrarians stripped animals of their souls and power and put them in what they
perceived to be their proper place: in the service of humankind.
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The reconfiguring of animals to lower status was done through art, myth, ritual, and, of
course, religion. As the Old Testament tells us, the Hebrews were hostile to idol-worship
and its “heathen” festivals. As the sociologists Jean and Gerhard Lenski have shown, the
Hebrew herders of cattle, sheep, and goats, like other pastoralists, worshipped a new, all-
powerful god, that is, God—a sort of superman, set up a new order of life, a hierarchy of
being with God and men at the top. By giving human beings dominion over all of his
creation, God gave a humans broader license to exploit, kill, and eat animals. The West
ern creation story in Genesis shows how God (actually the Hebrew writers) wrestled a
couple of times with the violent aspect of dominion over animals before he made the li
cense to eat meat explicit to Noah after the Great Flood. Even then, the license came with
a great many restrictions—the dietary laws spelled out in the books of Leviticus and
Deuteronomy. Restrictions notwithstanding, the grant of (p. 139) dominion made animal
slaughter and meat more accessible to growing populations of people settled in villages
and cities.
The length and complexity of the dietary rules point to the emotional and psychic turmoil
stirred up by this ideological shift. Because the stripping away of the remains of the very
old animal powers and souls was deeply unsettling, it had to be done with the trappings
of religion. Through these dietary rules, the Hebrews, to their credit, carried out their li
cense to kill with ritual reminders of the gravity of their dominion over nature. The bor
rowers of their theology were a bit more cavalier about slaughtering and meat eating.
They adopted dominion but without the inconvenient dietary laws. After this point, ani
mals were meat on the hoof—agricultural commodities along with the other products of
the harvest.
This agrarian view of animals as soulless, lowly beings helped the growing commerce in
wool, hides, and meat to expand in direct proportion to the growth of cities, trade, and
specialization in the labor force. It enabled animal husbandry—the deliberate control of
animal breeding—to produce more useful breeds and traits. It paved the way for herd-
keeping to become the industry arguably the most vital to the success of early Middle
Eastern—eventually Western—civilization.
There was a great need to reduce animals from spirit powers to slave commodities, and it
took a lot to pull it off: It required the formulation of a great many negative ideas about
animals and nature into ideologies that make up the foundations of Western culture. Un
fortunately, these ideologies poison our worldview—that is, both our view of ourselves
and our relationship to the living world.
Misothery
On a Saturday afternoon in Texas a few years ago, three men on horseback rode
down a female red wolf and threw a lasso over her neck. When she gripped the
rope with her teeth to keep the noose from closing, they dragged her around the
prairie until they’d broken her teeth out. Then while two of them stretched the an
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imal between their horses with ropes, the third man beat her to death with a pair
of fence pliers. The wolf was taken around to a few bars in a pickup and finally
thrown in a roadside ditch.
I have coined the word misothery (miz OTH uh ree; rhymes with misogyny) to name a
body of ideas that we need to discuss. It comes from two Greek words, one meaning “ha
tred” or “contempt,” the other meaning “animal.” Literally, then, the word means hatred
and contempt for animals. And, since views of animals determine views of nature in gen
eral, it can mean hatred and contempt for nature—especially its animal-like aspects.
I decided to create the word misothery because I could find no word in the Eng
(p. 140)
lish language that adequately expressed the full range of hate, contempt, loathing, dis
gust, fear, and all the other negative views and feelings that humans have about other an
imals. There is only theriophobia, as discussed in John Rodman’s “The Dolphin Papers”
and quoted earlier.24 Theriophobia seems inadequate because it literally means “fear of
animals,” as in arachnophobia, fear of spiders, or acrophobia, fear of heights, or agora
phobia, fear of public spaces. There is much more negativity about animals and nature
than simple fear. I thought of the word misogyny, a reasonably common word for an atti
tude of hatred and contempt toward women. The similarity of the two words reflects the
similarity of the two sets of attitudes and ideas. In both cases, the ideas reduce the pow
er, status, and dignity of an Other. Misogyny reduces female power/status/dignity, thus
supporting male supremacy and control of women in the system we call patriarchy.
Misothery reduces the power/status/dignity of animals and nature thus supporting human
supremacy and control over animals and the living world in a system we might call domin
ion. Just as agrarian society invented beliefs to reduce women, it also invented beliefs or
ideologies about animals that reduced them in their worldview. These beliefs served to re
place the awe and respect humans had for animals with contempt and loathing.
To understand how misothery might have taken shape centuries ago in the Middle East,
let us consider recent societies in transition from foraging to farming. The Thai, the Nuer,
and the Balinese cultures are intermediate between totemic and domestic: the Thai keep
their domesticated buffalo and oxen under them—literally—in pens under their houses
built on stilts. For them, the dog, a food scavenger and a nonworker, is held in very low,
or negative, regard. To the Thai, the dog is a “low-life.” They regard monkeys as degener
ate human beings; and, according to Shepard, “the most feared and awful are the crea
tures of the remotest forest and wildest places.”25 The Thai show two characteristic ele
ments of misothery: contempt for animals under human control, and fear or hatred of
those beyond their control.
The Nuer are African herders of cattle for whom life is all about access to grazing land
and water and the power to keep that access. “Their society is a denatured totemic clan
ship in which that parallel of the animal and man has ceased to be a key to human order
and is instead an echo.”26 There is no detachment about cattle, their chosen creatures,
with whom they are very nearly obsessed. Cattle are the means of life, the source of song
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and affection. And, in the classification of cattle horns and colorings, there is a schematic
ordering of humans and nature. For the Nuer, the rest of the world exists apart, “physical
ly separated by the space necessary to keep hoofed animals.”27 As cattle-keeping forces
them to live in opposition to predators and other wild animals, they have little regard for
the rest of nature. “The wild is external, accidental, inessential,” says Shepard, while cat
tle are everything. The opposition of wild and domestic brings about a jarring alteration in
worldview. Wild nature comes to represent everything “outside”—including other peoples
and other animals. As a result, Shepard says, the Nuer are “truculent, aloof, isolationist
and aggressive.”28
The Balinese are another society in transition from totemic to domestic culture.
(p. 141)
Here the animal domesticated is small—the red jungle fowl, from whom our breeds of
chickens are derived. Yet the fowl’s reduction by domestication brings sharp changes in a
people’s view of animals and nature. The Balinese obsession is with cockfighting, which
probably began as a ritual to resolve the animal powers left over from totemism. In the
jungles, wild male birds fought to maintain turf, families, and flocks; but in the villages to
day, their domesticated descendants fight to provide entertainment for gamblers and on
lookers.
The Balinese case shows us how a society, in undoing the older way of the animal powers,
can replace it with some negative ideas about humanity as well as animals and nature.
The cockfight began as a ritual, became a tradition, and evolved into a game or sport. To
day, the Balinese use the cockfight to stand in for aggression and competition among vil
lages.29 Scholars have uncovered numerous links between cockfighting and a male world
of aggression and violence.30 The human owner whose cock loses a cockfight, Shepard
says, “literally tears his bird to pieces and gives it to the owner of the winning bird, who
eats it.”31
Animals, even small ones, fighting to the death over and over for public wagering and
“sport” may appear to provide a “civilized” outlet for social conflicts, but this also pro
vides a negative model for nature, both wild and human. Shepard notes that the Balinese
“see animality as that which is reprehensible in man,” and, predictably, Balinese demons
have animal shapes.32 For them, the cockfight acknowledges the dark side of humanity
and, less consciously, of nature. The cockfight may keep Balinese villagers from warring
with each other, but it feeds negativity about animals and the living world.
We can see misothery in the making by looking at some of the mythologies of ancient
Middle Eastern societies in the struggles to resolve the old animal powers into an agrari
an worldview. One of the most revealing is from Mesopotamia—the Gilgamesh epic, the
national epic of the Babylonian Semites, which was written down in about 2000 BCE. Gil
gamesh was a god/king of the first dynasty in Uruk, Sumeria, and a great cultural hero to
the Babylonians. Since the written form of the epic is the end product of a very old tale
handed down orally, it reveals how some of the myths from the “old days” were modified
to construct the agrarian worldview.
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Gilgamesh is described as a strong ruler through a personal history of acts of war and
rape: he is “a hero of unbridled aggression and sexual appetite (he leaves ‘no son to his
father’, ‘no virgin to her lover’).”33 Outraged by his tyranny, the gods create a wild beast/
man named Enkidu to bring the terrible king under control. Enkidu is
hairy like an animal, his hair “sprouts like grain” and looks like a woman’s. He
“eats grass with the gazelles,” drinks with them … and delights in his heart with
them. He lives in open country. He is the scourge of hunters, filling their pits, foil
ing their traps, and in general protecting all animals from the harmful intentions
of Gilgamesh’s people.34
Enkidu represents the older, totemic order in which humans lived in harmony with ani
mals and nature. Gilgamesh represents the new order, based on aggression and control
(p. 142) of women, animals, and nature. The transition from old to new is symbolized in
Enkidu himself, who leaves his animality behind and becomes a hero, a god/man, and a
friend of Gilgamesh. In this part of the legend, misogyny is so thoroughly interwoven with
misothery that it is hard to tell one from the other. It does illustrate, though, how wild na
ture is symbolized by both animals and women: A hunter persuades a temple prostitute to
take Enkidu away from his animal life in nature and over to civilization. Enkidu lies with
the woman for six days, and “she treated him, the savage, to a woman’s task.”35
Afterward, Enkidu finds that his wild animal friends are afraid of him, for “he now has
wisdom, broader understanding.”36 The prostitute takes Enkidu, now civilized through
sex, to Gilgamesh and the two men become friends. Together they raid and rule, challeng
ing and putting down the goddesses and their temples and destroying their sacred forest
—nature.
We should note the woman’s role in taming nature, which is symbolized by the wild beast/
man Enkidu. The story seems to credit women, subtly and indirectly, with the invention of
agriculture. Did women domesticate nature and bring civilization? Perhaps Enkidu sym
bolizes that very old, very persistent idea. But here that idea is twisted with the misogy
nist notion that sex is “a woman’s task” and that whether by rape, deceit, seduction, or
hire, it tames a man.
The misothery here is subtle, but we see it in Enkidu’s taming and becoming a civilized
man. We are given the idea that he is made better by this conversion. The implication is
that animal life and nature, although depicted as peaceful here, are beneath human civi
lization. The implication is that Enkidu, the animal, is improved by a woman so that he
will be useful in Gilgamesh’s agrarian civilization.
In some ancient Middle Eastern art, we can see graphic evidence of animal reduction and
misothery in the making. In Mesopotamian art, there are scenes of animal processions,
animals fighting, and of men fighting animals in temples, murals, pottery, and sculpture.
These scenes show up in great numbers on the famous Mesopotamian cylinder seals. In
the days before writing, these small, carved, stone cylinders were rolled over pieces of
clay for use as a kind of trademark to seal containers of wine or grain. Thousands of these
cylinder seals exist and, according to Klingender, they “provide a continuous record of the
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changing fashions in Mesopotamian art for almost three thousand years, from the middle
of the fourth millennium to the collapse of the Persian Empire in the fourth century
B.C.”37 After writing appeared in about 3200 BCE, the cylinders continued to be used as
signatures on writers’ clay tablets.
In the earliest protoliterate stage, known as the Uruk period, the prevailing themes, ac
cording to Francis Klingender, were “serenely pastoral, in marked contrast to the later
subjects of Mesopotamian art.”38 Here the main theme was the sacred temple herd kept
by the king or priests, and it shows that the animals—though domesticated—were still re
garded with remnants of the older, pre-agrarian sense of the animal powers. The animals,
cattle or sheep, are depicted in peaceful processions, usually in natural settings. These
are docile domestic animals, moving in single file to the fields. These “animal file” scenes
evoke bucolic feelings of the calm and order of an early-stage agrarian city-state, when
animals were perhaps not yet fully private property to be traded or coveted as (p. 143)
spoils of war. In later times, a second major grouping of scenes appears on the cylinder
seals. In these “beast-hero” scenes, the animals are reared up, usually in confrontation,
as on heraldic coats of arms. On some, a pair of heroes—possibly Gilgamesh and Enkidu—
grapple with bulls or other beasts. On others, “a hero may grapple simultaneously with a
beast on either side, thus forming a triad representing a kind of fighting antithesis to the
tree-of-life,”39 and then a third major theme appears, this one “consists of a continuous
frieze of fighting creatures, usually lions and other beasts of prey attacking cattle, with
herdsmen defending their flocks.”40 These themes, Klingender says, continue in the
heraldic art of the Middle Ages in Europe. The whole feeling is one of dangerous animals,
of violence, of conflict with animals and nature, and man’s drive to conquer nature in the
mature agrarian nation-state.
The cylinder seals illustrate Mesopotamia’s changing view of animals and nature. In the
process, “detachment was achieved” when the lifelike, naturalistic animals of the early
period are shown distorted and stylized in later periods.41 “This probably reflects the
taste of the barbarians who invaded Mesopotamia,” according to Klingender.42 These
“barbarians” would have been horse-mounted, herding tribes—the Kurgans, Aryans, or
their equivalents—who sprang from the pastoral peoples of Central Asia and the northern
Middle East. In the third and fourth millennia BCE, they raided to the south in waves,
leaving their mark on Mesopotamia, its art, and, apparently, its view of nature.43
Klingender describes the emerging view of animals and nature after the introduction of
horse warfare and cattle breeding, when Sumeria was wealthy and powerful, “To empha
size his victory the hero may hold the beast [at once a real predator and a symbol of wild
nature] upside down… . Intersecting rampant animals, twin bodies joined to one head, hu
man torsos mounted on lions instead of legs, and other hold devices served to introduce
further variety into the entanglements of fighting heroes, beasts and monsters, presented
upon tightly packed friezes.”44 Gradually, a theme emerged “more appropriate to the idea
of embattled force,” he says. By about 2300 BCE, the period of the first all-Mesopotamian
empire founded by Sargon of Akkad, “the animals themselves finally assumed those atti
tudes of force and violence frozen into immobility, which have served ever since, through
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later Mesopotamian and Assyrian art down to medieval heraldry, to symbolize military
virtues of strength and aggression.45
These expressions in art reflected a deeper psychic/cultural process: the reduction of ani
mals from animated, ensouled, kindred beings in nature to frozen symbols of human pow
er over nature. Once they were believed to embody the spirits and powers of the living
world; hereafter, they would be mere sign carriers for the human spirit and its power
over that world. In Mesopotamia, says Lord Kenneth Clark, “the sense of kinship with ani
mals has been superseded by an overawed recognition of their strength, which can be
used to symbolize the terrible power of the king.”46 And in these scenes, the king, we
should note, symbolized the wealth and power of agrarian society and its complete mas
tery over plants, animals, and the land—all of living nature.
According to Klingender, the animal art of later civilizations in Western Asia shows the in
fluence of Mesopotamian themes. He notes that figures of rampant, fighting beasts ap
pear on a gigantic scale in Hittite palaces and temples. More of the same (p. 144) are at
Assyrian sites and later still, at Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon and in the palaces of Persian
kings at Suza and Persepolis. “Their influence on the other great styles is no less remark
able: they contributed decisive elements to the arts of early Greece, the later Roman em
pire, Sassanid Persia, Byzantium, the Muslim world and medieval Europe.”47
We know that art reflects a society’s deepest ideas about the world, so the widespread
popularity of these styles also tells us something about the spread of Middle Eastern
agrarian culture. Obviously, its ideas about the order of humans, animals, and nature had
appeal far and wide wherever domestication had begun. And the Mesopotamians, with
some help from the hordes of horse-warriors to the north, furnished the graphics—one
might say the propaganda—that conveyed this new order.
Purposes
Animals whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.
(Charles Darwin48)
Agrarian society invented some cultural devices to assist in the demotion of animals from
powers and kindred beings to lowly beings and slaves. While hunters knew a great deal
about animal character and behavior, they didn’t interact with an individual animal close
ly enough or long enough to become emotionally attached. Only at the moment of killing
did the hunter exercise control over an animal. Until then, the animal remained an inde
pendent, respected being with a life of his own. The domestic animal, on the other hand,
lived a life of dependence on her farmer. Day after day, the farmer fed her, led her to wa
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ter, milked her, and steered the plow behind her. Without emotional barriers, the farmer
would become personally attached to his cow, and working, driving, whipping, and
slaughtering her would amount to a gross betrayal of trust, causing feelings of guilt and
remorse. Farmers, according to University of Pennsylvania professor James Serpell,
“learned to cope with this dilemma using a variety of essentially dishonest techniques.”50
It is indicative of domestication’s impact on our worldview that these extend to wild ani
mals and the entire living world. Serpell identifies four devices: detachment, conceal
ment, misrepresentation, and shifting the blame.
Konrad Lorenz illustrates detachment in his book Man Meets Dog. “Today for breakfast I
ate some fried bread and sausage. Both the sausage and the lard that the bread was fried
in came from a pig that I used to know as a dear little piglet. Once that stage was over, to
save my conscience from conflict, I meticulously avoided any further (p. 145) acquain
tance with that pig.”51 Rather than give up pork and lard, Lorenz chose to give up close
ness to pigs. Multiply this emotional transaction thousands of times over thousands of
years and we can understand why agrarian culture views animals impersonally and indif
ferently. Detachment is complete in today’s corporate factory farms, where the day-to-day
care of animals is left to machines controlled by electronic sensors.
Misrepresentation distorts the facts about animals so that their sufferings and deaths
seem necessary or deserved. Most of it is unconscious, residing in the negative, hateful
ideas about animals that we have inherited. We grow up on these in art, literature, and
film, and they thoroughly color our attitudes about animals and nature. If animals inspire
fear and loathing, it becomes morally easier to control, use, and kill them. Indeed, these
become moral imperatives. And the nearer an animal comes to be perceived as posing an
actual threat to human welfare, as are rats and wolves, the more intense the misrepre
sentation. In our literature, these animals in particular are misrepresented as blood
thirsty, ravenous beasts snarling at the gates of civilization, cruelly intent on bursting
through to ravage innocent humanity. This idea of animal evil is a very handy tool for
agrarian society—so much so that it is kept sharpened and accessible through Western
folklore.52 The most obvious example is the legend of the werewolf, which fed generations
of Europeans with a morally righteous hatred for the “beast of waste and desolation,” the
wolf. Bloodthirsty, vicious, cruel, oversexed, and lover of evil, our stereotypes of wolves
misrepresented real wolf behavior. Such views have motivated centuries of cattle and
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
sheep herders to exterminate wolves in both Europe and North America, and they have
very nearly succeeded (Figure 7.1).
Blame shifting is a leftover from the old rituals of hunting and animal sacrifice, which
shifted blame for the killing to ancestors or the gods. As part of the ritual animal sacrifice
in ancient Babylonia, the priests actually bent down to the ear of the slaughter victim to
whisper, “[T]his deed was done by all the gods; I did not do it.”53 Holy men did the dirty
work, and ever since, the division of labor has helped shift, or diffuse, the blame. For cen
turies, agrarian society has relegated the bloody work and the moral and emotional bur
dens of killing animals to butchers and slaughterhouse workers who have been regarded
as “odious, merciless, pitiless, cruel, rude, grim, stern, bloody, and greasy.”54 We debase
them to make the killing seem somehow inevitable or natural because they are the sort of
persons who, by their very nature, are killers. This device allows the meat eater to think,
the killings will go on in spite of me, so I am not responsible.
Today responsibility for the killing of animals for food is completely diffused by the corpo
rate bureaucracies that have taken over animal agriculture. One firm, or a division
(p. 146) of it, may specialize in breeding animals, another in caring for young animals, and
another in feeding them to market weight. Other business entities transport them to
stockyards and auctions, where still others buy them and take them to the slaughter
house. And dozens of others—packers, processors, and supermarket chains—reduce the
carcasses to bloodless, shrink-wrapped packages that offer the consumer no clue as to
their animal origins. The buck is passed around so many times—or so far down the verti
cally integrated corporate chain—that no individual or firm feels any responsibility for the
reduction of a living being to packaged flesh.
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
These distancing devices are essential elements of misothery in keeping animal exploita
tion from being emotionally and morally disturbing. They aided agrarian society in con
structing a worldview that abolished the old sense of kinship and placed a vast gulf be
tween humans and the rest of the living world. In the process, we have, Serpell writes,
erected “a defensive screen of lies, myths, distortions, and evasions, the sole purpose of
which has been to reconcile or nullify the conflict between economic self-interest, on the
one hand, and sympathy and affection on the other.”55
The greatest harm caused by misothery, I emphasize, is the immense, ongoing toll in ani
mal suffering and death. But as the inheritors of agrarian culture’s misothery and beliefs
in human supremacy and human exceptionalism, people need to be shown how this harms
the human species as well. The harm is a worldview in which we despise too much of the
living world—including our animality and ourselves. Misothery makes us comfortable
with intensive animal exploitation, but it maintains ruthlessness and detachment in our
culture. What could be a more loving, whole human spirit is maimed; what could be a
greater sense of kinship, of belonging in the world, is cut off. Consequently, our feeling
for the living world is numbed, or worse, entirely negative. We feel disenchanted, dispirit
ed, disillusioned. Our deepest feeling for this life is malaise, so we long for the next. Our
deepest feeling for the living world is horror, so we strive to destroy it.
The agrarian culture makes us despise and try to control the animal within us. By this I
mean our animality, which is several things. One is the simple, biological fact that we are
animals—primates, to be precise. If this causes amusement or discomfort, then I have
made my point: We don’t like to think of ourselves as animals or even as closely related to
animals. Our animality also includes the body, its natural cycles and functions. These tend
to remind us of our closeness to animals, so we control, hide, and deny them.
In European society, Keith Thomas says, morals, religion, polite education, “civility,” and
refinement were all “intended to raise men above animals.”58 An influential textbook on
civility by Erasmus, says Thomas, “made differentiation from animals the very essence of
good table manners, more so even than differentiation from ‘rustics.’ ”59 Because all of
the bodily functions had undesirable animal associations, “some commentators thought
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
that it was physical modesty, even more than reason, which distinguished men from
beasts.”60 Thomas tells of Cotton Mather, the New England puritan preacher who wrote
in his diary about an incident in which he was urinating (“emptying the cistern of na
ture”) at a wall. At the same moment, a dog came along, hoisted his leg and peed near
him. Mather wrote, “What mean and vile things are the children of men … . How much do
our natural necessities abase us, and place us … on the same level with the very dogs!”61
Mather wrote that, from then on, whenever nature called to “debase me into the condi
tion of the beast,”62 he would “make it an opportunity of (p. 148) shaping in my mind some
holy, noble, divine thought” and to practice “thoughts of piety wherein I may differ from
the brutes.”63
Thomas gives many examples of European society’s negativity about human animality. All
bodily impulses were regarded “as ‘animal’ ones, needing to be subdued,” and “lust in
particular, was synonymous with the animal condition.”64 Words like “brute,” “bestial,”
and “beastly” had much stronger sexual connotations than they do today. In bestiaries
and emblem books, the moral textbooks of the Middle Ages, animals mostly symbolize las
civiousness or sexual infidelity.
Besides lust, European society saw many other reminders of human animality. John Stu
art Mill stressed cleanliness because its opposite, “more than anything else, renders man
bestial.”65 Nakedness, too, was bestial. Men who had unduly long hair were considered
bestial. It was bestial, Thomas noted, to work at night because that is the time when, as
one period writer said, “beasts run about seeking their prey.”66 It was bestial even to go
swimming because it was a form of movement more natural to animals than to humans.
And moralists frowned upon people dressing up in animal disguises, for that flirted with
crossing the boundaries.
Most despised of all, however, was bestiality, the crime of having sex with an animal,
which was a capital offense in some New England colonies and was a felony crime in
most states until recently.67 In the Middle Ages, both the human and the animal were exe
cuted. It is telling of society’s low regard for animals that the great offense was not the
rape of the animal. “The sin,” Thomas says, “was the sin of confusion; it was immoral to
mix the categories.”68 As one Stuart-era moralist put it, “[I]t turns man into a very beast,
makes a man a member of a brute creature.”69
But try as hard as we might, we are still conscious, albeit at the lower levels, of our own
animality. We don’t dwell on it, but we know that some aspects of human nature, our be
havior, and body are animal-like. The misothery in our culture, then, produces a schizoid
view of ourselves: It exalts some of ourselves while it debases the rest of ourselves.
Misothery sets us up for inner conflict. For if human beings are exalted and animals and
nature are base, then anything we have in common with other animals is base and some
thing to be despised, controlled, hidden, and denied, such as sexuality.
The early Christian patriarchs advanced the notion that sex was so generally evil (Satan
borrowed the practice “from the irrational animals” to tempt Adam and Eve) that it is
best avoided altogether. St. Paul, for example, declared, “It is good for a man not to touch
a woman.”71 Clement warned married couples, “Not even at night, although in darkness,
is it fitting to carry on immodestly or indecently, but with modesty, so that (p. 149) whatev
er happens, happens in the light of reason … for even that union which is legitimate is
still dangerous, except in so far as it is engaged in procreation of children.”72
For Augustine, Adam and Eve’s intercourse “permanently corrupted human nature as
well as nature in general.”73 This fits with the larger idea that human original sin corrupt
ed the world. “Nature,” Augustine wrote, “which the first human being harmed, is miser
able.”74
Conclusion
Our evolution of mind and culture—our views of the world—were made of animals. The
worldview of primal societies saw kinship and continuity with other beings. Domestica
tion and agrarian societies changed all that and brought animals and nature down to infe
rior things for human exploitation. To do so, they invented a set of ideas—which I have
termed misothery—literally hatred of and contempt for animals, animality, and nature.
While this attitude toward the living world has raised human status and made industrial-
scale exploitation of animals and nature somewhat emotionally comfortable, it has
brought unfortunate side effects. We are ashamed of our own animality. Our exploitation,
our ever-expanding human numbers and material demands, are causing an unsustainable
impact on the living world, and we may be too alienated by misothery to reverse it. To
come to terms with nature, to find our place in the living world, we need to come to terms
with animals, for animals are fundamental to it all.
Notes:
(1.) John Rodman, “The Dolphin Papers,” in North American Review 2 (Spring 1974): 20.
(2.) Barry Holstun Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978),
196.
(3.) Paul Shepard, Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence
(New York: Viking Press, 1978).
(4.) Joseph Clark, Beastly Folklore (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1968).
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
(5.) Rodman, “Dolphin Papers”; Lopez, Wolves; Mary Midgeley, Beast and Man: The Roots
of Human Nature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978); Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson,
Beasts: What Animals Can Teach Us about Human Nature (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
The most thorough exploration of the use of animals to disparage is in Keith Thomas, Man
and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon Books,
1983).
(7.) Shepard, Thinking Animals; Yi-Fu Tuan, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984); Thomas, Man/Natural World.
(9.) Pat Shipman, The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), 196.
(13.) Jared Diamond, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” Discover,
May 1987.
(14.) Shipman, Animal Connection; David A. Nibert, Animal Oppression and Human Vio
lence: Domesecration, Capitalism and Global Conflict (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2013); Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Eu
rope 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Shepard, Thinking Ani
mals. See also Jim Mason, An Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature
(New York: Lantern Books, 2005), for more information about the role of animal domesti
cation, herding, and husbandry in shaping the Western worldview.
(17.) Joseph Campbell, Historical Atlas of World Mythology, vol. 1, The Way of the Animal
Powers, part 1, Mythologies of the Primitive Hunters and Gatherers (New York: Harper &
Row/Perennial, 1988).
(20.) Richard Lewinsohn, Animals, Men and Myths (New York: Harper and Bros., 1954),
68.
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
(21.) Shepard, Thinking Animals, 154.
(22.) Gerhard Lenski and Jean Lenski, Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociolo
gy, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 224.
(29.) Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” in The Interpretation
of Cultures, ed. Clifford Geertz (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 412–453.
(30.) Linda Kalof, “Animal Blood Sport: A Ritual Display of Masculinity and Sexual Virili
ty,” Sociology of Sport Journal 31 (2014): 438–454.
(33.) Quoted in Andree Collard and Joyce Contrucci, Rape of the Wild: Man’s Violence
against Animals and the Earth (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 20. For the
Gilgamesh epic with commentary, see Stephen Mitchell, Gilgamesh: A New English Ver
sion (New York: Simon and Schuster / Free Press, 2004).
(35.) Quoted in Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), 132.
(37.) Frances Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the End of the Middle Ages
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 41.
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
(43.) Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1987); Shepard, Thinking Animals; Nibert, Animal Oppression.
(46.) Kenneth Clark, Animals and Men: Their Relationship as Reflected in Western Art
from Prehistory to the Present Day (New York: Morrow, 1977), 16.
(51.) Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog (London, Methuen, 1954), vii.
(52.) For a review of the representation of animals in folklore, see Boria Sax’s chapter,
“Animals in Folklore,” in this volume.
(57.) Paul Shepard and Daniel McKinley, eds. The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an
Ecology of Man (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 8.
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Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes, and
Repercussions
(66.) Quoted in Thomas, Man/Natural World, 39.
(67.) John M. Scheb II, Criminal Law, 7th ed. (Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2014).
(70.) Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity
(New York: Random House, 1988), 11.
(71.) Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge against Nature (New
York: Harper and Row, 1981), 15.
Jim Mason
Independent Scholar
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
This chapter surveys the constellation of recent contributions to animal studies from Con
tinental European quarters of philosophy and theory. The first section treats existentialist
and phenomenological approaches (e.g., Levinas’ account of face-to-face encounter,
Hart’s emphasis on relationships and community, and Acampora’s notion of symphysis or
somatic sympathy), the second treats poststructural hermeneutic and deconstructive ones
(e.g., Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic account of becoming and Derrida’s treatment of
theoretical animality and an actual animal), and the final section relates these perspec
tives to Anglophonic analyses of animal studies/ethics (including normative ethics, moral
psychology, and metaethics) and interprets the posthumanist upshot of Continental reflec
tions thereon (which takes us well and truly beyond anthropocentrism).
Existential Phenomenology
ALTHOUGH much animal philosophy was, in its first and second generations, dominated
by analytic and feminist approaches, by the 1990s, reflections on animality also turned to
(or emerged from) Continental European traditions of philosophy, including phenomenolo
gy, existentialism, and hermeneutics.1 The present author was deeply involved in this
“Continental turn” and contributed to its development by taking up the posthumanist
project of re-appreciating bodily animacy as such in order to expand the range of caring
regard in recognizing our status as animate zoomorphs. I undertook that task by engag
ing a bio-existential hermeneutic of body, in view of Edith Wyschogrod’s observation that
“classical phenomenology’s account of the body subject [can be] recontextualized so as to
highlight the body’s receptive capacities, its vulnerabilities, its patience; it is thus replete
with ethical significations.”2 Interpreting embodiment phenomenologically along these
lines, I claimed that we could enter a mode of philosophizing that would be fruitful for in
terspecies ethics—because the live body of experience is the primary locus of existential
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
commonality between human animals and other organisms, and because the appreciation
of commonality undergirding differentiation enables the growth of moral relationships. I
suggested that we might ground moral compassion for other animals in the sensation of
sharing carnal vulnerability (rather than, say, various mental abilities).
This overview could stand some elaboration. On a somatic level, then, it seems to me that
we are aware of our own physical vulnerability—susceptibility to injury, illness, and infir
mity—just in virtue of being entities aware of their animate flesh. We might share this
sort of somatic sensitivity with another (kind of) organism in the minimal (p. 153) sense of
becoming conscious that our susceptibility to suffer harm is like that of the other organ
ism. My claim on this construal is that such minimal mutuality of common carnal nature
suffices phenomenologically to establish compassionate concern for the other—in the
mode of his being the proper object or patient of ethical consideration. In another,
stronger sense of sharing, the second party might also become aware that our vulnerabili
ty is similar to her own; this richer form of reciprocity is requisite, it appears to me, for
interspecific compassion to take on the facet of respect—whereby both parties appropri
ately regard each other as moral subjects, agents, or actors.3 Some of our relationships
with other primates (particularly apes), with cetaceans (such as dolphins), and most espe
cially, with domesticated companion or work animals (such as dogs and horses) feature
reciprocally cognizant compassion grown into moral respect.
Now, typically, ethicists who champion compassion tend to assume or stress a mentalistic
account of empathetic concern (via projective imagination, for example). Diverging from
this sort of moral psychology, I have contended that (especially cross-species) moral life is
primarily rooted—as a matter of phenomenal fact—in corporal “symphysis” rather than in
entirely mental maneuvers directed toward sympathy. As I have used it, symphysis is
meant to designate the felt sense of sharing with somebody else a live nexus as experi
enced in a somatic setting of direct or systemic (inter)relationship.4 (Some human exam
ples may help illustrate the sort of phenomena to which I refer: they range from negative
feelings of sympathy-pain to positive feelings of sexual intimacy; pregnancy and nursing
are particularly thick instances, physical collaboration or teamwork is an intermediate il
lustration, and sensing tools or enclosures as extensions of one’s body are relatively thin
ner examples.) I believe that speaking of symphysis is the best way to describe the proto-
ethical feeling that assures us of another animal being’s moral considerability. Inferential
reasoning by analogy may rationally justify that assurance, and appealing to psychologi
cal theory of imagination may scientifically explain it via empathic projection, but only so
matologies, as it were, of genus-being and of alien specificity can properly articulate the
actual experience of conviviality that is at stake.5 From this last perspective, then, an
ethos sculpted somatically by symphysical encounters would inform a character or cul
ture that is morally sensitive to the being-in-the-world (or existential element) of flesh, in
cluding that carnal vulnerability shared with any live body as such. Such sensitivity is
made appreciative and appreciable by our own bodily participation as animals ourselves
in the corporal life-world.6
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
Take the former category first. It bespeaks the second-person voice of ethical address, as
in the locution, “it is to you, my neighbor, that I am obliged.” Stereotypically, by (p. 154)
anthropocentric default, it is assumed by many that a neighbor in this sense must be hu
man. However, it has been suggested lately by some that there are or can be “nonhuman
neighbors” in the sense of that term developed by the twentieth-century French philoso
pher and rabbi Emmanuel Levinas, for whom the face as such is a primordial marker of
moral importunity. Indeed, for Levinas, the ego does not preexist encounter with the
other’s face—“I” exist only as recognition of the other’s claim on me arrives, as a poten
tial agent of responsibility to someone else emerges, through facial mediation. The ques
tion then arises, in the context of animal ethics, could the face of my neighbor be that of a
nonhuman creature? It certainly seems that Levinas countenances this possibility when
he refers to a particularly convivial dog outside his WWII prison camp as “the last Kant
ian in Nazi Germany” (because the canine bore witness to the dignity of the prisoners).7
In fact, he explicitly encourages biocentric readings of morality when he admits, “It is
clear that… . the ethical extends to all living beings.”8
Something similar is afoot—on the level of first-person plural address—when James Hart
interprets Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology so that “human beings can say ‘we’
of the ‘biotic community’ and, even more so, of nonhuman animal persons in ways analo
gous to how human beings say ‘we’ in reference to one another.”9 This sort of talk may
sound nonsensical, especially to ears trained by and into humanist discourse, but it is jus
tified when “there is awareness that the good of each is bound up with the good of all and
that humans willy-nilly act in such a way that the well-being of the other members of the
biotic community is affected.”10 Moreover, the communal significance of saying “we”
thickens when the others so collected under that mode of address are themselves plausi
bly considered subjects of intentional consciousness. “For example, with my cats and
dogs,” Hart illustrates, “I have confidence that I know their intentions from observing
their behavior in the third-person as well as from our mutual efforts at communication.”11
The approaches just sketched are not without their shortcomings, and these flaws are ac
knowledged by the propounding thinkers themselves. The chief problem is that approach
es rooted in mentalistic personhood have a built-in bias, placing mature humans at the
head of a moral hierarchy (unless we rate cetacean subjectivity above our own or include
suprahuman, say, extraterrestrial or divine, entities into our picture of ethics). So, for
Levinas, though “one cannot entirely refuse the face of an animal… . yet the priority here
is not found in the animal, but in the human face”—indeed, “the human face is completely
different, and only afterwards do we discover the face of an animal.”12 And Hart’s at
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
struction
It is worth noting, at this juncture, that animal ethics is currently undergoing transforma
tion into a comparatively more comprehensive field, one that goes beyond an earlier pre
occupation with the right and wrong of this or that action, practice, or policy affecting
nonhumans and now also takes up matters concerning the ontology of animality. This is
not surprising, as much moral philosophy has shown a historical tendency to beg the
more metaphysical questions germane to the original region of ethical interest—it helps,
in other words, to know what we are ultimately confronted with if we want to reflect on
how we ought to deal with it. So animal philosophy has come to encompass more than ani
mal ethics; it also includes what can be referred to as philosophical zoology (resemblant
to, though more capacious than and not necessarily modeled after, the field of thought
known as philosophical anthropology). Indeed, current projects of inquiry are attracting
greater notice and bearing greater influence than ever before.
With respect to recent Continental treatments in this area, there is a trend to take inspi
ration from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. This pair of thinkers challenged
the very premise of (most prior) animal ontology—namely, that different kinds of organ
isms have substantial essences or existential structures that are the proper objects of
such study, so that there is or are animal being(s). What Deleuze and Guattari proposed is
to concentrate rather on historically contingent and profluently variable processes of ani
mal becoming, or in their parlance, “becoming-animal.” The notion of becoming-animal
was part of a larger program of theirs to destabilize certain concepts of reality that they
believed yoke us into psycho-politically oppressive modes of thinking and living. Chief
among these concepts are the twin ideas that true reality (the “really real” of classical
philosophy) is or should be characterized by identity and stasis, and that the phenomena
of diversity or change that must be admitted are best understood according to an “ar
borescent” paradigm of dualistic branching.15 As one commentator puts it, “Flux, change,
and relation are, for them, more real than permanence, stability, and identity.”16 The mod
el for such an outlook is not the sturdy, dualizing tree trunk but, instead, the amorphous,
self-differential rhizome—which image also connotes meanings of radicalism fully en
dorsed by Deleuze and Guattari.
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
How does all this rather abstract, somewhat flighty musing redound upon animality? It is
sometimes said of the late Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy of organismic
cosmology that it resembles dialectical metaphysics minus any Hegelian absolutism; one
could say of rhizomatic proliferation that it resembles Whiteheadian ontology minus the
organicism. Applied to animality, this means that “Deleuze and Guattari seek to establish
the derivative ontological status… . of the classificatory systems and theoretical concepts
of the biological sciences insofar as these rest upon notions such as organism, species
identification, evolutionary filiation, teleology, etc.”17 Standard conceptions of organicity
portray life-forms as coherent systems of functional parts that (p. 156) subserve the dic
tates of overarching totalities (organisms). Deleuzo-Guattarian becomings-animal, by con
trast, are never finished or determinate entities—rather, they are more like radically in
complete pulsions of force moving in between plateaus of impermanent conditions.18 Lest
one think this leaves us adrift in a purely anarchic chaos, it should be noted that Deleuze
and Guattari did sketch a threefold typology according to which we can distinguish Oedi
pal, state, and demonic animalities. These states, respectively, track domesticated, taxon
omized or mythologized, and pack or ferine forms of becoming-animal. The last pattern is
valorized because it is felt to release and multiply energies of creativity kept at bay by
Oedipal discipline or statist regimes.19 Some scholars put great stock in the Deleuzo-
Guattarian rhizomatics of becoming-animal.20 I am not so sure that a heavy investment is
warranted, however, because at the meso-level we inhabit during our everyday life with
other animals there is a good deal more stability (of being or essence) than some queer
states of affairs at the microscopic and cosmic levels might suggest to the partisans of un
limited flux.21
In addition to Deleuze and Guattari, and perhaps making an even bigger splash, the late
Jacques Derrida also contributed to animal philosophy by deconstructing our discourse of
animal being (or what he calls the animot). In lectures in the latter 1990s, he questioned
the term “animality” used in reference to “an immense group, a single and fundamentally
homogeneous set that one has [presumed] the right, the theoretical or philosophical
right, to distinguish and mark as opposite” to humanity.22 Nor, for Derrida, has this usage
been limited to abstruse corners of science or philosophy—indeed, challenge was convert
ed to condemnation when he excoriated the concept at stake thusly: “This agreement con
cerning philosophical sense and common sense that allows one to speak blithely of the
Animal in the general singular is perhaps one of the greatest and most symptomatic idio
cies of those who call themselves human.”23 Can we develop alternative discourses about
or conceptions of animals? According to Derrida, “we have to envisage the existence of
‘living creatures’ whose plurality cannot be assembled within the single figure of an ani
mality that is simply opposed to humanity”; stated again in another lecture, “that means
refraining from reducing [life-forms’] differentiated and multiple difference in a similarly
massive and homogenizing manner.”24 Whereas most Anglophonic philosophy regarding
other animals has tended to concern itself with interspecies ethics, Derrida does stake
out a transpecific ethical position, but he also accounts for the primordial ethos that moti
vates it, and mounts a deconstruction of humanism as well.
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
Broadly speaking, the ethico-juridical stance taken by Derrida is critical of violence, par
ticularly that visited on the relatively powerless by comparatively powerful perpetrators.
Diagnostically, he notes various parallels and discontinuities between human exploitation
and animal abuse.25 Therapeutically, he endorses a kind of protectionism that does not
trade in rights-talk—because the discourse of rights is beholden to the search for criteria
determinative of who can bear rights, which is too essentialist a project for him to counte
nance. Practically speaking, for Derrida, no program of nonviolence is ever perfectible;
thus he eschews moral purity and disavows the comfort/complacency of good conscience.
A concrete example of this is his vexed attitude (p. 157) with respect to veg(etari)anism:
we cannot rest easy, ethically, just because we don’t eat meat—because all agriculture in
volves sacrificing field animals, messing with natural ecosystems, and exploiting human
labor (e.g., migrant workers).
Beyond—or, better, behind—his moral position-taking, Derrida lays out a proto-ethical un
derstanding of human-animal relations. Basically, he sees encounter rather than argu
ment at the root of interspecies ethics—certain experiences of or with other animals
pierce through our sedimented dispositions and expose us to new insights/values. For ex
ample, the recognition of sharing bodily susceptibility to disease, damage, and death en
genders empathic sensitivity to suffering.26 Moreover, we come to realize that sentience
is not only a common capacity to feel our way through the lifeworld: Derrida suggests
that it also, for other creatures, marks an inability to avoid feelings. This is significant be
cause it means that, unlike (most) humans, (most) nonhumans can be enveloped in dis
tress without recourse to imaginative means of mollifying their negative passions. It is of
ten held that human suffering is worse than its animal counterparts, because the former
includes a dimension of mental anguish lacking in the latter varieties; however, Derrida
forces us to recognize the flip side of this point—namely, that other animals’ pain may
well be more excruciatingly sheer because they do not generally have the higher mental
faculties that humans can and do use to alleviate their own discomfort (i.e., complex men
tation has the potential not only to add to but also to subtract from, somatic stress).
Vulnerability is not the only kind of exposure to which other animals subject us humans.
Derrida also highlights the shame and embarrassment that can arise in cross-species con
tact: in “Animal I Am” he recounts his discomfiture, in a now-notorious encounter, at be
ing seen in the nude by a curious catling (a small cat, not a kitten). That this feline is ob
viously capable of regarding him, and naked no less, produces an eclipse of the species
solipsism we humans are prone to indulge in our exercises of self-consciousness and—es
teem. Moving beyond his mentor Levinas, for whom it was typically human(oid) faces only
that figured in self-constitution, and echoing Montaigne from centuries ago, Derrida
pushes egology into a social(izing) space of animal alterity. “‘I am inasmuch as I am after
the animal.’” he avers, “‘I am inasmuch as I am alongside the animal.”27
It should come as no surprise, thus, that Derrida disavows any liberatory logic based on
analogical argumentation (which presupposes that its analogues can be defined apart
from each other, and then compared for similarity). In other words, for him, standard
moral theories and juridico-political practices of animal liberation are rooted in expand
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
The upshot of these reflections is to reject humanimal continuism: “I believe that there is
a radical discontinuity between what one calls animals” and humanity [or “man”].29 Gone
is any talk of, or allusion to, some homogeneous essence putatively forming the core of a
generic animality. Instead, Derrida makes reference to animot—a neologism that in
French reads like “anima(l)-word” and sounds like “animal(itie)s,” it bespeaks plural sin
gularities of becoming; the Derridean discourse of zoology or, better, zoography,30 thus
trades in difference and relationships rather than in being and identity. Consistent with
this approach, Derrida rejects analyses of humanity’s unique essence in terms of “what is
proper” to (hu)mankind, and he prefers to speak of various life forms’ shared
“infrastructures” (e.g., supplementarity, tracing/tracking, differentiation).
How, then, are we to evaluate the Derridean contribution to animal studies—to what ex
tent is Derrida right on target or wrongheaded? Here, I would first flag his success in
stirring up the lazy ideology that riddles some precincts of animal ethics, the utopian
purism of hardcore animal rights advocacy, for example. On the other hand, he appears
not to be above trafficking in fallacious discourse: Derrida exhibits a tendency, for in
stance, to let his dramatic rhetoric get carried away into constructing straw men for cri
tique (hyperbolizing a position in order to all-too-easily knock it down). One case of this
problem occurs whenever he makes critical reference to the “exclusionary hierarchy” of
his opposition (e.g., the humanist legacy allegedly lurking in extensionist ethics)—which
sounds as if something avoidably bad has been outed. However, moral extensionism is not
necessarily an evil nor is ranking always avoidable: any axiology, as such, must prioritize
or esteem some things over others (attempting the alternative, equally valuing every
thing, in effect values nothing in particular and thus renders itself idle, if not incoherent);
all inclusions imply exclusions, and they are not undesirable or unjustifiable on that ac
count alone. There are times, in other words, when Derrida essentializes alleged essen
tialists, unfairly stereotyping his enemies in a negative light. The meliorism that mobilizes
much animal welfarism, for example, might very well be defensible contra Derridean
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
charges—prima facie, it seeks to better things for animal others without appeal to utopi
an ideology, purist cant, or noxious prejudice.
recent currents of rapprochement between the camps—that cannot be the whole story,
and probably, it is not even the main explanation. A different account is worth proffering
here: European approaches to animal ethics have gotten such short shrift in the English-
speaking academy because the professors and scholars therein largely have mistaken the
kind or branch of ethics that Continental thought has most informed and to which it is
best suited; more specifically, it can be said that reflection on interspecies morality con
ducted in Continental registers is much less about normative ethics as such than it is
about what Anglophones would call moral psychology (most appropriately) or metaethics
(more generically).32
Confusion about what Continental moral philosophy has been up to when it treads the do
main of animal ethics would explain the prevalence of a dismissive attitude about the
former’s seemingly thin contribution to the latter. For, if one is expecting normative ethics
and consequently looking for moral principles and practical prescriptions to be on offer,
one will indeed become disappointed by most of the fare served up in existentialist, phe
nomenological, and hermeneutic reflections on interspecies morality. These angles are, by
their very nature, inclined to deliver insight into the behavioral and cogitative presupposi
tions of ethical schemas, as well as the attitudinal dispositions implied by or consequent
upon such.33
There have been a number of Continental contributions to what might be called “trans-
human” morality (not to be confused with the futuristic movement of transhumanism).
Early on, H. Peter Steeves applied Husserlian phenomenology to ecologically inflected
communitarianism34; over the past generation, David Abram has done something similar
with Merleau-Ponty’s thought,35 and Elizabeth Behnke developed an interspecies ethos of
peace that is likewise rooted in the works of the canonical figures of phenomenology.36
More recently, various theorists have sought to cross-fertilize the interspecies and ethical
insights of existential, hermeneutic, and postmodern thinkers, such as Heidegger, Lev
inas, Derrida, Foucault, and Irigaray (among others).37 I myself have proposed that ani
mal ethicists shed anthropocentric hierarchy altogether—even (the risk of) its appearance
—and place their moral thought and political activity behind the truly posthumanist task
of re-appreciating bodily animacy as such. Thus, we may extend the range of caring re
gard in the very gesture of recognizing our own vital status as animate zoomorphs. Here
and elsewhere, I have suggested that we may ground moral compassion for other animals
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
in the sensation of sharing carnal vulnerability (rather than in the typical humanist ges
ture at mortality under the aspect of mental phenomena).
Panning out now and widening our scope to include a vantage on animal studies at large,
let us consider some impending changes across the field as a whole and then I will link
these to the developments in animal ethics just discussed. At the outset, we need to recall
some of the major currents flowing through animal studies since its formation in the
1990s, namely that the field took shape around certain positions staked on issues of ontol
ogy that were embedded in the multiple ambiguity of references to anything “animal.”
That term could be used in external reference to all or only other (non-human) species or
specimens, or it could refer internally to some (biological or emotional) aspect of our or
one’s (usually human) constitution. In half-Hegelian fashion, exercising analytical dynam
ics of self-othering while refusing synthetic totalities, animal scholars have been at pains
to demonstrate the diremptive or dispersive profligacy of the abstract categories or ideas
of both humanity and external animality. Over the past couple decades many thinkers—
from ecologist Paul Shepard40 and anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose41 to philosopher
Kelly Oliver42 and literary theorist Cary Wolfe,43 among a host of others—have subjected
human identity and definition to deconstructive analysis. The cumulative effect of their
work has been to demonstrate how pervasively and profoundly human constitution is me
diated by abjected aspects of its others, often “animalistic” elements (not only instincts or
drives, but also attitudes and cognitions) that are incorporated into and indeed help con
struct what is called too simply humanity.
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Likewise, another set of early moves in animal studies undertook to diversify the abstract
notion of animality as externally conceived. Think of similarly generic, now discredited
terminology in application to racial, ethnic, or demographic categories—“Negroes,” “the
Jew,” “Orient(al)”; such cultural misconstructions came under withering critique by a
great number of social science and humanities scholars, who were concerned to expose
the erasure of difference that these lazy and myopic terms helped constitute and perpetu
ate. Building upon biologists’ and zoologists’ attention to animal specificity (e.g., in the
works of founding figures from Darwin to Hediger),44 animal scholarship has cumulative
ly eroded conceptual stereotypy in the field. Arguably, this development came to a head in
Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of animot in his Cerisy (p. 161) lectures of the late 1990s
—often-cited work that performed much the same function for animal studies that Ed
ward Said’s Orientalism did for cultural studies a generation ago.45 The upshot here has
been to refocus attention on the specificity (and sometimes individuality) of animal beings
and becomings—for example (this or that particular) horse, raven, or octopus—rather
than gesturing at “the animal” as such or “animals” in general (terms that invite ideologi
cal abuse because they have at best only abstract or indeterminate reference, and at
worst none at all).
Up to this point, then, animal studies has shown up the “play of difference” that cuts
through humankind’s self-constitution and across the animal kingdom. The next horizon,
only most recently coming into view, takes the form of directing deconstructive analysis
upon any internal sense or essence of animality itself. Already suggested by some of
Wolfe’s later work and several articles or essays appearing lately in various journals,46
this frontier of inquiry demonstrates a maturation of the field to a point where it is pre
pared to confront and self-dissect its own central concept. Ideas as well as experiences of
animality overlap or intersect zones or axes of alterity, such that what is called animal can
be thought and felt to harbor traces or even forces of its others—somewhat as humanity
has been shown to be(come) a site of differences. Take, for exemplary instance, the key
feature of animacy itself: it is arguably at the core of animality, and yet is already prefig
ured in the growth patterns of plants or microbes and echoed in the auto-motion of ma
chines or codes. Exhibiting vitality as vegetal or plasmic proliferation, botanical and bac
terial beings belie the presumption that animation must be a molar characteristic only of
fauna moving on spatio-temporal scales akin to our own;47 likewise, developments in
biorobotics and experiments with artificial life or intelligence cast doubt on the assump
tion that properties of animacy or vitality must issue always only from the organic. Con
versely, and most salient for our present discussion, when we juxtapose the heliophilia of
flowers, trees, turtles, lizards, and human beachgoers, or when we take note of microbial
symbionts, helices of DNA or RNA, and cyborgian chimeras,48 we are confronted by and
must recognize our own incorporation into the diverse alterity of animality.
Where Aristotle once saw a biological field built out of tidy delineations of ensoulment
culminating in humanity, which already constituted an ontological hierarchy and was
arranged by his Christian followers into a theocentric “great chain of being,” the posthu
manist theorist Rosi Braidotti posits an amorphously profuse dynamism: “Bios/zoe as gen
erative vitality is a major transversal force that cuts across and reconnects previously
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
segregated domains” of life; “Zoe refers to the endless vitality of life as continuous be
coming.”49 Neither a chain, nor beings here—rather a fluxing interpenetration of animate
zones, the axes of which are constantly subject to shifting reorientations.50 Likewise, Tim
othy Morton’s ecocriticism has become of late a paean to hybridity: “All organisms are
monsters insofar as they are chimeras, made from the pieces of other creatures.”51
Marvelously “strange strangers,” life-forms morph into each other—“That’s the disturb
ing thing about animals,” prods Morton, “at bottom [in their algorithmic biochemistry]
they are vegetables.”52 Indeed, this penchant of vital processes for recursive iteration
connects animacy with inorganic elements; in other words, and to gesture at (p. 162) the
origin of genetics, “the movement that commences ‘life’ is to be found within matter it
self.”53 Thus, according to these voices on the horizon of animal studies, the dance of
identity and alterity moves all the way through and across animality and its others.54
We are now in position to recapitulate some of this entry’s main points, tie them together,
and reveal an important implication of their linkage. Regarding animal ethics, I have ar
gued that contributions of a later generation from the quarters of continental European
philosophy are better understood as forms of meta-ethics or moral psychology than as
normative ethics per se—and that what we discover or highlight from such a perspective
is the salience for inter-species morality of emotive and/or embodied exposure (i.e. affect,
the somatic, and vulnerability as registered in actual experience). This represents a diver
gence from first-generation, Anglo-American analyses of animal ethics, which were wont
to emphasize sapient or sentient subjectivity, rational rule-making or calculation, and/or
abstract argumentation.
That analytic mode of doing animal ethics has had a tendency to take (explicitly or implic
itly) “the human mind” as a paradigm of ethically significant capacity, therefrom to focus
on mentality per se as the keystone for establishing moral standing, and consequently to
become vested heavily in neuroscientific and cognitive-studies searches for evidence of
truly anthropomorphic mental features of nonhuman animals. These endeavors are in
deed helpful in undermining one aspect of what primatologist Frans de Waal has called
“anthropodenial.”55 Yet anthropodenial has a flip side—namely, the refusal to see zoomor
phic characteristics in ourselves—and the subversion of this facet requires a different
vantage, one more like the perspective we get from Continental European (and feminist
care approaches) to animal ethics. Because these later-generation, relatively heterodox
frames of reference start from an immersive awareness of bodily and affective experi
ence, they concentrate on the marvel of the diverse capacities and liabilities manifest
throughout the field of life (rather than being fascinated by our own species’ worthy
splendor and questing for others’ approximation thereto). This outlook’s openness to di
versity invites the attention of animal studies to the (inter)relations, overlaps, and criss
crosses just surveyed.
In other words, then, the diversification of inquiry in animal ethics and in animal studies
at large can be seen to braid together—in such a way as to alter and enrich our concep
tions of both morality and animality. The alternative and changing approaches that I have
tracked here may be described as mounting a more thoroughgoing transcendence of an
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
thropocentrism than hitherto has been accomplished, one that at first glance mobilizes
epistemological and ethical polycentrism. I say “at first glance” because in actual opera
tion the multiplicity of viewpoints at stake dissolves the very notion of center(ing) itself,
and so what we have in fact is perhaps better denominated “a-centrism.”56 Yet this last
remark of mine does not mean that we are left only or simply with an endless or entropic
play of difference—rather, attention to embodied/affective exposure ethically and to stria
tions of alterity implicates us ontologically in the tension between similarity and variety.57
Fascination with and appreciation of this tension seems to me, and seems to be, precisely
what is so attractive and compelling to us about other animals: from such a perspective
various creatures become for us instances neither of deviant similitude (p. 163) (à la an
thropocentrism) nor of absolute alterity (à la poststructuralism) but rather of related oth
erness (as per duly existential/hermeneutic phenomenology).
Postscript
It is impossible, within tolerable scope, to represent all the relevant Continental Euro
pean figures. What I have striven for is not to exhaust the field but rather to exemplify it,
so as to highlight or illustrate its content sufficiently to give readers a working sense of
the main themes treated and moves made. Even with that said, some will find the ab
sence of this or that author—Michel Foucault or Giorgio Agamben, say—entirely regret
table. I share this disappointment myself, yet hasten to point out that most of those not
covered (including the two just mentioned) did not themselves make animal others a fo
cus of their thought—rather they had more to say about the human animal specifically or
its interface with alter-animality, and it was left to followers or commentators to make ex
plicit the ramifications of their thinking for our understanding of other organisms.58
Acknowledgments
The appreciative author is grateful to Linda Kalof for her accommodating and patient edi
torship. I would also like to thank Hofstra University for release time to work on this
project and the Humane Society of the United States for a special place to pursue it (a
writing cabin on their wildland trust property in northern Maine).
Notes:
(1.) Portions of this first section are revised from my “Animal Philosophy: Bioethics and
Zoontology,” chap. 6, in A Cultural History of Animals in the Modern Age, ed. R. Malamud
(Oxford: Berg, 2007/2011), 149–152, 156–57, 159–60.
(2.) Edith Wyschogrod, “Does Continental Ethics Have a Future?” in Ethics and Danger,
ed. A. Dallery, C. Scott, and P. Roberts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992),
236.
(3.) Mental factors (e.g., second-order consciousness of each other’s mutual recognition)
must also come into play for respect in this sense to emerge fully as a moral phenomenon.
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
(4.) David Seamon used symphysis in his “Different Worlds Coming Together,” in Dwelling,
Seeing, and Designing (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). As he noted
there (at p. 230), the word had originated in medical usage and meant in ancient Greek
“the state of growing together” (as in, e.g., the fusion of bones).
(5.) European philosophy from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx evolved a tradition of philo
sophic anthropology on the premise of studying strictly the human animal’s species being;
the posthumanist task before us late moderns is to go beyond that tradition’s homo-exclu
sive bounds into the ontology of both generic animality (if there be such) and nonhuman
speciations (to whatever extent accessible).
(6.) Compare Sue Cataldi’s Emotion, Depth, and Flesh (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1993) and the neo-Confucian ideal of “forming One Body” with all other cor
poreal beings, as per Wang Yang-ming, in Tu Weiming’s “The Ecological Turn in New Con
fucian Humanism,” Tasan Lect. #1, S. Korea, 11/2001, http://smedia.vermotion.com/me
dia/12002/resources/TuEcology.pdf (accessed June 1, 2007).
(7.) E. Levinas, “The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights,” in Animal Philosophy: Essential
Readings in Continental Thought, ed. Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton (London: Con
tinuum, 2004).
(12.) Levinas, “Name of a Dog,” in Animal Philosophy, Calarco and Atterton, 49.
(15.) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophre
nia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).
(16.) James Urpeth, “Animal Becomings,” in Animal Philosophy, Calarco and Atterton,
102.
(17.) Urpeth, “Animal Becomings,” Animal Philosophy, Calarco and Atterton, 104.
(18.) For an illustration of such animality, see the discourse on rats that runs through
Nick Land’s “Spirit and Teeth,” in Of Derrida, Heidegger, and Spirit, ed. D. Wood
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993).
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
(20.) See, e.g., Keith Ansell-Pearson’s postmodern variant of Bergsonism in Germinal Life
(London: Routledge, 1999).
(21.) Compare Xavier Vitamvor’s “Unbecoming Animal Studies,” Minnesota Review 73/74
(2010): 183–187.
(22.) Jacques Derrida, “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” trans. D. Wills, Critical Inquiry
28, no. 2 (2002): 408.
(24.) Derrida, “The Animal I Am,” 415; the second part of the quotation is from J. Derrida,
“And Say the Animal Responded?” trans. D. Wills, in Zoontologies, ed. C. Wolfe (Min
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 128.
(26.) Compare Ralph Acampora, Corporal Compassion: Animal Ethics and Philosophy of
Body (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).
(28.) It is noteworthy that the result here is either erasure or debilitation—i.e., emphati
cally not the critical leverage mustered by the analysis of the in/famous “argument from
marginal cases” (wherein animal others are rendered comparable to infants, the senile,
or mentally handicapped humans).
(29.) Jacques Derrida, with Elisabeth Roudinesco, “Violence and Animals,” in For What
Tomorrow… .: A Dialogue, trans. J. Fort (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004),
73.
(30.) See, e.g., Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heideg
ger to Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), esp. chap. 4.
(31.) Portions of this section are revised from my “Diversification of Inquiry in Animal
Ethics and Animal Studies,” presented at New York University (10/2011) and the Univer
sity of Utrecht (7/2012); a French version of that talk has appeared as “La diversification
de la recherche en éthique animale et en études animales,” trans.Frédéric Baitinger,
PhaenEx: revue de théorie et culture existentialistes et phénoménologiques 8, no 2
(2013): 28–46, http://www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/phaenex/article/view/
4086/3156 (accessed 1/2/14).
(32.) About the terminology: in contemporary philosophy “metaethics” refers to highly ab
stract or foundational inquiry of a second-order nature relative to moral codes or theories
per se (e.g., at issue is not what one ought to do, but rather what “ought” even means; at
stake is not whether this or that is good/right or bad/evil, but instead whether there even
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
(33.) For examples, see two research compendia of related scholarship: Calarco and At
terton, Animal Philosophy, and Steeves, Animal Others.
(35.) David Abram, The Spell of Sensuous (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1996/1997)
and Becoming Animal (New York: Random House/Vintage, 2010/2011).
(37.) See, e.g., the contributions in Animal Philosophy, Calarco and Atterton.
(38.) See, e.g., Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, (ed.), Moral Psychology, vols. 1–4 (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2007–2014).
(40.) P. Shepard, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human (Washington, DC, and Covelo,
CA: Island Press, 1997).
(41.) Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and Land in an Australian Aborigi
nal Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
(42.) Kelly Oliver, Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009).
(43.) Cary Wolfe, Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthu
manist Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Cary Wolfe, (ed.), Zoontolo
gies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).
(44.) See, e.g., Charles Darwin’s “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties,” present
ed to the Linnean Society (London: July 1, 1858), and Heini Hediger’s Wild Animals in
Captivity, trans. G. Sircom (London: Butterworth, 1950).
(45.) See J. Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, ed. M. -L. Mallet, trans. D. Wills
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2008); Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Ran
dom House/Vintage, 1978/1979).
(46.) For the former, see C. Wolfe, What Is Post-Humanism? (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2010); for the latter, see, e.g., Antennae 17 (Summer 2011), “Why Look
at Plants?” (a gloss on John Berger’s seminal text, “Why Look at Animals?”, from his 1980
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Continental Approaches to Animals and Animality
(49.) Rosi Braidotti, Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2006), 99
and 41, respectively.
(50.) There are neo-Nietzschean echoes in such pronouncements. Compare “This world: a
monster of energy, without beginning, without end… . that does not expend itself but only
transforms itself… . as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and
many… . a sea of forces flowing and rushing together” (sec. 1067), from Neitzsche, The
Will to Power, ed. W. Kaufmann, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. Hollingdale (New York: Vin
tage, 1968), 550.
(51.) Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University
Press, 2010), 66.
(55.) Frans de Waal, “Are We in Anthropodenial?,” Discover 18, no. 7 (1997): 50–53.
(57.) Compare Elisa Aaltola’s “ ‘Other Animal Ethics’ and the Demand for Difference,” En
vironmental Values 11 (2002): 193–209.
(58.) Good places to expand the breadth (and depth) of one’s survey of Continental ani
malia would be the compendia Calarco and Atterton, Animal Philosophy, as well as the
memoir by Oliver, Animal Lessons.
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Ralph Acampora
Page 17 of 17
Animals as Legal Subjects
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Aug 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.13
This chapter contrasts the dominant sense of the phrase “animals as legal subjects,”
which minimizes fundamental protections for nonhuman animals, with alternative senses
of the same phrase that focus on nonhuman animals’ realities, such as consciousness and
intelligence. Support for the alternatives comes from developments within different do
mains, including legal education and society more broadly, where the meaning of such
phrases as “legal person,” “legal personhood,” and “legal rights” is being debated regard
ing companion animals, wildlife, and many other forms of life. The upshot of the debate
taking place over the status of nonhuman animals in law and broader phenomenon of hu
man exceptionalism is a wide-ranging discussion of additional forms of animal protection.
Keywords: legal person, legal personhood, legal thing, legal rights, legal subjects, nonhuman animals, companion
animals, wildlife, human exceptionalism, education
TO illuminate what is at issue when someone uses the phrase “animals as legal subjects,”
this chapter contrasts the dominant sense of the phrase with two other senses that,
though used less, are today catalyzing different ways of thinking about nonhuman ani
mals in contemporary legal systems.
The dominant sense of “animals as legal subjects” is rooted in the use of the term “legal
subject” as a synonym for the term “legal person.” In modern legal systems, humans are
the paradigmatic legal subjects and thus comprise the entire universe of legal persons. A
by-product of this form of thinking is the exclusion of any and all nonhuman animals from
the important circle of beings who benefit from the most fundamental and effective legal
protections available. The exclusion of nonhuman animals means that the most common
manner in which legal systems deal with living beings outside our own species is to rele
gate them to a category separate from and below the category used solely for humans.
Nonhuman animals are thus members of the category “legal things” and can be owned as
property by any “legal person.” The status of legal things relative to that of legal person
is so shorn of legal protections that nonhuman animals are often described as mere legal
things.
Page 1 of 23
Animals as Legal Subjects
An important feature of modern legal systems, however, is that, conceptually, the notion
“legal persons” is broader than the notion “humans.” In other words, there is nothing in
herent in the concept of “legal persons” that requires it to be used for humans alone. In
the simplest conceptual terms, “a legal person” is a living being or artificial entity, such
as a legally formed corporation, that contemporary legal systems protect by according it
legal protections, such as specific legal rights or other law-based shields against certain
obvious harms. Further, while the paradigm of legal protections is granting a legal right
to an individual, there is no consensus on a single, precise definition of the tool we call
“legal rights.” Here the term is used to mean specific protections and privileges recog
nized in legal systems that are made effective because the legal system (p. 168) also offers
any holder of such a right access to courts or other decision-makers that can prompt en
forcement of those protections and privileges or remedy violations of them. Such legal
protections can be anchored in various aspects of a legal system, such as a constitution,
specific legislation, a long-recognized tradition, or judicial decisions that outline what
such protections mean for a particular individual or group. Despite its conceptual breadth
and potential inclusiveness, the notion of “legal person” has for historical and political
reasons remained radically human-centered, thereby giving the phrase “animals as legal
subjects” an odd ring—as “legal things,” nonhuman animals (which is how the word “ani
mals” in the phrase “animals as legal subjects” is usually understood) are the very oppo
sites of “subjects” entitled to determine their own fate.
One of the most significant consequences flowing from legal systems’ framing of the
world in terms of legal persons versus legal things is a radical human-centeredness, and
there is no symbol of this dualism more potent or influential than the property concept.
Further, whatever form ownership takes (individually based, or collectively framed), it is
far more than a mere legal relationship—it is also a central psychological, social, econom
ic, religious, intellectual, cultural, political, and environmental reality for today’s humans.
This complex mix, which comprises the inheritance of citizens in modern economies, ex
plains why control and domination of valued nonhuman animals by certain humans and
extermination of unwanted “pests” have been central historical facts in modern industri
alized societies organized around the pivotal legal concepts of legal persons’ ownership of
legal things in the tradition of what lawyers call “personal property” (as distinct from
land, which is “real property”).
The most common manner in which legal systems deal with any and all nonhuman ani
mals, then, is to relegate them to a category separate from and below the category used
solely for humans and, sometimes, various human-created enterprises. The result has
been that modern societies have failed to notice other animals or take them seriously. For
a variety of reasons, this problem is today being challenged in a variety of ways that cre
ate opportunities to use phrases such as “animals as legal subjects” in new and provoca
tive ways.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
There is a certain irony in the legal system’s refusal to engage other animals’ subjectivity,
of course, since many individual citizens who are heirs of Western culture structure their
lives in ways that reveal they deem compassion for nonhuman animals to be morally im
portant—an example of such caring is the widespread tendency to protect certain nonhu
mans from cruelty and other harms. In a similar vein, the Western literary tradition has
featured much creative writing written from a nonhuman point of view. This approach has
exploded since Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty was published in 1877. One of the best-selling
books of all time (more than 50 million copies sold), this classic spawned many other fic
tion and nonfiction creations that raise the issue of other animals’ points of view.
The common-sense notion that some nonhuman animals have a point of view and thus
their own subjectivity is richly supported by science today, an example of which is Alexan
dra Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, published in 2009.
Many other animals have benefited from a flowering of interest in studies focused on spe
cific nonhuman animals that seek to confirm extraordinary complexities such as personal
ity differences, emotions, cognitive skills, rich communication patterns, intelligence of
many kinds, and even social regulatory schemes that are precursors, perhaps even kin
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Animals as Legal Subjects
dred, to humans’ own remarkable moral abilities—a recent science-focused book that de
scribes a wide range of such findings is Frans de Waal’s The Bonobo and the Atheist: In
Search of Humanism among the Primates, published in 2013. The widely shared view that
a significant number of nonhuman animals have their own subjectivities, interests, emo
tions, intelligence, and communities has created pressure inside modern legal systems to
expand protections beyond the species line.
Concern
Another sense of animals as legal subjects is far more prosaic—nonhuman animals have
long been a subject in the sense of a topic dealt with in legal practice circles and law edu
cation. How “(nonhuman) animals as legal topics” have been handled was well represent
ed by John Ingham in 1900, in his treatise The Law of Animals, the first systematic, book-
length work on the human treatment of nonhuman animals in common law legal
systems.1 The subtitle of the book—“A Treatise on Property in Animals Wild and Domestic
and the Rights and Responsibilities Arising Therefrom”—reveals that the subject of ani
mals (or, if one chooses to employ scientifically correct terminology, of nonhuman ani
mals) is, as a legal topic, dominated by another feature of the legal system. Even the most
cursory review of Ingham’s approach reveals that property concepts are the organizing
principle of the book, and the rights mentioned are always those of humans. Note, for ex
ample, how the notion of property is the organizing concept in each of the book’s seven
divisions or “titles”:
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• Chapter I, Bailment
• Chapter II, Carriers of Animals
While Ingham’s book was groundbreaking, it contains almost nothing about the
(p. 171)
various ways in which legal systems can be used to protect nonhuman animals as valu
able beings (or subjects) in and of themselves (the one exception is Title VI, which raises
the issue of cruelty but then turns quickly to game laws).
Exactly a century later, however, dramatic evolution within the American legal system
was evident when the first edition of the casebook Animal Law was published.2 The domi
nant textbook used in American animal law courses offered by law schools today (the fifth
edition was published in 2014), it cited some of the same laws that Ingham had cited be
cause the basic principles of property law as they apply to nonhuman animals have not
changed essentially in the intervening century. But there is no mistaking that the editors
of this new casebook employed a radically different approach to the general topic. For ex
ample, there is much more focus on the ways in which the American legal system’s under
lying principles and other features, such as enforcement realities, impact the living be
ings around us. The editors of the casebook included discussions of the historical consid
erations by which nonhuman animals became property; they also included wide-ranging
materials on both legal and moral rights for other animals and the link between violence
against humans and violence against the living beings outside the human species. Inter
ested in creating a teaching tool, the editors also included many questions that strongly
suggest that they were, unlike Ingham, committed to changing the legal system to make
it more responsive to nonhuman animals’ interests. In addition, the editors’ approach fea
tures both language and concepts developed in the animal protection movement that had
been reinvigorated decades earlier by Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975). This as
pect of the 2000 casebook is revealed in the editors’ observations about the both the
strengths and weaknesses of the legal reasoning evident in precedents, as well as the
conceptual and political possibilities of various kinds of new protections for nonhuman
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Animals as Legal Subjects
animals (usually, though not always, the animals to be protected are in the category of
other animals now referred to as “companion animals”).
The editors’ questions and concerns reflect the great diversity that characterized late
twentieth-century discussion about nonhuman animals as not only a legal topic, but as
subjects and subjectivities worthy of consideration by morally inclined human beings. The
editors’ concerns reflect many other factors as well, such as the inevitability of humans’
interactions with other animals because we share ecosystems with many other living be
ings who are, in a variety of senses, ubiquitous (they live throughout our communities, oc
cupy every ecological niche on Earth, and in microscopic forms are on and within each of
us in staggering numbers that total in the hundreds of billions).
Another factor fostering a broad understanding of “animals as legal subjects” is the role
played by student demand in the emergence of animal law courses in curricula of modern
law schools.3 While the first animal law course in the United States was taught in 1977 at
Seton Hall Law School, this approach in legal education grew modestly for the next two
decades as almost a dozen such courses emerged at American law schools. In the year
2000, as a direct result of petitions for an animal law course signed year after year by
scores of students, Harvard Law School offered its first animal law course under the
name “Animal Rights,” taught by a leading proponent of specific legal rights (p. 172) for
certain nonhuman animals.4 Because of Harvard Law School’s reputation, the law school
establishment around the world took notice, as did worldwide media. Courses in animal
law then multiplied so rapidly that the number of such courses offered around the world
increased more than tenfold in the following decade.
Such increases in education are noteworthy for any number of reasons, but perhaps most
revealing is that the demand for new courses was driven primarily by students. Further,
legal education in many modern countries offers well-established traditions of open dis
cussion owing to use of the Socratic method, an approach developed in law schools be
cause training advocates requires they be afforded the freedom to make and discuss ar
guments solely in terms of their legal merits and effectiveness with decision-makers. All
these developments fostered open discussion of the alternatives available in modern, in
dustrialized societies regarding the present treatment of and future possibilities with non
human animals. Of particular interest to students in these courses has been consideration
of changes that can nurture more compassion and less harm. A harbinger of changes to
come in the way “animals as legal subjects” will be construed is that each year several
thousand law students around the world take animal law courses. Future policy discus
sions about nonhuman animals as legal subjects are likely to be very lively given lawyers’
influence in public-policy circles (compared, especially, to that of other professionals con
cerned with nonhuman animals, such as veterinarians or science-based researchers,
whose education does not confer on them expertise in public-policy matters or discus
sion).
In addition, the deep commitment within legal education to the suite of critical-thinking
skills that are part of the Socratic method models forms of free inquiry that can be copied
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Animals as Legal Subjects
in other segments of modern education that have begun to engage other-than-human ani
mals in a variety of ways. Such interdisciplinary efforts seeking more careful reflection
about our fellow animals carries the prospect of deepening human awareness of these be
ings as subjects/subjectivities. Further, the combination of law students’ personal interest
in other animals with the tradition of critical thinking found in legal education also sug
gests that future handling of “animals as legal subjects” will expand in both depth and
breadth. As new and expanding fields, such as animal law and animal studies, grow and
cross-fertilize, each becomes more sophisticated, moving from a phase that can be
thought of as “first-wave” animal law or animal studies to richer, more interdisciplinary
and scientifically literate “second waves.” In turn, these more developed forms of study
ing our fellow living beings can assist yet more forms of modern education that, like ani
mal law and animal studies, are emerging in the modern education environment.
The implications of an expanded notion of animals as legal subjects are significant, even
to the point of some nonhuman animals becoming candidates for legal personhood. This
particular topic, as well as many other protection-focused issues, is already being debat
ed vigorously in and beyond the field of legal education. The upshot is that approaches in
voking the relevance of other animals’ actual realities (that is, the features of their spe
cial forms of subjectivity) in discussions of the question of their candidacy for legal per
sonhood, as well as approaches advocating other legal protections for certain nonhuman
animals, catalyze awareness as they compete for attention with the (p. 173) established
human-centered approaches in today’s legal systems. Beyond strictly legal precincts,
however, the growing engagement with the topic of nonhuman animals in many other cir
cles also creates a significant background against which consideration of animals as legal
subjects goes forward. Such multifaceted discussions have the prospect of helping legal
systems and their host societies take full responsibility for their role in how humans in
the past have thought about and treated nonhuman animals, what they are now doing,
and what they might in the future choose to do in terms of the human-nonhuman intersec
tion. This new and altogether deeper awareness of the legal, moral, sociocultural and per
sonal dimensions of our inevitable interactions with other animals is, in fact, already a
new heartbeat in modern humans’ relations with other animals (comparable or even
greater awareness about other living beings in many small-scale societies has long been
the norm and, often, a cultural mainstay). Deepening awareness today has been such a
success in legal education (due to student demand) that both legislative and court-based
activities have increased greatly as well. The result is more awareness that some nonhu
man animals might themselves be candidates for a truly rich sense of animals as legal
subjects, that is, as candidates for effective, fundamental protections safeguarded by the
legal system’s core commitments.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
Animals are property. These three words—and their legal implications and practi
cal ramifications—are at the core of the most significant doctrines and cases in
this book, and a telling reality for current practitioners of animal law.5
The property concept has, in fact, held center stage in the most familiar legal systems for
millennia. While it has had certain social benefits for some segments of the human soci
eties governed by these legal systems, the property concept has also held back other hu
man groups—the nineteenth-century theorist Proudhon even suggested, with regard to
humans alone, “property is theft.”6 While this contention can be debated with respect
(p. 174) to human affairs, it is clearly relevant to the question of humans dominating non
human animals, as well as to whether we treat other living beings as legal objects or sub
jects. The question of human domination being cruel, unfair, or even “theft” is particular
ly pertinent to the astonishingly diverse group of nonhumans animals who are, investiga
tion shows, like humans in having intelligence, emotions, and community connections
(these include, for example, many of our fellow mammals, at least some birds, and even
other species). It is these potential legal subjects, in particular, we obscure with such dis
missive, antiscientific phrases as “humans and animals” that make it easy to relegate any
and all nonhumans to the legal things category.
The deep historical roots of the property tradition account for the fact that many humans
think their ownership of other living beings is the order of nature and thus a natural
right. Traditionally, the early systems of law that gave birth to the best-known modern le
gal systems treated animals outside our species as either actual or potential property of
humans. Humans’ earliest law codes, such as the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, dating
back to about 1750 BCE, prominently designated a number of domesticated animals as
valuable property. The Code of Justinian, the influential systematization of Roman law
from the sixth century CE, provided that “[w]ild beasts, birds, fish and all animals, which
live either in the sea, the air, or the earth, so soon as they are taken by anyone, immedi
ately become by the law of nations the property of the captor.” These ancient precedents
explain why the English adjective “pecuniary,” a synonym for “monetary,” derives from
the Latin word pecu (cattle or flock). Relatedly, the English legal term “chattel” (used in
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Animals as Legal Subjects
law to designate movable property as opposed to land, or real property) took its meaning
from the word “cattle.”7
Contemporary legal notions, including our property law, are in thrall to these early con
ceptions that dominated Roman law, which the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
in his 1881 book The Common Law observed, influence “every [law] book which has been
written for the last five hundred years.”8 This explains in part why so many American law
students encounter the fox that was the subject of the dispute in Pierson v. Post9 as repre
sentative of wild animals generally—catch a wild animal and he or she is legally your
property and not some else’s. Students who learn these legal principles are trained to ig
nore the nonhuman animals themselves, for the interests of the hunted fox in Pierson v.
Post are not in any way addressed.
Such erasures of nonhuman animals’ interests, let alone their point of view, are common
today. A large political entity, such as a state or province, is deemed the legal owner of all
the “wild” nonhumans within its borders. These animals are truly, in law, mere legal
things. Thereby, not only does the property concept in modern legal systems focus atten
tion overwhelmingly on humans alone, but this way of dividing the world into the human
and the other-than-human has implications and consequences that go beyond the merely
legal to the central human realities that we describe using adjectives like “psychological,”
“social,” “economic,” “religious,” “intellectual,” “cultural,” and “political.” Our under
standing of our place in the world is shaped dramatically by our domination over the
more-than-human world that legal systems not only permit but, in fact, encourage
through use of the property concept.
The tradition of holding other sentient beings as one’s own property to be treated,
(p. 175)
sold or killed according to one’s own interests rather than those of the sentient subject
has shaped modern humans’ awareness and our group morals. In such shaping, one can
easily see why one legal philosopher suggested that “[l]aw is the projection of an imag
ined future upon reality.”10 Through modern legal systems, citizens in the early twenty-
first century now project a human-centered future not only on the nonhuman animals
they own, but also on all reality, even that beyond our human communities.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
A complicated version of this same problem exists in the important but nonetheless ethi
cally charged area of companion animals. Domination problems fostered by the property
status of companion animals can exist because any owner can, if the owner chooses, at
any time and without any reasonable cause terminate their dog’s or cat’s or horse’s life
using a veterinarian licensed by law. To do so is completely legal even if the animal is
healthy and young, and even if others are willing to adopt the animal, because this conve
nience-motivated euthanasia is, legally, a disposition of one’s owned property. Further,
killing of this kind is not deemed a moral issue even by major veterinary associations,
such as the American Veterinary Medical Association.13
This kind of human-focused privilege is, as noted above, a central feature of modern
economies because modern policymakers, educators, and even religious community lead
ers, with little or no reflection, hold domination over any and all nonhuman animals to be
the unassailable prerogative of humans. Such an unreflective position is based on some
thing more virulent than simple human-centeredness—it is based on an exclusion best
thought of as human exceptionalism, which is
the claim that humans are, merely by virtue of their species membership, so quali
tatively different from any and all other forms of life that humans rightfully enjoy
privileges over all of the earth’s other life forms. Such exceptionalist claims are
well described … as “the basic idea” that “human life is regarded as sacred, or at
least as having a special importance” such that “non-human life” not only does not
deserve “the same degree of moral protection” as humans, but has “no moral
standing at all” whenever human privilege is at stake.14
human-centeredness. As is evident in everyday life, humans can, with great generosity, fo
cus on our own species in healthy and productive ways. But there are forms of human-
centeredness that exclude and damage, and the human exceptionalism just described
has, in particular, promoted the destruction of many individuals’ and cultures’ relation
ship with the more-than-human world. Problematic, often virulent forms of human-cen
teredness create obvious harms to nonhuman individuals and communities, but there are
also hidden features: these hidden problems do not impact only those nonhuman commu
nities that humans render invisible by simply failing to notice them and take them seri
ously. As noted earlier, human exceptionalism has a range of negative impacts, including
significant harms to our communities, selves, and children. With regard to nonhuman ani
mals, of course, human exceptionalism promotes a virulent mix of self-inflicted ignorance
and failure to notice or care about the harms we create for nonhuman animals.
The upshot of human exceptionalism dominating us (through its role as the cornerstone
of modern legal systems, education, and institutional life) is that many modern humans’
identity is narrowly focused on humans alone, with the consequence that our institutions,
including the law, perpetuate a lack of awareness of the more-than-human world—many
humans have come to expect, and thus demand, complete power over nonhuman animals
as a corollary of being human. One by-product of the long-standing approach of the re
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Animals as Legal Subjects
duction of nonhuman animals to mere legal things is that exceptionalism is now a key fea
ture of public policy and political rhetoric as well.
Such is the legacy of those who insist there are no moral problems whatsoever with prop
erty ownership or the disposition of nonhuman animals solely in the service of humans’
interests. Of course, as a practical matter, many nonhuman lives fit very poorly into the
paradigm of personal property—think, for example, of the common notion of a “pest” or
of the valued animal who will, if given the chance, escape from human domination. Even
more significantly from a morals and compassion point of view, there are a surprising
number of nonhuman lives who fit no better into the paradigm of personal property than
do the lives of humans. It is the harms to these animals in particular that are mentioned
by those who challenge the complete domination legal systems confer on humans alone
as legal persons entitled to dominate any and all legal things, including even the most
complicated living beings outside our own species.
Much discussion about law and legal systems today features the important claim that all
humans matter. This substantive claim, despite its evident appeal to humans, has often
been characterized as mere rhetoric or even hypocrisy, for the claim that all humans mat
ter can be a masking ideology cloaking harms to both humans and nonhumans. Here, the
term “ideology” is used in a narrow sense to refer to a frame of mind or an assertion that
is ostensibly universal and encompassing but that is, in reality, far less than inclusive and
encompassing—examples of this are the all-too-common claims made by lawmakers and
policymakers whose real goal is to protect only some humans, and not others.
Such shortcomings have often been challenged from the vantage point of disadvantaged
humans—an angry indictment of legal systems was stated by the American populist ora
tor Mary Ellen Lease at an 1890 political convention in her home state of Kansas: “Our
laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags.”15 The
risk of a shortfall between an inclusivist ideal and the prevalence of exclusivist political
realities has often been epitomized by the tension between the assertion in America’s De
claration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” proclaimed in spite of the
well-known and continuing reality of slavery, racism, and sexism that dominated American
political rights and realities in succeeding decades. Social movements, such as those
abolishing slavery, expanding voting rights, or seeking to remedy lack of enforcement of
existing “civil rights” for excluded humans, have experimented with a wide variety of
methods for developing protection for marginalized humans as legal subjects. At times re
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Animals as Legal Subjects
markably successful, such social movements have produced both robust critiques of exist
ing law and techniques for fostering change.
Underscoring the human-on-human problems that lawmaking can create sets the stage
for seeing key features of law generally. It goes without saying in an environment domi
nated by human exceptionalism that legal systems capable of subordinating some humans
will, in the matter of noticing and taking nonhuman animals seriously, be more cruel and
insensitive by magnitudes of ten.
Collectively, these shortcomings unmask legal systems as human constructions that serve
only a subset of humans. Nonetheless, the development within the legal system of tech
niques honed by civil rights advocates working solely for marginalized humans has had
the salutary effect of providing tools that help one to see a wider range of problems occa
sioned by the radical subordination of nonhuman animals as mere legal things. These so
phisticated social-change techniques have enabled animal protectionists interested in de
veloping a robust notion of animals as legal subjects to open up minds and hearts. Some
of these robust notions reveal the potential of our modern legal systems, if we so choose,
to foster community, connection, and environmental awareness by preventing harms to
living beings and communities that happen not to be human. Notice that under this vi
sion, the phrase “animals as legal subjects” begins to mean something remarkable that
can be profitably contrasted to its present status as a mere afterthought. This is one rea
son that the radical subordination of any and all nonhuman animals in (p. 178) modern le
gal systems, which has been subjected to only a few challenges in the past, is today open
ly challenged by a diverse range of arguments.
self-inflicted ignorance because such “education” was guided not by facts but, instead, by
a self-serving and remarkably pervasive arrogance about humans’ privileged place in a
world community that is well described by the phrase “more than human.” It is little won
der, then, that even the most educated citizens in modern societies remain willing to sup
port claims that all nonhumans are rightfully categorized as being below humans. Neither
is it surprising that modern societies continue to feature resistance to the science-based
or ethics-based argument that some nonhuman animals might, as legal subjects, be con
sidered for the highest level of legal protections as legal persons that we now accord to
humans alone.
The present climate in which alternative senses of the phrase “animals as legal subjects”
can be proposed is, then, a one of tension. Matched against the impressive rise of animal
law and animal studies is the fact that a significant percentage of citizens in the industri
alized world believe it to be immoral, irrational, and disrespectful for humans to suggest
that some nonhuman animals should be moved out of the category of legal things and
considered instead legal subjects who are candidates for fundamental, effective legal pro
tections along the lines of legal personhood. Clearly, one consequence of a legal system’s
holding that some nonhuman animals should no longer be categorized as legal things
would be to challenge the linchpin of human privilege—namely, humans’ right to subordi
nate nonhuman animals.
Given that human exceptionalism is the very basis of modern law (just as it is a
(p. 179)
foundational value of the closely allied subjects of economics, modern education, and the
the practice of scientific research and medicine), it follows that law is not serving us well
because exceptionalism fosters both harms and lack of awareness. There is an irony in
this conclusion, because law is often held to be a respected, even privileged way of speak
ing and thinking. For this reason, the strident form of human exceptionalism that domi
nates contemporary legal systems fosters in other disciplines a continued use of human
exceptionalism. Other disciplines fail to even notice either their own peculiar form of hu
man exceptionalism or the harms done by the prevalence of such a narrow way of think
ing in such elegant human endeavors as philosophy, history, comparative religion studies,
literature, sociology, archeology, and so many other fields in modern higher education.
Further, even when obvious facts about certain nonhuman animals are noticed (like the
existence of personality, emotions, intelligence, and so on), they are not taken seriously in
the law or other traditions dominated by exceptionalist values. In short, evidence of the
rich lives of other animals can be buried because the human exceptionalism is congenial
to such denials.
To dislodge our well-entrenched privileges, what is needed is more than a new notion of
“animals as legal subjects.” Needed both within and outside the law are people, educa
tors, decision-makers, institutions, laws, social morality, and personal ethics committed at
their core to notice such facts and take them seriously—that is, to attend carefully to the
biological, individual, and social realities of our other-than-human neighbors.
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Some of challenges to various shortcomings of law and its allied disciplines, such as phi
losophy of law, rely on more openly engaging science-based findings, inclusivist ethical
theories, and cultural studies and other fields that document forms of humans’ inevitable
connection to other animals that readily confirm our ability to live in harmony with non
human communities. While there have in fact been many cultures that have (p. 180) recog
nized humans as members of a larger, more-than-human community, many of these have
been the small-scale or indigenous communities that modern industrialized societies have
derided, conquered, and destroyed because they were not deemed “civilized” or “ad
vanced” by the metric of the industrialized world. Studying a wide range of human cul
tures creates familiarity with the views of a range of human cultures, and this can illumi
nate the benefits that flow when a human group chooses to protect a variety of animals
other than humans. One benefit is the emergence of opportunities to prompt young and
old alike to attend carefully to the animals themselves. Such an approach may or may not
lead a society to enact legal rules whereby other animals become legal subjects, but this
sort of approach surely creates the kinds of conditions in which, in appropriate circum
stances, a modern society might choose to be kind to certain nonhuman animals, to pro
tect free, living communities of nonhuman animals and then, eventually, to consider open
ly and dispassionately the benefits of designating certain nonhuman animals to the status
of legal personhood.
Another benefit of open inquiry is conceptual, and it comes from attending to verbal
habits that dominate contemporary legal systems. As some modern philosophers and oth
er analysts of human values have discovered, focusing in a fine-grained way on the man
ner in which language choices can help or prevent humans from seeing the world better
is one way to see the exclusions and other harms caused by unacknowledged biases, prej
udices, and wishful thinking. Legal and other academic and professional efforts take
great pride in the ability to think critically about human groups’ use and abuse of lan
guage. Yet, despite much attention having been given to language issues, these academic
fields have remained surprisingly naïve about their own language choices. The exception
alist tradition’s commitment to separating humans from other living beings has masked
both negligent and intentional mean-spirited refusals to examine the coarse-grained dis
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Animals as Legal Subjects
tinctions used in law regarding the diverse group of nonhuman animals with whom we
share Earth. Such refusals do not thrive only in legal systems and the education establish
ment, of course; they exist widely in business circles (such as the agribusiness/factory
farming community) and in government agencies that promote destruction of certain
wildlife as “pests” or “vermin” in “advanced” modern societies.
Such refusals to notice animals outside the human species can obscure the relevance of
scientific findings about the complexities evident in the lives of many other animals to
those who take the time to look. The complexities found among, for example, many large-
brained social mammals include distinguishable personalities, intriguing forms of commu
nal life and communication, and various kinds of intelligence—the very existence of these
traits begs questions about how a nation might, through its legal system or otherwise,
choose to treat such animal subjects.
Tragically, the dysfunctions of human exceptionalism exclude ab initio concerns for such
matters. Education is, thereby, shorn of inquiries about not only the world around us, but
also the consequences of human actions. The damage done by exclusion is profound, go
ing far beyond harms to individual animals. Accumulating harms, because they are ig
nored, can become ecological, impacting large aggregations, such as whole (p. 181) com
munities, entire species, whole ecosystems and now, through climate disruption, the
whole Earth community and its human and nonhuman citizens alike.
Some of the harms that flow from human exceptionalism apply even to human individuals
and groups deemed privileged. Humans, children and marginalized human groups espe
cially, suffer personal, cognitive, and moral harms whenever “education … equip(s) peo
ple merely to be more effective vandals of the earth.”16 Children suffer additionally as
well. Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods used a subtitle that was
hopeful but also revealing of the risks we create by removing humans psychologically and
physically from the natural world: “Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.”
Louv’s work is a clarion call about the multiple risks we create for children who live in
the impoverished “built environments” of a merely human community—these risks in
clude impaired development of children’s rich cognitive potential, as well as truncation of
ethical sensibilities. Such impoverishment has led activists from diverse social move
ments, including child protection, environmental protection, and animal protection, to ex
hort individual and corporate citizens alike to contemplate the value of including nonhu
man “others” within our moral circle, which of course includes the development of legal
systems that allow human and nonhuman communities to coexist in ways that allow all to
thrive. Such exhortations plead for parents, educators, policymakers, professionals of all
types, business-focused citizens, and law enforcement personnel to see holistically and
anticipate the harms caused by living in a world that is inevitably impoverished by excep
tionalist rhetoric.
One can, thus, challenge the legal system’s human exceptionalism in a variety of ways—
one can help others to see how, in one field after another, an impoverished set of con
cepts and language prevails. One can point out the consequences of an all-too-narrow no
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Animals as Legal Subjects
tion of community. Alternatively, one can underscore the moral issues raised by impacts
on the living beings outside our species, or point out the impacts within our own species,
especially on vulnerable children and marginalized groups. Collectively, such challenges
have the potential to produce more than animal protections that will lead to a robust
sense of animals as legal subjects, or even to legal personhood for some. These chal
lenges can also generate views that amount to a win-win-win approach, rather than a
loss-loss-loss approach, favoring each member of the trio of nonhumans, habitats shared
by humans with other animals, and the human community itself. As suggested in the con
clusion, challenging human exceptionalism can thereby be at once Earth-centered and
promotive of justice, ethics, education of surpassing excellence, cultural respect, and
more.
It will seem counterintuitive to some that challenging blanket assertions of human superi
ority and privileges can provide individual humans and their local communities with edu
cational advantages, moral character development, cognitive enrichment, and even spiri
tual openings. But this is not too surprising, for countering human exceptionalism per
mits humans to recognize that they are members of nested communities that run from
their families, local communities and neighborhoods to nations and species and thus our
membership in the larger, Earth-inclusive community.
challenge the specific consequences to specific animals that flow from the unambiguous
dualism of legal persons versus legal things. A noteworthy example of this approach is
Steven Wise’s 2000 book Rattling the Cage, which suggests that law already has in place
commitments to dignity, equal treatment, and justice that are so fundamental that they
now support specific legal rights for bonobos and chimpanzees. In one sense, then, Wise’s
argument has features that conserve the foundations of the modern version of the com
mon law legal system within which he works. While Wise’s approach relies upon many in
sights drawn from science-based work, it is directed primarily at judges, who draw on the
core values of the legal system to make decisions in the cases over which they preside.
Notice as well that although Wise’s analysis honors some of the traditional core values in
the common law, the implications of his arguments for human exceptionalism are radical,
as is the implication that bonobos and chimpanzees qualify now as legal subjects who
should be legal persons as well.
Beyond it being possible to use the prestige and power of science to challenge the exclu
sion of specific animals (such as the cognitive superstars among cetaceans, elephants,
African gray parrots, and our cousin great apes), it is also possible to use science to chal
lenge the very dualism that is the heartbeat of modern legal systems. Science already
supports the argument that some animals are now legal persons, since all humans are, by
long-standing scientific consensus, also great apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, and
the like, all of which are animal categories. Since humans are, plainly and simply, ani
mals, the inescapable conclusion is that some animals are already legal persons. There
fore, science stands for the proposition that the key question is not whether law should
protect some animals, as it already clearly does (namely, human animals); the key ques
Page 16 of 23
Animals as Legal Subjects
tion becomes the more scientifically accurate, to which animals should the law offer fun
damental protections? Through such reasoning, the two notions “legal persons” and “ani
mals as legal subjects” can be closely linked, with the inquiry thus becoming, which ani
mal subjects besides humans might fairly and practically be added into the circle of legal
persons that is now comprised solely of humans?
The focus on companion animals will seem common sense to many because a significant
number of the citizens in industrialized societies share their home with nonhuman family
members (since the early 1990s, it has been reported that a number of industrialized
countries have more households that include nonhuman companion animals than they
have households with children).18 While these demographics are significant for develop
ing test cases, fundraising, and bringing political pressure to bear on legislative bodies,
they also increase the likelihood that the judges who hear the challenges will be dog or
cat or horse owners sympathetic to this particular dimension of humans’ contemporary
interactions with nonhuman animals. There is, as already hinted, a decidedly human ele
ment in modern societies’ preoccupation with owned companion animals—the humans
who own and control them quite naturally want to protect their nonhuman family mem
bers. But there is also an element of their own interests being protected as well. Whatev
er one makes of the present heavy emphasis on companion animals, challenges seeking
greater protections for owned companion animals form a leading edge of efforts to
prompt legal systems to get beyond human exceptionalism.
The focus on cognitive superstars also seems to many a matter of common sense, but
here, too, there is a hint of the values that drive human exceptionalism. Because we hu
mans have long nominated ourselves as the pinnacle of cognitive sophistication, concern
for other cognitively sophisticated living beings comes uncomfortably close to being an af
firmation of our own superiority. Research into chimpanzees’ and other great apes’ tool
making proceeded rapidly because researchers wanted to explore the origins of human
intelligence, culture, and distinctiveness. But, in all fairness, there are many additional
reasons to be fascinated with cognitively sophisticated nonhumans. Claims about ele
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Animals as Legal Subjects
phants’ and cetaceans’ remarkable abilities reach back millennia, and thus it is not sur
prising that these animals provide an opportunity for those who wish to explore nonhu
man abilities that rival or exceed humans’ special abilities. Similarly, for those who wish
to confer legal personhood on some animals other than humans, cognitively sophisticated
nonhuman animals play to the biases of the present legal system grounded in humans’ ob
vious cognitive complexities.
Wildlife-focused concerns within law have also been significant, although this has been
accomplished in ways that are more diverse than the ways in which law has focused on
companion animals or cognitively sophisticated nonhumans. The category “wildlife” is, of
course, very broad, including the countless free-living animals who are not now under hu
mans’ direct control. There is, importantly, very heavy indirect control of wildlife with hu
man-centered features, which often has led to heavy declines in the numbers and health
of these free-living communities.19
Challenges thus abound. Some, in fact, come out of good news, such as that included in a
2002 report entitled “Legal Trends in Wildlife Management”: “In recent decades, many
countries have thoroughly revised their own existing legislation—some have adopted en
tirely new legal frameworks aimed at protecting or more intelligently and compassionate
ly managing wildlife.”20 The authors of the 2002 edition of Wildlife (p. 184) Law: Cases
and Materials also reported positive developments, on the opening page of their preface:
In recent decades, natural resources law, environmental law, and land-use plan
ning have all come to address fundamental questions about how people draw sus
tenance from the larger community of life. Each of these fields is now infused with
concerns about ecological interconnection, sustainability, and the dependence of
human life and human enterprise on healthy natural systems.21
Goble and Freyfogle also noted that “particular resource-use rights, once defined with an
eye toward efficiency and fairness” are at times now framed with “equal attention to the
effects of extraction and harvesting on water, soil, and other life forms.” Similarly, “envi
ronmental law, once focused on direct threats to human health” has taken onboard con
cerns for “assaults on non-human life and disruptions of ecological processes.” The key
property-based concern for “land-use planning” has moved out beyond urban and subur
ban areas “spread[ing] across the landscape, focusing on places of critical ecological con
cern.”22
In significant ways, however, the background against which these specific changes move
as foreground was, and remains, decidedly human-centered, for wildlife law continues to
be controlled by law and principles that were developed centuries ago.
At the base of wildlife law are fundamental principles dealing with the private and
public interests in animals, including the state ownership doctrine, the rule of cap
ture, the complex links between wildlife and private land, and the rules governing
the nature and duration of private rights after capture.23
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Animals as Legal Subjects
A robust future may be possible, for the authors of this 2002 publication added, “[T]he
central core of the field, we sense, is shifting significantly.” They envisioned “a much dif
ferent focus: on wildlife as the central, nonhuman element in the ecological communities
where humans live and that they help compose.” The authors then add an altogether opti
mistic note: “Wildlife is becoming a dominant strand—in many settings, the dominant
strand—of large-scale land-use planning… . one of the two pillars of modern environmen
tal law. Most disputes over public-lands management now deal with the impacts of human
activities on wild species.”24
While there have been, then, some hopeful openings that lead to a win-win approach,
there remains, however, much counterbalancing bad news, for a decade later problems
continue to worsen—annual trade in wildlife, for example, remained in 2014 in the tens of
billions of US dollars.25
Even with all our technological accomplishments and urban sophistication we con
sider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven and for a moment
(p. 185) transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an
animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in
its dancing flight southward to its wintering region, a hawk soaring in the distant
sky, a hummingbird come into our garden, fireflies signaling to each other in the
evening. So we might describe the thousandfold moments when we experience
our meetings with the animals in their unrestrained and undomesticated status.27
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Animals as Legal Subjects
However we respond to these difficulties, an eminently human reality awaits us—we have
choices about the future. It will be our choice if we leave the legal system’s human excep
tionalism intact. It will be our choice if we seek to modify or eliminate it, investing our
laws with realism about what kind of animals we are and how often in our history mem
bers of our own species have harmed other lives (human and nonhuman alike). We can in
vest our laws with ecological sophistication, or ignore the alarming problems we face. We
can choose to invest the notion of “animals as legal subjects” with ethical depth and
breadth, or with species-level selfishness and shortsightedness.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
Thus, choices for or against human exceptionalism will be made—in fact, they are already
being made. Many different human societies are in dramatic ferment over what the possi
ble futures are, and what a fair, ethical and human-honoring approach to nonhuman ani
mals might be, for we too are animals who have the capacity to take responsibility as citi
zens in any future world that we shape. Will we recognize “our larger community”? Edu
cation, despite the failure of our present institutions on this important matter, surely has
an important role to play, for present scholarship suggests that in the past many citizens
of modern societies were not at all familiar with their own heritage that includes tradi
tions of compassion alongside harsh treatment and broad dismissals of other animals.
Without detailed knowledge of, in particular, our very complex past harms to animals
(whether they be human or nonhuman), it will remain challenging to guess at what is pos
sible in the near term and more distant future.
As meaning makers, human animals can choose whatever meaning we wish to give the in
triguing notion “animals as legal subjects.” We are free to recognize or deny that our
species is more than capable of being at one and the same time Earth-centered, promo
tive of justice for humans, ethically wide-ranging, deeply caring and informed about our
fellow animals, producers of education of surpassing excellence, respectful of cultural di
versity, and responsible and nurturing citizens of our larger community in our shared ob
viously-more-than-human world. Above all, we need to recognize that (p. 187) whatever
versions of the phrase “animals as legal subjects” and its important partner “animals as
legal persons” are allowed to prevail, the choice will project an imagined future onto fu
ture humans and nonhumans alike.
Notes:
(1.) John Ingham, The Law of Animals: A Treatise on Property in Animals Wild and Domes
tic and the Rights and Responsibilities Arising Therefrom (Philadelphia, PA: T. & J. E.
Johnson & Co., 1900), iii.
(2.) Pamela D. Frasch, Sonia S. Waisman, Bruce A. Wagman, Scott Beckstead, eds., Ani
mal Law (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2000).
(3.) Joyce Tischler, “The History of Animal Law, Part I (1972–1987),” Stanford Journal of
Animal Law & Policy 1 (2008): 1–49.
(4.) Additional details on this development can be found in Paul Waldau, Animal Studies:
An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 114–115; and Tischler, “Histo
ry of Animal Law.”
(5.) Bruce A. Wagman, Sonia Waisman, and Pamela D. Frasch, Animal Law: Cases and Ma
terials, 4th ed. (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010), 51. Virtually identical
statements open the discussion of the chapter on property in the first, second, and third
editions as well.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
(6.) The French is La propriété, c’est le vol!, which appears in Proudhon’s What Is Proper
ty? (1840).
(7.) See, for example, J. Tannenbaum, “Animals and the Law: Property, Cruelty, Rights,”
Humans and Other Animals, ed. Arien Mack (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1995), 125–193.
(8.) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (Boston: Little, Brown, 1881), 18.
(10.) Robert M. Cover, “Violence and the Word,” Yale Law Journal 95 (1986): 1601, 1604.
(11.) Jon Coe, “Design and Architecture: Third Generation Conservation, Post-Immersion
and Beyond,” (paper presented at the Future of Zoos Symposium, February 10–11, 2012,
Canisius College, Buffalo, NY), http://www.zoolex.org/publication/coe/
design+architecture2012.pdf, at 8.
(12.) For the imprisonment argument, see Paul Waldau, “In the Case of Education, Captiv
ity Imprisons Us,” in The Apes: Challenges for the 21st Century (Chicago: Chicago Zoo
logical Society, 2001), 282–285.
(13.) The only provision in section 11 of “The Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics of
the AVMA” has long provided, and still provides today, that convenience euthanasia is ac
ceptable—Section 11 in its entirety reads, “Humane euthanasia of animals is an ethical
veterinary procedure.”
(15.) Cited in Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States 1492-Present (1980;
repr. New York: Perennial Classics/Harper Collins, 2003), 288.
(16.) David Orr, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994), 5.
(17.) See, for example, Thomas I. White, In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007).
(18.) See, for example, Elizabeth McKey and Karen Payne, “APPMA Study: Pet Ownership
Soars,” Pet Business 18 (1992): 22.
(19.) See, for example, J. A. Livingston, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation (Toronto: Mc
Clelland and Stewart, 1981).
(20.) M. T. Cirelli, “Legal Trends in Wildlife Management,” FAO Legislative Studies 74,
2002, fao.org/docrep/006/y5063e/y5063e07.htm.
(21.) Dale D. Goble and Eric Freyfogle, Wildlife Law: Cases and Materials (New York:
Foundation, 2002), v.
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Animals as Legal Subjects
(25.) Jody Rosen, “Animal Traffic,” New York Times, September 5, 2014,
tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/.
(28.) J. J. Ratey, Richard Manning, and David Perlmutter, Go Wild: Free Your Body and
Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization (New York: Little, Brown, 2014), 5.
(29.) Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” in A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conser
vation from Round River (1948, repr., New York: Ballantine, 1991), 240, (italics added).
See also Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s chapter in this volume, “Animals in Political
Theory.”
Paul Waldau
Page 23 of 23
The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
Critical animal studies (CAS) is a critical approach to human-animal relationships and ex
plicitly committed to a global justice for animals, humans, and the earth. This essay ar
gues that the global animal industrial complex, as well as the increasing global cultural
push to eat meat, are inordinately causing calamitous current conditions of human-
caused climate change and species extinction, as well as increasing poverty, hunger, dis
ease, environmental damage and unprecedented animal misery and slaughter. Influenced
by critical theory from the Frankfurt School and feminism, among other sources, CAS
specifically critiques capitalism and globalization in its role in the domination of people,
animals and the earth, but also sees the intersections of all oppression anywhere and for
whatever reason as motivation for employing the powerful forces of compassion and so
cial justice.
Keywords: critical animal studies, animal industrial complex, Frankfurt School, feminism, globalization, critical
theory, compassion, social justice, intersectionality
Introduction
THE black and white calf, lying in a curled heap on the bottom of the narrow wooden stall
stained with blood and feces, is almost dead. The only sign of life is the slow blinking of
his one visible and sunken eye. He was taken forcefully from his mother, a dairy cow, on
the same day he was born twelve weeks ago, auctioned off, and put on a transport truck
to a veal “farm,” where we find him 300 miles away. Here, he is fed milk replacers, in
cluding cattle blood, so that humans can have the milk from his mother that was really
meant for him. Here, the stall in which he spends all his time chained by the neck is 30
inches by 72 inches, too small for him to turn around in. One of his hooves is caught in
the slats at the bottom of the stall, so that standing is almost impossible. He has been
beaten, kicked, and had his head shoved so far down into the pail of milk substitute he al
most drowned. But, he is still alive on his twelve-week birthday. He is so weak and crip
Page 1 of 21
The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
pled that he is hardly able to move in the small crate. His diet has been devised deliber
ately to make him sickly and anemic, barely able to walk, and so he will be electrically
prodded and beaten out of his crate, only to be put on another truck for the trip to the
slaughterhouse.1
This horrific, and by now, familiar scenario is repeated for calves in the neighborhood of
2,800,000 times a year, at least in the four largest veal-producing countries in the world,
the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.2 The fact that
many other animals used for food throughout the world meet a similarly brutal fate hard
ly needs mentioning. But if one ponders even briefly the sheer (conservative) (p. 190)
number of land and sea animals slaughtered annually worldwide by the meat, fish, egg,
and dairy industries—150 billion3—merely mentioning it seems too meager a response.
The depth of suffering in each instance of the slaughter of animals, within industry or not,
coupled with the overwhelming number of large-scale and linked repercussions of the in
dustrial production of meat, dairy, eggs, and fish, demands a vigorous and persuasive re
sponse. While many animal activists worldwide have been accomplishing positive change
for animals, most scholars, until relatively recently, have steered clear of animal issues.
With notable and crucial exceptions in academic disciplines, including philosophy, etholo
gy, anthropology, and some visionary voices in the arts who have positively influenced a
shift in the way we view animals, it has been activists working within and outside NGOs
(nongovernmental organizations) who have achieved actual changes for animals.
The last three decades have seen a growing number of voices in multiple academic disci
plines, well represented in this volume, focusing on what is now called both human-ani
mal studies and animal studies, and this has helped to put “the animal question” on the
academic table. The growth of critical animal studies (CAS), as a decidedly different ap
proach to the study of the human-animal relationship, has ballooned in the last 12 years.
Much of this has been the result of the forceful and hardworking online Institute for Criti
cal Animal Studies, which has gathered many like-minded scholars and activists world
wide into what is now, if not a cohesive grouping, certainly a locus for a particular vision
of a very different world from the one in which we now live.
modern critiques of objectivity and ethical neutrality, scholars’ work focusing on the goals
of animal rights or animal liberation was often resisted. Openly identifying one’s ethical
commitment to veganism, animal rights, or animal liberation, while at the same time help
ing to unravel the overwhelming complexity of both human and animal oppression, was
often met with chagrin or advice to stay within the academic framework of objectivity,
ethical neutrality, and the limited knowledge of one’s discipline, (p. 191) even though do
ing so would obscure the original goals—to stop individual suffering and defend a global
justice.
And yet, what other response is valid when one is faced with the realities of what daily
life is like for the majority of animals, both nonhuman and human, around the globe. It is
imperative that we understand the precariousness of a future in which any study of the
present might turn out to be futile. Rather than submit to that futility, however, we must
seek a path forward, knowing that it rests on admitting that we are destroying daily much
of what allows life on this planet to continue. Climate change, species extinction, and the
escalating slaughter and exploitation of animals are at present the three major crisis
points needing to be faced in any discussion concerning the relationships between hu
mans and animals. A critical approach explicitly committed to a global justice for both an
imals and humans must first take into account the deluginous amount of scientific re
search documenting the Sixth Great Extinction4 occurring today. In 2010, Ahmed Djogh
laf, then secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said unequivo
cally,
What we are seeing today is a total disaster… . We are losing biodiversity at an un
precedented rate. If current levels [of destruction] go on we will reach a tipping
point very soon. The future of the planet now depends on governments taking ac
tion in the next few years.5
He added—and the point is important: “Climate change cannot be solved without action
on biodiversity, and vice versa.”6 The rate of extinction at that point was thought to be
1000 times the background rate—in other words, 1000 times the rate thought typical
throughout history. That historically typical rate is specified as 1–10 species a year. A re
cent study7 by a team of scientists has expanded on this rate and, based on documenta
tion and discussion of rampant species extinction since the early 1980s, has placed the
present rate of extinction possibly as high as 10,000 times the background rate. The sci
entists responsible for the study concurred:
Future rates depend on many factors and are poised to increase. Although there
has been rapid progress in developing protected areas, such efforts are not eco
logically representative, nor do they optimally protect biodiversity.8
There is general agreement that the soaring extinction rates over the last few hundred
years are the result of “accelerated habitat destruction following European colonialism
and the subsequent global expansion of the human population during the twentieth centu
ry.”9
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
Globally, agriculture is now the biggest cause of the habitat destruction of many species.
Including degradation and deforestation, it is the biggest contributor to forcing many
species into small and geographically concentrated ranges that are unable to support the
biodiversity encouraged by the protection of large amounts of land and sea. Other con
tributors are overexploitation, including hunting and fishing; the exotic pet (p. 192) trade;
invasive species; and, of course, climate change. According to conservation biologist
William F. Laurance, recent decades have seen the drivers of environmental deterioration
fundamentally change in that “habitat loss, especially in the tropics, is now substantially
driven by globalization promoting intensive agriculture and other industrial activities.”10
He cites globalized financial markets and a worldwide commodity boom as the impetus
for large-scale agriculture of livestock, crops, and tree plantations as the biggest direct
cause of tropical deforestation.11 The number of cattle in Brazil alone in 2013 was
253,000,000,12 more than the number of Brazil’s human population, which was estimated
at 200,600,000 in 2013.13 India has now surpassed Brazil as the biggest beef exporter in
the world, with a 50 percent increase over the last five years.14
Humans are literally eating their way to death. Not a metaphor but a reality, this is based
on predictions by a number of respected scientists. Fueling this “instant planetary emer
gency”15 is methane, a greenhouse gas emission (GHG) that, on a relatively short-time
scale, due to feedback loops emerging from methane from the melting Arctic ice, is far
more destructive than carbon dioxide (CO2). Agricultural methane emissions are emis
sions from animals, animal waste, rice production, agricultural waste burning (nonenergy,
on-site), and savannah burning. The most recent analysis (2009) from the World Watch In
stitute on livestock production and its byproducts place its impact at 51 percent of
GHGs,16 the major cause of Arctic melting.
Peter Wadhams, a leading Arctic expert at Cambridge University, and a member of the
Arctic Methane Emergency Group estimates, “The fall-off in ice volume is so fast it is go
ing to bring us to zero very quickly.”17 Based on the current data, he estimates the Arctic
will have completely ice-free summers by 2018. And in case one thinks this is only a hys
terical prediction, the US Navy researchers on the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM)
anticipated an ice-free summer Arctic by 2016.18 The US Navy can be counted on not to
be hysterical.
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
Animals see smell, feel, taste or hear the world against the background of their
own frame of reference; they like us, distinguish and select among sense impres
sions distinctions which we do not even know are there. To have a concept of self,
animals do not have to see or recognize themselves visually, their self-concept may
consist of self-scent or self-sound rather than self-vision.19
But she concludes that although it may be difficult for humans to know a member
(p. 193)
of another species, this difficulty in knowing another also arises among our own species,
even between intimates. The goal is to acknowledge the existence of other meanings and
views of the world “even if we may be severely limited in our understandings of them.”20
These findings expand upon previous and current philosophical work on the ethics of eat
ing animals or using them in any way that disregards their intrinsic value21 and the idea
that they are ends in themselves, not objects for human use. CAS assumes a vegan posi
tion as part of the understanding that animals, including fish and invertebrates, are sen
tient, are at the very least able to feel pain, and deserve to be treated as fellow beings
with agency, whose lives matter.
These overarching conditions inform the need for the exigent approaches demonstrated
in CAS. The clearly alarming rapidity at which the extinctions of all forms of species are
progressing, and the effects both on and from climate change, require us to not only re
think our relationship with nature, but also to act upon those thoughts. Simply put, the
possibility that the planet may lose 20 percent of all plant and animal species by 2030
does not allow for inaction. In addition, the environmental impacts of our unethical use of
animals and other humans are leading us to a precipice from which we may not be able to
return.
With these circumstances in mind and as an argument that CAS is a central rather than
marginal approach to the study of human-animal relationships, I would like to outline the
historical sources, core ideas, and commitments of what I consider to be a critical global
studies of living beings on this planet and the calamitous circumstances in which we, both
human and nonhuman animals, find ourselves at this time.
Sources of CAS
An alternative view of the human-animal relationship to the one that has precipitated our
current situation has existed in the diverse history of ethical vegetarianism dating at least
as far back as Pythagoras (c. 580 BCE–500 BCE) in the West, and in Hinduism (c. 6500
BCE), Jainism (c. 7 BCE), Taoism (c. 6 BCE), and Buddhism (c. 6 BCE) in the East.22
Thinkers in these religious practices spoke out against two of the most visible forms of
animal suffering during these ancient times—meat eating and religious sacrifice. Harmo
ny with nature and respect and compassion for all life forms were tenants of these geo
graphically separated, but spiritually connected, movements and helped to shape facets
of ethical and philosophical thought. The construction of the good life of Hellenic and Ro
man societies, however, was “proto-capitalistic.”23 From Aristotle on, both the idea of
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
privilege and the oppression of animals and of those seen as lesser humans were defend
ed as inherent to the continuation and growth of the particular culture at hand. Those
who sought to build a political state reinforcing these classifications, one that would ben
efit politically and economically from the use of these lesser beings, (p. 194) viewed this
pyramidal organization of society as a natural state.24 This can be seen quite clearly in
the following passage from Politics:
Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man—domes
tic animals for his use and food, wild ones (or at any rate most of them) for food,
and other accessories of life, such as clothing and various tools.
Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably true that she
has made all animals for the sake of man.25
This from the man who said, “a woman is perhaps an inferior being.”26 As for those lesser
humans, about both men and women who were thought to be inferior to the superior
man, Aristotle says:
When there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men
and animals … the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for
all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master… . indeed the use made
of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies min
ister to the needs of life.27
As Dinesh Wadiwel explains, for Aristotle “the slave is the human animal who has failed to
demonstrate that he is human, and thus is at base, a mere animal.”28
Over the centuries since then, many activists, philosophers, and others have diligently
worked against that assumption. And over the last 50 years a growing number, most no
tably the American philosopher Tom Regan and the Australian philosopher Peter Singer,
have vehemently disputed the view that any being is worthless, including animals, there
by making the negative comparison to animals unviable.
While many sources have contributed to the development of CAS, the critical or leftist
tradition in social and political thought and feminism have provided a basis for many of
the linked thematic considerations and political commitments found in today’s CAS schol
arship and activism. The Institute for Social Research was founded in 1923 at the Univer
sity of Frankfurt by Felix Weil as an antidote to the conservatism of the social democratic
German state. Critical of both capitalism and Soviet socialism, the Institute’s purpose was
to investigate how social institutions and ideologies perpetuate systems of social hierar
chy and authority. Drawing on Marx and Freud, theorists such as Herbert Marcuse, an
enormously influential thinker, began to define a critical or “dialectical” theoretical ap
proach sufficient to match the structural and psychological negative constraints of politi
cal and social systems such as capitalism and fascism. The fascist Nazi regime coming to
power in 1933 in Germany forced members of the Frankfurt School to flee, relocating
first to Austria and then to the United States, where their influence continued to expand.
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
The goal of critical theory, as Max Horkheimer, the director of the Institute and Professor
of Social Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt from 1930 to 1933, and again from
1949 to 1958, succinctly tells us, is “to liberate human beings from the circumstances
that enslave them.”29 For Horkheimer and others of the Frankfurt School, and those influ
enced by them, the real world is able to be apprehended as itself, but the (p. 195) social,
political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender-based forces that have solidified over
time into social structures and understood as natural or unchangeable continue to pre
vent us from seeing all of nature, human and nonhuman alike, as it is. Critical theorists
insist that these forces can be changed. Rejecting the divide between objective “truth”
and subjective feelings or beliefs allows critical theorists to reveal more clearly how this
divide works to justify the privileges gained by the powerful in respecting only objective
“facts”—understood as free from any kind of normative value. In other words, the norma
tive values cannot be separated from how particular people with a particular agenda have
decided those “facts” are immutable. Critical theory starts from the understanding that it,
too, has a normative stance, one that is seen as a positive value, and then works not only
to critique what prevents this positive value from flourishing, but also to shift what is pre
venting that from happening. The practice of change is inherent in the practice of critical
theory.
CAS takes some of its power from these core insights of the Frankfurt School. As well,
several of the most influential theorists of this school, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno,
and their younger colleague Herbert Marcuse, saw the connection between the oppres
sion of humans and animals.30 Influenced by Schopenhauer’s insights on compassion and
the importance of recognizing communion with animals (and aside from Schopenhauer’s
other negative attitudes, toward woman, for example), Horkheimer explains:
The human being, in the process of his emancipation, shares the fate of the rest of
his world. Domination of nature involves domination of man. Each subject not only
has to take part in the subjugation of external nature, human and nonhuman, but
in order to do so must subjugate nature in himself.31
Along with theorists of the Frankfurt School, today’s critical theorists continue to focus
on the critique of capitalist society. For those practicing CAS, and, I would add, animal
liberation and animal rights, the critique of speciesism is fundamental to understanding
any critical approach to the myriad methodologies of power, and the only effective route
to unhinging those systems while at the same time providing a clearer vision of how we
might value all members of the planet. As John Sanbonmatsu observes,
Like the Frankfurt School critics, then, animal liberationists implicate by their cri
tique not merely one aspect of the existing order, but the entirety of human histo
ry and culture. To take the claims and concerns of the animal liberationist critique
seriously means to question existing economic arrangements, social norms, sci
ence and technology, cultural expression, and the foundational terms of social and
political thought.32
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One of the founders of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Steve Best, elaborating on
a phrase of Barbara Noske’s, puts it this way:
The animal standpoint seeks to illuminate the origins and development of domina
tor cultures, to preserve the wisdom and heritage of egalitarian values and social
relations, and to discern what moral and social progress means in a far deeper
sense than (p. 196) what is discernible through humanist historiography, anthropol
ogy, social theory, and philosophy.33
Feminism, too, is a strong source of CAS, such as Carol Adams’s groundbreaking, The
Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, among others, as is
ecofeminism. But, as Lisa Kemmerer points out in her anthology Sister Species, it is cru
cial to recognize interlinked oppressions, even though specialization is necessary to be ef
fective.
But activists must not work against one another in their single-minded dedication
to one specific cause [emphasis in original]. Those fighting to protect horses must
not eat cattle. We do well to specialize, we do not so well if we specialize without
knowledge of interlocking oppressions–or without the application of that knowl
edge.34
This empathy does not stop at any perceived cultural barrier. As Martin Luther King Jr.
said in the letter he wrote while in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, there for what was then
seen as extremism: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”36
There are many routes to a view that coincides with that of a critical animal studies.
Some practitioners arrive by way of their own experience with oppression; others arrive
as they become more aware of the misery and brutality that most animals experience
every day while, at the same time, becoming increasingly aware of the personhood of in
dividual animals. Some who are involved are activists rather than scholars, and some
have decided to be both. But all see the intersections between the myriad forms of op
pression legitimized today by the demands of the global market, which perpetuate forms
of prejudice, hate, or intolerance, such as racism, speciesism, homophobia, ableism, eth
nocentrism, chauvinism, and so on. All see animal liberation as integral to environmental
activism. All see the absolute necessity of critiquing global capitalism and its formidable
social and political structures in order for other transformations to occur. Becoming veg
an is seen not as an ending point, but a starting point.37
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Practicing CAS
I would like to return to industrial animal agriculture, specifically factory farms, as an ex
ample of how a CAS approach might be used to reveal the complex intersections of: politi
cal, economic, and social inequalities and poverty; global capital and “progress”; (p. 197)
environmental and climate degradation; and the animal industrial complex.38 In doing so I
want to return to the calf described above. He lies at the center of a vortex of ramifica
tions from using him as food. From the widest reaching spirals at the top, where the im
plications for the planet itself exist, to the smaller rings of misery for individuals who find
themselves at the receiving end of aftermath of the industrialization of animal production,
he reminds us that eating animals cannot be defended ethically, compassionately, or polit
ically. Taking the animal standpoint, we are able to see the waste of his life as part of a
larger system of global blindness and greed that literally would be shattered without his
small crippled body at its the center.
Let us start at the largest and widest of the powerful spirals surrounding him, as they
twist vertically, suctioning in layer upon layer of destruction and deprivation on this plan
et, its climate, and its inhabitants. Species biodiversity is central to the continuation of
life on earth as we know it. And yet, only recently has ecological research on intensive
agriculture come to the forefront of discussions on the causes of biodiversity loss and
damage. Conservation biologists and environmental scientists of all kinds are now focus
ing on the impact of intensive agriculture on both land use and fish harvesting. Plainly
put: “the future of biodiversity hinges on the future of agriculture.”39 Determining diversi
ty at large scales rests on the degree to which sites differ in their species composition.
When looking at the relative impact of agricultural intensification on diversity, spatial
scale plays an important role. A recent study documented for the first time that high-in
tensity agriculture, including animals and the crops to feed them, acts as an ecological fil
ter. Using the functional diversity of bird communities to understand differences between
high-intensity agriculture and low-intensity agriculture on forest habitat, and those im
pacts on small and large scales, Daniel Karp and his fellow scientists found that,
rapid rates of agricultural expansion and intensification threaten diversity not on
ly locally, but also at larger spatial scales. Community dissimilarity was strongly
related to distance in forest and low-intensity agriculture; therefore, as agricul
ture expands, low-intensity agricultural practices across regions will be essential
to maintain regional diversity. Otherwise, biotic homogenization at large scales
may accelerate species loss beyond even current dire predictions.40
Habitat destruction is considered the most important driver of species extinction world
wide,41 and, as outlined above, agriculture is the biggest cause of habitat destruction. Not
surprisingly, global capital is a major driver of extensive agricultural commercial opera
tions replacing native habitats and smallholder farms. Tropical forests, containing high
species diversity, are being lost at an unnerving rate, and it is large-scale agriculture—
crops, livestock, and tree plantations—owned by corporations and wealthy landowners
that is increasingly emerging as the biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation.42 The
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demand for soy and corn to feed cattle that is driven by the rising standards of living in
developing countries, in addition to the global thirst for biofuels and edible oils, has also
increased this trend. These threats to biodiversity from intensive industrial agriculture
(p. 198) are linked to other heavy and widespread tolls on the very foundations on which
agriculture rests. These threats include damage caused by soil erosion and salinization;
the overdraft of water and the reduction of its long-term supply; GHG emissions causing
climate change; and the continued dependence on fossil and biofuels to underpin all
these activities.
As outlined early in this chapter, the effects of global warming and climate change are al
ready evident and, together with species extinction, are producing the largest and most
dangerously irreversible transformations. Globally, over 64 billion land animals annually
are reared and slaughtered for human consumption.43 That number is expected to double
by 2050 due to the increase in the demand for meat in growing middle classes in India
and China,44 and there are, at present, ten global corporations making the most of the
money to be had in dead animals.45 High levels of efficiency are essential benchmarks by
which the success of any capitalist enterprise is evaluated. Increased levels of productivi
ty due to the brutal demands of efficiency placed upon human workers, animals, and
plants are part of the now global normative goal of raising the gross domestic product
(GDP), the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a
country’s borders on an annual basis. Yet, even though the creator of GDP, Simon
Kuznets, the young economist tasked by the US Congress with measuring the output of a
depression-era economy, did not feel this metric was a useful measure of the welfare of a
nation,46 the GDP is still used as a fundamental indicator to economic growth in both de
veloped and developing countries. While Europe and the United Kingdom have begun to
shift away from this framework, the realities of the welfare of the poorest members of any
nation, as well as of the animals within its borders, are still far from being counted as
meaningful.
Despite copious amounts of research and statistics documenting the wide-ranging and
egregious repercussions of intensive animal industry, including, either directly or indi
rectly, the degradation of climate, water, soil, ocean habitat, and species, the governmen
tal political will to decrease or end this practice does not exist, or does but just barely. In
the United States, for instance, the cozy relationships between the Department of Agri
culture, land grant colleges, and large animal industrial players have been responsible for
either the repression of critical research on concentrated livestock operations impacts’ on
the environment, rural communities, animal welfare, and human health or have been re
sponsible for pressure on university researchers to publish only positive findings.47
In addition, the rural poor have had to bear the brunt of socioeconomic, environmental,
and health-related effects of living within range of concentrated animal feeding opera
tions (CAFOs) and slaughterhouses. Studies in the United States suggest that hazards are
disproportionately sited in regions where minorities and impoverished people live.48 The
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As stated above, by 2050 the global production of meat will double. But it is important to
note that the trend, at present, is strongest in the developing world.50 This does not mean
that more hungry people will be fed, but fewer. As of 2013, the estimated number of hun
gry people in the world was 842 million. According to the Food and Agriculture Organiza
tion, “One in eight people in the world, were estimated to be suffering from chronic
hunger, regularly not getting enough food to conduct an active life.”51 Globally, food
prices have risen over the last 30 years and are expected to remain there. Both Nobel
Laureate in economics Paul Krugman and World Bank president Robert Zoellick attest
that while a number of factors have come together to spike global food prices, the rea
sons that seem to be on everyone’s list include the global rise in meat eating, the diver
sion of grains to feed livestock instead of people, and the subsidies paid by wealthy gov
ernments to agricultural sectors for these activities. Also listed are structural changes in
agricultural production and markets by large multinational corporations.52
Gail Eisnitz’s 1997 book, Slaughterhouse, documented the atrocities committed hourly
against animals killed for food in slaughterhouses across the United States. As well, the
book gave a voice to workers in “the most dangerous industry in the US.”53 She also tack
led the unsafe quality of meat coming from slaughterhouses due to the presence of
slaughtered animals’ fecal matter, which can contaminate meat with high levels of bacte
ria, such as E. Coli, and other food contaminants, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter.
Despite the passage of the Humane Slaughter Act following the publication of her book,
the shockingly hideous treatment of both animals and the workers who are hired to kill
them continues, as does the danger of illnesses due to unsanitary conditions in these
places of misery.
The workers in global industrialized slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants are seen as
just as disposable as the animals they kill, cut up into parts, and then pack to be sold to
the meat-eating public. As the major international meat corporations take over meat pro
duction in various parts of the world, dangerous, unhealthy and unjust working condi
tions come with them. The International Labor Organization (ILO), a specialized agency
of the UN, includes, on the long list of possible injuries or health impacts for workers in
these situations, everything from amputation, electrocution, repetitive strain injury, loss
of hearing, exposure to toxic chemicals, infectious disease, heat stroke, and, of course,
death.54 In the United States, a significant percentage of the workforce has been poor
people of color born in the United States. Today, partially due to active recruiting by cor
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Corporations have a great deal of control over these workers who are in the United
States illegally, threatening them with deportation or loss of their jobs if they complain
about working conditions. Also, it is much easier to stop the formation of unions if a large
proportion of the workforce is illegal. Unions have finally gained some quarter in (p. 200)
US CAFOs and slaughterhouses, but have had to come up against aggressive and illegal
tactics by the corporations involved, including the use of “special police agencies” that
enabled company security officers to act as policeman against the workers who were try
ing to unionize. There is still worker abuse56 and, of course, still horrendous treatment of
animals before they are killed. Membership in unions has generally flagged in the United
States, and membership in the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has declined
since 2011 as the number of foreign workers, both documented and undocumented, has
risen in the United States. As well, joblessness, a larger gap between rich and poor, and
economic insecurity are still a reality for roughly 80 percent of the US population.57
Due to the small number of unions in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants in the
United States, the exploitation of workers continues, such as the use of underage undocu
mented workers in a famous 2008 case at a kosher meat plant in Pottsville, Iowa. Even
though 57 minors, aged 14 to 17, were employed in the slaughterhouse under working
conditions with rampant health and safety violations, including the physical and sexual
abuse of workers by supervisors, it was the 389 undocumented adult workers who were
arrested for immigration fraud, and most were deported.58 When the owner of the plant
was finally sentenced, it was for financial fraud, not for child labor charges, overtly
demonstrating what gets prioritized in the United States and elsewhere when it comes to
business: money.
Slavery is far from gone in the world. In certain countries, cattle farms and meat plants
are home to rampant exploitation of the poorest citizens of a country, though hidden from
view. Leonardo Sakamoto, director of the Brazilian NGO Repórter Brasil, insists that cat
tle farms are the number one reason for slavery in Brazil.59 And he is backed up by the
ILO’s estimation that in 2003, 25,000 Brazilians were working on cattle farms in condi
tions it described as slavery. Luis Machado, head of the ILO’s unit to combat forced labor,
says the number is probably larger now. “Over 40,000 workers have been rescued since
1995,” he said. “But not one single person in the history of Brazil has been jailed for this
crime. These men feel untouchable. They feel they are risking nothing by doing this.”60
In a similar way in the United States, the “ag-gag” laws, some of which have only recently
passed into law in several states and some of which have been on the books since 1990,
criminalize whistle-blowing on farms in those states. These laws prohibit video and audio
recording of farm conditions and outlaw undercover newsgathering at agricultural pro
duction facilities. Animal activists and organizations are not the only groups who are
fighting these laws, which are explicitly designed to hide information from the public. In
the most recent case, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, along with environ
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
mental, animal rights, and workers’ rights organizations, filed a constitutional challenge
to the law. As Lauren Carasik, a clinical professor of law and the director of the interna
tional human rights clinic at the Western New England University School of Law, con
cludes,
As the sweeping Idaho law makes clear, agribusiness would prefer not to defend
against haunting videos of cruelty and suffering, but to prevent their production
and dissemination. Laws that protect industrial practices by chilling investigations
and discourse about gruesome practices that affect animals, workers and the
nation’s health are unconstitutional.61
The governments of both Brazil and the United States, both democracies, appear
(p. 201)
to be behind in eradicating both human and animal slavery but say they are making
progress. The continuing accounts of slavery, however, in Brazil’s rural areas and more
recently in urban areas, some of it in preparation for Brazil’s hosting of the 2014 World
Cup and the 2015 Olympics,62 offer a different version of the political will behind this
“progress.” In the United States, the recent enactment of ag-gag laws in various states
and the newer Federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act passed in 2006, in force today, in
dicate clearly where priorities lie. These laws make speaking out for animals even with
activities covered by the First Amendment, “such as picketing, boycotts and undercover
investigations if they ‘interfere’ with an animal enterprise by causing a loss of profits,” a
felony and liable for extended prison sentences and large fines.63 In these countries, poor,
uneducated workers and food animals are viewed inherently as contributors to the GNP
by their invisible exploitation.
As if the brutality of CAFOs and slaughterhouses were not enough to destroy any agency
that farm animals might be left with, the manipulation of animal genes in order to breed a
better piece of meat, a better egg, or a better glass of calf milk is fast approaching full an
nihilation of animals as sentient individual beings. Their place in today’s world is almost
complete as merely food products. This particular manifestation of the commodification of
living beings is expertly researched, described, and critically deconstructed by Richard
Twine, among others in CAS.64 Utilizing Barbara Noske’s concept of the “animal-industri
al complex” (AI-C), Twine tells us,
In a sense the vast majority of people are actors in the A-IC by virtue of being con
sumers of animal products; the practices and relations of the A-IC are socially
ubiquitous even if the average consumer is unlikely to reflect upon their own
everyday practices as being part of a wider complex.65
He maps out a virtual research methodology, not only for scholars in CAS, but also for
scholarly research on environmental issues concerning the increased consumption of ani
mals this “livestock genetic revolution” is geared to produce. Scholars of the many disci
plines involved with comprehending the global dimensions of food and agriculture’s im
pacts on the environment will find this often overlooked but increasingly important and
powerful area an unfortunately rich trove of new manipulations of the natural world.
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Having been involved with technology for the last 25 years, as an artist using high-end
proprietary software, a scholar, and a teacher of interactive digital media, I wrote the fol
lowing quote in my introduction to the edited book Leonardo’s Choice: Genetic Technolo
gies and Animals from a deep familiarity with the ways in which technology reframes and
repurposes whatever it is given. And in the case of today’s genetic technologies, animals
have been reframed entirely as objects for human use:
While researchers in comparative ethology, the study of animals in the field, are
contributing to comprehension of the cognitive and emotional lives of other be
ings, much of the work in genetic technologies is reinforcing an understanding of
animals as suited to act as a material language, a symbolic technique, without
concern for (p. 202) their intrinsic value as beings with whom we share this planet.
Animals have been conscripted into these technologies to further an agenda of
controlling the creation of all life through the manipulation of various manifesta
tions of code. In today’s biotechnologies, animals have become code.66
At the center of all of this, lies the calf. He will be slaughtered and eaten. The central
question is, why? My answer is this: as a species we have not progressed morally or intel
lectually enough to see that eating other animals is not only unnecessary, but also is an
indication of our lack of both compassion and justice. Both are essential if we are to
progress as a species, and I use the term “progress” advisedly. I do not mean the kind of
progress that has allowed us to engineer nature to our advantage. The progress I am con
sidering is one that values the ability to not only feel compassion for all our fellows, hu
man and nonhuman, but also to act accordingly. It is not enough to see the calf as a mir
ror of all the misery I have or will have in my lifetime and feel sympathy for his plight.
Compassion is more than both empathy and sympathy. Compassion does not see, it feels,
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
it becomes. Compassion breaks down the assumed barriers between him and me. I be
come him and he me. I feel the loss of his life, his joys and sorrows, not as if they were my
own, but as my own. His loss is my loss, the destruction of his life is my destruction. But
that still is not enough. Only working toward the end of his and all others’ miseries, as im
possible as that may seem, can begin to be enough. Only working toward a social justice
that includes all species can begin to be enough. Animal liberation and the profound glob
al changes it encompasses is an idea whose time has come. Critical animal studies is a
good starting point.
Further Reading
Bekoff, Marc. The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Foot
print Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010.
Bekoff, Marc, and Jessica Pierce. Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals. Chicago: Uni
versity of Chicago Press, 2009.
Best, Steve. The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century. Critical Polit
ical Theory and Radical Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Nibert, David A. Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and
Global Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
Nocella, Anthony J., II, John Sorenson, Kim Socha, and Atsuko Matsuoka, eds. Defining
Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation Counter
points: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education, Counterpoints: Studies in the
Postmodern Theory of Education, bk 448. New York: Peter Lang International Academic
Publishers, 2013.
Kemmerer, Lisa, and Anthony J. Nocella II. eds. Call to Compassion: Religious Perspec
tives on Animal Advocacy from a Range of Religious Perspectives. Herdon, VA: Lantern
Books, 2011.
Best, Steven, and Anthony J. Nocella II. Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the
Earth. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2006.
Potter, Will. Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under
Siege. San Francisco: City Lights, 2011.
Taylor, Nik, and Richard Twine, eds. The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Mar
gins to the Centre. Routledge Advances in Sociology. New York: Routledge, 2014.
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Notes:
(1.) This narrative was inspired by Humane Farming Association. “HFA’s National Veal
Boycott Campaign Decimating Sales.” http://www.hfa.org/vealBoycott.html; Malarek, Vic
tor. “Abuse of Veal Calves Unveiled by Hidden Camera,” Toronto Star, April 19, 2014, pub
lished electronically in Investigations. http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/
2014/04/19/abuse_of_veal_calves_unveiled_by_hidden_camera.html; Humane Society of
the United States. “More Video of Abused Calves at Vermont Slaughter Plant,” http://
www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/11/veal_investigation_110209.html.
(2.) 1.4 million a year from the Van Drie Group in the Netherlands, world’s largest veal
producer, 2008; 700,000 veal calves annually, US, 2103; 450,000, UK, 2013; 235,037,
Canada, 2012. See Swinkles, Henry. “World’s Largest Veal Producer to Implement ISO
22000 at All Its Facilities,” Special Report, ISO Management Systems, no. May-June
2008 ), 20–22. http://www.vandriegroup.com/fileadmin/Downloads/In_de_media/
VanDrie_Ims_32008.pdf; United States Department of Agriculture: Foreign Agricultural
Service, “Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade,” April 2014, 1–27. http://
www.fas.usda.gov/data/livestock-and-poultry-world-markets-and-trade.
(3.) The Animal Kill Counter ADAPTT, “The Animal Kill Counter,” http://www.adaptt.org/
killcounter.html.
(5.) John Vidal, “Protect Nature for World Economic Security, Warns UN Biodiversity
Chief,” The Guardian, August 16, 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/
aug/16/nature-economic-security.
(7.) S. L. Pimm, C. N. Jenkins, R. Abell, et.al. “The Biodiversity of Species and Their Rates
of Extinction, Distribution, and Protection,” Science 30, no. 6187 (2014): 987.
(9.) Navjot S. Sodhi, Barry W. Brook, Navjot S. Sodhi, and Corey J. A. Bradshaw, “Causes
and Consequences of Species Extinctions,” in The Princeton Guide to Ecology, ed. S. A.
Levin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 514.
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(13.) World Population Review, “Brazil Population 2014,” World Population Review online,
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/brazil-population/ (accessed June 20, 2014).
(14.) Cithara Paul, “UPA’s Pink Revolution Makes India World’s Biggest Beef Exporter,”
New Indian Express, February 9, 2014, http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/news/
UPAs-Pink-Revolution-Makes-India-Worlds-Biggest-Beef-Exporter/2014/02/09/
article2045869.ece.
(16.) Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, “Livestock and Climate Change,” World Watch
Magazine 22, no. 6 (2009): 11, http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/
Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf.
(17.) Nick Collins, “Arctic Sea Ice ‘to Melt by 2015.’” The Telegraph, Global Warming,
Monday, September 8, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarm
ing/8877491/Arctic-sea-ice-to-melt-by-2015.html.
(18.) David Schmalz, “NPS Researchers Predict Summer Arctic Ice Might Disappear by
2016, 84 Years Ahead of Schedule,” Monterey County Weekly, November 27, 2013, http://
www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/
article_f0d1fc46-56dc-11e3-9766-001a4bcf6878.html.
(19.) Barbara Noske, Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animal (Montreal, Quebec: Black
Rose Books, 1997), 159–160.
(21.) Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1983).
(22.) Sherri Lucas, “A Defense of the Feminist-Vegetarian Connection,” Hypatia 20, no. 1
(2005): 160.
(24.) María Luisa Femenías, “Women and Natural Hierarchy in Aristotle,” Hypatia 9, no. 1
(1994): 164–172.
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
(25.) Aristotle, Poetics, book 1, part 8 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Classics), http://
classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html.
(26.) Aristotle, Poetics, 15, 1454a21, 23-24, quoted in Cynthia Freeland, “Nourishing
Speculation: A Feminist Reading of Aristotelian Science,” in Engendering Origins: Critical
Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle ed. Bat-Ami Bar On (Albany: State University of
NewYork Press, 1994): 145–146.
(27.) Aristotle, “Politics,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. Robert E. Hutchins (Chicago: En
cyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), 448.
(28.) Dinesh Wadiwel, “Three Fragments from a Biopolitical History of Animals: Questions
of Body, Soul, and the Body Politic in Homer, Plato, and Aristotle,” Jounal of Critical Ani
mal Studies 6, no. 1 (2008): 26.
(29.) Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory (New York: Seabury Press, 1982), 244.
(30.) Gunderson, Ryan, “The First-Generation Frankfurt School on the Animal Question:
Foundations for a Normative Sociological Animal Studies.” Sociological Perspectives 57,
no. 3 (2014): 285–300.
(32.) John Sanbonmatsu, introduction to Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (Nature’s
Meaning), ed. John Sanbonmatsut (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 6.
(33.) Steven Best, “The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: Putting Theory into Action and An
imal Liberation into Higher Education,” Journal of Critical Animal Studies 7, no. 1 (2009):
17.
(34.) Lisa Kemmerer, introduction to Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice,
ed. Lisa Kemmerer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011), 27.
(35.) Joi Marie Probus, “Young, Black, and Vegan,” in Sistah Vegan: Food, Identity, Health,
and Society: Black Female Vegans Speak, ed. A. Breeze Harper (Herden.VA: Lantern
Press, 2010), 56.
(36.) Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” African Studies Center of
the University of Pennsylvania, http://www.blackpast.org/primary/1963-martin-luther-
king-jr-letter-birmingham-jail.
(38.) Noske, Beyond Boundaries, 22–39; Richard Twine, “Revealing the ‘Animal Industrial
Complex’: A Concept and Method for Critical Animal Studies?” Journal of Critical Animal
Studies 10, no. 1 (2012): 12–39.
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
(39.) Daniel Karp et al., “Intensive Agriculture Erodes B-Diversity at Large Scales,” Ecolo
gy Letters 15 (2012): 963.
(41.) S. L. Pimm, “The Biodiversity of Species and Their Rates of Extinction, Distribution,
and Protection,” 843–845.
(42.) Rhett A. Butler and William F. Laurance, “New Strategies for Conserving Tropical
Forests,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23 (2008): 469–472.
(43.) FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), “FAOSTAT,” 2104,
http://faostat.fao.org (accessed June 29 2014).
(44.) Gowri Koneswaran and Danielle Nierenberg, “Global Farm Animal Production and
Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change,” Environmental Health Per
spectives 116, no. 5 (2008), published online Jan 31, 2008, doi: 10.1289/ehp.11034.
(45.) The top ten global meat producers are JBS of Brazil, Tyson Foods, Cargill, BRF, Vion,
Nippon Meat Packers, Smithfield Foods, Marfrig, Danish Crown, and Homel. See Heinrich
Böll Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe, “Meat Atlas” (Berlin, Germany: Hein
rich Böll Foundation and Brussels, Belgium: Friends of the Earth Europe, 2014), 13,
https://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/publications/
foee_hbf_meatatlas_jan2014.pdf.
(46.) Ben Beachy and Justin Zorn, “Counting What Counts GDP Redefined,” Kennedy
School Review 12 (2012): 14.
(47.) David Kirby, Animal Factory (New York: St. Martin’s, 2010). 262–267; and see Hen
ning Steinfeld, “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.” Rome:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006.
(48.) Paul Mohai, David Pellow, and J. Timmons Roberts, “Environmental Justice,” Annual
Review of Environment and Resources 34 (2009): 405–430; Robert J. Brulle and David N.
Pellow. “Environmental Justice: Human Health and Environmental Inequalities.” Annual
Review of Public Health 27 (2006): 103–124, doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.
27.021405.102124.
(50.) Henning Steinfeld and Pius Chilonda, “Old Players, New Players,” Agriculture and
Consumer Protection, Livestock Report 2006 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, 2006), 3.
(51.) Food and Agriculture Organization, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World,” Ex
ecutive Summary 2103, 1, http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3458e/i3458e.pdf.
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
(52.) Bruce Friedrich to the Huffington Post, January 29, 2009, http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/solving-the-global-food-c_b_162031.html; Sandy
Ross, “Food Security and International Relations,” Ethos 19, no. 2 (2011).
(53.) Gail Eisnetz, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane
Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry, 2nd ed. (New York: Prometheus Books, 2007),
271.
(55.) William F. Engdahl, “Bird Flu and Chicken Factory Farms: Profit Bonanza for US
Agribusiness,” Global Research online, November 27, 2005, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
index.php?context=va&aid=1333.
(56.) Human Rights Watch, “Abuses against Workers Taint U.S. Meat and Poultry,” News,
January 24, 2005, http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/01/24/abuses-against-workers-taint-us-
meat-and-poultry.
(57.) Mark R. Rank and Thomas A. Hirschl, “Economic Security and the American
Dream,” in Working and Living in the Shadow of Economic Fragility, ed. Marion Crain
and Michael Sherraden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 148.
(58.) National Consumers League, “Slaughterhouse in Iowa Takes Advantage of Child La
bor,” 2009, 2014, http://www.nclnet.org/
slaughterhouse_in_iowa_takes_advantage_of_child_labor (accessed July 4).
(59.) Ida Dalgaard Steffensen, “Special Report: Revealed: How Our Shoes Are Linked to
Deforestation and Slavery in the Amazon,” Ecologist online, October 26, 2012, http://
www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1651376/
revealed_how_our_shoes_are_linked_to_deforestation_and_slavery_in_the_amazon.html
(accessed July 10, 2014).
(60.) Vincent Bevins, “Brazil Workers Exploited as Modern-Day Amazon Slaves,” Los An
geles Times, June 7, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/07/world/la-fg-brazil-slave-
labor-20120607 (accessed July 10, 2014).
(61.) Lauren Carasik, “Idaho Gag Law Hides Horrors of Ag Industry,” Aljazeera America
May 30, 2014, http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/idaho-ag-gag-
lawagribusinessfreespeech.html (accessed July 10, 2014).
(62.) John Zirin, Brazil’s Dance with the Devil (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013).
(63.) Center for Constitutional Rights, “The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) Fact
sheet,” 2014 http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/factsheet%3A-animal-enterprise-terror
ism-act-(aeta) (accessed July 21, 2014).
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The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
(64.) Carol Gigliotti, ed. Leonardo’s Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals (Dorchedt:
Springer, 2009); David Nibert, “Origins and Consequences of the Animal Industrial Com
plex,” in The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination, ed. Steven Best, et al.
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 197–210; Best, introduction to Best et al. Global
Industrial Complex, ix–xxiv.
(67.) Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in The Question Concern
ing Technologies and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 3–35.
Carol Gigliotti
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Nov 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.29
Most contemporary theories of animal ethics fail to respond to and incorporate the ex
pressed viewpoint of animals in their analyses. Feminist care theory, by contrast, holds
that the standpoint of animals must be at the heart of any theorizing about their treat
ment. We humans must listen to what animals are telling us and formulate our ethical re
sponses accordingly. Major authorities on animal behavior, from Darwin and von Uexküll
to contemporary cognitive ethologists, have established that through caring and sympa
thetic attention and interspecies dialogue animal communications can be readily under
stood. Feminist care theory contends that we are ethically obliged to heed those commu
nications and to act responsively. We should not harm, kill, eat, torture, and exploit ani
mals because they do not wish to be so treated.
Keywords: animal studies, feminist care theory, animal ethics, standpoint, interspecies dialogue
SOMETHING is missing in contemporary animal ethics: the animals’ own expressed opin
ions. The major contemporary theories about animals are rooted in humanist philosophi
cal traditions, such as natural rights theory or utilitarianism. But missing in humanist ap
proaches is information transmitted from the animals themselves about how they wish to
be treated.
Feminist care theorists in animal ethics have attempted to address this deficiency by refo
cusing attention on the ethical communication we humans receive from animals through
interspecies dialogue; to wit, that they do not wish to be slaughtered, eaten, tortured, ex
ploited, or otherwise harmfully interfered with. This is ethically authoritative and com
pelling information that should form the basis for any human theorizing about animal
treatment. As G. A. Bradshaw enjoins, “the minds and hearts of other animals must be un
derstood from their own points of view, not from an enforced anthropocentric standard.”1
The feminist care tradition holds, in short, as I once stated, that “we should not kill, eat,
torture, and exploit animals because they do not wish to be so treated, and we know
that.”2
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
Eminent authorities on animal behavior from Charles Darwin and Jakob von Uexküll to
Donald R. Griffin and contemporary cognitive ethologists have provided reams of evi
dence supporting the claim that animals are conscious subjects who readily (p. 209) com
municate their wishes, should humans take the trouble to hear them. (I survey some of
these contributions below.) Nevertheless, a contrary and, until recently, a deeply en
trenched theory, which views animals as mechanical automatons who lack subjectivity
and feelings and whose communicative signs are merely biochemical reflexes, has long
predominated in the animal sciences. As recently as 2012, a researcher noted that in be
haviorist animal ethology words like “think, feel, intend… . consciousness, or mind” are
taboo. Animal communication is largely seen as “stimulus and response” and viewed
“through the lens of genetic probability, game theory, and predictive statistics”4—in other
words, through the lens of mathematics, which reduces animals to mechanical objects
known through quantifiable extensive properties.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
Duchess of Newcastle. Terming a “great error” the “Cartesian philosophy… . that body is
merely dead mass, which lacks life and perception of any kind,” Conway proposed instead
an “anti-Cartesianism.”
For truly in nature there are many operations, which are far more than merely me
chanical. Nature is not… . like a clock, which has no vital principle of motion in it;
but it is a living body, which has life and perception, which are much more exalted
than a mere mechanism or mechanical motion.8
Margaret Cavendish, who corresponded with Descartes and met him on at least one occa
sion, similarly rejected his materialist view of nature and living creatures: “Nature
(p. 210) hath infinite more ways to express knowledg [sic] than man can imagine. … Na
ture is neither blind nor dumb.”9 Cavendish held that all living creatures had knowledges
of their own that humans often fail to understand. “If a Man hath Different Knowledge
from Fish, yet the Fish may be as knowing as Man, but Man hath not a Fishe’s Knowl
edge, nor a Fish a Man’s Knowledge.”10 For who knows
whether Fish do not know more the nature of water… . or whether Birds… . of the
nature and degrees of Air… . or whether Worms… . of Earth… . than Men?… . For,
though they have not the speech of Man, yet thence doth not follow that they have
no Intelligence at all. But the ignorance of Man concerning other Creatures is the
cause of despising other Creatures, imagining themselves as petty Gods in
nature.11
Nevertheless, these women’s critiques were largely ignored, and they themselves were si
lenced as the Cartesian model came to dominate.
The feminist care view in animal ethics would restore these early critiques, contending
that it behooves humans to learn to understand animals’ knowledges, languages, and
communications, seeing that as an ethical imperative. Care theory, which derives largely
from Carol Gilligan’s landmark study In a Different Voice (1982), is at base a dialogical
ethic that entails listening to “different voices” than the dominant. Gilligan was con
cerned to validate the “different voice” of adolescent girls, whose contextual, embodied,
and relational mode of moral reasoning she captured in a series of interviews with them.
Gilligan contrasted their situationist ethic to the more abstract rule-based reasoning en
dorsed as a superior mode by theorist Lawrence Kohlberg. She found the girls’ moral rea
soning was more “concerned with the activity of care… . responsibility and relationships”
than the dominant masculine model, which was more focused on “rights and rules,” often
making ethical decisions seem like “a math problem with humans.”12
In a recent essay (2010), which appeared as the introduction to a French analysis of her
work, Gilligan emphasized that she viewed the girls’ different voices as subversive to the
dominant patriarchal model. Before their voices were silenced by the ideological indoctri
nation that accompanies emergence into adult womanhood, these “young women,” she
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
notes, “were speaking truth to power… . [expressing] resistance… . to the norms and val
ues of patriarchy.”13
Gilligan’s feminist purpose was to retrieve and record these subversive voices, bringing
them out of the oblivion of suppressed silence. The girls’ voices were thus heard by Gilli
gan, deemed worthy of attention, and recognized as morally significant. Feminist care
theorists in animal ethics have applied the Gilligan approach to animals, seeing listening
to their voices as an ethical imperative, making their views the basis for ethical treatment
of them. For when oppressed and dominated groups’ views are heard, their views are
found inevitably to be subversive of the ideological system that would render them silent
—sexism in the case of women and girls; speciesism in the case of animals.
In this respect, care theory recapitulates in feminist guise Marxist standpoint theory in its
original articulation by twentieth-century theorist Georg Lukács, who posited that
(p. 211) industrial workers (the proletariat) have suppressed voices that (were they to be
heard) necessarily expressed a critical view of the capitalist system responsible for their
oppression. Collectively, these voices formed a “standpoint” or critical perspective on the
system, just as Gilligan’s adolescent girls expressed a subversive view of patriarchy, and
as animals’ viewpoints, when heard, may be seen as inherently critical of the systems op
pressing them—namely, industrialized agriculture,“factory farms”—modern laboratory
science, and other institutions that are abusive and exploitative and which reduce them to
feeling-less objects, like the proletariat but cogs in the machine.14
Let us, for example, consider the viewpoint of a cow slated for slaughter being coerced up
a slaughterhouse ramp by an electric cattle prod or forced to parade around before
prospective buyers in a cattle market corral. Such an animal jumps in alarm at the elec
tric shock and often displays fright and confusion, expressing a clear desire to get away
from the painful disturbance. Moreover, even if such frightening practices are minimized,
as Temple Grandin has advocated,15 we know that the cow, if she knew what was in store
for her, would not proceed down the ramp voluntarily. Her wishes are thus overridden by
the human controller who is governed by anthropocentric ideologies of speciesism, hu
man carnivorism, and capitalism.
To wit: speciesism, the belief that humans are superior to animals and therefore have the
right to use them for their own purposes; human carnivorism, the belief that humans may
kill animals and eat their bodies or use them to make products of use to humans, such as
fur coats or leather jackets and boots; and capitalism, the belief that as animals are but
objects of no ethical significance, their bodies may be commodified as property and sold
as commercial objects. Thus, we have animal bodies sold as stock on financial markets,
which feature “cattle futures,” for example, or (until recently) “pork bellies” as trading
entities. Did anyone ask the pig how he felt about having his belly eviscerated and sold
for profit? Or the cow, how she felt to have her slaughtered body used as a medium for
market betting games in cattle futures?
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
Of course, there are those who will raise the question of how we humans can know what
the animal really thinks or wishes. Aren’t we just projecting our own imagined wishes on
the animal? There are, to be sure, risks involved in attempting to read animals’ wishes, to
decipher animals’ communications. One cannot ever, as Thomas Nagel famously ob
served, know exactly what it feels like to be a bat.16 Yet, it is quite possible to understand
a bat’s wishes, as I know from several personal experiences with bats. On one occasion,
for example, I found a bat in my bedroom hanging on a book on the nightstand next to my
bed. After a few moments of silent interspecies dialogue, I determined that the bat
wished to be outside. I gingerly lifted the book, carried it to an open window, held it out
side, whereupon the bat let go and gracefully flew off into night air. (Interestingly, the
book she was hanging on was Sisters of the Earth, a collection of ecofeminist articles.)
Remarkably, the bat, while keeping an eye on me (she was, of course, head-side down),
did not move or shy away from me as I moved her and the book toward the window. She
seemed to understand by my gentle movements that my benign nonviolent intent was to
help her. (Bats navigate by echolocation while flying, but their eyes are functional.)
(p. 212) The problems inherent in interspecies communication are not unlike those of in
terpersonal communication among humans. It is also not possible to get inside the skin of
another human and know exactly what it feels like to be him or her. Nevertheless, we
don’t therefore abjure the possibility of understanding the communications of our fellow
and sister human beings. Nor should we, then, disavow the possibility of understanding
nonhuman animals. True, humans communicate in part by means of symbolic forms—that
is, language, but a surprising amount of human communication is nonverbal. Infants do
not communicate in language; yet we do not for that reason assume that they are mind
less, lack subjectivity or consciousness, or do not communicate their wishes in ways we
can readily understand. Facial expression, gestures, voice tone, body movements, touch:
all of these transmit essential information between humans, and similar practices are
available to and used by non-humans to convey their meanings.
Moreover, as Cavendish and other early modern theorists suggest, animals do have lan
guages. Indeed, one of the critical points of debate between the “ancients” and the “mod
erns” in the early modern era was over the question of animal language. The moderns,
following Descartes, rejected the notion “that animals have a language… . [as] merely [re
flecting] ‘Romances of Antiquity’”17 (in other words, as a silly fantasy); whereas those
who followed “ancient treatises on animal intelligence: Plutarch’s Moralia, Sextus Empiri
cus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and… . Porphyry’s vegetarian tract On Abstinence” main
tained that animals did have languages of their own.18 These latter included Michel de
Montaigne, who in “In Defense of Raymond Sebond” (“Apologie de Raimond Sebond,”
1580) argued, “What is it but speech, this faculty which we see them possess of complain
ing, rejoicing, calling to each other for help, inviting one another to love, as they do by
use of their voice?”19 Others in this tradition included Pierre Gassendi, Pierre Charon,
Marin Cureau de la Chambre; all maintained that “there is no reason… . why the natural
language of animals should not count as speech just as much as the conventional lan
guage of humans.”20 These theorists therefore held that it is not a matter of whether ani
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
mals have language; it is rather that humans have not as yet learned those languages or
paid sufficient attention to be able to decipher them.
American writer Sarah Orne Jewett asked the essential question over a century ago.
Who is going to be the linguist who learns the first word of an old crow’s warning
to his mate… .? [H]ow long we shall have to go to school when people are expect
ed to talk to the trees, and birds, and beasts in their own language!21
These early modern theorists likely reflected the intimacy with which people lived with
animals in premodern times and in rural areas with traditional cultures.23 Chickens, for
example, with whom many humans were then familiar, were often used to exemplify theo
ries about animal communication. Girolamo Cardano noted in 1557, for example,
When a mother hen calls her chicks she clucks loudly; when she wants them to
flee from a bird or prey, she raises and draws out her utterances; when caught,
she cries out anxiously and repetitively, like hiccups; when laying eggs, she exults;
when leading her chicks she uses a harsher, heavier and more sparing utterance
than when she calls them to her; and when roosting she uses a low voice, different
from all the others.24
The persuasiveness of these examples notwithstanding, the idea that animals have lan
guages—along with the languages themselves—was suppressed for centuries in official
discourses (though not in popular culture), as the speciesist ideologies of modernity took
hold. Just, one may say, as the “different voices” of Gilligan’s adolescent girls were sup
pressed because they were at odds with the dominant sexist ideology, so were the voices
of animals and their advocates silenced by the ideological formations of the modern era.
In recent years, however, the concept of animal language has been revived. Patrick Mur
phy, for example, proposed in 1991 that animals do speak in languages—dialects of their
own that humans need to learn. “Nonhuman others can be constituted as speaking sub
jects rather than merely objects of our speaking.” What is needed, he maintained, is an
“ecofeminist dialogics.”25
calls of prairie dogs are part of a sophisticated animal language,” he concluded. For
“prairie dog vocalizations contain… . [the] basic design elements of a language”—namely,
“semantics and syntax.”27 Moreover, prairie dogs “assign individual names to specific
predators whom they encounter more than once,” and dogs in different colonies have pro
nunciation of common terms (for example, “human”) that are specific to that colony, sug
gesting dialectical inflection.28
Primatologist Barbara Smuts has exemplified this approach in her work with baboons.
Speaking from the experience of twenty-five years of studying these animals in Africa,
(p. 214) Smuts explains how it was “creative and caring intersubjectivity”29 that enabled
her to develop “a feeling for what it means to be a baboon”30 and to learn how to behave
in a way that the baboons understood and accepted. By “attend[ing] to what they did and
notic[ing] how they responded,” she “learn[ed] to be more of an animal.”31 Eventually,
she developed the ability “to ‘speak’ baboon” sufficiently fluently that the animals could
understand her despite her “outrageous human accent.”32
I was learning a whole new way of being in the world—the way of the baboon. … I
was responding to the cues that baboons use to indicate their emotions, motiva
tions, and intentions to one another, and I was gradually learning to send such sig
nals back to them. As a result, instead of avoiding me when I got too close, they
started giving me very deliberate dirty looks, which made me move away.33
Smuts believes that the “capacity to feel our way into the being of another” is an “an
cient,” “inherited” skill that comes to life in one’s attempts to communicate with
animals.34 Such abilities were necessary to survival in Paleolithic times, Smuts argues,
when “our ancestors… . depended on exquisite sensitivity to the subtle movements and
nuanced communication of… . animals whose keener senses of vision, smell, or hearing
enhanced human apprehension of the world.”35 But this intensive sensitivity to other be
ings and their communications has been muted, if not lost, in the modern world.36 It was
by reawakening this capacity that Smuts was able to learn “what it means to be a ba
boon.”37
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
ness to the signs being communicated, learning others’ languages, hearing their voices.
The underlying interspecies interrogative is that famously posed by Simone Weil with re
spect to suffering humans: “What are you going through?”38 Comprehending the answer
requires empathetic understanding and identification. “How would I feel in this situation?
What would my wishes be?” In the case of my encounter with the bat, for example, I
asked myself, “what does this bat want?” “If I were a bat in this situation, what would I
want?” The answer that readily came to me was “I would want to be safe and back in my
own natural environment where I can find food and live unharmed.” In other words, I
would want to be outdoors. (Of course, in this situation my own wishes were also in play;
I, too, wished to have the bat back in her own environment and out of mine.)
Weil’s question entails, she specifies, “a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a
unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category ‘unfortunate’ ”—in other
words, not as a bit of data identified through scientific models, but as an individual.39
Care theory thus focuses on the particular individual and on personal encounter, (p. 215)
requiring a personal knowledge of that individual’s history, when possible, and his charac
teristic behavior, known through repeated experiences with that individual. Such knowl
edge comes, as Weil proposed, from attentive observation, “It is indispensable to know
how to look at him in a certain way. This way of looking is first of all attentive.”40
Martin Buber once described this kind of attentiveness in a moving meditation on a tree.
I contemplate a tree
But it can also happen, if grace and will are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I
am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceased to be an It.… .
Does the tree have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of
that. … . What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree it
self.41
Paul Taylor, an environmental ethicist, similarly urges that attentive focus on an individ
ual organism be the basis for human knowledge of nonhuman life forms. Such attentive
ness can lead to perception of that individual’s “standpoint.”
As one becomes more and more familiar with the organism being observed, one
acquires a sharpened awareness of the particular way it is living its life. One may
become fascinated by it and even get to be involved in its good and bad fortunes.
The organism comes to mean something to one as a unique, irreplaceable individ
ual.… . This progressive development from objective, detached knowledge to the
recognition of individuality… . to a full awareness of an organism’s standpoint, is a
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
The rapidly growing field of cognitive ethology relies in part on this kind of practice—at
tentive, detailed observation of specific individuals, located in specific natural habitats,
who are deemed subjects capable of emotive and other expression. As defined by the
modern founder of the field, Donald R. Griffin, cognitive ethology is “the study of the
mental experience of animals as they behave in their natural environment in the course of
their normal lives.”43 While cognitive ethology has blossomed in the past couple of
decades, its progenitor was no less an authority than Charles Darwin, called the “patron
saint” of the field by Konrad Lorenz.44 In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Ani
mals (1872), Darwin catalogued and analyzed the various forms of emotional expression
found in animals (including human). His purpose was to show that humans and nonhu
mans share an innate ability to express emotion, which provides proof that all are linked
on an evolutionary tree. “The community of certain expressions in distinct though allied
species, as in the movements of the same facial muscles during laughter by man and by
various monkeys, is rendered somewhat more intelligible, if we believe in their descent
from a common progenitor.”45 (p. 216)
He who will look at a dog preparing to attack another dog or a man, and at the
same animal when caressing his master, or will watch the countenance of a mon
key when insulted, and when fondled by his keeper, will be forced to admit that
the movements of their features and their gestures are almost as expressive as
those of man.46
Darwin notes that emotion is expressed through changes in body position, gestures,
touch, and sound—all nonverbal modes—and he provides a wealth of examples from dogs,
horses, and monkeys to bees and other insects. Here is an example of Darwin’s own inter
species dialogue with his dog–an experience those of us who have lived with dogs will
readily recognize:
When my terrier bites my hand in play, often snarling at the same time, if he bites
too hard and I say gently, gently, he goes on biting, but answers me by a few wags
of the tail, while seems to say “Never mind, it’s all in fun.”47
When riding his horse, Darwin observes that he is frightened by an object from the fol
lowing signs:
He raised his head so high, that his neck became almost perpendicular. … His
eyes and ears were directed intently forwards; and I could feel through the saddle
the palpitations of his heart. With red dilated nostrils he snorted violently.48
Easily understandable are the expressions of an animal in pain. “An agony of pain is ex
pressed by dogs in nearly the same way as by many other animals, namely, by howling,
writhing, and contortions of the whole body.”49 “Great pain urges all animals, and has
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
urged them during countless generations to make the most violent and diversified efforts
to escape from the cause of suffering.”50
Animals often express grief51 and joy,52 Darwin maintains, as well as emotional connec
tion to one another—love.
Animals which live in society often call to each other when separated, and evident
ly feel much joy at meeting; as we see with a horse on the return of his compan
ion, for whom he had been neighing. … . When a flock of sheep is scattered, the
ewes bleat incessantly for their lambs, and their mutual pleasure at coming to
gether is manifest.53
Moreover, since our sensory receptors (in contemporary terminology, “neural corre
lates”), are similar to those found in many other creatures, we can appreciate their mes
sage by the tone of their voices.
When male animals utter sounds in order to please the females, they… . naturally
employ those which are sweet to the ears of the species; and it appears that the
same sounds are often pleasing to widely different animals. Owing to the similari
ty of their (p. 217) nervous systems, as we ourselves perceive in the singing of
birds and even in the chirping of certain tree-frogs giving us pleasure.54
Some animals express emotion through noises emitted other than vocally; thus may bees,
for example, express anger.
Many insects stridulate by rubbing together specially modified parts of their hard
integuments. This stridulation generally serves as a sexual charm or call; but it is
likewise used to express different emotions. Every one who has attended to bees
knows that their humming changes when they are angry; and this serves as a
warning that there is a danger of being stung.55
“Insects,” he concludes, “express anger, terror, jealousy, and love by their stridulation.”56
“[E]ach and every subject,” von Uexküll concludes, “lives in a world in which there are
only subjective realities and that environments themselves represent only subjective real
ities.”62 To communicate with other living creatures it is therefore necessary to under
stand their Umwelt and how they construe meaning within that world. Like Darwin, von
Uexküll supports his theory with numerous examples of specific animals in specific lo
cales, based on close attentive observation of their behavior.
The kind of “attentive love” (Weil) practiced by Darwin and von Uexküll and theorized as
ethically essential by Simone Weil requires a sympathetic openness to animal expression
and communication. Sympathy has been seen as a critical ethical mode by numerous
philosophers, including Hume, Schopenhauer, Adam Smith, and Rousseau, as well as con
temporary feminist care theorists.63 Perhaps the most pertinent originary discussion oc
curs in Scheler’s Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, translated as The Nature of Sympa
thy (published first in 1913 and in a revised third edition in 1926). Scheler elevates sym
pathy into a form of knowledge (Verstehen, or “understanding”), which he proposes as an
epistemological alternative to the objectification of the Cartesian scientific (p. 218) mode.
Scheler indeed was a founder of the phenomenological school in the social sciences,
which relies upon a method of “psychological sympathy” in which the researcher at
tempts to imaginatively construct the reality of the subject, rather than objectify him or
her as data to fit mathematical paradigms. Scheler proposed his method not just for the
social sciences, however, and not just for humans. Rather, he contended, “understanding
and fellow-feeling [Mitgefühl] are able to range throughout the entire animal universe. … .
The mortal terror of a bird, its sprightly or dispirited moods, are intelligible to us and
awaken our fellow-feeling.”64 Mitgefühl literally means “feeling-with,” in other words,
“sympathy,” which derives etymologically from the Greek syn (with) pathos (feeling).
Scheler argues that humans need to develop (or re-develop) their sympathetic intellectual
capacities in order to decode the symbolic language of nature. Humans have to learn to
read this language in order to truly understand natural life, including animals. “[W]e can
understand the experience of animals,” he notes, by attending to their behavioral and ex
pressive signs: these have as their referent the animal’s emotional and psychological
state. “[F]or instance when a dog expresses its joy by barking and wagging its tail… . we
have here… . a universal grammar valid for all languages of expression.”65
Similarly, other forms of natural life have a “grammar of expression” that humans can
learn to understand; and this understanding is both intellectual and emotional. “[T]he
fullness of Nature in its phenomenological aspect still presents a vast number of fields in
which the life of the cosmos may find expression; fields wherein all appearances have an
intelligible coherence which is other and more than mechanical, and which, once dis
closed by means of the universal mime, pantomime and grammar of expression is found
to mirror the stirrings of universal life within.”66 Scheler is proposing, in other words,
that animals and other natural forms have a “language” that is accessible if humans at
tend to it, one that is elided by the mathematizing pretensions of modern science.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
While contemporary cognitive ethologists share with antecedent theorists, such as Dar
win and von Uexküll, and phenomenologists, such as Scheler, a belief that animals are
conscious communicative subjects and that detailed observation is an important critical
mode of understanding, as scientists schooled in quantitative evaluation, they tend to fo
cus more on seeking the “neural correlates” of emotion rather than ethically registering
the emotion itself. Developed largely in reaction against behaviorism,68 cognitive etholo
gy aimed to reconstitute the mental activity of animals as a proper subject of scientific
studies. However, as Donald Griffin acknowledges, “consciousness is essentially a subjec
tive attribute, as we know from personal experience”; hence the difficulty (p. 219) in ap
proaching the subject through the traditional modes of science: “objectively identifiable
and observable properties.”69 Thus, attempts to understand animal communication
through statistical evaluation, for example, while of value in establishing generic pat
terns, can in the end offer but a limited understanding of the meaning of the communica
tion. That can come only through the personal, subjective, intuitive, empathetic, and in
ferential modes of emotional understanding, as advocated by feminist care theorists and
as practiced by, inter alia, Barbara Smuts, who like Griffin notes how “resistant to investi
gation by scientific methods” are these knowledges, which are based on encounters be
tween subjects.70 As von Uexküll pointed out, the crucial question—the link between ob
ject (“neural correlate”) and subject (mind/thought/feeling)—is meaning. You can’t divine
meaning from a neural correlate (for example, the size of the hippocampus) but you can
from facial expressions and the other signs identified by Darwin and others.71
The feminist care tradition in animal ethics is an outgrowth of second-wave cultural femi
nist theory. Cultural feminism holds that women may be seen as a separate cultural group
—transnationally—where a separate value system obtains. That value system, which like
ly evolved through maternal practices and attitudes, is one that encourages protective
nurturing, nonviolence, and attentive loving care as theorized by Sara Ruddick in Mater
nal Thinking.72 Care theory, Marti Kheel explains, is rooted in “women’s subcultures of
care, which foregrounds the moral importance of direct empathic ties to individual be
ings.”73
Unfortunately, those attitudes associated with care have been devalued and derogated as
impractically “feminine” or “sentimentalist” in official public spheres, such as politics, sci
ence, and the law, and relegated to the private domestic space of women and the home. A
gendered division of emotional labor persists worldwide with caring labor still generally
assigned to women. Cultural feminists argue that the values and practices associated
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
with care should not be limited to women and personal domestic relationships but rather
should inform public space—that is, public, official discourses and institutions. The femi
nist care theorists in animal ethics thus propose that these values should be adopted in
institutions and discourses that concern animals. At the heart of “maternal thinking” is
the dialogical question posed by Simone Weil: “what are you going through?” Heeding the
answer and learning how to hear it through interspecies dialogue will radically transform
human treatment of animals, care theorists maintain.
As a political theory, feminist care theory recognizes that powerful political and economic
interests control the governing ideological formations of the day. We have seen where
earlier assertions of animal subjectivity and language were suppressed and overridden in
the early modern era by the advent of speciesist ideologies, which continue to this day.
Similarly, the phenomenological approach of the early twentieth century seen in von
Uexküll and Scheler was largely suppressed by the advent of behaviorism.
Brian Luke has persuasively demonstrated how powerful interests today deploy massive
ideological indoctrination to override sympathetic caring attitudes towards animals and
to legitimize their treatment as objects—whether in labs, slaughterhouses, or on financial
markets. “Both the animal farming and the animal vivisection industries (p. 220) (as well
as other animal exploitation industries… .) attempt to minimize awareness of the animal
suffering behind their products.”74
Laboratories, for example, sites of industrial agriculture (“factory farms”), and slaughter
houses are generally closed to the public. Recently, so-called ag-gag laws have been pro
liferating, reflecting the powerful influence of animal industries on governmental bodies;
this legislation is designed to prevent videos of horrific animal suffering, taken secretly in
animal industry sites, from reaching the public. Euphemisms are routinely used to screen
what actually happens to animals in the slaughter process; they are not killed or
butchered; they are “processed” or “packed” or “dressed.”75 “Similarly, vivisectors do not
kill their animal subjects, they only ‘dispatch,’ ‘terminate,’ or ‘sacrifice’ them, while
hunters are only ‘harvesting,’ ‘bagging’ or ‘taking’ the animals they shoot to death.”76
bench breaking her neck. The student was horrified, but the professor chided him, calling
him “soft” and questioning whether he had it in him to be a scientist. In the sciences, as
in other public official environments, “softness,” as Luke observes, “is not allowed, so
men who would be scientists must establish their hard callousness, and women who
would be scientists must be like men.”78
To summarize: much, if not all, cruelty to and abuse of animals is committed because hu
mans override or dismiss communications they receive from animals saying they do not
wish to be so treated. In most cases, that dismissal is legitimized by ideologies that objec
tify animals, maintaining that they are not conscious subjects but feeling-less objects, and
thus not deserving of moral status and humane treatment.79 The most extreme of these
views was that promulgated by Enlightenment theorist Descartes who claimed that ani
mals were merely robotic machines.
To counter this view it is imperative to establish that animals are subjects with whom hu
mans can communicate. The numerous recent studies in interspecies communication are
helping to make the case. The more people become persuaded that animals are moral
subjects, the harder it will be, I believe, for them to override the communications they re
ceive from animals—that is, that they do not want to be killed, eaten, tortured, or other
wise abused. The animals’ wishes must thus be included in any determination (p. 221) of
what constitutes proper ethical treatment of them. In addition, the emotional modes of
understanding (Scheler’s Verstehen), which involve caring attentiveness—listening to the
other—must no longer be despised and rejected as “feminine” and therefore inferior. In
stead, they must be the praxis for the interspecies dialogue through which we humans
learn animals’ wishes, providing the foundational basis for animal ethics. For, in summa
ry, we have ethical obligations to all creatures with whom we can communicate, and we
are ethically obliged to heed those communications.
Notes:
(1.) G. A. Bradshaw, “You See Me, but Do You Hear Me? The Science and Sensibility of
Trans-Species Dialogue,” Feminism and Psychology 20, no. 3 (2010): 407–419, at 416. See
also G. A. Bradshaw, “An Ape among Many: Animal Co-Authorship and Trans-species Epis
temic Authority,” Configurations 18, no. 1/2 (Winter 2010):15–30.
(2.) Josephine Donovan, “Animal Rights and Feminist Theory,” Signs 15, no. 2 (1990): 375,
emphasis added. On feminist care theory applied to animals, see Josephine Donovan and
Carol J. Adams (eds.), The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2007).
(3.) Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Of Mice and Men: A Fragment on Animal Rights,” in Femi
nist Care Tradition, Donovan and Adams, 324.
(4.) Holly Menino, Calls beyond Our Hearing: Unlocking the Secrets of Animal Voices
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012), 71.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
(5.) René Descartes to Henry More, in Descartes Selections, ed. Ralph M. Eaton (New
York: Scribners, 1927), 358.
(6.) Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Con
tinuum, 1988), 23.
(7.) Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1986), 124.
(8.) Anne Conway, “The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy,” in Women
Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, ed. Margaret Atherton (Indianapolis, IN: Hack
ett, 1994), 66.
(12.) Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 19, 28.
(13.) Carol Gilligan, “Une voix différente: un regard prospectif à partir du passé,” in Carol
Gilligan et l’éthique du “care,” ed. Vanessa Nurock (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 2010), 33. My translation from the French. See also Josephine Donovan, “The
Voice of Animals: A Response to Recent French Care Theory in Animal Ethics,” Journal of
Critical Animal Studies 11, no. 1 (2013): 8–23.
(14.) On standpoint theory as applied to animals, see Josephine Donovan, “Feminism and
the Treatment of Animals: From Care to Dialogue,” Signs 31, no. 2 (2006): 305–329.
(15.) Temple Grandin, “Welfare of Cattle during Slaughter and Prevention of Nonambula
tory (Downer) Cattle,” Journal of the Veterinary Association 219, no. 10 (2001): 1377–
1382.
(16.) Thomas Nagel, “What Is It like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974):
435–450. On the question of knowing the inner life of animals, see also Elizabeth Marshall
Thomas, The Hidden Life of Deer (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); Gary Kowalski, The
Souls of Animals (Walpole, NH: Stillpoint, 1991).
(17.) R. W. Serjeantson, “The Passions and Animal Language, 1540-1700,” Journal of the
History of Ideas 62, no. 3 (July 2001): 442.
(19.) The Complete Essays of Montaigne, ed. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1958), 335.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
(21.) Sarah Orne Jewett, “River Driftwood,” in Country By-Ways (Boston: Houghton Mif
flin, 1881), 4–5.
(23.) See Josephine Donovan, “Provincial Life with Animals,” Society & and Animals 21,
no. 1 (2013):17–33.
(24.) De rerum verietate (1557) in Opera omnia, ed. C. Sponius (9 vols.) (Lyon, France:
1663), vol. 3, 297-298, quoted in Serjeantson, “Passions,” 434.
(27.) Con Slobodchikoff, “The Language of Prairie Dogs,” quoted in Norm Phelps,
“Rhyme, Reason, and Animal Rights,” Journal of Critical Animal Studies 6, no. 1 (2008): 5.
(28.) Slobodchikoff, “Language of Prairie Dogs,” in Phelps, Rhyme, Reason, 5, 6. See also,
for example, Keri Brandt, “A Language of Their Own,” Society & Animals 12, no. 4 (2004):
299–316.
(29.) Barbara Smuts, “Encounters with Animal Minds,” Journal of Consciousness Studies
8, nos. 5–7 (2001): 308. See also Barbara Smuts, “Between Species: Science and Subjec
tivity,” Configurations 14, nos. 1–2 (2006): 115–126.
(38.) Simone Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the
Love of God,” in The Simone Weil Reader, ed. George A. Panichas (New York: McKay,
1977), 51.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
(41.) Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Scribners, 1970), 57–59.
(42.) Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 120–121, emphasis added.
(44.) Konrad Lorenz, preface to The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by
Charles Darwin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), xi.
(45.) Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (Chicago: Uni
versity of Chicago Press, 1965), 12.
(57.) Jakob von Uexküll, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, trans. Joseph D.
O’Neil (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 42.
(61.) See Josephine Donovan, “Participatory Epistemology, Sympathy, and Animal Ethics,”
in Ecofeminism: Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth, ed. Carol J. Adams and
Lori Gruen (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 75–90.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
(63.) See Josephine Donovan, “Attention to Suffering: Sympathy as a Basis for Ethical
Treatment of Animals,” in Feminist Care Tradition, Donovan and Adams, 174–197.
(64.) Max Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter Heath (Hamden, CT: Archon,
1970), 48.
(68.) See Donald R. Griffin, Animal Minds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992),
19–23. Likely prompted by recent developments in cognitive ethology, twenty-five leading
neuroscientists, at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference at Churchill College, Universi
ty of Cambridge, England, on July 7, 2012, issued “The Cambridge Declaration on Con
sciousness in Non-Human Animals,” which concludes that animals “possess… . the neuro
logical substrates that generate consciousness” (accessible at http://fcmconference.org).
(71.) Work on neural correlates can, however, provide useful corroboration for knowledge
we already have from personal experience; for example, mapping brain activity with MRI
scans on the caudate nucleus in dogs indicates that “many of the same things that acti
vate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the
dog caudate,” suggesting the existence of “canine emotions.” Gregory Berns, the author
of the study, concludes, “by using the M.R.I. to push away the limitations of behaviorism,
we can no longer hide from the evidence. Dogs, and probably many other animals… .
seem to have emotions just like us. And this means we must reconsider their treatment as
property.” (“Dogs Are People, Too,” New York Times, October 6, 2013, 5). See also Grego
ry S. Berns et al. “Functional M.R.I. in Awake Unrestrained Dogs,” PloS/One 7, no. 5
(2012):1–7, published online May 11, 2012 (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038027) While I
laud Professor Berns’s project, it is a sign of the tenacious hold scientific objectivism has
on the contemporary mind that MRI scans are required to prove what is patently obvious
and knowable through direct personal communication with dogs and other animals, such
as seen in the examples given by Darwin and others, that they have thoughts, emotions,
and opinions that are readily understandable by humans.
(72.) Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon,
1989).
(73.) Marti Kheel, Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2008), 5.
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Interspecies Dialogue and Animal Ethics: The Feminist Care Perspective
(74.) Brian Luke, “Taming Ourselves or Going Feral,” in Animals and Women: Feminist
Theoretical Explorations, ed. Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1995), 304.
(75.) Luke, “Taming Ourselves,” in Animals and Women, Adams and Donovan, 306.
(76.) Brian Luke, “Justice, Caring, and Animal Liberation,” in Feminist Care Tradition,
Donovan and Adams, 141.
(77.) Luke, “Taming Ourselves,” in Animals and Women, Adams and Donovan, 146.
(78.) Luke, “Taming Ourselves,” in Animals and Women, Adams and Donovan, 147.
Josephine Donovan
Page 19 of 19
Cetacean Cognition
Cetacean Cognition
Lori Marino
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Feb 2016 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.22
Cetacean cognition at the level of the individual is complex and highly sophisticated and
shares a number of characteristics with human and other great ape cognitive features. At
the same time, in the social setting, capacities and propensities appear to emerge that
are unique to cetaceans. This chapter explores cetacean cognition at the levels of the in
dividual (language, pointing and reference, self-awareness, innovation and imitation, body
image, self-recognition, self-imitation, and metacognition) and the social group (social
complexity and networking, culture) and concludes that dolphins can only thrive as re
flexive thinkers in a natural social group. Dolphins in captivity often suffer from psycho
logical disturbances and abnormalities, poor health, and, ultimately, high mortality rates.
Keywords: cetacean, cognition, intelligence, natural social group, captivity, psychological disturbances
Introduction
REFLEXIVITY is a hallmark of complex intelligence, self-awareness, and social complexi
ty. In the last three decades there has been a revolution in our understanding and ability
to probe reflexive thinking in other animals. At this time there is little doubt that many
other animals are reflexive thinkers, and the task before us is to uncover the ways in
which reflexive thinking manifests itself in different species, including cetaceans.
Cetaceans (dolphins and whales) have lit the imagination of our species for thousands of
years and have been the subject of both mythological attributions and, more recently, sci
entific examination. There exist about 90 living species of cetaceans, representing a
range of behaviors, capacities, lifestyles, and morphologies. But, at the same time, there
are basic shared characteristics across all these species identifying cetaceans as reflexive
thinkers—highly intelligent, socially complex, autonomous individuals possessing large,
elaborated brains.
Page 1 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
Cetaceans stand as a uniquely informative comparison with humans and other primates
because they possess a startling combination of similarities and differences with our
species and, in particular, the other great apes. More than any other comparison, the
study of cetaceans and primates exposes the intricate “dance” of evolution that generates
convergence and divergence of species all at the same time. In order to understand who
cetaceans are (and who primates are), it is necessary to think about their shared psycho
logical characteristics and their differences simultaneously. Cetaceans and primates, as
are all species, are versions of a common theme that has been “tweaked” by adaptations
over millions of years. Only by viewing them in this complex way can we really under
stand how we can relate to cetaceans and they to us.
Modern cetacean brains are among the largest of all mammals in both absolute and rela
tive mass. The largest brain on earth is that of the sperm whale. With an average adult
weight of 8000 g,1 the sperm whale brain is about 60% larger than the elephant brain and
six times larger than the human brain. Absolute brain size is related to some aspects of
intelligence, but because there is a positive correlation between brain and body size
(large animals have large brains and large everything else!), it is relative brain size that is
thought to account for more of the variance in intelligence across species. Relative brain
size is typically expressed as an encephalization quotient,2 or EQ, which is a value that
represents how large or small the brain of a given species is compared with other species
of the same average body weight. Species with EQs of 1.0—for example, domestic cats—
have average brain sizes; if EQ is greater than 1.0, brains are larger than expected; and if
less than 1.0—for example, opossums—brains are smaller than expected. How large are
cetacean brains relative to their body sizes? To put this issue into perspective, our EQ is
7.0. Our brain is seven times the size one would expect for an animal of our body mass.
With EQs ranging from 1.8 to 5.0 (five times the expected brain size), the cetacean subor
der Odontoceti, and, in particular, the superfamily Delphinoidea (which includes all por
poises, oceanic dolphins, and toothed whales), is the most highly encephalized nonhuman
Page 2 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
taxonomic group to have ever evolved on the planet,3 and many dolphin species surpass
great apes in EQ as well. The exceptional expansion of cetacean brains occurred through
out their brain but is most notable in the neocortex, the evolutionarily newest part of the
brain.
The vanguard of evolutionary expansion in mammalian brains is the neocortex, the wrin
kled layered covering of the cerebral hemispheres which serves as the neural basis of
many of the most complex psychological functions, including self-awareness, innovation,
planning, flexibility in problem-solving, and sensory-perceptual integration—all character
istics of reflexive thinkers. One measure of the “level of expansion” of the neocortex is in
the degree of convolutedness it exhibits, as more elaborated neocortices (p. 229) tend to
be more wrinkled (evincing more surface area) than smoother ones. Here, too, cetaceans
excel. The distinction of possessing the most convoluted neocortex on the planet goes to
the killer whale, or orca.4 In general, many dolphin and whale brains are at least, or
more, convoluted than those of humans and other primates. But there is a twist. Cetacean
neocortices are thinner than those of primates because they have only five layers of cells,
rather than the six found in primates and most other mammals (they are lacking Layer 4).
This thinness allows the cetacean neocortex to be more sinuous than the thick primate
neocortex and provides a way for the cetacean brain to compensate for the lack of Layer
4 with increased folding and, thus, surface area.
The unusual surface area and other features of the cetacean neocortex are just the tip of
the iceberg, as they are accompanied by deeper differences in cell types and arrange
ments between cetaceans and primates. Notably, Layer 4, the part of the primate neocor
tex that receives sensory input and integrates that input within the rest of the neocortex,
is absent in cetaceans. Thus, the connections in and out, as well as within, the neocortex
are entirely different in cetaceans and primates. The similarities in level of expansion and
complexity against the backdrop of differences in architecture and morphology between
cetacean and primate brains are an exquisite example of divergence in structure and con
vergence in function, a pattern that is reflected in psychology, behavior, and even culture.
Page 3 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
that dolphins and other cetaceans perform at least as, or more, competently in memory
and cognition tasks similar to those used to study great apes. They are able to learn a va
riety of rules for solving abstract problems, such as whether pairs of objects are “same”
or “different”5 and can master the semantic and syntactic features of an artificial gestural
and acoustic language.6 They understand quantitative concepts such as “less”7 and can
move easily from visual and acoustic mental representations using echolocation to identi
fy very complex three-dimensional objects.8 This is just a small sampling of the cognitive
competencies dolphins demonstrate in standard cognition and memory tasks in captivity.
Language
Much has been said about the relationship between language and cognitive ability in oth
er animals. Language, as opposed to a communication system, can be defined as a sym
bolic referential system with generative properties that derive from syntax and grammar.
Clearly, these characteristics define much of human communication. Moreover, there are
still those, epitomized by linguist Noam Chomsky and his followers, who hypothesize that
nonhuman species do not have this kind of symbolic natural language system and are
therefore limited in cognitive ability—in reflexivity. Whether dolphins and other cetaceans
possess a symbolic referential and syntactic natural language is unknown. Certainly,
there are many aspects of cetacean natural communication that are complex and
flexible,9 but we have yet to decipher the rules of communication from their point of view.
More to the point, it does not appear to be necessary to possess a human-like language to
have a sophisticated communication system that is based on complex cognitive capaci
ties. In the case of cetaceans, regardless of whether they possess a natural language or
not, dolphins can learn to understand a symbolic language-like system (a species-level
foreign language, if you will) comprising both semantic and syntactic features. The level
of flexibility showed by the dolphins in these language studies speaks to the kind of re
flexive mind they possess. As Herman points out, “Flexibility is demonstrated … by the
animal’s ability to go beyond the boundaries of its naturally occurring behaviors or the
context of its natural world.”10
Human language gains its versatility and communicative power not through the word on
ly, but through the sentence. Even with a limited vocabulary of words, it is possible to cre
ate a large number of unique sentences by combining words in various ways and in vari
ous sentence lengths according to syntactic rules. In human language, there are an infi
nite number of possibilities.
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Cetacean Cognition
Some of the more complex and abstract cognitive abilities dolphins possess are an under
standing of pointing as a reference to an object and the use of pointing to refer to an ob
ject. Pointing may seem like a simple gesture, but it requires a sophisticated understand
ing of attention and reference, not only to oneself but to others. When one points, one is
referring to something and calling attention to it. This capacity relies on the ability to un
derstand that there is a way to indicate an object to someone else, and vice versa. This
kind of referential and indicative behavior is not common in the animal kingdom. But dol
phins understand the human pointing gesture as a reference to a remote object and as an
attempt to share attention with them.12 They understand not only the direction in which a
human is pointing (where) but also what is being pointed at. Moreover, they can interpret
the head position and eye gaze of humans as a reference to a remote object.13
Additionally, dolphins can spontaneously produce pointing (using rostrum and body align
ment) to communicate desired objects to a human observer,14 and appear to understand
that the human observer must be present and attending to the pointing dolphin for the
communication to be effective.15 The ability to understand a referential gesture and joint
attentional demands suggests that dolphins have the kind of perceptual and cognitive ca
pabilities required to understand relations among themselves and others—an important
hallmark of reflexive thinking.
Self-Awareness
No other domain of inquiry about dolphins touches on the question of reflexivity more
compellingly than self-awareness. Self-awareness may be conceptualized as a sense of
personal identity—that is, the subjective I. At the bodily level, it is typically called self-
recognition, the ability to become the object of one’s own attention in the physical realm.
At a more abstract level, self-awareness involves the ability to access one’s own (p. 232)
Page 5 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
thoughts and to possess a robust psychological continuity over time (knowing that it was
you yesterday, is you today, and will be you tomorrow!). Self-awareness is a component of
phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, experiential, or phenomenological aspects of
conscious experience. (Phenomenal consciousness might be considered the basic mini
mum for more complex forms of self-awareness.) What makes the evidence for self-aware
ness in dolphins and whales so strong is that it is robust and demonstrable under a vari
ety of conditions. Not only can dolphins perform well on tasks that require self-aware
ness, but they can engage in actions that essentially demonstrate or “declare” that they
know who they are.
Dolphins are one of the few species in the world that can understand the concept of “imi
tate” and can mimic arbitrary sounds.16 For example, they can imitate electronically gen
erated sounds of a variety of waveforms, and they can mimic the motor behaviors of an
other dolphin or a human demonstrator, even when viewing them on a television screen.
They have demonstrated rapid and spontaneous vocal imitation and are one of the few vo
cal learners in the animal kingdom.17 Dolphins can also imitate human behaviors, which
requires the dolphin to create analogies between her body parts and human body parts.
For instance, a dolphin can spontaneously imitate a human raising her leg in the air by
raising the tail flukes instead.18 This kind of behavior requires a complex understanding
of one’s body and how it relates to someone else’s as well as of the concept of analogy.
One of the more compelling ways the dolphin’s imitative abilities have revealed them
selves is seen in the groundbreaking “innovation” studies. In these studies, captive dol
phins were taught the concept of “innovation,” that is, doing something you’ve never
done before. In order to do this the dolphins must access their memory of behaviors they
have done before and produce a new behavior. Retrieval of that memory requires con
scious access to one’s memory, known as metamemory, and volitional control over one’s
behavior based on that memory, showing clear parallels with human capacities. More
over, as demonstrated in the innovation studies, dolphins are able to access their own
memory in order to produce a novel behavior as well. Moreover, when the dolphins were
paired, one of the dolphins could be asked to innovate while the other could be asked to
create the same novel behavior in close synchrony.19 For example, if one dolphin did a
novel kind of flip in the air, the other dolphin would, almost simultaneously, do the same
flip. These remarkable findings show that dolphins not only understand complex abstract
concepts like “innovation” and “imitation” but can also copy each other’s behaviors al
most instantaneously, that is, perform the novel behavior synchronously. Explanations for
how they are able to accomplish this feat include hypotheses that the dolphins “talk it
over” and agree upon a novel behavior prior to performing the task to appeal to their syn
chronous group behaviors in the wild. While this is not a complete explanation of the
mechanism behind these abilities, shown in captivity these (p. 233) abilities clearly have
something to do with the fact that, in the natural setting, dolphins use synchronous be
haviors in a range of social situations. The kinds of innovative and imitative behaviors
Page 6 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
Body Image
Numerous studies show that dolphins do indeed have a body image. Herman and col
leagues showed that dolphins can learn instructions to move or to use specified body
parts in specified ways.20 For instance, in one study the researchers assigned unique sym
bolic gestures to each of nine different body parts (rostrum, mouth, melon, dorsal fin,
side, belly, pectoral fin, genitals, and tail) of a young female dolphin by associating a
unique gesture with each body part. After she had learned the associations, she was test
ed for her understanding of references to those body parts in the context of complex se
quences of symbolic gestural instructions asking her to use those body parts in specific
ways—either to show the named body part (display it out of water), or shake it, or use it
to touch a named object or toss a named object. The dolphin was highly competent in
these tests, responding correctly in 68%–90% of all requests, depending on the kind of re
quest it was. As an example, when asked to touch a frisbee with her dorsal fin, given as a
rapid sequence of three symbolic gestures (frisbee–dorsal fin–touch), she swam to the
floating frisbee (one of several available objects), turned her body to be lateral to it, and
then carefully rotated her body so that her dorsal fin gently touched the top of the fris
bee. She was correct in 85% of 194 trials of this kind. These studies demonstrate that dol
phins not only can associate different body parts with different symbolic labels, but can
also use the same body part in different ways, and different body parts in the same way,
displaying tremendous cognitive flexibility in their body image. And, as discussed earlier,
dolphins can form analogies between parts of their own body and those of another
species, for example, humans.21 These findings demonstrate that dolphins have a robust
conception of their own body and how it relates to other bodies and objects in their
world, and that parts of their body can be understood within a semantic and referential
framework. This ability to objectify one’s body is thought to be uncommon in the animal
kingdom and, as we will see, is related to other tests of self-awareness, such as self-recog
nition.
Self-Recognition
The ability to recognize oneself in a mirror or video or photograph not only requires hav
ing a sense of self to begin with but it also taps into the ability to objectify one’s body in a
way that allows one to refer to oneself or become the object of one’s own attention. Mir
rors have an advantage over playback videos or static photographs because they offer im
mediate direct and dynamic visual feedback.
mals and very young human children requires that the subject use the mirror to investi
gate him- or herself. Thus, it requires a motivational state that drives an active self-inves
tigation using the mirror. The first experimental test of self-awareness in another species
was conducted by comparative psychologist Gordon Gallup, who presented evidence for
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Cetacean Cognition
Mirror self-recognition demonstrates that one conceives of the self as subject and the im
age as the object representing, but separate from, the subject. Mirror self-recognition is
not an isolated capacity. It is part of a set of psychological capacities that develop over
time. The self-concept, as indexed by mirror self-recognition, is one that only develops in
a social setting in humans24 and, one can imagine, other highly social beings, such as dol
phins and whales. The presence of mirror self-recognition in dolphins is firmly en
trenched in a body of evidence for capacities related to self-awareness and consistent
with other abilities that are based on a sense of self and a self-concept.25
Self-Imitation
Dolphins not only recognize themselves in mirrors and have a body image and sense of
how it relates to others, but they are also agents and owners of their own actions. We
know this from several studies in which dolphins were taught the gesture for “repeat”
and then asked to perform a behavior and either repeat that behavior or not.26 To suc
ceed in these tasks, the dolphins had to be able to access the representation of their last
behavior and selectively construct the next behavior to be either different or the same, in
effect, choosing to self-imitate or not. Not knowing in advance which actions were to be
followed by a repeat gesture, the dolphins in these studies had to maintain a representa
tion of the action just performed in working memory until further instructed, thus demon
strating metamemory once again. Metamemory is one facet of metacognition, the more
general capacity to access one’s own thoughts, feelings, and knowledge.
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Cetacean Cognition
Social Life
Although it is abundantly clear that individual dolphins are self-aware, autonomous be
ings, there is reason to take seriously the idea that dolphin self-awareness may, at anoth
er level, be intimately tied in with the social group in a way that our species cannot fully
experience or comprehend. It has been suggested that echolocation allows individual dol
phins to share perceptions of reality by eavesdropping on one another’s echoes and that
this may create a sense of “communal cognition,” with deep implications for their sense
of self.28
One phenomenon that poignantly illustrates the communal sense of self that dolphins pos
sess is mass stranding. Mass strandings occur all over the world, and in many different
cetacean species. These events typically involve one dying individual who is followed into
the shallows by the rest of his or her social group, resulting in the entire group stranding
and in danger of perishing. When humans intervene and “re-float” individuals into open
water, they often come back and re-strand themselves. It is very difficult to convince
members of the social group to swim away from the danger, abandoning the (p. 236) oth
ers. Indeed, this tendency to stay together no matter the consequence is exploited in
many activities in which dolphins are captured and killed (e.g., Taiji dolphin slaughters,
captures of wild dolphins by dolphinaria, entanglement in fishing nets) and suggests a
level of social cohesiveness and empathy that is unfamiliar even to our own species. Inter
estingly, the single-minded focus of individuals involved in a mass stranding is only bro
ken by an equally strong social stimulus. In one particularly illustrative instance, a group
of 100 pantropical spotted dolphins off the coast of Australia were intentionally moving
toward the beach, in an impending mass stranding. Desperate rescuers caught one of the
group’s juveniles and transported the youngster by boat to deeper waters. Once there,
this young dolphin started to produce distress calls that were able to compete with the
group’s motivation to strand and caused the rest of the group to head back out to sea to
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Cetacean Cognition
rescue the little one.29 The “spell” of the mass stranding was broken by the desire to
come to the aid of a youngster, and the quick thinking of the human rescuers prevented a
mass stranding.
Therefore, in order to understand the full range of reflexive thinking that dolphins are ca
pable of, it is vital to examine how their intelligence and sense of self plays out in the so
cial arena. There we see how their cognitive functions provide scaffolding for their com
plex social capacities.
Herman was the first person to suggest that social complexity might underlie the expan
sion of the large dolphin brain and thus dolphin intelligence.30 Researchers who focus on
fieldwork with dolphins (behaving dolphins in a natural setting) have for years been pro
lific in increasing the evidence for social complexity in dolphins and other cetaceans.
These kinds of studies are not possible in a captive setting.
Dolphin social networks are enormously complex, and there is strong evidence of individ
ual role-taking to facilitate cooperation31 and decision-making processes.32 The most com
plex relationships described to date are found among bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay,
Western Australia. Males in this population form two and possibly three levels of nested
alliances within a social network numbering in the hundreds.33 Males cooperate in groups
of 2 to 3 to form consortships with individual estrus females.34 Males also hold member
ship in larger groups of 4 to 14 individuals that cooperate in competition with other
groups over estrus females. The alliance bonds between males, both within the pairs and
trios and among males in the larger groups, are maintained by affiliative behavior, such
as petting and contact swimming (swimming together while in physical contact)35 and
synchronous behavior.36 Synchronous behavior in the wild is likely to be “underwritten”
by the same kinds of imitative capacities found in captive dolphins. Another way to say
this is that the findings with captive dolphins are clarified and brought to light by observ
ing the behavior in a natural setting.
The kinds of fluid, multilevel interactions observed in dolphin groups can only be based
upon reflexive cognitive abilities. They require “online” processing of social situations,
keeping track of alliances and other interactions, planning for the future and role-taking
in terms of cooperative hunting strategies, and, more generally, a sense of oneself within
the matrix of one’s society.
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Cetacean Cognition
Culture
Dolphin social complexity provides the substrate for cultural transmission of learned tra
ditions. Field studies have documented impressive cultural learning of dialects, foraging
sites, feeding strategies, tool use, and other behavioral practices.39 Culture, the transmis
sion of learned behavior, is one of the attributes of cetaceans that most sets them apart
from the majority of other nonhuman species and is yet another level of psychological and
behavioral complexity underwritten by reflexive thinking.
Notes:
(1.) L. Marino, “Brain Size Evolution,” in Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, ed. William F
Perrin, Bernd Wursig, and Hans Thewissen (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2002), 158–
162.
(2.) H. J. Jerison. Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence (New York: Academic Press,
1973); H. J. Jerison, “The Perceptual World of Dolphins,” in Dolphin Cognition and Behav
iour: A Comparative Approach, ed. R. J. Schusterman, J. A. Thomas, and F. G. Wood (Hills
dale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1986), 141–166.
(4.) Sam H. Ridgway and R. H. Brownson, “Relative Brain Sizes and Cortical Surface Ar
eas in Odontocetes,” Acta Zoologica Fennica 172 (1984): 149–152.
(8.) A. A. Pack and L. M. Herman, “Sensory Integration in the Bottlenosed Dolphin: Imme
diate Recognition of Complex Shapes across the Senses of Echolocation and Vision,” Jour
nal of the Acoustical Society of America 98 (1995): 722–733.
(9.) D. L. Herzing, “Acoustic and Social Behaviour of Wild Dolphins: Implications for a
Sound Society,” in Hearing by Whales and Dolphins, ed. W. L. A. N. Popper and R. R. Fay
(New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000), 225–272.
(10.) L. M. Herman, “Exploring the Cognitive World of the Bottlenose Dolphin,” in The
Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, ed. M. Bekoff, C. Allen, and G.
M. Burghardt (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 275–283, at 280.
(11.) For a review of this literature, see Herman, “Cognitive World of the Bottlenose Dol
phin.”
(12.) A. A. Pack and L. M. Herman, “Dolphin Social Cognition and Joint Attention: Our
Current Understanding,” Aquatic Mammals 32 (2006): 443–460.
(14.) M. J. Xitco Jr., J. D. Gory, and S. A. Kuczaj II, “Spontaneous Pointing by Bottlenosed
Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus),” Animal Cognition 4 (2001): 115–123.
(15.) J. J. Xitco Jr., J. D. Gory, and S. A. Kuczaj II, “Dolphin Pointing Is Linked to the Atten
tional Behaviour of a Receiver,” Animal Cognition 7 (2004): 231–238.
(17.) D. Reiss and B. McCowan, “Spontaneous Vocal Mimicry and Production by Bot
tlenosed Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): Evidence for Vocal Learning,” Journal of Compar
ative Psychology 107 (1993): 301–312.
Page 12 of 14
Cetacean Cognition
(19.) For a review, see L. M. Herman, “Intelligence and Rational Behaviour in the Bot
tlenosed Dolphin,” in Rational Animals, ed. S. Hurley and M. Nudds, (Oxford: Oxford Uni
versity Press, 2006), 439–467.
(22.) G. G. Gallup Jr., “Chimpanzees: Self-Recognition,” Science 167, no. 3914 (1970): 86–
87.
(23.) D. Reiss and L. Marino. “Self-Recognition in the Bottlenose Dolphin: A Case of Cog
nitive Convergence,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98 (2001):
5937–5942.
(24.) M. Lewis, “The Origins and Uses of Self-Awareness or the Mental Representation of
Me,” Consciousness and Cognition 20 (2011): 120–129.
(25.) L. M. Herman, “Body and Self in Dolphins,” Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012):
526–545.
(27.) J. D. Smith, J. Schull, J. Strote, K. McGee, R. Egnor, and L. Erb, “The Uncertain Re
sponse in the Bottlenosed Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus),” Journal of Experimental Psychol
ogy: General 124, no. 4 (1995): 391–408.
(29.) D. Kirby, “Could Kidnapping a Baby Dolphin End the Slaughter at the Cove?”
takepart.com, February 5, 2013. http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/02/05/ending-the-
cove-dolphin-slaughter.
(31.) S. K. Gazda, R. C. Connor, R. K. Edgar, and F. Cox, “A Division of Labor with Role
Specialization in Group-Hunting Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) off Cedar Key,
Florida,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 272 (2005): 135–140.
(32.) D. Lusseau, “Evidence for Social Role in a Dolphin Social Network,” Evolutionary
Ecology 21 (2007): 357–366.
(38.) E. Murdoch Titcomb, G. O’Corry Crowe, E. F. Hartel, and M.S. Mazzoil, “Social Com
munities and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Association Patterns in Estuarine Bottlenose
Dolphins,” Marine Mammal Science 31, no. 4 (2015): 1314–1337. doi:10.1111/mms.
12222.
(39.) L. E. Rendell and H. Whitehead, “Culture in Whales and Dolphins,” Behavioural and
Brain Sciences 24 (2001): 309–324; H. Whitehead and L. Rendell, The Cultural Lives of
Whales and Dolphins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).
(40.) For reviews of this literature, see L. Marino and T. Frohoff, “Towards a New Para
digm of Non-Captive Research on Cetacean Cognition,” PLoS ONE 6, no. 9 (2011):
e24121. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024121; and N. A. Rose, E. C. M. Parsons, and R. Fari
nato, “The Case against Marine Mammals in Captivity” (Washington, DC: Humane Soci
ety of the United States, 2009).
Lori Marino
Lori Marino is a Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and an ad
junct faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Emory University.
Page 14 of 14
History and Animal Agencies
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Feb 2016 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.35
The argument that animals are agents is becoming ever more commonplace and forms
part of a wider posthumanist intellectual project that reconsiders the power and role of
nonhuman forces in both the past and the present. However, according agency to nonhu
mans raises significant methodological and theoretical issues. Informed by the approach
es of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and others, this chapter offers an overview of the
varied ways in which scholars have attributed agency to animals. After considering how
animals have historically been denied agency, it explores how animals are agents imbued
with a degree of intentionality. It then investigates how animal agents have physically
shaped past and present societies and the problematic nonhuman-agency-as-resistance
model. This typology is intended to show that animals possess agency, but that claims of
animal agency need to be made carefully to better capture the hybrid world we inhabit.
Keywords: nonhuman, agency, animals, posthumanist, Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, intentionality, resistance
THROUGHOUT the nineteenth century, Paris’s police force sought to eliminate stray dogs
from the city’s streets in the name of public hygiene and security. By the early twentieth
century, the city had installed a Cynoctone lethal chamber in the municipal pound and in
troduced new methods of impoundment, including horse-drawn (1904) and motorized
(1912) vehicles for collecting captured strays from the capital’s police posts. Le Matin, a
popular Parisian newspaper, reported that these vehicles turned stray dogs into “four-
legged prisoners.” Yet some of these captured strays tried to escape, and Le Matin
observed that policemen successfully overcame this canine “resistance.”1 The use of the
term “resistance” to describe the dogs’ actions raises questions about whether or not ani
mals possess agency and their ability to resist human intentions. This chapter explores
the varied ways in which animals display agency.
Numerous scholars now argue that animals are agents. Attributing agency to animals
forms part of a wider intellectual project that reconsiders the power and role of nonhu
man forces in the past and present. From mosquitoes to earthquakes, scholars have out
lined the impact of animal and environmental factors on politics, economics, culture, and
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History and Animal Agencies
health. Their research has decentered humans as the driving force and center of history,
thereby challenging “human exceptionalism” and suggesting that we live in a “posthu
man” or “more-than-human” world.2 However, according agency to nonhumans raises im
portant methodological and theoretical issues. It also exposes scholars who assert that
animals have agency to charges of trying to turn them into us: creatures who possess in
tentionality, subjectivity, and world-shaping powers.
This chapter offers a typology of the varied ways in which scholars have attributed
agency to animals. After considering how animals have historically been denied agency, it
explores how animals are agents imbued with a degree of intentionality. It then investi
gates how animal agents have physically shaped past and present societies and the ani
mal-as-resister model of nonhuman agency. This critical overview is intended to show that
animals possess agency, but that claims of animal agency need to be made (p. 241) care
fully and that some of the approaches to animal agency are more persuasive and fruitful
than others. Although the chapter considers how scholars have identified agency in a
range of animals, its main focus is on horses and dogs. Choosing these highly domesticat
ed species is intended to reinforce one of the chapter’s key points: that animal agency is
often entangled with human agency in reciprocal and hybrid ways. Human beings are,
and have always been, enmeshed with other animals. We have been partially shaped by
this fact, just as we have shaped other species.3 Focusing on horses and dogs skews my
analysis toward domesticated animals, thereby overlooking the agency of wild creatures.4
But the chapter is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of animal agency, and I
hope that the examples I discuss will provoke reflection on other animal agents and their
role as active, significant, and sometimes purposeful creatures worthy of sustained ana
lytical attention.
Yet the idea that nature and culture are separate is not a given. Instead, as anthropolo
gist Philippe Descola argues, the nature-culture split has emerged through “historical
contingency” and is unique to Western thought.8 The belief in a rupture between humans
and animals is geographically situated. Anthropologists, such as Nurit Bird-David, have
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History and Animal Agencies
shown that in many non-Western indigenous societies, the sense of a nature-culture di
vide does not exist in the same way as it does in the West. Bird-David argues that many
indigenous communities share a sense of interconnectedness and kinship with animals,
with whom they believe communication is possible. According to this worldview, related
ness, rather than dominion or separation, defines the relationship between humans and
other creatures.9 Descola likewise outlines how indigenous peoples in the Amazon region
attribute souls to animals and ascribe intentionality to nonhuman beings. Relations be
tween humans and nonhumans are envisaged on a continuum of communication rather
than a radical split between nature and culture.10
When did the idea of a human-animal divide emerge in the West? Descola traces it back
to Aristolean classifications of nature.11 Joyce E. Salisbury, meanwhile, suggests that
(p. 242) early Christian thinkers (CE 400–1400) believed that humans and animals were
separated by the latter’s lack of reason and an immortal soul.12 Gísli Pálsson, meanwhile,
argues that the nature-culture split did not exist until the Renaissance period.13 The story
is undoubtedly more complicated than that. But a broad consensus locates the emergence
of the idea of an unbridgeable human-nature split during the Renaissance, which Enlight
enment science further reinforced by transforming nature, including animals, into a
mechanistic force, open to human dominance and exploitation.14 The development of so
cial science in nineteenth-century Europe was then established, according to Timothy
Mitchell, “upon a categorical distinction between the ideality of human intentions and
purposes and the object world upon which these work.”15
The notion that reason fundamentally separates humans from other beings is therefore
historically situated and contingent. It is worth dwelling briefly on the Renaissance, the
period in which this idea crystalized in relation to real and imagined animals. According
to Erica Fudge, early modern thinkers used animals to generate and consolidate the idea
that only humans possessed reason (defined as the ability to assess passions and instincts
through thought and then decide whether or not to act on them). They created the ratio
nal human in opposition to the supposedly irrational animal. Yet their approach was prob
lematic. The rational soul, the foundation of human-animal difference, was invisible and
so impossible to detect. Other questions caused anxiety: Were humans born with reason,
or did they need to be educated to obtain it? Could humans, by giving in to their vices, be
came bestial and irrational and, therefore, inhuman? More disturbingly, did animals expe
rience similar feelings to human feelings, and were they even superior creatures, given
that they knew no vice? These were troubling questions because they undermined the
supposedly clear divisions between humans and animals. According to Fudge, it was René
Descartes’s philosophical method that quelled such anxieties.16
Descartes argued that the soul, or the thinking, rational self, transcended the body and
nature. All humans, unlike animals, innately possessed the ability to reason. As he states
in Discourse on Method, “Reason … is the only thing which makes us men [sic] and distin
guishes us from animals.”17 Humans could still act irrationally, but this did not undermine
their status as intrinsically rational beings for they were merely choosing not to act ratio
nally. Furthermore, Descartes asserted that animals were machines, and, in this sense,
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History and Animal Agencies
there was little to differentiate the monkey from the oyster. Animals had no self-aware
ness, so while they could experience pain, they could not feel it. Animals were “automa
ta.”18 In Fudge’s account, Descartes and his ideas are given an enormous amount of pow
er, even if she recognizes that his ideas were not universally accepted.19 Yet she is not
alone in arguing that Descartes’s notion of the rational human soul fundamentally
changed the way in which Western societies thought about themselves and the rest of the
world.20
Why has the idea of the nature-culture split remained so pervasive in modern Western
thought and society? Bruno Latour provides one possible answer. He argues in We Have
Never Been Modern (1993) that being and becoming modern were founded on the claim
that nature is separate from culture. The nature-culture separation narrative served to
highlight modernity’s progress and liberation from natural forces and tradition. Yet
modernity simultaneously intensified the proliferation of hybrid forms through science
and technology.23 For Latour, nature and society are not givens. Instead, they are created,
and to be explained, by the circulating hybrid collective of quasi-objects and quasi-sub
jects. Moderns then simplified, divided, and labeled these nonhuman/human networks as
“society” and “nature.” Perhaps the most powerful idea in We Have Never Been Modern
is that “nature and society are not two distinct poles, but one and the same production of
successive states of societies, natures, of collectives.”24
Others have joined Latour in challenging the divisions made between humans and nonhu
mans. Donna Haraway’s “cyborg manifesto” tries to capture boundary-blurring hybridity
and the “joint kinship” between people, animals, and machines.25 Haraway takes her
analysis of cross-species entanglements further in When Species Meet (2008), in which
she argues, through an exploration of human-dog relationships, that human and animal
species only exist in relation to one another. Companion species are created in a “dance
of relating” in which humans are not the only species with a “face.” It is the reciprocal in
terminglings that create the partners. Accepting that species co-shape each other means
recognizing that dogs, and other animals, are “actors and not just recipients of action.”26
To give a concrete example, some accounts of animal domestication now recognize that
animals played a role in their domestication. Early human societies did not simply coerce
wolves into becoming domesticated dogs, or act as “master breeders” who intentionality
set out to create the dogs we know today. Instead, the domestication of dogs was a
process marked by “unconscious selection” as “both people and wolves took actions for
their own short-term gain” (wolves, particularly calmer ones, followed human camps to
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History and Animal Agencies
scavenge food).27 The domestication of dogs, which played a major role in the develop
ment of human societies, was therefore the result of cross-species entanglements in
which animals and humans played a part.
Latour’s and Haraway’s attempts to challenge the nature-culture divide have met with
criticism. Bob Carter and Nickie Charles critique the broad conceptionalization of agency
in Actor Network Theory’s (ANT), which, they argue, merely shows that “everything af
fects everything else in some way or another.”28 Noel Castree is similarly troubled by
ANT’s leveling out of power relations between human and nonhuman actors.29 His point
is a valid one, even though Haraway stresses that cross-species relating is asymmetrical
and that the actors possess different and unequal agencies, and Latour recognizes the im
portance of human responsibility in transforming the environment.30 (p. 244) It is there
fore possible to recognize the importance of human agency, and the responsibilities this
confers upon our species, within ANT’s and posthumanism’s heterogeneous and dis
persed conception of agency.
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History and Animal Agencies
Horses provide an excellent example of animals unintentionally shaping the past. Horses
(and other animals) have played major economic roles throughout history.35 For instance,
horses powered industrial and commercial life in the nineteenth century, by providing an
essential way of moving people and goods around urban areas, until the rise of fossil-fuel-
powered public transportation systems. Fire engines, streetcars, carts, omnibuses, car
riages, street sweepers, ambulances, and delivery vehicles all relied on horsepower, as
did numerous occupations, such as cabman and farrier. Cities in the United States conse
quently had high densities of horses: in 1900 (the peak of urban horse populations) north
eastern cities had on average 396 horses per square mile; and Midwestern ones, 541. The
crucial role of horses in urban economic life was evident to the citizens of Philadelphia
when the Great Epizootic, the outbreak of equine influenza that was spreading through
out northeastern cities, hit the city’s horses in autumn 1872, (p. 245) bringing urban life to
a virtual standstill. The Philadelphia Inquirer observed that “our business houses have
been made to feel the important part played by the horse in the daily routine of business
life.” Beyond the cities, horses sustained agriculture by pulling the ploughing, reaping,
mowing, and harvesting machines, while horse treadmills powered the vital activities of
threshing, baling, and grinding.36 Horses were agents because they made a difference to,
and sustained, the nineteenth-century American economy.
Horses have also powered modern warfare. During the First World War, nations on both
sides of the Western Front drafted in horses, donkeys, and mules to transport supplies up
to the front lines and to pull artillery guns through the mud.37 Despite developments in
automobile technology during the war, by the time of the signing of the Armistice,
equines still pulled 80 percent of the artillery pieces in the French army.38 Allied and Axis
forces then deployed hundreds of thousands of horses, between 1939 and 1945. Among
its horse-borne units, France had three Spahi brigades and five light cavalry divisions,
and two-thirds of its artillery units were drawn by horsepower.39 The majority of German
infantry units, meanwhile, relied on horses for their transportation needs: this supposedly
modern army ran, in no small part, on horses.40 In contrast to images of fast, efficient,
and heavily mechanized Blitzkrieg tactics, animal agency once again supported twentieth-
century “industrialized” warfare between 1939 and 1945.
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History and Animal Agencies
deploy the horses on the Western Front and were therefore responsible for bringing hors
es to the battlefield, where many were wounded or killed. The memorial’s imagery is sig
nificant in other ways. Although cavalry charges had largely become obsolete between
1914 and 1918, the horses on this memorial are shown being ridden by humans, suggest
ing that the ability of horses to sustain warfare relied on human guidance and control.
The presence of saddles, harnesses, and carts also indicates that technology was part of
the agential mix. Wartime horse agency was not “pure” animal agency. Instead, it was the
result of historically specific interminglings between human and nonhuman agents and
technology. The same is true for horses in nineteenth-century cities.
In ANT terminology, horses are part of changing and hybrid networks that might also be
referred to as “assemblages” (or, in plainer English, “associations” or “gatherings”).42
David Gary Shaw labels such assemblages “unities,” with a unity constituting “a (p. 246)
temporary but socially significant fusion of sensible things” in which human and nonhu
man agents understand each other, thereby acting effectively together. Shaw identifies a
horse/human unity that existed a century before those depicted on the Thiaucourt memo
rial, between the Duke of Wellington and his horse Copenhagen on the Waterloo battle
field. Through practice, training, and time they learned to become a “unity” that was
“united by common training, by common experience, by habituation, all made much deep
er by the constant physical contact and the sense that the quality of that contact and
communication might make a difference to the ability of man and horse to work with
saber and saddle to do the business.”43 The horses and men on the Thiaucourt memorial
are anonymous, unlike Wellington and Copenhagen, but they nonetheless depict the uni
ties that were formed between militarized humans and horses during the First World War
through cross-species communication, training and physical contact.44
Finally, First World War horses were agents in that they mediated or changed the unities
they co-constituted by demanding “new modes of action from other actors.”45 Effectively
deploying horses meant developing new supply, feeding, and care structures, while the
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History and Animal Agencies
sight of suffering horses affected some soldiers emotionally. Moreover, the ability of hors
es (and donkeys and mules) to move across the Western Front opened up new possibili
ties for militaries on both sides of the Western Front, which, in turn, (p. 247) required a re
sponse from their opponents. Horses changed, as well as sustained, life on the Western
Front. The horses on the Thiaucourt memorial are a small reminder of the significance
and hybridity of animal agents.
Drawing inspiration from ANT, this section has shown how animals become agents by
making a difference and affecting other agents. This model of animal agency decouples
agency and intentionality, since anything can become an agent in its relationship to other
agents, thereby challenging one of the pillars of human exceptionalism: the Cartesian
model of the thinking and calculating human agent. However, the downplaying of inten
tionality within ANT obscures how animals can be agents when they act in purposeful and
capable ways. Exploring how some animals are agents imbued with a degree of intention
ality offers an alternative way of questioning human exceptionalism.
According to such views, thought and language precede action. Humans are able to as
sess a situation, calculate what action is required, and act accordingly. Furthermore, their
thoughts and actions are legible to others, who can hold them to account. Agency thereby
becomes legible and open to critical scrutiny by contemporary actors and historians. As
philosopher of history R. G. Collingwood argues, the human is “the only animal who
thinks, or thinks enough, and clearly enough, to render his [sic] actions the expressions of
his [sic] thoughts.” This is why “historians habitually identify history with the history of
human affairs.”49 The specter of the Cartesian animal-machine hovers over such argu
ments.
However, the proposition that only humans can be agents because only they possess ra
tionality and intentionality is beginning to look increasingly shaky. Firstly, Timothy
Mitchell, Linda Nash, and others have shown how human intentions, plans, and actions
do not take place in an environmental vacuum. Animals, alongside other nonhuman enti
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ties, have shaped human ideas and activities, from notions of human health and plans for
agricultural development in California to capitalist infrastructure schemes (p. 248) and an
ti-malaria campaigns in twentieth-century Egypt. As Mitchell argues, “ideas and technolo
gy” are not “pure forms of thought brought to bear upon the messy world of reality.”50
Human intentionality emerges in relationship with nonhuman agents.
Furthermore, humans are less rational and intentional than we might like to think. For
over a century, Sigmund Freud and psychoanalytically informed commentators have ar
gued that humans are driven by irrational and unconscious forces, which have sometimes
been described as animalistic. As Freud argued in 1909, “we ought not to go so far as to
fully neglect the original animal part of our nature.”51 Yet even if we accept that human
beings are capable of acting rationally, it is only one characteristic of our species and, as
Tim Ingold points out, it is not something that we can do all of the time. In the majority of
cases, conscious thought does not precede action.52
While humans are starting to look less intentional and rational, animals are starting to
look more so. Ethologists and other scientists now make persuasive claims about animal
rationality, consciousness, and language that threaten previously held convictions about
human exceptionalism. Recent research, Sandra Mitchell reports, suggests that chimps
are “cogitating organisms … They may just not do it the way we do.”53 Researchers on ca
nine psychology, meanwhile, have found that although dogs may lack a theory of mind,
they are capable of some degree of intentional action, are able to form mental maps of
their environment, learn from others, problem-solve, communicate with humans and oth
er dogs through body language and vocalization, understand categories (such as “own
er”).54 Although this research is hardly flawless, it does seem increasingly likely that cer
tain animals possess some cognitive abilities and can act accordingly, which is a far cry
from Descartes’s conceptualization of animals as automata or machines.
In this vein, philosopher Helen Steward argues that some animals’ ability to act in nonde
terministic ways provides evidence of their agency. As animate beings they have control
over their bodily movements in a moment-to-moment way and have a degree of choice
about how they meet their instinctual needs and wants.55 A hungry domestic cat, for in
stance, possesses a range of choices about how to secure food and “settle” (in Steward’s
terms) her needs: jumping up onto a kitchen table to scavenge titbits, hunting mice and
birds in the garden, or pestering her owners. Steward proposes a model of agency that in
cludes animals as agents who have some degree of intentionality. In her view, an agent is
a being who can move part or all of her body, possesses “some form of subjectivity,” has
“at least some rudimentary types of intentional state,” and is a “settler of matters” in that
she is not purely governed by instinct.56
Intentionality, then, is not an exclusive human characteristic, even if humans have a high
er capacity for cognitive and rational thought than other animals. Furthermore, animals
do not need to speak a language that is comprehensible to humans to be considered skill
ful agents.57 Intentionality-based agency is perhaps best treated as a continuum shared
by humans and nonhumans of differing abilities. Dogs, apes, cats, and other animals are
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capable of varying degrees of self-directed and purposeful action: they become agents in
the sense that they are capable of a degree of intentional and self-directed action in the
environments in which they live and in their relationships with other human and nonhu
man agents.
However, treating some animals as skilled and purposeful agents presents a sig
(p. 249)
nificant problem for historians and others working with the methodologies traditionally
associated with the humanities and the social sciences, which often rely on analyzing ver
bal, written, or visual sources. Historians work mainly with human-generated sources—
archival documents, memoirs, oral histories, films, literary sources, photographs—and re
ly on the interpretation of these linguistic and visual traces of the past to formulate their
narratives. Animals, even ones with some degree of purpose and intentionality, do not
communicate visually or linguistically in ways that historians can understand and inter
pret. They do not leave behind explanations of their motives, attitudes, and feelings in
memoirs, diaries, and newspaper articles, as human agents do. Despite these method
ological concerns, some historians suggest that it is possible to access animal agents’ per
ception of the world. Through a creative reading of primary sources, combined with in
sights drawn from ethology and other animal sciences, they attempt to explore animals’
sensory experience of the world and their subjectivity, consciousness, and motivation.58 I,
however, have serious doubts about historians’ abilities to access the motivations, experi
ences, and subjectivities of animals and to write history from the animals’ point of view.
That does not mean that animals necessarily lack subjectivity or consciousness, but it is
unclear to me how we can meaningfully understand the past from animals’ perspectives
using the methodological tools of the historian.59
They are going back with their messages and are keeping up a steady lop, gener
ally led by the best dog. Suddenly, something will attract one of them, and they
may even all stop for a minute. The dog that knows its work best, however, will not
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tolerate delay, and it soon trots off, and now sets the pace at a fast gallop, which
the others are bound to follow.63
Richardson attributed the dogs’ return to their task as the result of their sense of duty
and responsibility. We cannot be sure why the dogs did this; they acted in ways that are
beyond our precise understanding. But it appears that they were capable of making
(p. 250) some kind of decision over what to do in that situation and to learn from each oth
er. It would be easy to dismiss the training manuals as mere cultural representations of
dogs that are peppered with anthropomorphic statements concerning dogs’ sense of duty
and responsibility. But training manuals do give at least some sense of dogs’ skilled
agency. They provide glimpses, however slight and imperfect, of how dogs were capable
agents, whose attributes dog trainers had to work with and engage to create army
dogs.64 It is possible, therefore, to treat certain animals as purposeful, capable, and inten
tional agents and to use primary sources to explore how they interacted with other hu
man and nonhuman agents.
Jason Hribal pushes the nonhuman-as-resister argument furthest when he suggests that
animal laborers in capitalist systems, such as urban draft horses, have displayed the “con
scious ability” to resist their exploitation.70 Hribal has extended his analysis to circus and
zoo animals, who, he argues, “have used their intelligence, ingenuity, and tenacity to
overcome the situations and obstacles put before them. Their actions have had intent and
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purpose … They are choosing to fight back.” However, it is unclear how we can know this.
For instance, how can we know that Jumbo, an elephant kept at London zoo, “did not see
himself as a machine. Resistance was his new thought”?71 Claiming an insight into how
animals experienced and understood their oppression emotionally, (p. 251) physically, and
mentally, Hribal turns them into four-legged agitators to file alongside human radicals
and revolutionaries. The desire to show that animals are more than mere victims of hu
man exploitation undoubtedly informs such portrayals of rebellious animals.
Although animals share forms of sociability with humans, have forms of language, and
can shape the social order, they are not “resisters” because they are unable to use lan
guage to deliberate over resources in a symbolic and meaning-laden way or to articulate
visions of alternative futures.73 In other words, they are not political animals and there
fore their actions cannot constitute resistance as it is laid out by Scott, de Certeau, and
others. So, animals may individually challenge the particular circumstances in which they
find themselves in (a horse might throw off an unskilled rider) but this is not resistance in
the political sense. In addition, when animals collectively undermine human intentions
and projects—such as when mosquitoes threatened US military operations in the Pacific
during World War II—it is more accurate to describe the behavior in less politically loaded
terms than “resistance,” such as “thwarting” or “blocking.” Carter and Charles’s critique
of animal agency as resistance, however, does not mean that we should ignore the power
relations in which animals are enmeshed. Quite the opposite: for animals’ agency is
shaped by their “location within a definite network of social relations,” which allows or
constrains the possibilities available to animal agents and the effectiveness of their ac
tions.74
As well as being conceptually problematic, resistance may not always be the most likely
explanation for animal behavior. Take the early twentieth-century history of river rescue
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dogs on the Seine River in Paris. The Parisian police introduced a team of Newfoundland
dogs to prevent drownings. However, their introduction was not a success; the dogs re
sponded indifferently to training and showed a marked reluctance to (p. 252) dive into the
river to rescue individuals from the water. This became a matter of public humiliation for
the police when Le Matin tested the dogs’ abilities by staging a drowning, during which
the dogs refused to jump into the river to affect a rescue. In the months following this de
bacle, some of the dogs fell ill, and some attacked their owners, leading to the disband
ment of the river-rescue-dog program. But resistance does not offer an adequate explana
tion for this failure: poor training techniques, which the police themselves recognized
were a problem, are the most likely explanation: deficiencies in the human-animal train
ing relationship at that time and in that place seemingly led to the dogs’ inability to act
effectively.75 In Shaw’s terms, the police and the rescue dogs had not formed an effective
“unity.”76 Other instances of animals not acting in the ways their human handlers expect
them to, such as horses kicking their owners and refusing to travel along certain routes
during World War I, might be better explained as conditioned responses to the battlefield
environment, rather than resistance.77
Questioning nonhuman resistance, however, does not mean that we should ignore
episodes when animals, individually or in groups, act in ways that disrupt human plans,
intentions, and activities. Nor does it mean that scholars should overlook how human ac
tors have transformed real animals into symbols of resistance: antimilitary protesters’
mobilization of sheep to challenge the French military’s expansion of the Larzac army
base in South Western France between 1971 and 1981 is a striking example of how hu
mans imbue animals with resistance qualities.78 But the questioning of nonhuman resis
tance does mean searching for other explanations of breakdowns in human-nonhuman
unities and deploying less anthropomorphic and politicized terminology.
Conclusion
Drawing on the work of Latour, Haraway, and others, I have argued that animals display a
diverse range of agencies. Depending on their species, relationships to other agents (hu
man and nonhuman), and the circumstances in which they live, animals display agency by
making a difference through allowing or blocking historical processes or by acting with a
degree of intentionality. This agency is always relational, emerging or disintegrating in
relationship to other agencies. As Edwin Sayes argues, “Nonhumans do not have agency
by themselves, if only because they are never by themselves.”79 Care is needed, however,
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when analyzing nonhuman agency. In particular, uncovering (p. 253) instances of inten
tional nonhuman agency is fraught with methodological difficulties, and labeling nonhu
man agency as “resistance” is deeply problematic. But, although there are clear limits to
what we can know about animal agencies, it does not mean that historians should aban
don attempts to uncover animals’ influence and abilities so as to better understand the
hybrid world in which we live and to challenge human exceptionalism.
Notes:
(2.) Sarah Whatmore, “Humanism’s Excess: Some Thoughts on the ‘Post-human/ist’ Agen
da,” Environment and Planning A 36 (2004): 1360–1363; Sarah Whatmore, “Materialist
Returns: Practising Cultural Geography in and for a More-Than-Human World,” Cultural
Geographies 13 (2006): 600–609.
(3.) On cross-species shaping, see Edmund Russell, Evolutionary History: Uniting History
and Biology to Understand Life on Earth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011);
Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008);
Dominique Lestel, L’animalité (Paris: L’Herne, 2007), 91–92; and Felipe Fernández-
Armesto, So You Think You’re Human? A Brief History of Humankind (Oxford: Oxford Uni
versity Press, 2004).
(4.) Wild animals do possess agency. As Jennifer Adams Martin argues, “By avoiding peo
ple in the water, sharks also may show agency-in-the-world as these animals navigate
their own life histories beyond human detection or expectations.” See “When Sharks
(Don’t) Attack: Wild Animal Agency in Historical Narratives,” Environmental History 16
(2011): 454.
(5.) Walter Johnson, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History 37 (2003): 113. See also Julia
Adams, “1-800-How-Am-I-Driving? Agency in Social Science History,” Social Science His
tory 35 (2011): 1–17.
(7.) Jean-Marie Schaeffer, La fin de l’exception humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 26–27;
Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill
(Abington: Routledge, 2000), 15.
(8.) Philippe Descola, Par-delà Nature et Culture (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 2005), 13.
(9.) Nurit Bird-David, “‘Animism’ Revised: Personhood, Environment and Relational Epis
temology,” Current Anthropology 40 (1999): S67–S91. See also Ingold, Perception of the
Environment, 15.
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(12.) Joyce. E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (New York: Rout
ledge, 1994), 8–9.
(14.) Noel Castree, Nature (Abington: Routledge, 2005), 226; Carolyn Merchant, The
Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper
and Row, 1980).
(15.) Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley, Uni
versity of California Press, 2002), 29. See also Helen Steward, A Metaphysics for Freedom
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 73.
(16.) Erica Fudge, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern
England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 39–146.
(17.) René Descartes, Discourse on Method and The Meditations, trans. F. E. Sutcliffe
(London: Penguin, 1968), 27.
(21.) For a defense of Descartes’s attitudes toward animals see Peter Harrison,
“Descartes on Animals,” Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1992): 219–227.
(22.) Salisbury, Beast Within, 39; Harriet Ritvo, “Border Trouble: Shifting the Line be
tween People and Other Animals,” Social Research 62 (1995): 481–500; Gregory Radick,
The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal Language (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2007).
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History and Animal Agencies
(23.) Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Linda Nash helpfully sums up Latour’s conceptual
ization of modernity as “a story we have told ourselves about the separation of human be
ings from nature.” Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowl
edge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 209.
(25.) Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” in Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and
Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 149–181.
(27.) Russell, Evolutionary History, 58–60. For an overview of theories of dog domestica
tion, see Ádám Miklósi, Dog Behaviour, Evolution and Cognition (Oxford: Oxford Universi
ty Press, 2007), chap. 5.
(28.) Bob Carter and Nickie Charles, “Animals, Agency and Resistance,” Journal for the
Theory of Social Behaviour 43 (2013): 322–340.
(29.) See Noel Castree, “False Antitheses? Marxism, Nature, and Actor-Networks,” An
tipode 34 (2002): 134–135. See also Colin Barron, ed., “A Strong Distinction between Hu
mans and Non-Humans Is No Longer Required for Research Purposes: A Debate between
Bruno Latour and Steve Fuller,” History of the Human Sciences 16 (2003): 77–99. For a
defense of ANT, see Edwin Sayes, “Actor-Network Theory and Methodology: Just What
Does It Mean to Say That Nonhumans Have Agency?” Social Studies of Science 44 (2014):
134–149.
(30.) Haraway, When Species Meet, 262–263; Bruno Latour, “Agency at the Time of the
Anthropocene,” New Literary History 45 (2014): 1–18.
(32.) Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 76. See also Jane Bennett, Vibrant Mat
ter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
(33.) Virginia de John Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Trans
formed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Jonathan Burt, Ani
mals in Film (London: Reaktion, 2002). Literary scholars are also trying to accord animals
a more active role in the texts. See Philip Armstrong, “What Animals Mean, in Moby-Dick,
for Example,” Textual Practice 19 (2005): 93–111.
(34.) Erica Fudge, “The History of Animals,” H-Animal Discussion Network online, Rumi
nations 1, May 25, 2006, p. 2, http://h-net.org/~animal/ruminations_fudge.html. See also
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Reassembling the Social, in which Latour argues that “action is not done under the full
control of consciousness” (44).
(35.) For an illuminating exposition of animals’ economic role, see Alan Mikhail, “Unleash
ing the Beast: Animals, Energy, and the Economy of Labor in Ottoman Egypt,” American
Historical Review 118 (2013): 318.
(36.) Ann Norton Greene, Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 166–177, 191–194. See also Clay
McShane and Joel A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Cen
tury (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
(37.) In the first twelve days of the war, the UK mobilized 165,000 horses. Numbers
reached a peak in August 1917, when the British army had 368,000 horses and 82,000
mules on the Western Front. Sidney Galtrey, The Horse and the War (London: Country Life
and George Newnes, 1918), 16; John Singleton, “Britain’s Military Use of Horses,
1914-1918,” Past and Present 139 (1993): 190. The German cavalry mobilized 715,000
horses when war broke out, while the French army requisitioned 700,000 equines.
Dorothee Brantz, “Environments of Death: Trench Warfare on the Western Front, 1914–
1918,” in War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age, ed. Charles
E. Closmann (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2009), 85; Damien Baldin, “Les ani
maux en guerre: animaux soldats et bestiaire de guerre (1914–1918),” in La guerre des
animaux, 1914-1918, ed. Damien Baldin (Peronne: Historial de la Grande Guerre, 2007),
17.
(39.) Jean Doise and Maurice Vaïse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, 1871–1991: politique
étrangère de la France (1987; Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1992), 723.
(41.) Albert J. Frost, The Shire Horse in Peace and War (London: Vinton & Company,
1915), 121–122.
(43.) David Gary Shaw, “The Torturer’s Horse: Agency and Animals in History,” History
and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): 161, 163.
(44.) On the bonds between militarized horses and humans, see Gervase Philips, “Writing
Horses into American Civil War History,” War in History 20 (2013): 165–169.
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(46.) William H. Sewell, “Nature, Agency, and Anthropocentrism,” “Steinberg: History Fo
rums,” American Historical Review, July 2, 2002, accessed at www.historycooperative.org/
phorum/read.php?13,271,271.
(47.) For a critique of this view, see Iordanis Marcoulatos, “Rethinking Intentionality: A
Bourdieuian Perspective,” in How Nature Speaks: The Dynamics of the Human Ecological
Condition, ed. Yrjö Haila and Chuck Dyke (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006),
127–149.
(48.) Ralf Stoecker, “Why Animals Can’t Act,” Inquiry 52 (2009): 266, 269.
(49.) R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 213.
(50.) Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 52; and Nash, Inescapable Ecologies. Similar arguments
can be made about how “things” shape human ideas and plans. Ewa Domanska, “The Ma
terial Presence of the Past,” History and Theory 45 (2006): 337–348; Carl Knappett,
Thinking Through Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Philadelphia: Uni
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
(51.) Sigmund Freud, “About Psychoanalysis: Five Lectures Given at the 20th Anniversary
Celebration of the Founding of Clark University in Worcester, Mass.,” September 1909,
accessed at www.rasch.org/over.htm, February 9, 2011.
(52.) Tim Ingold, “The Animal in the Study of Humanity,” in What Is an Animal?, ed. Tim
Ingold (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 95.
(54.) Ikuma Adachi, Hiroko Kuwahata, and Kazuo Fujita, “Dogs Recall Their Owner’s Face
upon Hearing the Owner’s Voice,” Animal Cognition 10 (2007): 17–21; Nicole Chapuis and
Christian Varlet, “Short Cuts by Dogs in Natural Surroundings,” Quarterly Journal of Ex
perimental Psychology 39B (1987): 49–64; Alexandra Horowitz, “Attention to Attention in
Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris) Dyadic Play,” Animal Cognition 12 (2009): 107–118;
Friederike Range, Zsófia Viranyi, and Ludwig Huber, “Selective Imitation in Domestic
Dogs,” Current Biology 17 (2007): 868–872.
(57.) Ingold, “Introduction,” in What Is an Animal?, ed. Ingold, 10; Mark Okrent, Rational
Animals: The Teleological Roots of Intentionality (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007);
Lestel, Animalité, 69; Shaw, “Torturer’s Horse,” 156.
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(58.) For a thoughtful discussion of the possibilities and problems of taking animals’ per
spectives into account, see Fudge, “Milking Other Men’s Beasts,” History and Theory 52
(2013): 13–28. See also Eric Baratay, Le point de vue animal: une autre version de
l’histoire (Paris: Seuil, 2012); Philips, “Writing Horses”; Sandra Swart, Riding High: Hors
es, Humans, and History in South Africa (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010); Juk
ka Nyyssönon and Anna-Kaisa Salmi, “Towards a Multitangled Study of Reindeer Agency,
Overlapping Environments, and Human-Animal Relationships,” Arctic Anthropology 50
(2013): 40–51; Brett L. Walker, The Lost Wolves of Japan (Seattle: University of Washing
ton Press, 2009). For a useful analysis of the history of human attempts to understand the
motivations and consciousness of nonhumans, see Lorraine Daston, “Intelligences: Angel
ic, Animal, Human,” in Daston and Mitman, Thinking with Animals, 37–58.
(59.) In taking this approach, I side with Thomas Nagel in his famous essay “What Is It
like to Be a Bat?” in which he argues that although it may be impossible for humans to ex
perience and describe what it is like to be a bat, that does not mean that bats (or other
creatures) lack consciousness and subjective experiences. Nagel’s 1974 essay, originally
published in Philosophical Review, is reproduced in Philosophy: Basic Reading, ed. Nigel
Warburton (London: Routledge, 2005), 422–433.
(62.) Edwin H. Richardson, British War Dogs: Their Training and Psychology (London: Sk
effington & Son, 1920), 56, 82–90.
(64.) I explore these issues more fully in Chris Pearson, “Dogs, History and Agency,” His
tory and Theory 52 (2013): 128–145.
(66.) Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert, “Animal Spaces, Beastly Places,” in Animal Spaces,
Beastly Places: New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations, ed. Chris Philo and Chris
Wilbert (London: Routledge, 2000), 5.
(67.) Warkentin, “Whale Agency: Affordances and Acts of Resistance in Captive Environ
ments,” in Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration, ed. Sarah E. McFarland
and Ryan Hediger (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 32–35.
(69.) Shelly R. Scott, “The Racehorse as Protagonist: Agency, Independence, and Improvi
sation,” in McFarland and Hediger, Animals and Agency, 47.
(70.) Jason Hribal, “Animals, Agency, and Class: Writing the History of Animals from Be
low,” Human Ecology Review 14 (2007): 101–112.
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(71.) Jason Hribal, Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance
(Petrolia, CA: CounterPunch, 2010), 33, 151.
Chris Pearson
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Dec 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.28
This chapter outlines where the history of animals is now, and suggests where it and the
historiographical issues raised by the inclusion of animals in a study of the past might go
in the future. The chapter traces shifts in the idea that animals recorded in textual docu
mentation are always and only human representations, looks at the potential for animals
to be historical agents and at the questions of animal agency and the possibility of recov
ering an animal’s point of view in historical work using the findings of animal welfare sci
ence. It also engages with the nature of the documents available to historians of animals,
and uses some contemporary theoretical work—particularly that of Vinciane Despret—to
think about new ways of engaging with the intraspecific and interspecific encounters of
animals and humans in history.
Keywords: animal studies, animal historiography, representation, agency, point of view, animal welfare science, in
terspecific encounters, intraspecific encounters
IN The Utility and Liability of History (1874), Friedrich Nietzsche presents animals in
seemingly contradictory relationships with history. In the first paragraph of the first sec
tion of the work, he advises his reader:
Observe the herd as it grazes past you: it cannot distinguish yesterday from today,
leaps about, eats, sleeps, digests, leaps some more, and carries on like this from
morning to night and from day to day, tethered by the short leash of its pleasures
and displeasures to the stake of the moment, and thus it is neither melancholy nor
bored. It is hard on the human being to observe this, because he boasts about the
superiority of his humanity over animals and yet looks enviously upon their happi
ness—for the one and only thing that he desires is to live like an animal, neither
bored nor in pain, and yet he desires this in vain, because he does not desire it in
the same way as does the animal. The human being might ask the animal: “Why do
you just look at me like that instead of telling me about your happiness?” The ani
mal wanted to answer, “Because I always immediately forget what I wanted to
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
say”—but it had already forgotten this answer and hence said nothing, so that the
human being was left to wonder.1
“Thus the animal,” Nietzsche writes in the next paragraph, “lives ahistorically, for it dis
appears entirely into the present, like a number that leaves no remainder.” This ahistori
cal existence, he argues, is the nature of animals, a nature that the human “envies”: for
the latter, forgetfulness is a state to be desired, as the past “weighs him down or bends
him over.”2
Later in the text Nietzsche uses animals again in two images to explain what he regards
as the destructive potential of history. History, he writes in the first, is dissection:3 “all liv
ing things… . cease to live when they have been totally dissected, and they (p. 259) live a
pained and sickly life as soon as we begin to practice historical dissection on them.” He il
lustrates the outcome of such dissection by turning to the belief in the “healing power of
German music among the Germans.” This, he writes, is destroyed when “men such as
Mozart and Beethoven… . are forced by the torture system of historical criticism to an
swer a thousand impertinent questions.” The questions and the “trivialities” that emerge
from biographical research do away with “those vital effects [which] are by no means ex
hausted” by physical being: in short, the “historical sensibility… . robs existing things of
that atmosphere in which alone they are able to live.”4 The historian, in this image, is a
kind of vivisector: in order to understand life, he (and he is male) cuts it up using a
method that is deathly. If we follow through the logic of the image here, animals are fig
ured as passive victims of human experimentation and inquiry. Already as if dead even be
fore they are cut up, they play no active role in the making of knowledge.
The second image, which follows fast on the heels of the previous one, moves in a very
different direction. Writing of the “sober, pragmatic lust for the new” of “modern biogra
phers,” Nietzsche argues that they render “every ghostly actio in distans [distanced ac
tion] impossible,” leaving only objective fact. He then adds an analogy for emphasis: the
biographer destroys the transcendent “just as the most wretched animal can prevent the
mightiest oak tree from coming into existence by eating the acorn from which it should
sprout.”5 Here the animal is no longer the figure of the victim of historical inquiry, but of
the historian. And while the actions of the historian and the animal might exist on differ
ent planes—historical work can take away “the mysterious cloud of vapor” which “all liv
ing things” need, while eating an acorn ends a potential tree—what the analogy is
premised on is the power to impact the world possessed by both. No longer living an ahis
torical life, or in the position of a passive victim, even “the most wretched animal” here is
a small but powerful force.6
There are, of course, great differences between Nietzsche’s ideas and the mainstream of
contemporary historiography: for one, while current historians of animals are trying to ar
gue for animals’ historicity, their ahistorical life is a positive mode of being for
Nietzsche;7 for another, few historians would think of themselves as performing a task
analogous to a vivisector—quite the contrary: they might, rather, think of themselves as
attempting to give life to the dead rather than destroying it with their work.8 But
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Nietzsche’s ideas can, then, be read as elucidating some motivations for and foci
(p. 260)
of current work in the history of animals. This is a field that is rapidly expanding: there
has certainly been a seismic shift from how things were in 1992 when Malcolm Chase
could note “the rather lonely eminence” of Keith Thomas’s book Man and the Natural
World.11 Since that time that loneliness has ceased, and historians of animals find them
selves in good and varied company. Indeed, so varied is the company that some of those
whose work I will be discussing here would not think of themselves as historians of ani
mals. This is because one of the impacts of the emergence of animal studies over the past
twenty-five years has been that more and more historians, from a range of the discipline’s
subfields, are acknowledging the need to take animals seriously. Or, to put it another way,
as equine historian Sandra Swart has written, historians are coming to recognize and ad
dress two interrelated things: that “history was made with horse power; and equally the
horses were shaped by human history.”12 These animals are not Nietzsche’s passive vic
tims of dissection but are active, world-producing beings.
In what follows I will attempt to outline where the history of animals is now, and where it
might go. None of the issues I focus on is found only in historical work: questions of rep
resentation, agency, point of view, and the nature of primary sources can be encountered
in other disciplines’ engagements with animals. But thinking about these issues within
the frame of historiography not only opens up new ways of thinking about how, and why,
we might want to write the history of animals, it also offers new ways of addressing some
key concerns in animal studies generally.
The point of departure for this essay was an apparently simple question: what was it like
to be a cow?13 This was what I asked when, following the philosopher’s advice, I observed
the herd and wondered. The response I got when I asked my question was very different
from the silence experienced by Nietzsche’s human.
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(p. 261) But the inevitable centrality of humans in the histories that they write does not
completely close down the possibility of thinking about animals. Histories of animals that
rely on human representations can still broaden our understanding of the past to include
animals as animals, rather than only as human tools or ideas, and so can give us glimpses
of life that would otherwise remain invisible. Thus, while the “essentially economistic”
field of agricultural history tends to focus on animals only insofar as they offer a way of
understanding particular farming practices, or changes in patterns of consumption,17 an
animal history of agriculture—that is, a history that presents animals as being more than
backdrops to, and props in, human affairs—can enable us to think about how livestock an
imals changed the environments and the cultures they lived within;18 or how humans and
animals lived together in emotional as well as economic relationships.19 Such readings of
fer revised visions of the past that bring the presence of animals to the fore. To extend
the earlier theatrical metaphor: such work recognizes animals as actors.
Many important studies have appeared that have used such human representations to
construct pictures of worlds that have previously been ignored or marginalized. So when
Diana Donald begins her analysis of the visual representation of animals in the period
1750–1850 with the sentence, “This is a book about a single animal species: the human
race,” she is not closing down discussion about non-human animals.20 Rather, from her
study of human ideas a sense of the contradictory nature of the perceptions and represen
tations of animals in the period emerges that brings to the fore the experience, not just
the depiction, of those animals.21 Brett Mizelle pushes the point a little further in his
study of “Grizzly” Adams. He, like Donald, recognizes that “we have, of course, no direct
access to the animals’ perspective,” but from the “human-generated sources about Adams
and his bears,” we can, he suggests, “begin to escape the human perspective and fore
ground the animal side of human-animal relationships in history.”22 Likewise, Hilda Kean
uses the diary kept by the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century navigator
Matthew Flinders, which details the life of his cat Trim on board ship, to argue for the
possibility of getting beyond representation in our histories of animals. She writes: “Al
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though we know about Trim because of the written account by Flinders, I would suggest
that we also know about Trim because his own behavior was distinctive: he was not sim
ply a construct of the naval commander.”23
Such a statement is not, of course, without difficulties. It could be argued that what is re
garded as “distinctive” in the sources the historian relies on is a human and not a feline
idea. Or it could be proposed that Flinders might be telling tall tales about Trim—exag
gerating, and thus leaving the real cat beyond the reach of the record. Such suggestions
can be addressed in three ways that all remind us that, while animals might throw up par
ticular problems for the historian, many of those problems are actually problems of histo
ry in general and not specifically of the history of animals. First, any document is always
written from a particular perspective, restricting or biasing the view of human as well as
animal subjects.24 Second, having faith in one’s documentary sources—believing that,
within reason, they tell what was thought to have happened—is a necessary (albeit not
unproblematic) part of all historical work.25 And third, even when humans rather than an
imals are the historian’s focus, there is an important leap to be made from (p. 262) a par
ticular document to a more comprehensive understanding and narration of the logic of
behavior, let alone interior motivation. Thus the difficulties in narrating animal behavior
and its motivation may not be so different from narrating human behavior and its motiva
tion in history26—although differences do, of course, remain (I return to these). Indeed, in
his book The Animal in Ottoman Europe, Alan Mikhail notes that the problem facing ani
mal historians as they attempt to “enter the dog world… . in many ways points to the ba
sic task of any historian—understanding how historical subjects experienced the past.”27
Such a recognition begins to unmake the boundary that appears to separate human from
animal studies; that, for Nietzsche (as for many in the humanities), places the human on
one side of the fence and the herd on the other.
To assist in this reclaiming of glimpses of the real animal from historical representations
more and more historians are turning to animal welfare science, and to the work of ethol
ogists: “though they are mediated by people,” Aaron Skabelund notes, “the very behav
iors of animal species… . can be used as sources.”28 Thus, in his history of wolves in
Japan, Brett L. Walker proposes that “the expression of animal emotions, expression that
might be recorded by the discerning eye of the naturalist, can be read by the historian as
a kind of ‘text’ with which to give animals greater agency in historical narrative.”29
Similarly, in her history of performing elephants in America, Susan Nance writes that “as
historians we can take elephants as elephants without needing to know definitively what a
given elephant’s intentions or internal experience was at every moment.” To do this she
proposes using “recent ethological and animal welfare science research… . as a theoreti
cal base for the interpretation of historical elephants.”30 But this use of ideas from animal
welfare science “does require some caution,” she advises, as “different environments or
communities of captivity will produce different kinds of animals and people, and humans
use those processes to produce human cultures and identities.”31 Science, we must re
member, is itself historically and culturally constructed for a particular reason; it is not a
source of objective “truth.” With that caveat, however, the findings of the work of animal
welfare scientists and ethologists can be used as a way of adding to the interpretation of
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This shift away from the idea that historical animals are only available as human repre
sentations to a reading that recognizes the potential to see something of real animals has
other implications. One is in relation to animal agency, which becomes more important as
animal behavior is recognized as meaningful. This is not, automatically, to assume that
agency equates to individuality—the humanization of animals is not the only possible out
come here. One could counter such a suggestion by, for example, pointing to Thing Theo
ry, which underlines the agency of even the insentient objects we encounter, or to Actor
Network Theory which emphasizes the networks of humans, animals, buildings, clothing,
trees, and so on, by which and in which identity is formed.33 The history of animals has in
the main, however, followed the direction already taken by history more generally:34 it as
sumes, as Mikhail puts it succinctly, that “self-reflexive intentionality is not a prerequisite
to historical agency.”35 This sets the discussion about (p. 263) individuality to one side, but
what is crucial in this conception is that it allows that animals—wittingly or otherwise—
played a role in constructing the past.36
September: 23: I heard that Major Cletheroe, September: 21. coming homewards
at Redgewell his Horse stumbled and fell downe upon him, and brake his bowells,
he was taken up and spake but he dyed about 4 or 5 houres after… .
October. I:… . god good to mee in keeping mee safe from stumbling and falling,
and from hurt at Gosfeild gate, where my Horse rushd my foote upon the gatepost.
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Oct: 7:… . I found god had gratiously kept my daughter Mary who was strucke
with a Horse her apron rent of with his nayles. and her handcherchiefe rent and
yett shee had no hurt, many thought shee had been spoyled… .
11: Went to my Lady Honywoods… . my Lady had a man that broke his shoulder
with a fall from his horse, my loving neighbour goodman Burton escaped a great
danger his mare kickt him backwards upon his belly. it begun to swell, oh gods
protection and providence to be adored… .37
As the last phrase about God’s providence underlines, Josselin did not list the dangers of
horses because of an obsession with the perils of travel, or a private hippophobia (both of
which might have been well-founded given the apparently hazardous nature of road trav
el in the early modern period). Rather, his and others’ encounters with horses are includ
ed in his spiritual diary because they are reminders to him of the powerful impact of the
Fall on human life and so, by extension, are evidence of God’s power and his goodness:
people encounter “great danger” but can escape; and even death is a work of a providen
tial (p. 264) design. Thus, the horses are agents of God (they reveal His presence and
grace) and of humans (who use them to travel over longer distances than is possible on
foot), and they are agents as horses (who can carry and trot, but also stumble, fall, strike,
and kick). For Josselin these three distinct realms—divine, human, and natural—are in
separable and inevitable, and this is how he makes sense of his (or rather God’s) uni
verse. But even while doing this, what Josselin’s diary shows us, if we look, is not only his
perception of the power of the Almighty and of the dangers humans encountered in the
more-than-human world, but also the situations into which horses were put and their re
sponses to those situations. We see agency, in short, as being possessed by all the parties.
The spiritualization of nature we find in Josselin’s diary is, of course, less common in
present-day historiography;38 and his reading of the place of humans in the natural world
is at odds with current ideas that emphasize humanity’s embeddedness in nature, rather
than distinction from it.39 In this way, Josselin’s diary reminds us that the concept of
agency, like animal welfare science and ethology, is historically constructed. In a vision of
the universe dominated by his Protestant faith, Josselin understands his place in nature,
and the actions of animals, as ordained by God; much current theory is rather different—
emphasizing networks rather than a single pivot, for example. To avoid the dangers of
anachronism in our application of theoretical concepts, therefore, all models of animal
agency must be understood as historically specific and contingent: we must keep the his
torical worldviews we encounter to the fore in our analyses, even as we acknowledge the
nature of the worldviews we are using to help us to interpret them.
But thinking about how we read does not only require care over the use of contemporary
theoretical ideas to interpret the past; it can also be about the position we take in relation
to our sources in broader terms. Terry Eagleton’s interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s call
for a history that rubs “against the grain” offers useful insight into how this might work
not only for human liberation, but also for the history of animals:40
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[Benjamin’s] One-Way Street contrasts the aerial view of a terrain, in which “the
passenger sees only how the road pushes through the landscape,” with the same
prospect seen on foot: the view from on foot brushes the smooth continuity of the
aerial view against the grain, so to speak, opening up irregular perspectives and
sudden clearings concealed from the deceptively homogeneous vantage-point of
the flier.41
Eagleton’s description of reading “against the grain” is fortunate for historians of ani
mals, as it brings together historiography and the natural world in a particular way. The
aerial view—omniscient, God-like—is replaced by the view from ground level, which
might be translated as the perspective taken from a position alongside animals.42 We are
looking, perhaps—to return to Josselin—at the difference between a divine reading (aerial
and omniscient) and a more-than-human one (on the ground, stumbling along beside the
horses).
This new position might allow us to read some of the documents of the past as revealing
more than might appear: it might open up “irregular perspectives and sudden clearings,”
as Eagleton put it. Thus, for example, early modern English legal documents (p. 265) in
clude animals as objects: as property that can be given a value, inherited, sold, stolen,
and so on. And the law of “deodand” proposes that, even when an animal causes the
death of or injury to a person, it is does not have the status of legal subject but is, rather,
an owned object, with the onus placed on the human owner to control his or her posses
sion. Such assumptions would seem to reflect a “smooth continuity” in a mindset
premised on human distinction: from an aerial perspective, it posits that we are subject,
they are object. However, a different reading—a reading “against the grain”—brings the
irregularities into focus. The naming of a cow in an early modern, for example, or the
careful bequeathing of an aged animal, offer glimpses of relationships that appear to go
beyond that of simply owning subject and owned object and thus disrupt that too-straight
forward opposition. Not only is the testator revealing his or her close, personal engage
ment with an animal: what’s to say that, in such a context, bequeathing livestock isn’t
about caring for the animal as much as it is about caring for the human recipient of the
bequest? And in the trial of a vicious dog, it is represented as an object that should have
been controlled by its owner, a legal provision based on the belief that the owner is liable
because he or she should know their animal’s character. But the idea that an animal pos
sesses a character would seem to exceed its status as an object.43 Thus, legal documents
appear to restrict the possibility of animal agency through their objectification of them;
but, at the same time, these same documents contain glimpses of something else. Walking
alongside rather than taking an omniscient aerial view—in this instance, thinking with the
people who live with the animals rather than only with those who theorize them—might
give us more opportunity to see this other picture.
Living alongside animals is not, of course, always a domestic encounter, and wild, rather
than domesticated, animals, present particular difficulties for the historian. In his study of
human-tiger interactions in the early modern and modern Malay world, for example, Pe
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ter Boomgaard notes that the archive skews the picture, making some aspects of these
animals’ lives very difficult to trace:
One has to look hard at the voluminous literature on tigers in order to find indica
tions that tigers were not always and not everywhere looked upon as deadly ene
mies. On theoretical grounds it could be argued that the literature at our disposal
is biased against such information, and that peaceful coexistence between humans
and tigers is therefore underreported.44
Jennifer Adams Martin likewise notes how sharks are frequently chronicled only in their
violent encounters with humans, and that the lives they lead when they do not encounter
them, or when they steer clear of them, go unnoticed and unrecorded: “these animals
navigate their own life histories beyond human detection or expectations.” And even
when they are viewed in “their own worlds” via the modern technique of observation
from the safety of a shark cage, Martin writes, a respectful silence (a refusal to attempt
to represent the “ineffable, impenetrable, implacable”) itself conveys animal passivity: the
human response denies “the historicity, diversity, and agency of wild animals” by empha
sizing “the impossibility of mutual comprehension.”45
Martin’s final point is crucial: a belief in the inability to communicate with ani
(p. 266)
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ographical, social, and so on. Animals are, in this, just like the humans, who are also
adapting to circumstances, some of which are the actions of other species. Utilizing the
ideas of another nineteenth-century thinker, Brett L. Walker comes to a similar conclusion
about animals’ engagement with the past: “As I see them, the implications of Darwin’s
work are that advanced social animals such as wolves also experience historical lives.”51
Far from confirming Nietzsche’s conception of animals as ahistorical, works such as these
reinforce the sense that it is possible to think in terms of animals possessing their own
history, culture, and even tradition, which, in turn, is a reminder that animals, like hu
mans, are actively constructing their worlds as well as being constructed in them. But
how can one represent or reconstruct the agency of a creature who leaves little or no
documentary trace, or whose trace is apparently incomprehensible? Perhaps, to return to
the earlier discussion, by carefully utilizing data from animal welfare science and etholo
gy gaps might be, if not filled, then, at the very least, recognized. Not being able to say
anything while recognizing that there is something to say is very different from assuming
that nothing needs to be said.
(p. 267) But the problems don’t end there. In addition to the (aerial) limits of reading it
self, and the paucity of documents recording what exists in the more-than-human world,
another problem for historians exists. Animals are often encountered as groups—herds,
packs, flocks; and so how they existed as intraspecific social beings, and not just individ
ual animals in relation to human culture, is also important. Answering my question, what
was it like to be a cow? must also include addressing what it was like to be a cow among
cows (and on a smallholding. the analysis of a cow’s social world might need to stretch to
include interspecific engagements with, say, pigs, horses, chickens, and geese). What, for
example, was the impact on the cows of the increase in herd sizes in England in the mid-
seventeenth century? Economic and agricultural historians have noted its impact on the
economy and agricultural practices,52 but the archive may once again limit historians of
animals here by offering little direct evidence of animals’ experiences. I know that I can
never answer the questions, what was it like to be a cow or to be a cow among other
cows? But that does not stop me from asking. If nothing else, the findings of animal wel
fare science and ethology might help me to recognize the validity of my question—might
begin to show, for example, that herd size does impact an individual animal’s behavior.53
Indeed, an understanding of pack behavior, as gained from working alongside biologists
and ranchers in Yellowstone National Park, for example, has a place in Brett Walker’s his
tory of the disappearance of Japan’s wolves.54
But, there is yet another difficulty: even when documents do exist they do not record the
animal’s distinct experience of the world, and understanding an animal’s sensory capaci
ties is vital when thinking about what it was like to be that animal. As with other prob
lems facing the historian of animals, this is not only an issue in historical work: it is felt
even in direct engagements with living animals. Writing of the canine ability to track, for
example, dog trainer and poet Vicki Hearne notes: “‘Scent’ for us can be only a theoreti
cal, technical expression that we use because our grammar requires that we have a noun
to go in the sentences we are prompted to utter about tracking. We don’t have a ‘sense’ of
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Some historians of animals have tried to address this problem. Aiming to explore the
“overlapping and mutually constitutive histories and geographies” of humans and dogs in
Paris in the nineteenth century, for example, Chris Pearson began his research with a
walk with a dog in Bristol, proposing the need to understand something of a dog’s experi
ence now in order to begin to glimpse a dog’s experience then. Using Donna Haraway’s
When Species Meet as a guide, Pearson acknowledged that while “some cross-species
communication and understanding is possible,” many of the ways by which dogs engage
with the world are lost to us: “It becomes apparent that dogs mainly know and experience
the city through smell… . There must be uncountable canine messages and traces left all
over urban spaces that human city dwellers are largely oblivious to.” How to address this
gap in our understanding? Pearson notes the impossibility of setting aside his own human
perspective, but proposes that a “necessarily hybrid history” is (p. 268) still possible, that
an account that recognizes the distinct engagements with and experiences of the city of
its (human and animal) populations might be written.56 Sandra Swart likewise notes that
“cultural and biological differences between the species would shape very different kinds
of stories about the pasts” in her history of South African horses. As evidence, she notes
that “The human horological obsession provides no template for how horses structure
time;” that “horses’ nasal acuity allows them a broader temporal understanding than hu
mans possess;” and that “our worlds look and feel different, and so, concomitantly, would
our historiographies.”57 But this shouldn’t stop a historian’s attempt: “it was necessary
for humans to think like a horse—to a certain extent—in domesticating them, training
them, riding them,” Swart notes, and perhaps this mode of engagement might be taken
into the writing of animal history where an exercise of “historical empathy” might allow
for the writing of a “hippocentric history.”58
Itstory: A Conclusion
If “herstory” was a second-wave feminist response to history (his-story), then perhaps we
might want to think about how to write “itstory.” This might sound like a flippant sugges
tion—in some ways, of course, it is; but I hope it might lead beyond that to interesting
possibilities. The reduction of animals to the status of “it” (with the associated “that”
rather than “who” being used) has played a role in situating them as ahistorical, passive,
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and mechanical rather than responsive beings.59 Simply on the basis of word choice, an
animal’s status can change: “the cow that enters the enclosure will lose sight of its con
specifics” seems very different from “the cow who enters the enclosure will lose sight of
her fellows.” Agency is not only constructed in what is visible, it is also constructed in
how things are made visible.60 The word “it” is a powerful tool of humanism, and itstory
is, thus, a history written in an attempt to identify the limits that our own discourses and
our own capacities place on our ability to recognize animals as agents with particular
modes of engagement with the world, and particular priorities that may not resemble our
own, and to include those animals in our work.
Pearson, Swart and others have begun to outline the limits of our own capacities,61 and
the limits of the discourse of history itself need also to be recognized. Indeed, the sugges
tion that itstory might have some value is also an attempt to think about how far the pro
fessional requirements of writing the past—what gets published, leads to tenure, and so
on—place barriers in the way of including animals. As John Law has (p. 269) noted of the
making of knowledge in the social sciences, “methods, their rules, and even more meth
ods’ practices, not only describe but also help to produce the reality that they under
stand.”62 Reality is not, to be clear, completely made by methods—there is a reality that
exists beyond attempts to describe it. What Law suggests is that how we come to de
scribe and therefore to conceptualize reality is prescribed by the intellectual rules that
are applied in the building of that thing called knowledge, and that this itself structures a
large part of what we see. Quite simply, the kinds of questions we ask produce the an
swers we get, and those answers might not be the only ones that could have been given.
In her provocatively titled essay “Sheep Do Have Opinions,” the Belgian ethologist and
philosopher Vinciane Despret takes this view into animal studies. She notes that analyses
of sheep have left them as “victims of what [the primatologist Thelma] Rowell calls ‘a hi
erarchical scandal’ in ethology”: where apes are asked interesting questions which allow
them to reveal themselves to be “endowed with elaborate social and cognitive competen
cies… . questions about the other [animals] still primarily concern what they eat.” A key
reason for this difference lies in the history of ethology: Despret writes that primatology
has “gradually adopted the methods and questions of anthropology,” whereas “Classical
ethology” remains focused on how “animals organize themselves around resources.”63
This has led to sheep becoming “victims of questions of little relevance compared to their
ability to organize themselves socially.” Rowell argues that the ethological focus on eating
misses something crucial: “What is much more important to the animals is much rarer,
and it is predation.”64 This lack of interest in predation, Despret writes, “makes it impos
sible to translate behaviors that are meaningful in relation to it.” The right question, how
ever, can produce thought-provoking results. If “your [research] proposition is articulated
to [the animals’] interests… . your research [will afford] you the opportunity to say things
about them.”65 Asking different—better—questions of our objects of inquiry will allow
them (and us) to have more to say. Nietzsche’s man might have learned much from De
spret.
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This is not, it should be noted, a question of trying to find a way of experiencing the ani
mals’ experiences—of applying the ideas of humanist history to the more-than-human
world. There may, of course, be some value in an attempt to bring animals and humans
closer in their entangled histories,66 but anthropomorphism is not without its problems: it
ignores, for example, the distinctive engagement with the world of a particular species;
and it—perhaps—prioritizes human experience.67 And even the attempt to experience em
pathy with an animal is, for Despret, too limited in its focus:
Certainly, empathy transforms the subject (the one who feels empathy) but this
transformation is a very local one as long as it does not really give [the
empathizer’s] object the chance to be activated as subject, the subject feeling em
pathy remaining the subject of the whole thing.68
Even as it attempts to bridge the gap between species, empathy holds on to, indeed re
quires, difference. It places the empathizer (i.e. the human) in a separate sphere from
(p. 270) the empathizee. Despret goes on—challenging the nature of the question that mo
tivated me: “Empathy allows us to talk about what it is to be (like) the other, but does not
raise the question ‘what it is to be “with” the other’.”69 And it is the conception of “being
with” that she suggests we should think with and through: “One doesn’t substitute one
point of view for another; on the contrary, everything is done by the addition of points of
view.”70 The world to be analyzed here is a social world, and sociality is taking place be
tween as well as within species. This has implications for a concept of agency, since the
focus, she proposes, should not be on autonomy but on “the multiple ways one given crea
ture depends on other beings”:
“Agenting” (as well as “acting”) is a relational verb that connects and articulates
narratives… ., beings of different species, things, and contexts. There is no agency
that is not interagency. There is no agency without agencement, a rapport of
forces.71
Such a concept of agency, or “agenting” as Despret terms it (the noun becoming a verb—
this is not static, but constantly dynamic), proposes not so much a vision of a world made
by tracking the records of special individuals, as a world in which emphasis is placed on
interactions for understanding the forces that make for change and for stability.
Nietzsche’s focus on genius has no place here, and the potential for animal history is
clear. Despret’s work proposes another way of thinking about human-animal relations
that requires the inclusion of animals not simply as props or backdrops. For her, human-
animal relations are entanglements that are meaningful to and produced by all parties;
thus, asserting the importance of animal agency is not simply a way of remembering and
inserting into history the fact that horses carry, stumble, fall, strike, and kick; it is a way
of opening up a question of being with animals in the past—of the intraspecific as well as
interspecific social worlds of humans and animals.72
on companionship, a term I use following Donna Haraway: “Companion comes from the
Latin cum panis, ‘with bread.’ Mess-mates at table are companions.”73 Walking beside,
eating with (not of), animals: if we change our position in relation to them perhaps we
change our understanding of our shared realities.
In their study of modern human-cow relations, Jocelyne Porcher and Tiphaine Schmitt ask
a good question that might further illustrate the potential for Despret’s ideas for the his
tory of animals. “What does it mean to work?” they ask. “Specifically, what does it mean
for a cow?” Just as tigers and sharks appear in the archive only when they attack, so,
Porcher and Schmitt note, “animals’ collaboration at work is visible when it is not ob
tained. Ordinarily, their work is invisible.” They continue, recognizing that this invisibility
has implications: “the fact that we do not know what it means to an animal ‘to work’ pre
vents us from seeing their competences and imagining what they could do with us, apart
from what they already do.”74 Asking questions articulated to the animals’ interests, as
Despret put it, Porcher and Schmitt’s research reveals cows who (p. 271) were “familiar
with [the farmer’s] implicit rules, but… . sometimes tried to get around them;” cows who
“learn[ed] very quickly”; and cows who used courtesy in order to successfully coexist with
other cows. These animals, Porcher and Schmitt hypothesize, “collaborate in work not
simply because they are conditioned to do so but because they engage themselves subjec
tively in the work.”75 But what is often seen when animals are observed in the workplace
is something different, something that reveals more about the observer’s methods than
about the animals themselves. What is seen reduces the sense of the animals’ participa
tion in processes of agenting because their collaboration can be mistaken for “mere” in
stinct—for mechanical reaction rather than engaged participation. As Despret notes, the
collaborative willingness of animals has broad and destructive implications: “what we call
mechanistic thought, ironically, could be partially due to the good will of the animals
themselves.”76 Because they agree and obey, we assume mindlessness, and so what might
be the most interesting aspect of human-animal relations—collaboration—is dismissed as
being without meaning (and I mean that in two senses: that the animal’s actions are be
lieved to be without meaning; and that the animal is discarded as a being without mean
ing). This is not a reading only available for domestic animals. A wild animal’s avoidance
of human settlement might also evidence a kind of collaboration: it could be that animal’s
acknowledgment of human boundaries. In this context, therefore, noting the historicity of
animals’ behavior is not only challenging the notion that animals live ahistorical lives; it is
also recognizing their subjective engagement with their world. Relegating this engage
ment to animals’ ineffability is thus, once again, making their actions meaningless. This
gap in our understanding—the fact that we see animal collaboration as a mechanical re
action or as the expression of the incomprehensible—is caused by a lack of good ques
tions rather than good answers. It is more a failure of human reason than of animal ca
pacity. As Thelma Rowell did with the sheep, Porcher and Schmitt are beginning to find
ways to ask cows better questions by watching, by identifying in their behavior courtesy,
understanding, and collaboration. They are walking alongside the cows, you might say,
not staring like omniscient gods from above and finding enacted the order they had al
ways foreknown.
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
But how might historians ask good questions of historical records that might themselves
fail to recognize the animals as more than machines? How can such documents be used
to glimpse animals as active, collaborative participants in worlds that should only be un
derstood as interspecific? As with the records of animals’ role in the workplace, historical
documents tend to present collaboration only when it breaks down: when a cow kicks
over a milk pail, when a pig runs away,77 or when a tiger attacks. But maybe reading doc
uments from the past with a better understanding of animals’ capacities might allow us to
ask those documents better questions; might help us to read against the grain, which
might, in turn, make possible a fuller picture of the shared worlds of humans and ani
mals. If I approach an early modern will with the idea of the intraspecific courtesy of
cows, that might impact on what it means to see a small herd being separated into differ
ent bequests; and having a notion of cows’ willingness to “engage themselves subjective
ly” in the work of a farm might affect how I understand the stresses on all parties of the
purchase of a new animal.
I return to my original question, what was it like to be a cow?, but this time I use
(p. 272)
the phrase “like to be” recognizing its limits. I no longer only want to know (or to try to
know) what the experience of an animal was, although I do still hold that as a desire—im
possible as it will be to fulfill. I also want to know (or to try to know) what the animals’ ex
perience of being with humans might have been, what the animals’ experience of being
with other animals was, and what the humans’ experience of being with animals was.
Careful use of work from the fields of animal welfare science and ethology might offer me
pointers from which I can get closer to asking better questions and constructing a history
that attempts to take all participants seriously. The historian of animals might, in fact, in
terrupt Nietzsche’s human’s failed conversation with the animal and answer his question
—“Why do you just look at me like that instead of telling me about your happiness?”—by
pointing out that perhaps the animals in the herd are telling him something, but in a lan
guage he cannot yet understand. In this scenario, it is not only the animals who must be
domesticated: the humans need to be domesticated too: they also need to learn to live re
sponsively in this community. And some of those humans are historians. The possibility is,
of course, that if Nietzsche’s human did come to understand bovine communication, he
might discover that the cow is telling him that she is not happy at all.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Hilda Kean, Brett Mizelle, Amy Nelson and Nigel Rothfels for their willingness
to respond to e-mail inquiries, to Diana Donald, who read and commented on a draft of
this chapter, to Sandra Swart who did both, and to colleagues at the History and Theory
conference at Wesleyan University in April 2013. The discussions there and in the subse
quent theme issue of History and Theory, Does History Need Animals? 52, no. 4 (2013)—
have been central to the writing of this chapter. The School of Humanities, University of
Strathclyde supported a research leave in spring 2014, which gave me the time to re
search and write the chapter.
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
Further Reading
Burt, Jonathan. Animals In Film. London: Reaktion Books, 2002.
Costlow, Jane, and Nelson Amy, eds. Other Animals: Beyond the Human in Russian Cul
ture and History. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
Creager, Angela N. H., and Jordan, William Chester, eds. The Animal/Human Boundary.
Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2002.
Curth, Louise Hill. The Care of Brute Beasts: A Social and Cultural Study of Veterinary
Medicine in Early Modern England. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Few, Martha and Tortorici, Zeb, eds. Centering Animals in Latin American History.
Durham NC and London: Duke University Press, 2013.
Fudge, Erica, ed. Renaissance Beasts: Of Animals, Humans, and Other Wonderful Crea
tures. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
Kalof, Linda, and Resl, Brigitte, eds. A Cultural History of Animals. 6 vols. Oxford and
New York: Berg, 2007.
Kean, Hilda. Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. London:
Reaktion Books, 1998.
Kete, Kathleen. The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Berke
ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.
Lansbury, Coral. The Old Brown Dog: Women, Workers, and Vivisection in Edwardian
England. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Pemberton, Neil, and Michael Worboys. Mad Dogs and Englishman: Rabies in Britain,
1830–2000. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Ritvo, Harriet. The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Rothfels, Nigel. Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. Baltimore: Johns Hop
kins University Press, 2002.
Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. London and New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Sorabji, Richard. Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origin of the Western Debate.
London: Duckworth, 1993.
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
Notes:
(1.) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Utility and Liability of History, in Unfashionable Observa
tions: The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, vol. 2, ed. Richard T. Gray (Palo Alto,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1874/1995), 87.
(3.) The original German is seziert rather than viviseziert, but the implication is that be
ings with life are cut up.
(5.) Nietzsche, Utility and Ability, 133. The translation of the Latin is from this edition.
(6.) Nietzsche, Utility and Ability, 133–134. Thomas H. Brobjer has noted, this early work
by Nietzsche does not reflect the views he held of history and historical writing in his lat
er writing: Brobjer, “Nietzsche’s View of the Value of Historical Studies and Methods,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (2004): 301–322.
(7.) See Vanessa Lemm, “The Overhuman Animal,” in A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming
Animal beyond Docile and Brutal, ed. Christa Davis Acampora and Ralph R. Acampora
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 220–239.
(8.) Although, even giving life to a subject might be invasive: n The Life of an Unknown,
Alain Corbin writes of himself posing “as a minor miracle-worker pretending to restore
life to a person who might not wish to be disturbed.” Corbin, The Life of an Unknown: The
Rediscovered World of a Clog Maker in Nineteenth-Century France (1998), trans. by
Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), x.
(9.) Of course, individual animals have been singled out for historical analysis, but species
of animals, or groups, have not often been regarded as having histories. I come back to
this later. On individual animals in history, see, for example, David Gary Shaw, “The
Torturer’s Horse: Agency and Animals in History,” History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013),
146–167; Helena Pycior, “The Public and Private Lives of ‘First Dogs’: Warren G.
Harding’s Laddie Boy and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fala,” in Beastly Natures: Animals, Hu
mans, and the Study of History, ed. Dorothee Brantz, (Charlottesville and London: Univer
sity of Virginia Press, 2010), 176–203.
(10.) See, Erica Fudge, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality and Humanity in Early
Modern England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 24–26.
(11.) Malcolm Chase, “Can History be Green? A Prognosis,” Rural History 3, no. 2 (1992):
244, referring to Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes to Na
ture 1500-1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983).
(12.) Sandra Swart, Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa
(Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010), 37.
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(13.) The question, of course, deliberately echoes that asked by Thomas Nagel in his im
portant article, “What is it like to be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83 (October 1974):
435–450.
(14.) This is a view I outlined in “A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals,” in
Representing Animals, ed. Nigel Rothfels (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002),
3–18.
(15.) To avoid confusion with the meaning of “humanism” in Renaissance studies, in this
context the term refers to the assumption of human centrality and separation from ani
mals, what Cary Wolfe has called “taking it for granted that the subject is always already
human.” Wolfe, Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthu
manist Theory (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 1.
(16.) Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 2
(2009): 220.
(18.) See, for example, Richard C. Foltz, “Does Nature Have Historical Agency? World
History, Environmental History, and How Historians Can Help Save the Planet,” History
Teacher 37, no. 1 (2003): 9–28. In this article, as an example, Foltz places horses at the
center of the development of the Silk Road (14-15). Bruce M. S. Campbell’s “Nature as
Historical Protagonist: Environment and Society in Pre-Industrial England,” Economic
History Review 63, no. 2 (2010): 281–314, focuses on the central role of the environment
in historical change, but he tracks the 1319 arrival of cattle plague in England to show
how historical explanations for change (here, an agricultural crisis) must consider non-
human factors. Virginia DeJohn Anderson’s Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals
Transformed Early America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) offers an exemplary
reading of the central role of animals in cultural and social change: here, how cows and
pigs impacted on relations between early English settlers and native peoples in the New
World.
(19.) See, for example, Johan Koppenol, “Noah’s Ark Disembarked in Holland: Animals in
Dutch Poetry, 1550-1700,” in Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in
Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, vol. 2, ed. Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 451–528, which traces a history of literary representations of rela
tions with cows. Erica Fudge, “The Animal Face of Early Modern England,” Theory, Cul
ture and Society 30, no. 7/8 (2013): 177–198, emphasizes the closeness—emotional, cor
poreal—of humans and their livestock animals in the early modern period.
(20.) Diana Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain 1750-1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer
sity Press, 2007), 1.
(21.) The same might be said of the work of Peter Edwards, and Clay McShaneand Joel A.
Tarr on horses and industrialization. See, for example, Edwards, “Nature Bridled: The
Treatment of Horses in Early Modern England,” 155–175, and McShane and Tarr, “The
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(22.) Brett Mizelle, “‘A Man Quite as Much of a Show as his Beasts’: James Capen ‘Grizzly’
Adams and the Making of Grizzly Bears,” Werkstattgeschichte 56 (2010): 44.
(23.) Hilda Kean, “Challenges for Historians Writing Animal-Human History: What Is Real
ly Enough?” Anthrozoös 25, supplement (2012): 61.
(24.) See, for example, Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (1954), trans. Peter Putnam
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 42.
(25.) John H. Arnold offers a useful overview of some of the problems and uses of bias in
documentary sources: Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford Univer
sity Press, 2000), 66–68.
(26.) In Dead Certainties, Simon Schama, for example, draws attention to the difficulty of
the historian who has to “take the broken, mutilated remains of something or someone
from the ‘enemy lines’ of the documented past and restore it to life or give it a decent in
terment in our own time and place.” To do this, he experimented with literary techniques
such as free indirect speech to enter the minds of the protagonists. Schama, Dead Cer
tainties (Unwarranted Speculations) (London: Granta Books, 1991).
(27.) Alan Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014), 11.
(28.) Aaron Skabelund, “Animals and Imperialism: Recent Historiographical Trends,” His
tory Compass 11, no.10 (2013): 804.
(29.) Brett L. Walker, The Lost Wolves of Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2005), 13.
(30.) Susan Nance, Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the Ameri
can Circus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 10, 11.
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
(32.) One way to address the issue of the anachronism of applying findings from animal
welfare science to past animal behavior is, obviously, to ensure that the animal welfare
science fits the historical evidence: that it may, in fact, not be wholly anachronistic. See,
for example, Erica Fudge, “Milking Other Men’s Beasts,” History and Theory 52, no. 4
(2013): 23–25.
(33.) See, for example, Bill Brown, “Thing Theory,” Critical Inquiry 28, no. 1 (2001): 1–22;
Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology: Or What It’s like to Be a Thing (Minneapolis: Universi
ty of Minnesota Press, 2012); Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to
Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); John Law, “Notes on the
Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and Heterogeneity,” Systems Practice 5
(1992): 379–393; and Erica Fudge, “Renaissance Animal Things,” New Formations 76
(2012): 86–100.
(34.) An overview of some of the debates is in Chris Pearson, “Dogs, History, and Agency,”
History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): esp. 133–136.
(36.) Anderson, for example, writes of the livestock of early America as “unwitting partici
pants in [the] unfolding drama.” Anderson, Cattle of Empire, 210.
(37.) Ralph Josselin, The Diary of Ralph Josselin 1616-1683, ed., Alan Macfarlane (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1976), 21–24.
(38.) There is, perhaps, something of the spiritual to the concluding sentences of Brett L.
Walker’s “Animals and the Intimacy of History,” History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): 67.
“They [animals] are not separate from humanity, but rather an intimate partner in our
species’ biological and historical transcendence. This is the principal lesson of writings on
animals in environmental history.”
(39.) See, for example, Tim Ingold, “Hunting and Gathering as Ways of Perceiving the En
vironment,” in Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling
and Skill (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 40–60.
(40.) Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Illuminations, ed., Han
nah Arendt ed., trans. Harry Zohn (1940/1973, reprinted London: Fontana, 1992), 248. I
used this idea slightly differently in Fudge, “Left-Handed Blow,” 11–12.
(42.) Taking a view from alongside rather than from above animals is also proposed in Eri
ca Fudge, “The Human Face of Early Modern England,” Angelaki 16, no. 1 (2011): 107;
and Swart, Riding High, 213. A bird’s eye view would, of course, present a different per
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
spective: aerial, but avian. The specific sensory engagements of particular animals and its
impact on history is something I return to.
(43.) Erica Fudge, Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Cul
ture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 123–125.
(44.) Peter Boomgaard, Frontiers of Fear: Tigers and People in the Malay World, 1600–
1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 59.
(45.) Jennifer Adams Martin, “When Sharks (don’t) Attack: Wild Animal Agency in Histori
cal Narratives,” Environmental History 16 (2011): 454. The wild animal is also a focus of
the contemporary use of tracking devices which offer new insight into the lives of individ
ual creatures otherwise almost invisible to humans. However, such devices are modern in
ventions and so offer means to enhance interpretation of the past, but cannot (yet) offer
evidence of past animal existences. Etienne Benson recognizes this tracking as potential
ly becoming part of the archive for a future history: Benson, “Animal Writes: Historiogra
phy, Disciplinarity, and the Animal Trace,” in Making Animal Meaning, ed. Linda Kalof
and Georgina M. Montgomery (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011), 11–
13.
(46.) I am reminded of Roger Scruton’s defense of hunting, which represents the hunting
of the fox as a kind of transhistorical enactment of human nature: “The hunted animal is
hunted as an individual. But the hunted species is elevated to divine status as the totem,
and a kind of mystical union of the tribe with its totem seals the pact between them for
ever… .the universal species becomes a sacred object, to which the particular quarry is a
sacrifice.” Scruton, On Hunting (London: Yellow Jersey Press, 1999), 73, 75.
(47.) Mahesh Rangarajan, “Animals with Rich Histories: The Case of the Lions of Gir For
est, Gujarat, India,” History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): 126.
(49.) Rangarajan, “Animals with Rich Histories,” 125, 127. It is noticeable that the ani
mals historians read as potentially possessing a historical sense are frequently wild ani
mals whose lives butt up against human communities. It is the shifting behaviors of these
animals (and, as Rangarajan notes, of the humans too) that marks their historicalness.
Perhaps another kind of historical sense can be traced in Anderson’s history of the Eng
lish cattle who maintained their customary behavior in the New World, causing disruption
and becoming unwitting “agents of empire” in the process. Anderson, Creatures of Em
pire, 211.
(50.) Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Karl Marx: Selected
Writings, ed. David McLellan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1852/1977), 300.
(51.) Walker, Lost Wolves, 13. Walker’s caveat that he is writing about “advanced social
animals” speaks to the likelihood that, if natural science continues to impact on the writ
ing of the history of animals, differences will develop between histories of different ani
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
mal species. Future historical studies of fish might, for example, look very different from
histories of dogs, and not simply because of the distinct (human) social and cultural
places of the animals but because of the different kinds of sentience possessed by differ
ent species.
(52.) See Bruce M. S. Campbell and Mark Overton, “A New Perspective on Medieval and
Early Modern Agriculture: Six Centuries of Norfolk Farming c.1250–c.1850,” Past and
Present 141 (1993): 84.
(53.) See, for example, John Webster, Understanding the Dairy Cow (Oxford: BSP Profes
sional Books, 1987), 106–111. For a view from a different perspective, see Rosamund
Young, The Secret Life of Cows (Preston, UK: Farming Books, 2003).
(55.) Vicki Hearne, Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name (originally published in 1982;
reprinted by Pleasantville, NY: Akadine Press, 2000), 80, 79.
(56.) Chris Pearson, “A Walk in the Park with Timmy: History and the Possibilities of Com
panion Species Research,” Wild 1 (2009): 93, 92; Donna J. Haraway, When Species Meet
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).
(57.) Sandra Swart, ‘“The World the Horses Made’: A South African Case Study of Writing
Animals into Social History,” International Review of Social History 55 (2010): 256.
(59.) See Françoise Wemelsfelder, “A Science of Friendly Pigs… . Carving Out a Conceptu
al Space for Addressing Animals as Sentient Beings,” in Crossing Boundaries: Investigat
ing Human-Animal Relationships, ed. Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull (Leiden: Brill, 2012),
226.
(60.) Vinciane Despret notes that ‘Jane Goodall’s first paper dealing with her research on
the behaviour of chimpanzees was returned by the Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences because she named rather than numbered, the chimpanzees she watched. This
journal also wanted her to refer to the chimpanzees using “it” or “which” rather than
“he” or “she.” She refused; the paper was, however, published.’ Despret, “Responding
Bodies and Partial Affinities in Human-Animal Worlds,” Theory, Culture and Society 30,
no. 7/8 (2013): 22.
(62.) John Law, After Method: Mess in Social Science Research (London: Routledge,
2004), 5.
(63.) Vinciane Despret, “Sheep Do Have Opinions,” in Making Things Public: Atmosphere
of Democracy, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005),
361.
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What Was It Like to Be a Cow?: History and Animal Studies
(66.) Thus, when Jason Hribal asks us to view animals’ experiences as emotionally recog
nizable, it is a deliberate attempt to draw attention to the impact of human cultural and
economic change on cows as well as humans. With some poetic licence as to the reality of
pre-enclosure farming practices, for example, Hribal writes of the enclosure movement:
“Gone were the days of cows roaming autonomously about the open-pastures for weeks to
months at a time, socializing with their fellow creatures. Gone were the days of being
able to choose one’s sexual partner… .” Hribal, “ ‘Animals are Part of the Working Class’:
A Challenge to Labor History,” Labor History 44, no. 4 (2003): 441.
(67.) There is not space in this chapter to look in detail at the debates surrounding an
thropomorphism, but a useful overview can be found in Tom Tyler, “If a Horse had
Hands… .,” in Animal Encounters, ed. Tom Tyler and Manuela Rossini (Leiden: Brill,
2009), 13–26.
(68.) Vinciane Despret, “The Body We Care For: Figures of Anthropo-zoo-genesis,” Body
and Society 10, no. 2–3 (2004): 128.
(69.) Despret, “Body We Care For,” 128. In her analysis of ethologist Amotz Zahavi’s stud
ies of babblers in which he “takes into account the opinion babblers may have about the
questions scientists address to them,” Despret writes, “This of course might also be sus
pected of heavy anthropomorphism: instead of putting himself in the babblers’ shoes, Za
havi would actually be asking the birds to wear human shoes. The perspective would not
be the babblers’, but would only reflect a human-situated standpoint.” Despret, “Domesti
cating Practices,” 35.
(71.) Vinciane Despret, “From Secret Agents to Interagency,” History and Theory 54, no. 4
(2013): 44.
(72.) On intraspecific and interspecific social worlds, see Despret, “Domesticating Prac
tices,” 30–31.
(74.) Jocelyne Porcher and Tiphaine Schmitt, “Dairy Cows: Workers in the Shadows?” So
ciety and Animals 20, no. 1 (2012): 43. See also Porcher’s chapter in this collection, Ani
mal Work.
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Erica Fudge
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Aug 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.16
A discrepancy exists between the legal and perceived status of livestock. Legally, food an
imals are property, but their thing-like status is unstable and does not determine how
they are perceived in practice. The extent to which food animals are regarded as com
modities or sentient beings is therefore contextually contingent, oscillates, and is riddled
with inconsistency. To understand livestock as a sentient commodity is to attend to, and
(re)contextualize, the contradictory and changeable nature of the perceived status of
commodified animals in food animal productive contexts, and to how stockpeople experi
ence and manage this perceptual paradox in practice. Bringing to the fore the relatively
mundane aspect of human-livestock relations not only upsets commonly held assumptions
that productive animals are nothing more than mere commodities, it also highlights the
non-productive aspects of stockpeople’s roles that have, to date, been typically over
looked or underexplored.
Keywords: sentient commodity, perceptual paradox, food animals, human-livestock interactions, stockpeople
Animals breathe the same air as we do. They’re there for a purpose, but to me,
they’re more than just bits of beef walking about.1
hunting… . By turning animals into property, then, humans transformed the animals from
wild co-inhabitors of the world to subordinates, essentially shaping the animals as if they
were clay.”6 Since owning animals and controlling nature were synonymous with social
progress and intellectual refinement, agricultural practices not only “civilized” nature;
they also became a key hallmark of Western culture.7 The inverse was also the case. As
Anderson explains, “[T]he activity of domestication seems to have been taken as a funda
mental criterion for ranking groups of people called (p. 280) ‘races.’ ”8 On this basis, more
nomadic peoples were deemed uncivilized as they “stood at the beginning of social time,
‘unevolved’ through having themselves remained undomesticated.”9 On the other hand,
because more settled peoples demonstrated their civilized credentials by cultivating the
natural world, this activity distinguished them from other animals and distanced them
from their own animality.10 This depiction of domestication not only engendered instru
mental attitudes toward other species, which expedited their objectification in Western
societies, it also bolstered the view that “human beings, as social persons, can own; ani
mals, as natural objects, are ownable.”11
That said, the characteristics of animals can also have a bearing on whether some species
are more or less likely to be domesticated than others. Zeuner, for example, suggests,
“Domestication presupposes a ‘social medium’ … . As a rule the social evolution of a
species must have reached a certain level before domestication becomes possible.”12
Bovine animals adhere to a “dominant-submission system” in which one becomes the
overall boss within a herd, which tends to establish a social pecking order among the
rest.13 The presence of a social hierarchy may partly explain why herd-type animals, such
as cattle, have been successfully domesticated. On the other hand, it cannot be assumed
that all socially organized species can be domesticated; exceptions include species such
as hyenas, antelopes, and gazelles. According to Bökönyi, such exceptions possibly high
light a behavioral barrier to domesticating animals.14 In the main, if an animal is a non
territorial species who “lives in large, wide-ranging herds of mixed sexes, organized in hi
erarchies, has a wide tolerance of different food plants, a short flight distance, and a rela
tively slow response to danger,” then this favors the domestication of such animals.15
Other favorable attributes include the “lack of aggression towards humans, a strong gre
garious instinct and willingness to ‘follow the leader’, … the ability to breed in captivity,
relatively short birth intervals, large litter size, rapid growth rate and a herbivore diet
that can easily be supplied by humans”16 When applied to species such as cattle, sheep,
and pigs they largely comply with many of the aforementioned features. In comparison,
the “social behavior” of gazelles is characterized by the males and females splitting into
two distinct herds, except when mating, and the male animals tend to be extremely defen
sive of their territories and will flee at the first hint of danger.17
The description of a domesticated animal as “one that has been bred in captivity for pur
poses of economic profit to a human community that maintains complete mastery over its
breeding, organization of territory, and food supply” has fostered the assumption that
people initiated and thus intended to domesticate animals.18 It is noteworthy, however,
that there is some dispute over the human-directed emphasis of domestication. For Ze
uner, it was only once the unintended benefits of domestication were realized that people
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
then incorporated animals, such as cattle, into their economies.19 Moreover, Stephen Bu
diansky depicts a more interspecies understanding of domestication by allowing for the
animal’s needs too. For him, “domestication was an evolutionary strategy not only for hu
mans, but also for particular species of animals.”20 The argument that two species can
evolve in concert through cooperation, as opposed to competition, rests on what Budian
sky calls the “biological opportunity” that brought humans and animals together “to [al
low] evolution to act on the biological motives of food and protection.”21 (p. 281) This
“more-than-human”22 account not only counterbalances well-rehearsed narratives that
largely prioritize the central role of people’s intervention in this process, it also con
tributes to the idea that “domesticated animals chose us as much as we chose them.”23
[I]f any Person or Persons shall wantonly and cruelly beat, abuse, or ill-treat any
Horse, Mare, Gelding, Mule, Ass, Ox, Cow, Heifer, Steer, Sheep, or other Cattle …
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
he, she, or they so convicted shall forfeit and pay any Sum not exceeding Five
Pounds, nor less than Ten Shillings, to His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors.30
This legal development effectively criminalized the mistreatment of animals and is one of
the early anti-cruelty laws that formally regulated the ownership and treatment of domes
ticated animals.31 According to Francione, since these statutes acknowledged the “legal
obligations that we owed directly to animals” it demonstrated “[that] animals (p. 282)
were seen not merely as things but as partial members of the moral community who were
inherently deserving of some legal protection.”32
Early debates about the moral and legal status of food animals have continued to res
onate and have in fact intensified in contemporary societies. A key factor contributing to
their present-day amplification has been the pursuit since 1945 of productivist policies by
industrialized countries such as Britain and the United States. This agricultural agenda
largely instigated the intensification of farm animal production, signaled by the increas
ing transition from animal husbandry to animal industry,33 and ushered in the era of fac
tory farming.34 The practical and ethical implications of this new farming approach, how
ever, did not go unnoticed in Britain. With the publication of Animal Machines in 1964,
Ruth Harrison sparked much public interest in, and disquiet over, the well-being of ani
mals being farmed in such conditions. Her stark portrayal of farmer-livestock relations in
the “factory farm” was vividly captured in the opening page of her seminal book:
[F]arm animals are being taken off the fields and the old lichen covered barns are
being replaced by gawky, industrial type buildings into which the animals are put,
immobilised through density of stocking and often automatically fed and watered.
Mechanical cleaning reduces still further the time the stockman has to spend with
them, and the sense of unity with his stock which characterises the traditional
farmer is condemned as being uneconomic and sentimental. Life in the factory
farm revolves entirely round profits, and animals are assessed purely for their
ability to convert food into flesh, or “saleable products.”35
The level of public concern generated by Animal Machines also, in 1964, prompted the
British Government to set up the Brambell Committee. Its primary remit was “[t]o exam
ine the conditions in which livestock are kept under systems of intensive husbandry and
to advise whether standards ought to be set in the interests of their welfare, and if so
what they should be.”36 When the committee published its findings in 1965, it “was the
first formal recognition by an official body that intensive animal agriculture raised animal
welfare problems.”37 The phraseology of the report is also significant, because the term
“welfare” had made its debut appearance in animal-related British legislation, albeit its
meaning still had to be “explicitly defined in law.”38
All in all, the Brambell Committee’s report marked a significant watershed in the public
perception of farmer-livestock relations. Up until this point, the husbandry skills and
practices of small-scale farmers had gone largely unquestioned, because if the needs of
individual animals were not attended to, it was presumed to undermine their
productivity.39 The inverse was also the case. As Rollin explains, the epitome of the “so
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
cial contract” was succinctly captured in the adage, “the animals’ interests were the pro
ducers’ interests.”40 As the productivist agenda compelled more farmers to mass-produce
livestock on an industrial scale, this heralded the “McDonaldization” of many food animal
productive contexts and the application of more Fordist and Taylorist principles therein.41
This more commercialized, industrialized, and intensified model of livestock (p. 283) farm
ing not only deviated from the bucolic image associated with “Old MacDonald’s Farm,” it
also violated the so-called social contract.
It is noteworthy that these structural changes in the livestock sector occurred at a time
when public attitudes toward, and knowledge about, food animals were also in transition.
As Garner notes, “The fact that growing awareness of animal capabilities has coincided
with the introduction and intensification of more severe ways of treating animals provides
a juxtaposition of factors which, by itself, goes a long way towards explaining the increas
ing concern about animals.”42 Unsurprisingly, this potent mix of circumstances signifi
cantly revitalized the animal protection movements during the 1970s. Given that animal
welfare/rights groups drew sustained and unsolicited attention to the management of in
tensively farmed animals, including veal calves, battery-caged hens, and pregnant pigs,
such campaigns played a key role in raising critical awareness of and public concern for
the interests of food animals living in such conditions.43 The proliferation of food-related
risks during the 1980s and 1990s, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Sal
monella, and E. coli, also stirred many consumers, especially in Britain, to (re)connect
with the processes and practices that transformed “animals-into-meat.”44 The prolifera
tion of such apprehensions in late modernity not only indicate that “anthropocentric in
strumental” attitudes are giving way to, and coexist with, more “zoocentric empathic” at
titudes,45 but also facilitate the translation of people’s “private troubles” about food ani
mals into highly conspicuous “public issues.”46
This brief overview illuminates that “[t]he status of commodified domestic animals such
as cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens, once excluded from spheres of moral concern and le
gal protections, is being [increasingly] re-evaluated.”47 Additional evidence of this state of
affairs is the reclassification of livestock as “sentient beings” in Article 38 of the Treaty of
Rome, which is the basis of European law.48 Until 1996, the status of farm animals was
the same as that of other agricultural foodstuffs, such as potatoes. However, following the
Amsterdam Summit, and the eventual ratification of the Protocol on Animal Welfare in
1999, Camm and Bowles explain that for the first time “there are explicit legal obliga
tions to consider animal welfare within the EC Treaty,” as this Protocol “contains the first
reference in EC law to animals as ‘sentient beings,’ changing their status from mere
goods or agricultural products. Member states are now undeniably obliged to protect ani
mals for reasons of morality rather than commerce.”49 This landmark amendment techni
cally undercuts the thing-like status of livestock by acknowledging their animate natures.
That said, because their property status has not been rescinded, Francione maintains that
this “renders meaningless our claim that we reject the status of animals as things.”50
From this perspective, there is no halfway position.
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Francione’s point is well taken, as it reminds us that domesticated animals are technically
property, irrespective of how people might refer to or treat them. For example, even if the
increasingly preferred term “guardian” is used instead of “owner” to indicate a more re
spectful and animal-centric attitude toward nonhuman animal companions, guardians
may still exercise their legal right to sell or kill their “pet” animal(s).51 As Grandin notes,
if people “can buy, modify, sell, give away or destroy items that … [they] (p. 284) own,”
this legally distinguishes property from nonproperty.52 Although the commodity status of
family “pets” is typically less explicit than that of food animals, it remains latent and can
become manifest should the situation arise. Therein lies the Achilles heel of such legal
reasoning. Although all domesticated animals are someone’s property by law, this does
not dictate how people perceive their animals. What’s more, to disregard the discrepancy
between perceived status and legal status because it does not technically alter the
animal’s commodity status is to overlook the experiences of those faced with this incon
sistency in everyday life. As previously argued, because legalistic and philosophical ap
proaches tend to “bracket off the empirical, attitudinal, and affective elements of inter
species interactions [this] not only … underestimate[s] the socio-affective significance of
people’s experiences, … [it] also provide[s] a somewhat partial and skewed understand
ing of human-livestock relations.”53
Having harnessed the new public platform to full effect, the animal-protection movement
has become one of the livestock sector’s most ardent and vociferous critics. It is notewor
thy that many of its proponents have minimal, if any, experience of working with farm ani
mals.58 Instead, they are typically keepers of nonproductive domesticated animals,59
likely to reside in urban backgrounds60 and predominantly female.61 Although animal wel
fare/rights groups have quite rightly drawn public attention to the darker side of the
industry’s productive and husbandry practices, and successfully lobbied governments to
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enhance the moral status of food animals, they have given less recognition to elements of
“good stockmanship” and more proficient animal handling within the sector.62 Directing
campaign resources into critiquing intensively produced livestock, though understand
able, does not exemplify the full range of contexts in which food animals are produced or
of the human-livestock relations that occur therein. Given this, “[w]e need to be alert to
the possibility that our contemporary understanding of … (p. 285) food animal productive
contexts is being perceived primarily through a factory farming lens.”63
If the largely homogenized lay perception is accepted uncritically, it may give rise to over
ly simplified statements about and one-dimensional understandings of human-livestock in
teractions and contexts, typified by common sayings, such as “intensive bad, extensive
good.”64 Although such aphorisms are useful as they generate a recognizable parlance,
the extent to which they suitably inform public and media discussions about the issues is
questionable. As Fraser explains, there has been a tendency “to treat animal agriculture
as an aggregate and draw conclusions that are unwarranted because they are unduly
general.”65 A more even-handed appraisal would recognize that different types and scales
of intensive and extensive productive settings and their related husbandry/industry prac
tices all impact negatively and positively on the well-being of different animal species
farmed within them.66 By implication, off-the-cuff statements, such as “intensive bad, ex
tensive good,” would become more difficult to make; food animals and the people who
work with them are not all the same, nor are the productive settings and conditions in
which both species work.
The existence and influence of empathy between stockperson and farm animal is
generally, although not universally, appreciated in agriculture. Some authorities in
trying to define “good stockmanship” consider that it consists solely of using tech
nically correct methods in handling and managing farm livestock. The impact of
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Overall, contemporary stockpeople are in the unusual, perhaps even unenviable, position
of working in countries where the moral status of and instrumental attitudes toward food
animals are both publicly contested and under review. While those divorced from the
byre-face largely contemplate the philosophical, legal, and socio-ethical (p. 286) ramifica
tions of these long-standing debates, those at the byre-face typically encounter and have
to negotiate the pragmatic, paradoxical, and multifaceted challenges associated with
these more speculative debates. If those framing public debates are more distanced from
the byre-face, this may partly explain why they make more polemic statements about ani
mal productive settings than are made by those working in them. As there is a dearth of
knowledge surrounding the everyday realities of such contexts, we may wish to
(re)engage with front-line farm-animal workers to address this gap. Attending to the
pragmatic experiences of byre-face workers will not only (re)contextualize our under
standing of human-livestock interactions, it will also further inform and thus nuance our
current debates about such issues.
Given that the perceived status of animals is unstable in practice, this can disrupt the mu
tually exclusive categorizations of domesticated animals as either “livestock” or “pets.”
Such classificatory labels not only delimit the species’ primary function but also culturally
convey how such animals should, ideally, be perceived and behaved toward.74 For exam
ple, as domesticated species have been tamed and trained to fulfill valuable roles in hu
man society, they are typically perceived as “good animals” and enjoy an elevated status
in the “sociozoologic scale.”75 While dogs and cats usually benefit from their more indi
viduated and personified pet status, cattle, sheep, and pigs, as “tools” of the food trade,
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less well defined, as evidenced by commercial and hobby stockpeople who perceive some
of the animals they work with, albeit temporarily, as “pets, friends or even work col
leagues.”77 Thus, as others have also noted, “[h]umans working closely with farm animals
develop relationships with their animals often not dissimilar from those that develop be
tween humans and companion animals.”78 This is an important point. As William I.
Thomas once remarked, “If men [sic] define … situations as real, they are real in their
consequences.”79 One way of understanding the unstable status of commodified animals
in everyday life is to think about commoditization as an open-ended process as opposed to
a fixed state. As Kopytoff explains:
When applied to human-livestock relations, Kopytoff’s work not only captures the dynam
ic nature of commoditization but also, more importantly, provides a language to convey
the movement of food animals in and out of their perceived commodified status.81 In oth
er words, commodified sentient beings can be “decommodified” and “recommodified.”
That said, as different stages of commercial- and hobby-animal production (e.g., breeding
and finishing) are associated with a range of routine and unanticipated opportunities to
interact with, and disengage from, the animals people work with, it can limit the type and
duration of the interactions that may occur at each stage.82 For example, with reference
to commercial cattle production,
[a]s long as breeding animals continue to be productive they remain on the same
farm for years; these particular human-animal relationships endure. In contrast,
store animals can change hands a few times before they are slaughtered… . There
is [thus] little opportunity or need to practice empathetic stockmanship because
beef cattle have a short life, are transient, and require minimal handling after the
calf stage. Unless they digress from the normal process of production, slaughter
animals are fairly anonymous and will be processed as part of a de-individualized
and commodified group.83
Animals at the breeding stage of the production process are, it figures, more readily de
commodified than store animals being fattened up (or finished) for slaughter. The sen
tient nature of food animals is also most evident at the breeding stage because it is asso
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
ciated with newly born animals. Fukuda also found that livestock farmers “like looking af
ter animals” and that “[t]he most commonly mentioned pleasure of livestock farming is
that of reproducing lives.”84 Since the reproductive stage affords more (p. 288) opportuni
ties to engage in good stockmanship skills, it conjures up all that is practically and emo
tionally positive about producing livestock.85 As one commercial cattle farmer explains,
“There is nothing more satisfying than spotting a cow calving, watching that calving
progress to the point of realizing that she’s in trouble, getting the cow inside and helping
the calf [to be] born alive. It just never leaves you the excitement of getting a living,
healthy born calf.”86 In contrast, the “finishing side, well I mean they just eat grass and
then every month the fat man comes round and picks out fat ones and that’s that, end of
story.”87 As another cattle farmer88 put it,
I suppose, with the cows you actually make friends with them, you actually go out
and [do] some sort of bonding, some sort of relationship gets set up. You recognize
characteristics, you recognize the fact that they’re different, you recognize their
uniqueness. With the young [store] stock you don’t do that actively, you do it pas
sively. If something is thrown up in front of you, … but you don’t actually seek it.89
By implication, store and prime animals in commercial productive contexts are easier to
reify or perceive as commodities than are breeding animals.
In comparison, even though recreational farmers try to de-individuate store animals, too,
this is trickier in practice because they have so few animals. As one hobbyist explains, “I
try never to get to know the ones that are going to be slaughtered as individual animals
because I don’t like the idea that they’re eaten.” Having said this, she went on to ac
knowledge that keeping her distance from “commercial” animals was easier said than
done. For instance, she has a big black lamb called Bruno that “is so friendly” that “he’ll
probably never go [for slaughter].”90 Since hobby farmers are often new entrants to farm
ing, they have minimal, if any, experience of putting animals for slaughter and are not so
cialized into the more instrumental norms associated with commercialized farming con
texts.91 This lack of exposure to such norms can also accentuate the emotional intensity
of recommodifying decommodified animals.92 For instance, a hobby farmer recounts the
emotional angst of transporting two lambs for slaughter that were so pet-like they fol
lowed her into the trailer. On reflection, she felt this was the most painful and regrettable
thing she had ever done to sheep: “I knew they had to be killed but it was the way that
they trusted; I led them into their death. I found that very difficult to live with. I still find
it quite difficult, it hurts still, to think of it, because …, really, I betrayed the sheep by
leading them into the box.”93 Since many hobbyists perceive their animals as outdoor
pets, this highlights a less conventional set of farmer-livestock interactions and “feeling
rules.”94 These rules “describe societal norms about the appropriate type and amount of
feeling that should be experienced in a particular situation.”95 By routinely ascribing “hu
man-like ‘feelings,’ perceptions, sensitivities and even ‘thoughts’ ” to their animals, hob
byists more readily draw on what Lynch calls the “naturalistic animal” than commercial
farmers, which refers to common-sense perceptions of animals in everyday life.96 This
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
more humanized perception of food animals clearly deviates from the de-anthropomor
phized tool-like depiction of livestock described in the sociozoologic scale.
Nevertheless, commercial farmers also experience the emotional unease of, and
(p. 289)
hidden labor associated with, recommodifying favored and more humanized livestock. As
one cattle farmer’s wife explains, “[W]hat I find most disturbing actually is not killing the
animals that are designed for slaughter, it’s having to slaughter old breeding animals that
have been with us for years and years, and they’ve fallen ill or something, … I find that
very hard sending these old girls down the road. That’s much, much harder for me, than
the young animals that were designed for slaughtering.”97 Although, on paper, the fluid
status of food animals appears to be quite straightforward, the emotional transition asso
ciated with recommodifying decommodified animals is less immediate and more compli
cated in practice. Clearly, “getting to know” livestock can disrupt more instrumental-type
attitudes to the extent that some of them may cease being viewed, albeit fleetingly, as
commodified animals.
Byre-face workers “get to know” some of the animals they work with, as they are typically
in regular physical proximity to them. However, food animals are also “lively commodi
ties,” who can cause serious bodily harm, perhaps even fatal harm, to those who do or do
not know them.98 Cattle, for instance, are hefty, unpredictable animals who demand re
spect. As one worker explains, she had to toughen up when she started working in the
livestock auction market: “I came in here … with the idea that … I was going to be nice to
the animals … I wasn’t going to hit them with a stick … I was never going to yell at
them… . [W]ithin a couple of weeks I realized that if I didn’t harden up … if I didn’t sud
denly treat them with a bit more respect and stop trying to pet them, then I was going to
get killed.”99 The word “respect” was her way of saying she had to step back from the cat
tle so that they could “have their own space,” as opposed to approaching them to pet
them. This is a significant reminder that livestock animals are more than the social cate
gories people ascribe to them; they have significant agential capacities that can seriously
disrupt how people might want to see or classify them. Even though food animals are
technically deanimated tools of the trade, there are limits to any counteranthropomor
phizing strategy in practice. As Arluke notes, “[A]nimate nature can never be defeated to
tally; it still has a will.”100 To further contextualize this point, the extent to which live
stock animals are likely to be regarded as deanimated tools or “lively commodities” partly
depends on the species of farm animal, and the productive contexts these animals are be
ing produced within.
Researchers in France, for example, identified three main ways that livestock breeders
and farm advisers perceived the animals they work with: “the animal as machine,” the
“communicating animal,” and the “affective animal.”101 Although everyone in the study
emphasized the productive role of livestock, some accentuated the technical side of pro
ducing animals, while others attended to the emotional needs of animals by actively en
gaging with them. Although these interspecies interactions did not foster emotional at
tachments to individual animals, some experienced a “real affection for their animals and
practice[d] a kind of empathy with them.”102 Those most interested in the technical side
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of animal production held more mechanistic views of livestock and tended to produce
pigs and poultry on an intensive scale. Those who bred cattle, pigs, or calves for quality-
assurance schemes were more likely to view their animals as sentient beings and (p. 290)
emphasized the importance of communicating with them. Finally, farmers who related
emotionally to their livestock tended to breed cattle, although some also produced pigs in
outdoor production systems. Another European study found that farmers feel more affini
ty toward cows than pigs or poultry, and are more likely to perceive cows “as more like
able animals.” To that extent, of all farmed animal species, cows were most likely to be
seen as “friends” or “family members.”103
A common implication to be derived from these examples is that byre-face workers can
perceive some or even all of the animals they routinely work with, albeit temporarily, as
more than just meat-on-the-hoof or “tools of the trade.”104 Livestock are thus simultane
ously functional objects and sentient beings. How practitioners draw the perceptual and
emotional line between these two fluctuating statuses is an ongoing process and an un
deracknowledged aspect of stockpeople’s work. This challenge brings to the fore the
“constant paradox” that plagues all human-animal relations, especially in practice.105 As
Arluke and Sanders note, “Ambiguous perceptions and ambivalent emotions are central to
the forms of relationships between humans and nonhuman animals.”106 The notion of
“sentient commodity”107 augments these recurring themes in human-animal studies by at
tending to the contradictory, contextual, and changeable nature of the perceived status of
commodified sentient beings in food animal productive contexts, and how stockpeople ex
perience and manage this perceptual paradox in practice.
Since food animals cannot be reduced to, or totally defined by, their productive role(s),
the purely instrumental views of and attitudes toward livestock, especially cattle, can be
unstable and messier in practice. Moreover, if any animal deviates from the productive
routine, such as an ill animal, who requires more handling, or a particularly friendly or
temperamental animal, that animal may acquire a more individuated status, albeit fleet
ingly, to become more than “just an animal” to those working with them. This means that
commodified animals can be located and relocated along a status continuum that ranges
from commodity to pet, whereby the same animal might, at times, be perceived by the
same or even different workers, as being a tool of the trade, a work colleague, a friend, or
even a pet. This continuum also reflects the full range of people’s dominant and affection
ate relationships to animals.108
Food animal production is clearly a complex mix of economic viability coupled with an
affinity for working with livestock.109 This fundamental tension means that commercial
and hobby animal productive contexts are variously shot through with an array of concep
tual, emotional, ethical, and practical contradictions. Those located at the pragmatic hub
of these intersecting contradictions also have to negotiate the precarious and ambiguous
morass of human-livestock relations. As an economic producer and a carer of livestock,
the stockperson’s role is inherently contradictory. Those practicing dominion-stewardship
can therefore experience structural ambivalence, “not because of their idiosyncratic his
tory or their distinctive personality[,] but because the ambivalence is inherent in the so
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
cial positions [roles] they occupy.”110 Given that stockpeople generally enjoy working with
farm animals and are instrumental in preparing them for slaughter, this also highlights
the caring/killing paradox that underpins meat animal productive contexts; that is, the
cultivation of animal health for the purpose of death.111
The division of labor within the industry is built on byre-face workers breeding
(p. 291)
and fattening healthy animals, and slaughter workers killing those healthy animals for
food. In fact, finished cattle have to be in their prime to be killed for human consumption.
Slaughter is an integral part of the meat-animal productive process, but this does not
mean that stockpeople are unperturbed by it. For example, although prime animals are
destined for slaughter, an experienced farm stock manager explains,112 “[I]t’s the part I
don’t like. You canna [cannot] afford tae [to] think about it too much.” His way of manag
ing this tension was to avoid thinking about it: “When they go away in a lorry that’s them
going away. And there’s another lot coming on and I’m doing my job.” “Going away” was
his term for going to the slaughterhouse. He also claimed that he would “rather sweep
the streets or empty dustbins than see animals getting shot and skinned and everything.”
He appeared to loathe those who worked “in places like that [slaughterhouses]” and re
ferred to them as “empty heads” that headed for a drink as soon as they finished their
day’s work.
I’ve got four [cattle] going away tomorrow morning from the field here behind the
house. So I’ve been feeding them in the mornings and I know them all; I can
stroke some of them, keep them nice and quiet and I’ll take them in, put them in a
pen. I’ll wail out the four that I need, load them up, take them up to the killing
house and put them in the lairage there. But I don’t want to see them going down
the chute and actually having the bullet put in their face, don’t want to see that,
hear that, or know about that. As far as I’m concerned they left me healthy and
I’m looking for that cheque the next day. But I could not see them being shot,
that’s not my job.114
Witnessing the slaughtering process was a difficult experience too: “I didn’t want to see a
fit healthy animal walking up that ramp and being shot. I didn’t want to see that, no, I
turned away I remember that.”115 Since stockpeople work with an ongoing supply of live
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animals this may partly facilitate their ability to cognitively and emotionally deal with the
caring/killing paradox associated with their role. This point also helps explain why the
widespread culling of cattle in the United Kingdom during the foot and mouth disease
outbreak in 2001 was so traumatic for some farmers; they not only witnessed their entire
herd being killed, they were also unable to buy new animals to fill the void.116 (p. 292) On
this occasion, there were no livestock, only deadstock. As Convery and colleagues astute
ly put it: “Death was in the wrong place (the farm rather than the abattoir), but it was al
so at the wrong time (in relation to the farm calendar) and on the wrong scale (such
large-scale slaughter seldom occurs at the same time.”117 In other words, killing is not
their job. Farmers are producers and their purpose in life, according to a senior vet, “is to
try and keep the maximum number of their livestock alive.”
Conclusion
When the intensification of food animal production undermined the so-called social con
tract between farmers and their animals, it ushered in more critical perceptions of hu
man-livestock interactions in late-modern societies. Since the emergence of factory farm
ing has also contributed to the (mis)representation of farm animal workers as an uncar
ing homogenous cohort that views and treats livestock as a standardized commodity to be
exploited for profit, “the commercialization and industrialization of the livestock industry
has [seemingly] created a class of animal producers wholly insensitive to animal
needs.”121 This “new perception” of animal agriculture was further perpetuated by ani
mal welfare and animal rights groups, which in turn shaped contemporary public debates
around food-animal-related issues.122 The largely reproachful position adopted by these
groups, albeit explicable, also contributed to many byre-face workers, especially within
the commercial sector, becoming rather defensive in their dealings with those outside the
industry. Although members of the public and official groups have every right to be fully
informed about the darker side of food animal productive contexts and processes, includ
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ing poor stockmanship practices, those working with livestock also have every right not
to be routinely and unthinkingly vilified in the process.
As Birke and colleagues note, “Some forms of work are now stigmatized that once had
merited greater prestige. People in these occupations might now find themselves (p. 293)
the target of moral crusades by groups seeking to change public opinion about whatever
they find offensive … Lurking behind such moral criticism are often implicit charges that
these workers must be unprincipled or shameless to do what they do.”123 The revised
moral-legal status of food animals in recent years, as evidenced by the reclassification of
livestock in European law from “agricultural goods” to “sentient beings,” has undoubted
ly fueled the growing public perception that farmers are engaged in morally dubious in
terspecies work. In addition, although the property or thing-like status of livestock is not
rescinded by such legislative changes, it is being eroded. If, as Franklin124 also suggests,
we are witnessing a human-animal attitudinal shift, exemplified by “anthropocentric in
strumental” attitudes being diluted by more “zoocentric empathetic” ones, then such le
gal-sociocultural changes may further hasten the view that farm animals are becoming
“contested commodities.”125 Just as the commodification and sale of human organs, ba
bies, and sexual services currently generates much personal and social conflict, the ex
tent to which this angst is also extended to commodified sentient nonhuman beings re
mains to be seen.
Public debates about, and concerns for, the welfare and status of farm animals are
nonetheless gathering pace. This moral quickening has clearly shone a much-needed crit
ical light onto once taken-for-granted livestock productive contexts and practices. Byre-
face workers are not only aware of this moral shift; they are more or less socialized into
these contradictory attitudes and changing cultural values. While most of us can contem
plate the ramifications of these conflicting attitudes and moral debates while one-step re
moved from the ambiguous realities of the byre-face, front-line farm animal workers have
to negotiate, albeit it to varying degrees, the pragmatic, paradoxical, and multifaceted
challenges raised by such issues in their everyday work lives. Given the significance of
these ongoing debates, and that so few people work with livestock nowadays, it is even
more important to consult those with experience of these interspecies work contexts.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
ty to an issue can make it more difficult to make categorical statements about it. Al
though non-byre-face workers and groups can choose whether they reconnect with or dis
connect from the messy and tainted realities of producing animals for food, byre-face
workers have to variously interact with the (p. 294) commodified sentient beings at the
very heart of these thorny issues and “dirty work” contexts.
In this case, food animals are a source and embodiment of ambiguity: they are “lively
commodities” who are bred to die. They are simultaneously functional objects and
sentient beings. Insights from the byre-face have shown that the perceived status of com
modified animals, especially cattle, is unstable in practice. How practitioners draw the
perceptual and emotional line between these two fluctuating statuses is an ongoing
process and an underappreciated aspect of stockpeople’s work. This is the “constant
paradox” that potentially plagues all human-animal relations, especially in practice. Given
that “[a]mbiguous perceptions and ambivalent emotions are central to the forms of rela
tionships between humans and nonhuman animals,”127 this takes us to the crux of this
chapter. To understand livestock as a sentient commodity is to attend to, and
(re)contextualize, the contradictory and changeable nature of the perceived status of
commodified animals in food animal productive contexts, and how stockpeople experi
ence and manage this perceptual paradox in practice. Bringing to the fore this relatively
mundane aspect of people’s interactions with farm animals not only upsets the commonly
held assumption that productive animals are nothing more than mere commodities; it also
puts center stage the empirical, attitudinal, and affective elements of stockmanship that
have typically been bracketed off in the past. If the pragmatic discrepancy between the
perceived and legal status of animals opens up underexplored vistas of human-animal re
lations, then the notion of sentient commodity also holds the promise of further nuancing
our contemporary understanding of people’s rather complex, contested, and contradicto
ry relationships with other species of animals.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Professor Linda Kalof for inviting me to contribute to the Oxford
Handbook of Animal Studies. Additionally, I would like to thank Lesley Murray and Alas
tair Matthewson for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
Notes:
(2.) John Webster, Animal Welfare: A Cool Eye towards Eden (Oxford: Blackwell Science,
1994), 128.
Page 16 of 26
Animals as Sentient Commodities
(3.) For scholarly debates about domestication, see, e.g., Juliet Clutton-Brock, “Introduc
tion to Domestication,” in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism,
and Predation, ed. Juliet Clutton-Brock (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Juliet Clutton-
Brock, “The Unnatural World: Behavioural Aspects of Humans and Animals in the Process
of Domestication,” in Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives, ed. Aubrey
Manning and James Serpell (London: Routledge, 1994), 23–35; Sándor Bökönyi, “Defini
tions of Animal Domestication,” in Clutton-Brock, Walking Larder; Pierre Ducos, “Defining
Domestication: A Clarification,” in Clutton-Brock, Walking Larder, 28–30; Stephen Budi
ansky, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication (New York: William
Morrow, 1992); Howard Hecker, “Domestication Revisited: Its Implications for Faunal
Analysis,” Journal of Field Archaeology 9, no. 2 (1982): 217–236; Frederick Zeuner, A His
tory of Domesticated Animals (London: Hutchinson of London, 1963); Richard Meadow,
“Osteological Evidence for the Process of Animal Domestication,” in Clutton-Brock, Walk
ing Larder, 80–90; Rebecca Cassidy and Molly Mullin, eds., Where the Wild Things Are
Now: Domestication Reconsidered (Oxford: Berg, 2007); Juliet Clutton-Brock, Animals as
Domesticates: A World View through History (East Lansing: Michagan State University
Press, 2012).
(4.) Juliet Clutton-Brock, The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and
Predation (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
(5.) For an alternative discussion of domestication, see Tim Ingold, “From Trust to Domi
nation: An Alternative History of Human-Animal Relations,” in Animals and Human Soci
ety: Changing Perspectives, ed. Aubrey Manning and James Serpell (London: Routledge,
1994), 1–22.
(6.) Joyce Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (New York: Routledge,
1994), 13, 16.
(7.) See, e.g., Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England,
1500-1800 (London: Penguin, 1983); Kay Anderson, “Animal Domestication in Geographic
Perspective,” Society and Animals 6, no. 2 (1998): 119–135; Virginia Anderson, Creatures
of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004).
(8.) Kay Anderson, “A Walk on the Wild Side: A Critical Geography of Domestication,”
Progress in Human Geography 21, no. 4 (1997): 468.
(10.) See also Ryan Gunderson, “The First-Generation Frankfurt School on the Animal
Question: Foundations for a Normative Sociological Animal Studies,” Sociological Per
spectives 57, no. 3 (2014): 285–300.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(13.) Laurie Carlson, Cattle: An Informal Social History (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 30.
(15.) Juliet Clutton-Brock, “The Unnatural World: Behavioural Aspects of Humans and An
imals in the Process of Domestication,” in Manning and Serpell, Animals and Human Soci
ety, 28; Flight distance describes the point at which an animal flees from a person that
approaches them. See Paul Hemsworth and Grahame Coleman, Human-Livestock Interac
tions: The Stockperson and the Productivity and Welfare of Intensively Farmed Animals
(Oxon, UK: Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International, 1998), 41.
(17.) Clutton-Brock, “Unnatural World,” in Manning and Serpell, Animals and Human So
ciety, 28.
(19.) Frederick Zeuner, “The History of the Domestication of Cattle,” in Man and Cattle:
Proceedings of a Symposium on Domestication at the Royal Anthropological Institute, ed.
Frederick Zeuner and Arthur Mourant (London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1963), 9–
19.
(20.) Joanna Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society: Human-Animal Relations and
the Rise of Veterinary Medicine (London: Routledge, 1999), 37.
(21.) Stephen Budiansky, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication
(New York: William Morrow, 1992), 52, 62.
(22.) Sarah Whatmore, “Materialist Returns: Practising Cultural Geography in and for a
More-Than-Human World,” Cultural Geographies 13, no. 4 (2006): 604.
(23.) Stephen Budiansky, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication
(New York: William Morrow, 1992), 24.
(24.) Gary L. Francione, Animals as Persons. Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploita
tion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 2 (emphasis in original).
(26.) Nik Taylor, Humans, Animals, and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies
(New York: Lantern Books, 2013), 142.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(30.) Great Britain, An Act to Prevent the Cruel Improper Treatment of Cattle (Martin’s
Act) (London: George Eyre and Andrew Strachan, 1822), 2–3.
(31.) Mike Radford, Animal Welfare Law in Britain: Regulation and Responsibility (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 102. See also Thomas Wentworth, “Act against Plowing by
the Tayle, and Pulling the Wooll Off Living Sheep, 1635,” in The Statutes at Large, Passed
in the Parliaments Held in Ireland (Dublin: George Grierson, 1786), ix; Nathaniel Ward,
“‘Off the Bruite Creature,’ Liberty 92 and 93 of the Body of Liberties of 1641,” in A Biblio
graphical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony from 1630 to 1686, ed. William
H. Whitmore (1856; repr., Boston, 1890).
(33.) Bernard Rollin, Farm Animal Welfare: Social Bioethical, and Research Issues (Ames:
Iowa State University Press, 1995), 137.
(34.) See, e.g., Chul-Kyoo Kim and James Curry, “Fordism, Flexible Specialization and
Agri-Industrial Restructuring: The Case of the U.S Broiler Industry,” Sociologia Ruralis
33, no. 1 (1993): 61–80; Bill Winders and David Nibert, “Consuming the Surplus: Expand
ing ‘Meat’ Consumption and Animal Oppression,” International Journal of Sociology and
Social Policy 24, no. 9 (2004): 76–96; Adrian Franklin, Animals and Modern Cultures: A
Sociology of Human-Animal Relations in Modernity (London: Sage, 1999).
(36.) F. W. Rogers Brambell, Report of the Technical Committee to Enquire into the Wel
fare of Animals Kept under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems (London: Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1965), 1.
(37.) Robert Garner, “The Politics of Farm Animal Welfare in Britain,” in Political Animals:
Animal Protection Politics in Britain and the United States, ed. Robert Garner (Hamp
shire, UK: Macmillan, 1998), 152.
(38.) Mike Radford, Animal Welfare Law in Britain: Regulation and Responsibility (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 264.
(39.) Since animals can continue to thrive despite suffering indicates that the rate of
growth and level of productivity are unreliable measures of animal suffering, because
Page 19 of 26
Animals as Sentient Commodities
(40.) Rollin, Farm Animal Welfare, 6. For a critique of the “social contract,” see, e.g., Clut
ton-Brock, “Unnatural World,” in Manning and Serpell, Animals and Human, 23–35; Clare
Palmer, “The Idea of the Domesticated Animal Contract,” Environmental Values 6, no. 4
(1997): 411–425; Ryan Gunderson, “From Cattle to Capital: Exchange Value, Animal Com
modification, and Barbarism,” Critical Sociology 39, no. 2 (2011): 259–275.
(41.) George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society (London: Sage, 2008); Franklin, Ani
mals and Modern Cultures, chaps. 7 and 8. For a less descriptive account of the industri
alization of livestock production, see Gunderson, “From Cattle to Capital,” 259–275.
(42.) Robert Garner, Animals, Politics and Morality (Manchester, UK: Manchester Univer
sity Press, 1993), 65.
(43.) See, e.g., Clare Druce and Philip Lymbery, “Outlawed in Europe,” in In Defense of
Animals: The Second Wave, ed. Peter Singer (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 123–131;
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food
World (London: Bloomsbury, 2006); Jacky Turner and Joyce DeSilva, Animals, Ethics and
Trade: The Challenge of Animal Sentience (London: Earthscan, 2006).
(44.) Franklin, Animals and Modern Cultures, 164; Policy Commission on the Future of
Farming and Food, Farming and Food: A Sustainable Future (London: Cabinet Office,
2002).
(45.) Franklin, Animals and Modern Cultures, 175; For a critique of Franklin, see Erika
Cudworth, Social Lives with Other Animals: Tales of Sex, Death and Love (Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
(46.) C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (London: Oxford University Press,
1959), 8; Ted Benton and Simon Redfearn, “The Politics of Animal Rights: Where Is the
Left?” New Left Review 215 (1996): 43–58; Anna Williams, “Disciplining Animals: Sen
tience, Production, and Critique,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 24
no. 9 (2004): 45–57.
(47.) Jody Emel and Jennifer Wolch, “Witnessing the Animal Moment,” in Animal Geogra
phies. Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands, ed. Jennifer Wolch
and Jody Emel (London: Verso 1998), 14.
(48.) Peter Stevenson, A Far Cry from Noah: The Live Export Trade in Calves, Sheep and
Pigs (London: Merlin Press, 1994), 116; Tara Camm and David Bowles, “Animal Welfare
and the Treaty of Rome: A Legal Analysis of the Protocol on Animal Welfare and Welfare
Standards in the European Union,” Journal of Environmental Law 12, no. 2 (2000): 197–
205. See also David Favre’s chapter in this volume, “Animals as Living Property.”
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(49.) “EC” refers to the European Community. Camm and Bowles, “Animal Welfare and
the Treaty of Rome,” 204.
(50.) Gary Francione, “Animals, Property, and Personhood,” in People Property or Pets?
ed. Marc Hauser, Fiery Cushman, and Matthew Kamen (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue Uni
versity Press, 2006), 83.
(51.) The use of the term guardian as opposed to owner, and companion animal as op
posed to pet, was adopted during the 1990s to convey a more animal-centric attitude. As
Leslie Irvine explains, this attitude acknowledged that animals “possess a level of con
sciousness that make them similar to humans in many ways.” See If You Tame Me: Under
standing Our Connection with Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004),
60–61.
(52.) Temple Grandin, “Animals Are Not Things,” in Hauser, Cushman, and Kamen, People
Property or Pets?, 207–208.
(55.) Colter Ellis, “Boundary Labor and the Production of Emotionless Commodities: The
Case of Beef Production,” Sociological Quarterly 55, no. 1 (2014): 92.
(56.) “Dirty work,” refers to work that is “physically disgusting … a symbol of degrada
tion, [and/or] something that wounds one’s dignity.” See Everett C. Hughes, The Sociolog
ical Eye: Selected Papers (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1971), 343. “Dirty
work [also] involves contacting ‘polluting’ substances; engaging in unpleasant tasks; and
dealing with disvalued people, beings, or other objects.” See Clinton Sanders, “Working
Outback: The Veterinary Technician and ‘Dirty Work.’” Journal of Contemporary Ethnog
raphy 39, no. 3 (2010): 105.
(57.) European Commission, Farm Animal Welfare: Current Research and Future Direc
tions (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2002),
18.
(58.) John Webster, Animal Welfare: Limping towards Eden (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).
(59.) Wesley Jamison and William Lunch, “Rights of Animals, Perceptions of Science, and
Political Activism: Profile of American Animal Rights Activists,” Science, Technology, and
Human Values 17, no. 4 (1992): 438–458.
(60.) Holli Kendall, Linda Lobao, and Jeff Sharp, “Public Concern with Well-Being: Place,
Social Structural Location, and Individual Experience,” Rural Sociology 71, no. 3 (2006):
399–428.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(61.) Emily Gaarder, Women and the Animal Rights Movement (New Brunswick, NJ: Rut
gers University Press, 2011).
(62.) Peter English, Gethyn Burgess, Ricardo Segundo, and John Dunne, Stockmanship:
Improving the Care of the Pig and Other Livestock (Ipswich, UK: Farming Press, 1992),
35.
(64.) John Webster, Animal Welfare: Limping towards Eden (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 98–
99.
(65.) David Fraser, “The ‘New Perception’ of Animal Agriculture: Legless Cows, Feather
less Chickens, and a Need for Genuine Analysis,” Journal of Animal Science 79, no. 3
(2001): 638.
(67.) “Byre” is a Doric word for cowshed. Doric is the vernacular of rural communities in
Northeast Scotland. The phrase “byre-face” is being used to denote people who work with
livestock. It is similar to the notion of “chalk face,” i.e., schoolteachers who work with
pupils in the classroom.
(68.) See, e.g., N. M. Benyon, “Pig-Primate Interface: Analysis of Stockmanship,” Pig Vet
erinary Journal 26 (1991): 67–77; English et al., Stockmanship; Martin Seabrook, “The Ef
fect of Production Systems on the Behaviour and Attitudes of Stockpersons,” in Biological
Basis of Sustainable Animal Production, ed. E. Huisman, J. Osse, D. van der Heide, et al.
(Wageningen, Netherlands: Wageningen Pers, 1994); Hemsworth and Coleman, Human-
Livestock Interactions; Alain Boissy and Isabelle Veissier, “The Relationship between
Farmer’s Attitude and Bahaviour towards Calves, and Productivity of Veal Units,” Annales
de Zootechnie 49, no. 4 (2000): 313–327; Xavier Boivin, Joop Lensink, Céline Tallet, and
Isabelle Veissier, “Stockmanship and Farm Animal Welfare,” Animal Welfare 12, no. 4
(2003): 479–492; Susanne Waiblinger, Xavier Boivin, Vivi Pederson, et al, “Assessing the
Human-Animal Relationship in Farmed Species: A Critical Review,” Applied Animal Behav
iour Science 101, no. 3–4 (2006): 185–242.
(71.) John Heritage, Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), 52.
The insights in this section draw on ethnographic research conducted in 1998–1999 in
Scotland. Interview data are used for illustrative purposes. For a more detailed discus
sion of methods and findings, see Rhoda Wilkie, “Sentient Commodities and Productive
Paradoxes: The Ambiguous Nature of Human-Livestock Relations in Northeast Scotland,”
Journal of Rural Studies 21, no. 2 (2005): 213–230; Wilkie, Livestock/Deadstock.
(73.) See, e.g., A. C. Dockès and F. Kling-Eveillard, “Farmers’ and Advisers’: Representa
tions of Animals and Animal Welfare,” Livestock Science 103, no. 3 (2006): 243–249; Betti
na Bock, M. Van Huik, Madeleine Prutzer, et al, “Farmers’ Relationship with Different Ani
mals: The Importance of Getting Close to the Animals. Case Studies of French, Swedish
and Dutch Cattle, Pig and Poultry Farmers,” International Journal of Sociology of Food
and Agriculture 15, no. 3 (2007): 108–125; Catherine Bertenshaw and Peter Rowlinson,
“Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy
Farms and in Association with Milk Production,” Anthrozoös 22, no. 1 (2009): 59–69.
Wilkie, “Sentient Commodities,” 213–230; Wilkie, Livestock/Deadstock.
(74.) See also Anthony Podberscek, “Good to Pet and Eat: The Keeping and Consuming of
Dogs and Cats in South Korea,” Journal of Social Issues 65, no. 3 (2009): 615–632.
(75.) Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders, Regarding Animals (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 1996), 170–174.
(78.) Paul Hemsworth and Grahame Coleman, Human-Livestock Interactions: The Stock
person and the Productivity and Welfare of Intensively Farmed Animals (Oxon, UK: Com
monwealth Agricultural Bureaux International, 1998): 20.
(79.) Morris Janowitz, ed., “The Relation of Research to the Social Process,” in W. I.
Thomas on Social Organization and Social Personality (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1966): 301.
(81.) See Katherine Dashper, “Tools of the Trade or Part of the Family? Horses in Compet
itive Equestrian Sport,” Society and Animals 22, no. 4 (2014): 352–371, for a discussion of
how this might apply to competitive equestrian sport contexts.
(82.) The nature of farmers’ relationships with their animals can also be influenced by the
species being produced, the way the animals are housed, stock density, life-span of the
animal on the farm, and generational links to the farming family through livestock blood
lines and breeding. See Bock et al., “Farmers’ Relationship with Different Animals,” 108–
125.
(84.) Kaoru Fukuda, The Place of Animals in British Moral Discourse: A Field Study from
the Scottish Borders (PhD diss., Oxford University, 1996), 119.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(85.) See, e.g., Farm Animal Welfare Council, FAWC Report on Stockmanship and Farm
Animal Welfare (London: Farm Animal Welfare Council, 2007); Peter English and Owen
McPherson, “Improving Stockmanship in Pig Production and the Role of the EU Leonardo
Initiatives (1998),” www.gov.on.ca/OMAFRA/english/livestock/swine/facts/article1.htm
(accessed April 8, 2002).
(86.) This cattle female farmer had 250 breeding cows and finished off her store animals
too.
(88.) This cattle farmer looked after a smaller herd of 30–90 animals.
(91.) See also Colter Ellis and Leslie Irvine, “Reproducing Dominion: Emotional Appren
ticeship in the 4H Youth Livestock Program,” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Sociological Association, Boston, July 31 2008).
(94.) Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983).
(95.) Amy S. Wharton, “The Sociology of Emotional Labor,” Annual Review of Sociology 35
(2009):148–149.
(96.) Michael Lynch, “Sacrifice and the Transformation of the Animal Body into a Scientif
ic Object: Laboratory Culture and Ritual Practice in the Neurosciences,” Social Studies of
Science 18, no. 2 (1988): 267.
(99.) Wilkie, Livestock/Deadstock, 127. When working with sheep or poultry, there may be
less need “to harden up,” as these species are perceived as less intimidating and safer to
handle than cattle.
(100.) Arluke, “Sacrificial Symbolism,” in Wilkie and Inglis, Animals and Society, 106.
Page 24 of 26
Animals as Sentient Commodities
(103.) Bettina Bock, M. Van Huik, Madeleine Prutzer, et al, “Farmers’ Relationship with
Different Animals: The Importance of Getting Close to the Animals. Case Studies of
French, Swedish and Dutch Cattle, Pig and Poultry Farmers,” International Journal of So
ciology of Food and Agriculture 15, no. 3 (2007): 118. See also Catherine Bertenshaw and
Peter Rowlinson, “Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relation
ship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production,” Anthrozoös 22, no. 1
(2009): 59–69.
(104.) This may vary by species and type and scale of production.
(105.) Harold Herzog, “Human Morality and Animal Research: Confessions and Quan
dries,” Animal Scholar 62 (1993): 337–349; Andrew Rowan (1984) Of Mice, Models, and
Men. A Critical Evaluation of Animal Research.
(106.) Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders, eds., Between the Species: Readings in Human-
Animal Relations (Boston: Pearson, 2009), xviii.
(108.) Yi-fu Tuan, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1984).
(109.) See also Jocelyne Porcher, “Well-Being and Suffering in Livestock Farming: Living
Conditions at Work for People and Animals,” Sociologie du Travail 48 Supplement 1
(2006): 56–70. See also Jocelyne Porcher’s chapter in this volume, “Animal Work.”
(110.) Robert Merton, Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays (New York: Free Press,
1976).
(116.) See, e.g., Abigail Woods “Why Slaughter? The Cultural Dimensions of Britain’s Foot
and Mouth Disease Control Policy, 1892-2001,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics 17, no. 4–5 (2004): 341–362; Ian Convery, Cathy Bailey, Maggie Mort, and
Josephine Baxter, “Death in the Wrong Place? Emotional Geographies of the UK 2001
Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic,” Journal of Rural Studies 21, no. 1 (2005): 99–109;
Mick Smith, “The ‘Ethical’ Space of the Abattoir: On the (In)humane Slaughter of Other
Animals,” Human Ecology Review 9, no. 2 (2002): 49–58.
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Animals as Sentient Commodities
(118.) There is some evidence to suggest that slaughter workers can grapple with this as
pect too. See Wilkie, Livestock/Deadstock, chap. 8; Wilkie, “Sentient Commodities,” 1–40.
(119.) Lynda Birke, Arnold Arluke, and Mike Michael. The Sacrifice. How Scientific Exper
iments Transform Animals and People (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press,
2007), 116–117.
(121.) Paul Thompson, “Getting Pragmatic about Farm Animal Welfare,” in Animal Prag
matism. Re-Thinking Human-Nonhuman Relationships, ed. Erin Mckenna and Andrew
Light (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 149.
(122.) David Fraser “The ‘New Perception’ of Animal Agriculture: Legless Cows, Feather
less Chickens, and a Need for Genuine Analysis,” Journal of Animal Science 79, no. 3
(2001): 634.
(125.) Margaret Jane Radin, Contested Commodities. The Trouble with Trade in Sex, Chil
dren, Body Parts, and Other Things (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), xi.
(126.) Clifton Bryant, “The Zoological Connection: Animal-Related Human Behaviour,” So
cial Forces 58, no. 2 (1979): 399–421.
Rhoda Wilkie
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Animal Work
Animal Work
Jocelyne Porcher
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Jul 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.8
Although the presence of animals in our lives seems natural, it is not; it depends on work.
But we don’t know what work means for a dog, a horse, or a cow. This chapter proposes a
concept of animal work, and argues that there is a subjective involvement of animals in
work and intersubjective relations between humans and animals at work. This working is
based on a range of structural elements that reflect human work and demonstrate that
animals are implicated in work. However, animals also show at work their own way of
seeing work according to what the context of production allows, their resistance and their
propositions. Faced with an anthropological rupture with animals and the end of domesti
cation, driven by alimentation biotech firms and abolitionists, it is now more important
than ever to understand the building blocks of the human-animal bond, such as animal
work.
Keywords: animal, work, concept of animal work, subjective involvement, intersubjective relations, abolitionism,
biotech alimentation, domestication
Introduction
DOMESTIC animals, both in industrialized and in developing countries, are everywhere.
They are in the countryside and in the towns. They are on farms, in fields; at riding cen
ters; in circuses, zoos, and amusement parks; in police services, military bases, hospitals,
retirement homes, and schools. They are in your home and in mine. For two-and-a-half-
million years, or since Homo habilis first manufactured tools that allowed him to cut the
meat of the beasts he had hunted and to eat it, human beings have had relations with ani
mals;1 first, relations of predator and prey and then, for the past 10,000 years, relations
of domestication.2 Relations have been based on the food chain, but, above all, relations
are based on affect. For thousands of years, we have watched animals and they have
watched us. We have talked to them and they have talked to us. We have learned to com
municate with many animal species, and we have incorporated them into our human
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Animal Work
world, no matter where. We have included animals in this human world and evidently,
more specifically, in the world of work.
As they have been so close to us for such a long time, we feel that their presence is natur
al and clear. However, it seems ever more obvious that our communal life is no longer ei
ther natural or clear. It also seems that the days of our lives spent with companion
species, as described by Donna Haraway,3 are numbered. Considered from the perspec
tive of food, animals are in the process of being replaced by ersatz vegetable protein or
in-vitro meat. From a relational perspective, we ourselves are about to replace them with
robots.
The rupture foreshadowed between us and domestic animals shows how little value we
place on the position that they hold in our society, and in particular, in work. Work is,
however, the primary medium of our ties and the place where animals are most evident
and have the closest proximity to us. For a long time we have used animals to feed and
clothe us, and more, to help us pull ploughs, make war, and haul coal from mines.4 Today
the number of animals involved in working at our side is growing, and new, sometimes
(p. 303) nondomestic species have been engaged, including rats who detect landmines,
vultures who find bodies on mountains, and cetaceans who help in climate studies.
Animals are in work with us, but do they work themselves? The question is important as it
has important consequences, and simply taking it seriously causes a paradigm shift in the
social sciences. It has consequences because the answers it can yield suggest new ways
of living and working with animals. At minimum, animals who do—or do not—work have
an undeniable place in work that it is necessary to highlight and conceptualize.
Do animals work? Is the concept of work pertinent when describing animal activities in
the field of work? What does work mean for an animal? We have sought to answer these
questions through pragmatic and critical sociological research. Since 2007, we have been
carrying out surveys among professionals and their animals, and we have been observing
the animals. We have been observing what the animals do—or do not do—from the start
ing hypothesis that they are actors of work. As domestic animals have been part of the
human world—and not only part of their own world—for a long time, their behavior is not
reducible to “natural behavior.” It is not natural for a cow to use a milking robot, or for a
dog to jump with a parachute. We are therefore more interested in their demeanor than
animal behavior. The term “demeanor,” unlike “behavior,” implies in the first place that
animals’ actions are not determined by genes or by conditioning, rather, they are actors
in what they do. In the second place, it implies that what they do is complex. Work is
much more than the sum of the tasks that we can break it down into. If the demeanor of
animals who work is not solely determined by nature, neither are their needs. If animals
work effectively, they have a need that is not at all considered in the organization of work,
or by issues surrounding “animal welfare”: the need for recognition.
Our results show that an animal working exists, working being used here—as a substan
tive—to describe the subjective involvement of animals in work. For animals too, work
matters. This animal working, which we can observe and describe, allows us to formulate
Page 2 of 19
Animal Work
propositions that conceptualize animal work, presenting similarities to, as well as differ
ences from, human work.
A Scheduled Break
For at least ten millennia, we have lived and worked with animals. It is because they feed,
clothe, protect, help, love, and console us that we have become what we are.5 We owe an
immeasurable debt to domestic animals that we do not seem to have any intention of hon
oring.6 For, in the name of animal ethics, and led by the well-understood interests of in
dustry and biotechnology, we want to break with domestic animals. This rupture is in the
process of happening through the collusion of actors with apparently contradictory inter
ests: on one side, the defenders of animal abolitionists, who agitate for a world without
animal death, and, on the other, the biotechnical industry, which claims to be (p. 304) on
track to produce food of a higher moral and environmental quality than that produced by
agrifood enterprises or farmers. These two types of actors argue for agriculture without
livestock, and therefore, in the medium term, for a human world without any domestic an
imals.
Central to the arguments of abolitionists is the question of animal slaughter and meat-
based food theorized as “carnism.”7 In this theory, which characterizes meat-based food
as an ideology founded on speciesism, work relations between farmers and animals are
reduced to their most basic expression, that of the production of meat.
The industrialization of farming over the past two centuries has transformed animal hus
bandry in industrial animal production. It has reduced animals to the status of things or
machines, and has transformed farmers into producers of animal matter.8 Animal produc
tion has absorbed animal husbandry to such an extent that farming itself, as a ratio of tra
ditional and dynamic work with animals, is no longer recognizable. Animal husbandry and
production are included in the same group of things that supposedly bring suffering to
animals, destroy the environment, and damage the health of consumers. This is why abo
litionists want to do away with animal husbandry, as well as animal production and meat.
It is also the intention of biotech start-ups and investment funds, which follow Joshua Tet
rick, the director of Hampton Creek Food, an enterprise supported by the Bill Gates Foun
dation, who considers that the world of food no longer functions. It is no longer sustain
able, it is unhealthy and dangerous. The objective is to create a new model that will make
the old one obsolete.9 The new model aims to produce animal products without animals,
vegetable-based (eggs without eggs, chicken without chicken) in-vitro meat.10 This repre
sents a colossal financial challenge, which is why important investment funds support
these projects.11 However, this model also implies the disappearance of domestic animals,
and not only of livestock tied to meat production. The criticism of farming, applied to the
appropriation of animals by the process of domestication, equally effects our relations
with horses, cats, and dogs. From the point of view of abolitionists, who consider domesti
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cation a framework for our domination of animals, we exploit these animals equally, and
we should equally liberate them.
We are therefore in a paradoxical situation where ordinary people manifest a great at
tachment to animals and engage them more and more markedly in work and in their
lives, but where, at the same time, other people work to detach us from animals, and to
promote a human world in which they are absent. That this is in the process of happening
is therefore a major anthropological evolution. Our humanity, constructed through power
ful ties with animals, is evolving toward a self-constructed human model in which we re
ject the part of us that is animal.
It is our belief that between animal production and “animal liberation,”12 there is place
for a peaceful and intelligent mode of relations with animals. Our hypothesis is that work
is the medium for these relations. It is work that creates the domestic relationship be
tween us and animals, a relationship in which we serve animals, and animals serve us. It
is work that creates our “natureculture.”13 For 10,000 years a gift relationship has exist
ed between us and animals, in which interest and disinterestedness, attachment (p. 305)
and detachment, negotiation and violence has been articulated.14 Work is the principal
conduit of this gift relationship, and it is this that allows us to live together.15 However, to
live together reasonably and sustainably, it is necessary to understand the place of ani
mals in work, and to take this place into consideration. Because (and all professionals
who work with animals know this very well) if an animal does not want to work, she does
not work. Therefore, without their engagement in work, the work cannot be done. We do
not, however, know what working means to an animal, and that is what we have been
seeking to understand.
One other reason is that this question lies, on first analysis, at the interface of the social
and natural sciences: in the natural sciences, animals; in the social sciences, the question
of work. This split prevents the consideration of work from the point of view of animals.
In addition, the status of animals in the social sciences, as tools and as representations, is
based on a very strong opposition between nature and culture. Even if today this opposi
tion has been largely called into question,16 it remains very difficult to get beyond it when
considering work, because, for many, work remains in the human sphere.
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It should be further noted that even in the field of animal studies or human-animal stud
ies, the question of animal work is not studied as such. Either the question of animal work
is omitted,17 even if it is hinted at in arguments, or, though they reflect on animals at
work, the authors do not give a definition of animal work.18 Although Donna Haraway19
stresses the collaboration of animals in experimental work, empirical research on the sub
ject does not exist. The largely ethnographic research contributions on the place of ani
mals in work help to illuminate how humans think and act with animals in the field of
work (working with animals),20 but they do not facilitate an understanding of the subjec
tive relations animals have with work. It is recognized that a co-constructed identity
forged by relations between animals and humans exists, however, it is important to place
this co-construction in the field of work, because this co-constructed identity is precisely
one of the first objectives of work.
This is why we have based our research on some hypotheses and on a theory of work,
and, along the way we have diverged—or not—from this theory. We think that hypotheti
cal-deductive research initially, and inductive research secondly, will enable us to respond
to our questions better than can be done using a uniquely ethnographic approach. Con
sidering, nonetheless, that all approaches are complementary and (p. 306) collectively en
abling, each one with its theoretical means and its questions, as Taylor and Signal (2011)
demonstrate, it is necessary to propose theories and concepts to develop the huge field of
research in animal studies.21
To propose that animals, since domestication, have moved from slavery to the capitalist
factory, and that therefore we must liberate them, is to fail to take into account the work
relations they have with humans. Considering the question of our ties from the starting
point of work necessitates considering animals as something other than victims and nat
ural and cultural idiots, whom we must liberate despite themselves. If animals collaborate
at work, as we contest, then things are a lot more complicated than these analyses sug
gest. They overlook that, before the insertion of farming into the capitalist world in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, peasants’ work relations with their animals were
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not pastoral but were marked by strong proximity, and by the integration of animals into
the family.
For Marx, unlike the bee who is not an architect and only follows a program that is pre
constructed by nature, humans invent, anticipate, and imagine, and in transforming na
ture, they transform themselves.
For Ingold,25 who argued against Marx on this question, constructing honeycomb cells in
their head before actually building them is not a prerequisite of work. What is important
is that animals have a conscious, intentional activity. This conscious activity, according to
Ingold, is constructed by social relations that give the activity sense. For Ingold, produc
tion by human beings and animals is part of their relations with the world, and not dis
tinct from the entirety of their lives.
Can we, however, claim that in spite of this, a beaver works when he builds a dam, as put
forward in Ingold’s theory? Based on the interpretation that we give to work the answer
is no, for work is a human concept. Domestic animals, because they have lived with us for
millennia, have appropriated and interiorized human work rationalities, and the first of
these is relational. Work allows us to produce, but there are other (p. 307) rationalities be
sides production, such as living together, the construction of self, co-constructing each
other and having moral behavior. Productive rationality without a doubt concerns animals
least, particularly farm animals. Cows do not produce milk. They do not measure their
performances. Nevertheless, they are implicated in a task, and they know it.26
On the other hand, we do not know what idea beavers have of their building activity. Does
it have the same types of rationalities as human work? It is more likely that the rationali
ties that animate beavers belong to the world of beavers. However, we do not think that
beavers only manifest behaviors and are driven by their genes. We can hypothesize that
they have intentional, collective activities of production. However, contrary to what In
gold proposes, this is not sufficient to say that beavers work, for work is far more than
production. This is why, contrary to what Marx advanced, but based on the same way that
Marx envisaged work, we think that domestic animals work—and perhaps therefore so do
bees—but not beavers, unless beaver production activity, just like that of humans or dogs,
aims to transform the world and make it more habitable27 for beavers and for human be
ings, and this is intentional on their part. Without this relation between humans and ani
mals and a shared objective of living together, describing animal activity as work is of lit
tle interest and doesn’t bring much to beavers.
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acteristics of certain species, which defines what can be called work for an animal—a
dog, a cow, or a horse. Our hypothesis is that invariants are more numerous than variants
between species.
The theoretical frameworks that we use as a base to test these hypotheses are the psy
chology of work and, more particularly, the clinical approach to work. There is an impor
tant distinction between the two. The clinical approach to work does not concern animals.
The references that we make here concerning what drives animals are propositions con
structed in 2007 concerning the subjective relationship of cows to work.28 We have cho
sen this particular theoretical framework because subjectivity is central to it. Our results
were sufficiently pertinent for us to pursue this path, with all the constraints imposed by
the clinical approach, to knowing the psychological processes in play in work and their
consequences on health. Using this theoretical framework necessarily limits the subject.
However, we are just at the beginning of our research, and we will increase the complexi
ty as the research advances.
thrive and stay healthy. The benefits of work come via a mutation, from initial suffering in
the relationship into working for pleasure. This mutation is reached when recognition of
finished work is given by the hierarchy (usefulness judgment) and by peers (beauty judg
ment).29 Through a production system, work can keep its promises, in particular, our be
ing happy thanks to work, or not keep the promises and instead bring great suffering.
Work can safeguard health, or it can generate disease and even death.
Work has been given numerous definitions, most of which center on the productive end
result of an activity and on its constraining character. It concerns attaining fixed objec
tives within the framework of an organization or a contractual relationship. But opinions
vary as to what work is and what it is not. This is why it is more effective to be concerned
with work itself, rather than with the result of work. From the clinical angle, to work is to
mobilize your body, your intelligence, and yourself for a use-value production.30 Work mo
bilizes a subject because there is no work without someone who works. What interests us
is that someone, and their relationship with work.
Starting with the theoretical framework concerning human work that constitutes the
background to our research, we conducted sociological observations with professionals31
and animals. The objective of the surveys and of participant observation of the profession
als was to understand how they perceive this question of animal work, how they do—or
do not—mobilize it, in what ways they define the place of animals at work, and with what
consequences for themselves, and for the animals.
When considering animal behavior, we observed what animals did in the context of pro
ductive activities (direct observation or videos): what they did individually, collectively,
and in their relations with humans. Sociology, when it studies animals or humans, is con
cerned with what individuals do, as well as what they say/express they think or do.32
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The summary of the initial results presented here refers to the survey research and the
observations we made ourselves, and by graduate masters’ students, as part of a collec
tive project.33
The areas that we studied were: a herd of dairy cows in an intensive system (Tiphaine
Schmitt, in 2007) a free-range pig farm (Aurore Chartier, in 2008); a falconry in an animal
park (Déborah Mousset, in 2009), a wild boar attraction in an animal park (Pauline Oliv
ere, 2010); sheep dogs (Justine Vallée, in 2013); assistance dogs (Emilie Fournier, in
2013); animals assisting in therapy (Benoît Vallas, in 2013); military dogs (Gaelle Mainix,
in 2013); animals in films (Julie Douine, in 2013); a circus elephant (Justine Check, in
2013); pack donkeys in Burkina Faso (Thomas Bouasria, in 2013); and equestrian horses
(Sophie Nicod, in 2013). Researchers in all these areas34 sought to answer, directly or in
directly, the same question, do animals work?
The engagement of animals in work is relevant to two big sectors: food production (farm
animals), and service production. The number of animals involved in food (p. 309) produc
tion is the more significant, but it is in the service sector that animal activities are the
most diverse.
With farm animals, the question of work is difficult to grasp. In the interviews with farm
ers, it clearly appeared that farm animals have an important place in work and collabo
rate with the work. Some farmers think that their animals do effectively work, other farm
ers think not, reserving real work for equine and bovine draught animals, for example.
This perception of animal work also depends on the place of the animal in the production
system. For example, a farmer is more inclined to think that a cow works, but that a calf
does not.
Generally, what farmers say concerning their work relations with animals leads one to as
sume that they do think that their animals work—the words “work” or “job” are frequent
ly employed. However, if we pose the question directly, the answer is frequently no. It de
pends on the definition that a given person gives to work. Most frequently, a fairly shared
notion of work is demonstrated, grounded in constraint, suffering, and dependence—a vi
sion anchored in the monotheisms (“we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brow”),
more than in a scientific or political definition of work. Thus, if a farmer uses an implicit
definition of work based on constraint, and if he considers that animals’ relationship to
work is not constructed on constraint and suffering, he therefore responds that animals
do not work (because they do not suffer). However, if we start again with a different defi
nition of work based on what the farmer said concerning his animals’ relationship with
work, the farmer often changes his response. Nevertheless, the place of death in work
with farm animals makes animal work more difficult to think about in farming than in oth
er sectors and with other animal species. This is why the place of death in our relations
with animals is an essential question35 and must be asked in concert with the need to give
consideration to the issue of animal work.
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It is therefore indispensable, when conducting interviews on animal work, to take into ac
count the negative definition of work that is a widely shared way of thinking. Theories
concerning animal work also raise the question of the definition of work. This performa
tive aim is important, as it reminds us of the emancipative role work has in our lives and
raises that question in the lives of animals.
For professionals in service animal work (assistance, performance), the idea of whether
or not animals work depends in equal measure on the implicit definition that these people
give to work, on the context of the realization of work, on the intensity of the work rela
tions between humans and animals, and on the challenges of the work. For a trainer of as
sistance dogs or a member of the military, the dog can work or not, depending on to
whom the question is asked and the representations that person has of the work done
with the dog. For example, if the theory of conditioning is the theoretic base of education
for that person, the question of work doesn’t seem to be relevant. If the dog is condi
tioned, mechanized, he is an object of human work, much more than an actor in his own
training.
Whether the professionals think that their animals work or not, they all share a very great
interest in this question and the connections that can be made between animal work and
the conditions for animals at work.
For military dogs, assistance dogs, and animals assisting in therapy, the training follows a
curriculum of graduated apprenticeship, often called or described as a “school.” They
must achieve one level of training before they can advance to another. The military per
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sonnel or the trainers of assistant dogs often make an analogy with human training cours
es that grant diplomas. To enter into work, the animal must pass the different evaluations
to which he is submitted at each level. After this, he will direct in practice his own compe
tences and the possibilities they encounter. For example, a dog trained to work with
someone who is physically disabled could end up working with a child with autism if in
the course of his training he shows that his personality and competences are better suit
ed to that type of relationship with a human, that is to say, more orientated toward affec
tive care based on his presence and the quality of his presence, rather than on his practi
cal competences (opening doors, carrying objects). In the same way, a military dog
trained to patrol may perhaps end up carrying out missions that require a greater spirit
of initiative.
Each animal, whatever the species, has a way of learning and working. Animals who have
gone through the same training will not respond to it in the same way. It is therefore up
to the humans who work with them to adapt.
Work communication between humans and animals rests on a mutual capacity to compre
hend the language of the other—the humans, but sometimes other animals. Ewes, for ex
ample, understand the language of the shepherd, but also that of the dogs: their lan
guage, character, and way of working. When a shepherd gives an order to his dogs, the
ewe understands the order at the same time as the dog. and she knows which dog has
been sent by the shepherd. Depending on whether the dog is gentle or brutal, she reacts
with more or less speed.38 Work communication between humans and animals is very vi
sual and auditory, and in a way that is more difficult to prove, strongly supported by af
fects.
The place of death in farm work means that the farm animal is almost a friend. Some
times, despite the farmer, the animal becomes a real friend, and that is why some farmers
cannot bring themselves to send certain animals to the abattoir, and prefer to keep them
to finish their days at home, even if this choice is expensive from an economic point of
view.
Although in the context of human work relations, affection between colleagues is not in
dispensable to their working together, it seems that in the context of working with ani
mals, affection—humans for animals and animals for humans—is a necessary condition
for sustainable and secure work relations.
is not acceptable for humans or for animals. For humans, the rule to respond when being
called is an important one that the animal accepts, but this does not mean that animals
come each time they are called. It is precisely because they are in a cooperative relation
ship with their masters that there is room to maneuver, such as disobeying orders and
slowing down work. This explains the cow who makes a pretence of going toward a milk
ing robot and then changes direction as soon as the farmer’s back is turned, or a military
dog who pretends to limp in order to be given a break, or the elephant who finishes his
performance sooner than usual. Professionals can recount many anecdotes that demon
strate not only cooperation by animals at work, but also their ruses to escape (p. 313)
work from time to time. The possibility of cheating shows that animals have sufficient
confidence in their masters to make some infringements on the cooperative arrangement.
This is also reciprocal, and animals can only tolerate bad faith or bad temper from their
masters up to a certain point.
This knowledge of work rules, and the possibility of introducing elements of negotiation
to them, often goes hand in hand with animals’ capacity to take the initiative and humans’
capacity to let them do so. Thus an elephant in a circus can, during the show, introduce a
new, unrehearsed element. If the elephant handler understands the animal’s intentions,
he joins the game and follows along with the elephant’s proposition. This can equally be
the case in film publicity work, where the initiative to do something can be left to the ani
mals. It seems that an animal showing initiative is initially discouraged by humans but is
accepted in the end. For example, a sheep dog who takes the initiative can find himself
reprimanded the first time, and then praised if he shows that he was right and his initia
tive was justified.
The possibility of a margin for taking initiative in work is important for animals as this al
so makes the work interesting and pushes animals to express their capacities and their
potentialities, often going well beyond what human beings imagined possible.
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In the work of certain animals, for example, animals in films, work fluctuates between
spontaneity and effort. Their task is to pretend, and pretending resembles play. Thus, a
bear can pretend to be fierce, but his handler is working with dangerous emotions that
cannot overstep the work; that is to say, the bear must not forget that he is pretending
and that this is the specific objective of the activity, as there are cameras around him. It is
equally the case with a military dog who can be aggressive on demand. This aggression
on command must not be mistaken for a game but must really be seen as work that the
handler must channel so that the animal is not overtaken by his emotions.
Animal behavior off-work is free. The animal can therefore do what she is forbidden to do
during work: jump, run, lie down, chase a fellow animal, cuddle up with her owner—there
are no longer any rules to follow.
Recognition
One of the reasons for animal good will proposed by professionals is the desire animals
have to give pleasure to their owners or handlers. We think that giving pleasure is part of
the dynamic of the recognition of work. As we have seen above, the benefits of work for
individuals comes from the recognition of work accomplished, via judgments. To judg
ments of beauty and usefulness defined by the clinical approach to work, I am adding a
judgment specific to the relationship between humans and animals, a judgment of con
nection.40 It is this that the human gives the animal, but it is also what the animal gives
the human regarding work. According to professionals, animals also have a judgment
about work, and they are capable of expressing it. If the animal wants to give pleasure to
her owner or handler, it is because she has a positive evaluation of their relationship, and
this is reciprocal.
If animals are recognized by their owners, or by those that they work for, they are far less
recognized by society at large. With the exception of soldier dogs who are rewarded for
their bravery, animals’ work is largely overlooked. For many professionals, this is a moral
void that it is necessary to fill, and to my mind, this takes the form of reflecting on the
status of work animals and taking into account their cognitive and affective investment in
work.
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An Animal Work?
We could advance the notion, from this decoding of animal working, that there is an ani
mal work that has many similarities with human work but that also has important differ
ences. Our results have shown that the structural elements of animal working described
here relate to all animal species. Whether it concerns an elephant, a dog, a horse, or a
bear, the relationship with work is built on education, rules, communication, cooperation,
and affection. Observing animals at work reveals that animals invest in their work and
very often give the best of themselves for the joy or satisfaction of their handlers or own
ers.
Animal work is therefore, above all, work—with two notable differences, the place of af
fection and the place of death in work. Unlike humans, animals, particularly in partner
ships, seem to need to love their owner/handler and to be loved in return, in order to
work better. This affection or this love seems to be the bedrock of work relations. Further,
unlike work relations between humans, slaughter and euthanasia are management op
tions that do not exist between humans, unless redundancy or dismissal is considered to
be a symbolic death. Beyond these differences between animal work and human work,
there are also many elements of work with animals that we still completely ignore. In the
clinical approach to work, work has essential psychological challenges, and it is by these
means that it effects identity, subjectivity, and sexuality. This work on the psyche is
through the unconscious. If we propose the theory that animal work exists, through the
demonstrable existence of an animal work, what of this psychological side of work? We
could propose that if work effects the unconscious in a human being, it can similarly ef
fect an animal. Animals dream. Who knows what an assistance dog41 dreams about? Can
you dream without an unconscious? We know that animals can fall ill because of difficult
relations with their masters, revolt against injustice at work, and die following the death
of their master. Furthermore, what about the effects of work on animal health? What of
its effects on the cognitive potentials of animals? Does work make animals more intelli
gent?
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time repressing their impulses. It is a job which, just like that of a night watchman, con
sists of doing nothing and is difficult to understand as a job.
Taking animal work into consideration would allow us to change the way we look at the
status we give to animals and to change the categorization. So the categorization of pets
versus farm animals, that is to say, implicitly exploited versus not exploited, makes little
sense. These two types of animals work, but in different sectors. In the same way, the cat
egorization of meat animals, lab animals, working animals (dogs, cattle, horses), and pets
doesn’t make sense either. A cow is at work in the same way, perhaps, as a lab rat, a pet
dog, a pack donkey in Africa and a horse in an equestrian center. The category “working
animals” can be enlarged to include all the animals with whom we work, including ani
mals from nondomestic species such as zoo animals. For work does not concern species,
but individuals.
Changing categorization and taking into consideration animal work would allow us to see
that between the owner of a pet dog and a cattle farmer, the differences are more to do
with the number of animals and the type of production than with the relationship itself.
The owner of only one dog in a town can abstain from killing his animal, but this is not
the case with the cattle farmer as the possibilities of looking after the animals are limited
and his income depends on the sale of milk and his calves. But if the owner of only one
dog becomes the breeder of many dogs, he will also have to manage births and deaths.
Animal work, just like our work, depends on organizations and institutions. It is the result
of a balance of power. Perhaps animals are workers almost like others. Taking animal
work into consideration will show that human freedom is not only in our hands, but also
in the paws of animals. Our freedom and theirs are tied, and are built in the world of
work. Because work is definitely the real hyphen in this incredible term: human-animal.
Notes:
(1.) Pat Shipman, The Animal Connection. A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
(2.) Stephen Budiansky, The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); James Serpell, In the Company of Animals
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(Oxford, Eng.: Basil Blackwell, 1986); Jean-Pierre Digard, L’homme et les animaux domes
tiques (Paris: Fayard, 1990).
(3.) Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant
Otherness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
(4.) If the place of animals in work is underestimated today, it was recognized, as labor,
historically in the case of certain animals. For example, in 1936, mine horses, at the same
time as French workers, won the right to a week’s holiday (a week at pasture), and the
right to retire. Just as peasant farmers with their working horses, miners saw their mine
horses as work colleagues.
(5.) Paul Shepard, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human (Washington, DC: Island
Press/Shearwater, 1996).
(6.) Jocelyne Porcher, L’esprit du don, archaïsme ou modernité de l’élevage: éléments pour
une réflexion sur la place des animaux d’élevage dans le lien social. Revue du Mauss n°20
(2002): 245–262, http://www.cairn.info/revue-du-mauss-2002-2-page-245.htm.
(7.) Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: Introduction to Carnism
(San Francisco, CA: Conari Press,2010). For a description of the abolitionist perspective,
see Gary Francione and Anna Charlton’s chapter in this volume, Animal Rights.
(9.) Hampton Creek is a food technology company headquartered in San Francisco fo
cused on finding new ways of utilizing plants in food products. See http://
www.hamptoncreek.com/.
(10.) See for example the start-ups Modern Meadow and Beyond Meat who pretend to
propose alternatives to meat. See http://modernmeadow.com and http://beyondmeat.com/.
(12.) To put it clearly, the fact that we liberate ourselves from the animals.
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ory: Jacques Godbout and Alain Caillé.” The World of the Gift (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 1998).
(15.) Note that when a domestic species is excluded from work, they tend to disappear, as
has been the case with donkeys in France, who were threatened by mechanization. Their
presence close to us was safeguarded when they were given new jobs (tourist donkey
rides, for example). This is equally the case with horses, which, as well as their riding ac
tivities, work in new jobs (taking children to school, collecting rubbish bins).
(17.) Kay Peggs, Animals and Sociology (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
(18.) Nick Taylor and Tania Signal, Theorizing Animals: Re-Thinking Humannimal Rela
tions. (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2011); Lindsay Hamilton and Nick Taylor, Animals at
Work. Identity, Politics and Culture in Work with Animals. (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
2013).
(20.) Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders. Regarding Animals. Animals, Culture and So
ciety (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996).
(22.) Richard L. Tapper, “Animality, Humanity, Morality, Society,” in T. Ingold (ed.), What Is
an Animal? (London: Routledge, 1994), 47–62.
(23.) Peter Dickens, Reconstructing Nature. Alienation, Emancipation and the Division of
Labour (London: Routledge, 1996).
(24.) Mary Murray, “The Underdog in History: Serfdom, Slavery and Species in the Cre
ation and Development of Capitalism,“ in N. Taylor and T. Signal (ed.), Theorizing Ani
mals: Re-thinking Humanimal Relations (Leiden; Brill, 2011), 85–106.
(25.) Tim Ingold, “The Architect and the Bees: Reflections on the Work of Animals and
Men.” Man 18 (1983): 15, n. 1.
(26.) Jocelyne Porcher and Tiphaine Schmitt, “Dairy Cows, Workers of the Shadow,” Soci
ety and Animals 20, no. 1 (2012): 39–60.
(27.) Christophe Dejours, “Subjectivity, Work and Action,” in Recognition, Work, Politics.
New Directions in French Critical Theory, ed. J. P. Deranty, D. Petherbridge, J. Rundell,
and R. Sinnerbrink (Brill, 2007), 71–88.
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(29.) Christophe Dejours and Jean-Phillippe Deranty, “The Centrality of Work,” Critical
Horizons 11, no. 2 (2010): 167–180.
(31.) The term “professional” here concerns humans, but certain animals also have a sta
tus at work that implies that they are professional. Jurisprudence has an example in Nor
way for police dogs. They have in effect the status of police employees, just as the hu
mans with whom they work do.
(34.) Specific articles on studies in each field conducted in 2013 are in the process of be
ing written.
(35.) Jocelyne Porcher, La mort n’est pas notre métier. Editions de l’Aube (2003); Jocelyne
Porcher et al, Manifeste pour une mort digne des animaux. Editions du Palais, 2014);
Wilkie, Deadstock/livestock.
(36.) Taming has the idea of moving from one state to another—the taming of a wild ani
mal, for example, which the taming makes docile. Education does not have this idea, and
does not seek to make docile, but to acquire competences, realize potential and allow in
dividuals to bloom, or in a less positive way, to make a base for performance.
(37.) Carlos Pereira, Parler aux chevaux autrement. Approche sémiotique de l’équitation.
(Editions Amphora 2009).
(38.) Jocelyne Porcher, Elisabeth Lécrivain, “Bergers, chiens, brebis: un collectif de tra
vail naturel?” Etudes Rurales n°189. Dossier « Sociabilité animales », 121–138 (2012).
(39.) Jocelyne Porcher, Florence Cousson-Gélie, and Robert Dantzer, “Affective Compo
nents of the Human-Animal Relationship in Animal Husbandry: Development and Valida
tion of a Questionnaire.” Psychological Reports 95 (2004): 275–290.
(40.) Jocelyne Porcher, Cochons d’or. L’industrie porcine en questions. Editions Quae,
2010.
(41.) My hypotheses is that with dogs involved in a profession, because they have lived
and worked with us for thousands of years, work has a psychological effect. Therefore
dogs dream about their work, and the work also creates an unconscious in them. Not all
Page 18 of 19
Animal Work
dogs move their paws in their dreams because they are running after rabbits! A guide
dog in a city more likely dreams of the metro and the risks it involves for her human. I
can well imagine that psychoanalysts will not follow me in this hypothesis!
Jocelyne Porcher
Montpellier, France
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory
Online Publication Date: Feb 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.15
The ability to engage in reflexive thought—in thought about thought or about other men
tal states more generally—is regarded as a complex intellectual achievement that is be
yond the capacities of most nonhuman animals. To the extent that reflexive thought ca
pacities are believed necessary for the possession of many other psychological states or
capacities, including consciousness, belief, emotion, and empathy, the inability of animals
to engage in reflexive thought calls into question their other psychological abilities. This
chapter attacks the idea that reflexive thought is required in this pervasive way and holds
that supposing that it is derives from a tendency among philosophers and scientists to
ward overcomplication. Against this tendency, it recommends an aponoian framework,
from apó, “away from” and noûs, “intelligence” or “thought,” arguing that seemingly
complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem, and do not require
the ability to engage in reflexive thought.
Keywords: animal studies, animals, belief, consciousness, emotion, empathy, reflexive thought
It’s Complicated
REFLEXIVE thought is thought about thought, or thought about other mental states more
generally. As such, the ability to engage in reflexive thought is generally regarded as a
complex intellectual achievement: one that is beyond the capacities of most animals—in
deed, of perhaps all animals except humans. A denial of this ability can be made on a vari
ety of grounds. First, many argue, one cannot think a thought about any given mental
state without having the concept of that mental state. And so, it is claimed, attributing
the capacity for reflexive thought to nonhuman animals (henceforth “animals”) would en
tail attributing to them an implausibly sophisticated conceptual repertoire. In addition to
the issue of burgeoning conceptual repertoire is another—quasi-empirical—objection. If a
creature has the ability to engage in reflexive thought, then he must have the ability to at
tribute mental states both to himself and others. It is argued that there is no empirical ev
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
idence for this ability in any nonhuman animals. Any apparent evidence in favor of this
ability can always, it is argued, be explained in more parsimonious terms: for example, in
ways that involve an ability for behavioral abstraction (i.e., to form generalizations about
behavior and its likely consequences) but not the ability to think thoughts about what is
going on in the mind of another.1 Assessing these arguments against the possibility of re
flexive thought in animals is a huge undertaking—both empirically and conceptually—one
that has already generated countless books and journal articles, with no sign of resolu
tion on the horizon.
We shall not address this question directly. Instead, our approach will question the impor
tance usually attached to the issue of whether animals are reflexive thinkers. This impor
tance derives from the belief that the capacity for reflexive thought is built into, (p. 320) or
required for, many other capacities. If animals lack the capacity for reflexive thought,
they, therefore, must also lack these other capacities. This is the idea that we shall resist.
At the heart of this, we shall argue, is a pervasive tendency, shared by philosopher and
scientist alike, toward overcomplication.
Suppose there is a property—let us call it P—that, common sense decrees, is widely dis
tributed in nature, being possessed not only by normal adult human beings but also by
children and at least some animals. While property P is, on some level, mundane and fa
miliar—this is the basis of confidence in the widespread distribution of this property—the
precise theoretical articulation of P is controversial. There is a range of theoretical op
tions that might be used to capture this property P, running from the simple to the com
plex. On some of the more complex options, it turns out that the distribution of P will not
be as wide as common sense supposes: for example, the possession of P by children and
other animals will be rendered problematic, unlikely, or impossible. Thus, there is a clash
between common sense (“P is widely distributed through the human and animal world”)
and theory (“P is probably/definitely restricted to normal adult humans”). We think it is
fair to say that, in this sort of case, there has been a persistent historical tendency, in
both philosophical and scientific treatments of animals, to favor the restrictive theory
over the more liberal common sense. Indeed, in philosophy, a few dissenting voices aside,
this tendency is endemic and almost definitive of the attitude that, historically speaking,
the discipline has taken toward animals. It is unclear why this should be. Philosophers
are, perhaps, complicated people, and have a natural proclivity to favor the complex over
the simple. But this tendency is not restricted to (professional) philosophers. There is, we
think, a lot of truth in Wittgenstein’s (implicit) claim that we are all philosophers.2
Scientists also frequently find themselves in the grip of philosophical assumptions and
confusions, and the scientists who study animals are no exception.
The approach we are going to defend, we shall refer to as aponoian. Aponoia comes from
the Greek, apó, which means “away from,” “separate,” “without,” and noûs, which means
“intelligence,” “thought.” An aponoian approach to psychological abilities is, accordingly,
one that aims to leave intelligence and thought aside.3 This does not mean—and we can’t
really emphasize this enough—that animals are lacking in intelligence. Aponoia is some
thing that applies to humans and other animals equally. The idea we mean to convey is
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
this: seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem. In
telligence is, in this sense, often not as intelligent as it seems.
Two Mistakes
This chapter will inveigh against the philosophical art of (over)complication. The endemic
overcomplication in question can take a variety of forms, but two, in particular, stand out.
Suppose there is a property P, which might, in different contexts, stand for any
(p. 321)
Second, there is another tendency that, unfortunately, stubbornly resists our attempts to
provide it with a catchy appellation. This tendency is best introduced by example. Sup
pose we are tempted to say, on the basis of his behavior, that one animal is the subject of
a given emotion, say fear. The little dog, let us suppose, fears the big dog. Given an array
of behavioral, evolutionary, and neurobiological evidence, our attribution of fear to the
dog does not seem to be an unreasonable one. However, suppose the “philosopher in us,”
as Wittgenstein put it, urges caution: to fear the big dog, the little dog would have to un
derstand that the big dog is worthy of fear—that he is the sort of thing that should or
ought to be feared. But now we seem to be attributing to the little dog the concept of
ought or should—the concept of warrant, as we might say. And this does seem to be an
overly sophisticated concept. Therefore, we might find the philosopher in us urging us to
abandon the idea that the dog can possess the emotion of fear.
This, we shall argue, would be an example of confusing the ability to make a certain judg
ment and the ability to track a certain judgment. Accordingly, we shall refer to it—and we
note, once again, that if there is a catchier appellation for this confusion, it is beyond the
abilities of the authors to devise—as the making/tracking confusion. The little dog, we
shall argue, does not need to make the judgment that the big dog ought to be feared, or
that he warrants fear. Rather, a far weaker condition is all that is required: if the dog’s
emotion is not, as we shall say, misguided (a technical term to be explained later), then
the claim that the big dog ought to be feared must be true. In such circumstances, we
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
shall say, the dog’s emotion tracks the truth of the claim. The little dog does not need to
judge that the big dog ought to be feared, as long as his or her emotion tracks the truth of
the claim.4 The making/tracking confusion is important in its own right. In this paper,
however, given that our primary concern is the issue of reflexive thought in animals, we
shall tend to focus on the way it has been used to support the error of premature meta-ar
ticulation.
One might think that, today, we have shaken off this postmedieval nonsense, but the
claim that animals lack consciousness has, in fact, been defended in recent philosophical
discourse. This defense turns on what is known as the higher-order thought (HOT) model
of consciousness. We discuss this not because the view is widespread—even among
philosophers, few today are willing to bite the bullet and deny consciousness to animals—
but because it is a glaring, and so for our purposes useful, example of the pitfalls of as
suming a phenomenon must be explained by appeal to the meta-level.
The sense of consciousness in question is phenomenal: the way it seems or feels when
one has or undergoes an experience. The overwhelming preponderance of the scientific
evidence suggests that this sort of consciousness is possessed by most, perhaps all, verte
brates and some invertebrates and so, at a conservative estimate, probably made its first
appearance (on this planet at least) 300 to 500 million years ago. However, some propo
nents of HOT have contested this claim.7
In order to understand the HOT model of consciousness, two distinctions are required.
The first is between creature consciousness and state consciousness. Consciousness can
be ascribed to both creatures and mental states. A creature can be conscious in the sense
that she is awake as opposed to asleep. But a mental state—a desire, for example—can al
so be conscious or unconscious. The second distinction is between transitive conscious
ness and intransitive consciousness. Transitive consciousness is consciousness of
something. If I (consciously) think that the cat is on the mat, then I am transitively con
scious of this state of affairs. Creatures are transitively conscious of things; mental states
are not. My thought that the cat is on the mat is not conscious of anything. I am con
scious of the cat being on the mat in virtue of having that thought. My thought that the
cat is on the mat, on the other hand, is intransitively conscious when I am (consciously)
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
thinking it. Based on these distinctions, we can express the guiding idea behind HOT ac
counts as follows: intransitive state consciousness is to be explained in terms of transitive
creature consciousness.
According to the HOT model of consciousness, for a given mental state of mine—say pain
—to be conscious, it is necessary that I form (or, in some versions, be able (p. 323) to form)
a thought about this pain—a thought to the effect that I am in pain. This thought confers
consciousness on my pain. Until I form the thought—or unless I possess the ability to
form the thought—my pain is nonconscious.8 The thought makes me transitively con
scious of my pain, and in doing so makes my pain intransitively conscious.
The HOT model is implausible. In particular, it seems to fall foul of a dilemma. Is the high
er-order thought (intransitively) conscious? If it is, then HOT does not explain conscious
ness but presupposes it. If it is not, then it is utterly mysterious how the thought is sup
posed to make me transitively conscious of my pain. Intransitively unconscious thoughts
do not make their subjects transitively conscious of their objects—that is precisely what it
is for them to be intransitively unconscious.
The appeal to a higher-order thought to explain consciousness does not work. This is an
example of premature meta-articulation. In this case, the premature meta-articulation is
apparently based on the attribution of seemingly miraculous powers to the meta-level; i.e.
the idea that the meta-level can somehow magically bestow on a range of phenomena a
feature that is intrinsically lacking in the phenomena themselves. This form of premature
meta-articulation, therefore, is grounded in what we might call the miracle of the meta.10
This is the general form of the miracle:
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
3. Do x, y, z possess P?
4. If so, then we have not explained P but simply presupposed it.
5. If not, then it is mysterious how x, y z can confer P on a, b, c.
In other words, the appeal to the meta-level cannot do the work it is supposed to
(p. 324)
do, and is therefore fruitless.11 While many prominent forms of premature meta-articula
tion are grounded in the miracle of the meta, as we shall see, this is not true for all cases.
Therefore, we shall treat premature meta-articulation and the miracle of the meta as dis
tinct fallacies, with the latter being a category of the former.
Donald Davidson argues that “dumb” animals (i.e., animals incapable of engaging in lin
guistic communication) are incapable of having beliefs, “First, I argue that in order to
have a belief, it is necessary to have the concept of belief. Secondly, I argue that in order
to have the concept of belief one must have language.”12 The requirement that one pos
sess the concept of belief in order to possess a belief may seem, prima facie, unduly intel
lectualistic. Davidson thinks otherwise:
Here I turn for help to the phenomenon of surprise, since I think that surprise re
quires the concept of a belief. Suppose I believe there is a coin in my pocket. I
empty my pocket and find no coin. I am surprised. Clearly enough I could not be
surprised (though I could be startled) if I did not have beliefs in the first place.
And perhaps it is equally clear that having a belief, at least one of the sort I have
taken for my example, entails the possibility of surprise. If I believe I have a coin
in my pocket, something might happen that would change my mind. But surprise
involves a further step. It is not enough that I first believe there is a coin in my
pocket, and after emptying my pocket I no longer have this belief. Surprise re
quires that I be aware of a contrast between what I did believe and what I come to
believe. Such awareness, however, is a belief about a belief: if I am surprised, then
among other things I come to believe my original belief was false.13
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To be surprised, one must be able to have a belief about a belief. However, one cannot
have a belief about a belief unless one has the concept of belief. But to have the concept
of belief requires the concept of objective truth, says Davidson, “Much of the point of the
(p. 325) concept of belief is that it is the concept of a state of an organism which can be
true or false, correct or incorrect. To have the concept of belief is therefore to have the
concept of objective truth.”14 But the concept of objective truth, Davidson argues, for rea
sons deriving from his semantic theory, is not possible for creatures lacking in language.
There is much about this argument that can be questioned.15 However, we shall simply fo
cus on stopping the argument before it starts. Davidson’s conception of surprise is a
metacognitive one. To be surprised requires (i) being aware of two distinct beliefs, and, in
virtue of this, (ii) being aware of the contrast between them. The claim that animals can
not be surprised is, of course, itself a rather surprising one in that it contradicts a wealth
of evidence, scientific and anecdotal, suggesting that surprise is rather widespread in the
animal kingdom. Let us take a case of apparent surprise. Hugo, a dog, requests to be let
out of the back door for his nightly constitutional. It has been raining, and a rather large
American bullfrog sits outside, a few feet away. Hugo exits in his usual way, but upon
noticing the frog, freezes for around thirty seconds, staring intently.
It would be implausible to claim that nowhere in this little tableau is there any element of
surprise. It would also be implausible to attribute to Hugo an awareness of the contrast
between his initial and subsequent beliefs about the state of the patio vis-à-vis large
American bullfrogs. However, to explain Hugo’s surprise, it is possible to take an
aponoian approach in which there is no need to attribute to him any such thing. Within
this approach, all that is required to explain surprise is the postulation of a first-order
mechanism that records a discrepancy between the content of a belief and the way the
world is.16 Suppose we grant that Hugo has a dispositional belief about the patio of
roughly this form: when I go out the door, things will be more or less the same as they
usually are. The postulated mechanism works by detecting a discrepancy between this
belief and the way the world, in fact, is. Hugo is, as a result of this discrepancy, surprised.
Or, better, surprise is the experiential form the detection of this discrepancy takes. Sur
prise, therefore, does not need to be explained metacognitively.
The mistake Davidson has made, in effect, is to confuse awareness of the contents of be
liefs with awareness of beliefs. The content of a belief is what the belief is about. What
the belief is about will be, roughly, a state of affairs: an arrangement of objects and prop
erties in the world. To have a dispositional belief is to be disposed to entertain content—
to believe that a certain state of affairs is the case—under certain eliciting conditions. The
content of Hugo’s belief, we have supposed, is that the patio is more or less the way it
usually is: no surprises there. This belief, presumably, exists in dispositional form: Hugo
does not need to be consciously thinking this to himself. There is, however, a surprise
there, as Hugo quickly perceives. Hugo, thus, becomes aware of the new content: thing,
there! And so the surprise-detecting mechanism kicks in to detect the difference between
the content of his perception and the content of his dispositional belief. In no part of this
account do we need to postulate metacognitive abilities or arrangements, such as beliefs
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about beliefs. Davidson’s position is, then, an example of unnecessary premature meta-ar
ticulation.
Consider the following scenario17: a dog chases a squirrel up a tree. The squirrel jumps
from one tree to the next and eventually disappears. The dog does not see this, and sits at
the foot of the tree barking. It is natural to explain the dog’s behavior in terms of his be
lief that the squirrel is in the tree (conjoined with, perhaps, his desire to catch the squir
rel, or his frustration at not being able to do so, and so on). He cannot, after all, see that
the squirrel is in the tree—the squirrel is no longer there.
Davidson18 and Stich19 disagree with this interpretation of the situation. Davidson puts
his argument as follows:
Can the dog believe of an object that it is a tree? This would seem impossible un
less we suppose that the dog has many general beliefs about trees: that they are
growing things, that they need soil and water, that they have leaves or needles,
that they burn. There is no fixed list of things someone with the concept of a tree
must believe, but without many general beliefs there would be no reason to identi
fy a belief as a belief about a tree, much less an oak tree. Similar considerations
apply to the dog’s supposed thinking about the cat.20
We identify thoughts, distinguish between them, describe them for what they are,
only as they can be located within a dense network of related beliefs. If we really
can intelligibly ascribe single beliefs to a dog, we must be able to imagine how we
would decide whether the dog has many other beliefs of the kind necessary for
making sense of the first.21
Davidson focuses on the tree. We’ll focus on the squirrel. Does the dog—let us call him
Hugo again—believe that the squirrel is a mammal, that he is warm-blooded, that he has
a skeleton, and so on? All these beliefs, Davidson claims, are part of our concept of a
squirrel, and so without them Hugo cannot share our concept. Therefore, the attribution
to Hugo of the belief that there is a squirrel in the tree is problematic. The attribution of a
belief about the squirrel to Hugo depends on his possession of the concept of squirrel.
However, possession of a concept depends on possession of a network of related beliefs.
Therefore, attribution of beliefs (and other propositional attitudes) is a holistic enterprise.
Roughly,
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
share our belief network. Hugo, along with all other animals, is such an individual.
We might call this the “anchoring” argument. The content of any concept is anchored to a
network of related beliefs. The human concept of squirrel is anchored to the network of
related beliefs shared by humans. We have to suppose that Hugo does not possess this
concept. But, therefore, we cannot attribute beliefs about squirrels to Hugo, for when we
do so we employ a concept (“our” concept of squirrel) that he does not possess. More
generally, the attribution of individual beliefs to individuals is constrained by the net
works of beliefs they hold. If this network is not shared with us, we cannot attribute be
liefs to them, for such attribution would be predicated on concepts they do not possess.
Suppose we accept the conclusion of this thought experiment. Then, if we explain the
Twin’s retaw-drinking behavior through postulating a desire to quench his/her thirst and
a belief that water will quench it, our explanation would be false. Nevertheless, there is
surely something about it that is right. It is not as if we tried to explain his/her behavior
by way of the desire to quench his/her thirst and the belief that water is poisonous, or the
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
belief that colorless green ideas sleep furiously. The explanation may not be strictly cor
rect, but it is not far off the truth.
The crux is how to explain the idea of being not far off the truth, and there is a way of do
ing this. The truth of the claim (or proposition) that water is wet guarantees the truth of
the claim that retaw is wet. If the former proposition is true, then the latter must be true
also. More than this, the guaranteeing of truth derives from the fact that there is a
(p. 328) reliable connection between the properties of water and the properties of retaw:
if water is wet, colorless, odorless, transparent, thirst quenching, and so on, then retaw
must be these things too. This reliable connection between properties is simply a feature
of the way the thought experiment is set up.
We can apply this general idea to Hugo the dog. Suppose Hugo represents the squirrel in,
for example, affordance-based terms. That is, the dog represents the squirrel as a chase-
able thing. This is, of course, an empirical matter, but suppose, for the sake of argument,
it is correct. Corresponding to the proposition that we entertain—namely, that the squir
rel is in the tree, Hugo thinks a thought along the following lines: the chase-able thing is
up there. Can we still legitimately use our proposition to explain Hugo’s behavior? The
answer, we suspect, is that we can, and while we won’t be strictly correct, what we say is
close enough to the truth to be useful and enlightening. More precisely, what we say will
be useful and enlightening if the following two conditions—designed to parallel the Twin
Earth case—hold. First, the truth of the (anchored to us) claim that there is a squirrel in
the tree guarantees the truth of the (anchored to Hugo) claim that the chase-able thing is
up there. If the former is true, then the latter is true also. Secondly, this guaranteeing of
truth holds because there is a reliable connection between the properties of squirrels and
chase-able things: squirrels, for Hugo, are reliably chase-able (and things in trees are re
liably up there).
Consider the first condition. If the (anchored to us) claim that the squirrel is in the tree is
true, then the (anchored to Hugo) claim that the chase-able thing is up there must also be
true. The truth of the first anchored claim guarantees the truth of the second one. More
over, and this is the second condition, the reason the first anchored claim guarantees the
truth of the second is because of a reliable connection between the property of being a
squirrel and the property of being a chase-able thing. For Hugo, squirrels are reliably
chase-able: that is, for any x, if x is a squirrel, then x, for Hugo, is chase-able. When these
first and second conditions are met, we can say that the (anchored to us) claim that the
squirrel is in the tree tracks the (anchored to Hugo) claim that the chase-able thing is up
there. There is a truth-guaranteeing relation between the two claims, where this is
grounded in a reliable connection between the properties of the thing (the squirrel) the
claims are about.22
Note, once this apparatus is accepted, we don’t even need to know what beliefs Hugo has
vis-à-vis squirrels. He may represent them as chase-able things or by way of some other
categories entirely. All that is required for the attribution of the belief that the squirrel is
in the tree to be useful and enlightening (if not strictly true) is that the (anchored to us)
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
proposition that the squirrel is in the tree track whatever proposition it is that can truly
be employed in attributing the belief to Hugo.
Emotion
A Capuchin monkey sees his fellow being rewarded with (highly prized) grapes for com
pleting a given task. Upon completing the same task, this monkey is given a (not at all
highly prized) piece of cucumber. After several repetitions, the seemingly enraged mon
key hurls his cucumber out of the cage at the researcher.23 If the players in this scene
were human, it would be natural to describe their behavior by appeal to the emotion of in
dignation.
Jaak Panksepp has argued, on neurobiological grounds, that basic emotions such as hap
piness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust extend beyond the human realm, en
compassing all mammals, in all likelihood birds, and possibly reptiles.24 This is not a mi
nority view in affective neuroscience. Panksepp’s view—with the possible exception of
reptiles—also coincides quite closely with common sense. Arrayed against common sense
and affective neuroscience, however, we find philosophers who regard the attribution of
any emotions to animals as deeply problematic—and the attribution of a fairly complex
emotion such as indignation especially so.
There is a tendency to think that emotions are somehow more primitive than cognitive
states, such as belief. It is unclear from where this idea derives, but its legitimacy is very
questionable. Emotions are, at least conceptually, more complex than cognitive states. An
emotion contains everything a belief contains and more.
Emotions are distinct from moods. Like beliefs and other cognitive states, emotions have
intentional content. Fear is fear of something or that something will happen. Anger is di
rected at someone because that person did something. This means that emotions have in
tentional content. Indeed, they are individuated by this content. If the monkey were in
deed indignant, the content of his indignation would be that he is being offered a cucum
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ber (when his fellow Capuchin is being offered a grape). This is what individuates the
emotion—distinguishes it from other cases of indignation. That he is being offered a cu
cumber is what we might regard as the factual content of the Capuchin’s emotion. In their
possession of factual content, emotions are akin to beliefs.
Emotions are different from beliefs, however, in that there is more to their content than
the factual. Implicit in the monkey’s indignation would be the evaluative content that his
being offered the grape is wrong. The content of the emotion is composed of the factual
judgment (“I am being given a cucumber, again”), and the moral judgment (p. 330) (“This
is wrong!” or “I am being wronged!”). This seems to be a moral judgment. Not all emo
tions involve specifically moral judgments. But all involve evaluative judgments of some
sort. If the little dog does, indeed, fear the big dog, then implicit in this, it seems, is the
judgment that the big dog is worthy of fear—that he should be feared.
Because emotions have both factual and evaluative content, philosophers skeptical of the
idea that animals can have emotions have two different options for developing their case.
They might contest the claim that animals can entertain factual content. We have already
discussed this idea in the previous two sections. The other version of the case turns on
hostility to the idea that animals can make the moral or other evaluative judgments re
quired for the possession of emotions. This is the avenue of hostility we shall examine in
this section. We shall argue that this idea is an example of the making/tracking confusion.
To make a moral judgment seems to require the possession of the moral concepts of right
and wrong. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that Capuchin monkeys do not possess
these concepts. Underlying this thought is the distinction between concept possession, on
the one hand, and the ability to discriminate, on the other. If an ant is sprayed with oleic
acid, his fellow ants will remove him from the colony—oleic acid is given off when an ant
dies. Ants can discriminate, with a reasonable level of precision, which of their fellows
are dead from which of them are not. But it would be implausible to suppose that they
possess the concept of death. Similarly, it might be argued, animals might be trained to
discriminate things that are good from things that are bad without possessing the con
cept of good and bad. To possess that concept, one would need to know not merely which
things are good and bad but in what their goodness or badness consists.
If we accept this, then it seems that (1) if emotions such as indignation involve moral
judgments, and (2) moral judgments require moral concepts, then (3) Capuchin monkeys,
it would seem, cannot possess emotions of this sort. The account of emotions assumed
here is a cognitivist one: emotions are seen as requiring (on some implausibly strong ver
sions, reducing to) judgments. One option for the defender of emotions in animals, there
fore, is to attack the cognitivist account of emotions. We shall not pursue this strategy,
largely because we think cognitivism about emotions is correct. Instead, we shall argue
that even if one assumes cognitivism about emotions, and so sees emotions as bound up
with evaluative, and sometimes moral, judgments, this is compatible with animals pos
sessing emotions. The key to the argument we shall develop is the difference between
making moral judgments and tracking moral judgments. Making moral judgments is not
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required for possession of emotions such as indignation. All that is required is that the
emotion, in a sense to be made clear, track moral judgments—judgments that the animal
need not be able to make.
Smith is indignant that Jones snubbed him. There are two ways in which this emotion
might, let us say, misfire—roughly, the analogue of what it is for a belief to be false. The
category of a misfire is a conjunctive one. An emotion misfires when it is either misplaced
or misguided. Smith is indignant because he believes Jones snubbed him, but Smith is, in
fact, mistaken. Jones didn’t snub him at all. Smith was being his usual (p. 331) hypersensi
tive self, imagining slights where there are none. Let us say that, in this case, Smith’s in
dignation is misplaced. An emotion is misplaced when it depends on a factual assertion’s
being true when that assertion is, in fact, false. The other source of failure would occur if
Jones has every right to snub Smith—say, because of Smith’s boorish behavior on their
most recent encounter. Smith, as we might say, deserved no better from Jones in this
case. Let us say that Smith’s indignation is, in this case, misguided. An emotion such as
this is misguided when it depends on a claim of entitlement where there is, in fact, no
such entitlement. More generally, an emotion is misguided when (i) it requires the truth
of a given evaluative claim, and (ii) this evaluative claim is not, in fact, true.
The Capuchin’s indignation—which we have supposed, for the sake of argument, he pos
sesses—can misfire in the same ways. It might be misplaced: for example, his fellow Ca
puchin has not been offered a grape at all, merely a cucumber. In such a case, the Ca
puchin might be angry that the researcher has nothing better to offer. But he cannot be
indignant at the unfair way he is being treated in comparison with his fellow Capuchin.
Or it might be misguided: for example, the monkey has not performed the task for which
the grape is the reward, and therefore the implicit evaluative judgment that he deserves
better treatment is not, in fact, true.
The idea of an emotion being misguided allows us to understand the location in logical
space of the evaluative component of the emotion. If an emotion, E, is not to be misguid
ed, then a certain evaluative proposition, p, must be true. The truth of this proposition, as
we might say, makes sense of the emotion. We need not think of emotions as reducible to
evaluations. Rather, for any emotion, there is a certain evaluative proposition that must
be true in order for the emotion to not be misguided.
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can be spread as widely through the animal domain as both science and common sense
take them to be.
The fallacy embodied in the argument that animals cannot have emotions is, therefore,
the making/tracking confusion. An emotional state that is thought to require that animals
make, or be capable of making, a given judgment in fact requires no such thing. It is suffi
cient for possession of the state that a given judgment or proposition be tracked in the
sense that, if the emotion does not misfire (i.e. is not misguided or misplaced or both),
there is a certain proposition that must be true (or two propositions—one factual one
evaluative).
The Capuchin monkey’s indignation is a self-directed emotion in that it concerns his own
well-being. An important category of other-directed emotion—an emotion that concerns
the welfare of another—is empathy. Other-directed moral emotions are based on a con
cern—which can take either positive or negative form—about the well-being of another in
dividual.
Our concern, rather, will be with the concept of empathy as it is employed in moral con
texts, specifically in contexts of moral motivation. Here, the concept is strikingly variegat
ed: at one end of the spectrum, empathy requires breathtakingly complicated cognitive
and conceptual abilities; at the other, it is little more than a brute physiological reaction.
Leslie Jamison, in her wonderful book The Empathy Exams, veers about as far as one can
in the direction of complexity:
Empathy isn’t just listening, it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be
listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires
knowing that you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of con
text that extends perpetually beyond what you can see… Empathy means realizing
no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds. Out of wounds and across bound
aries … you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another country, through
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
immigration and customs, border crossing by way of query: What grows where
you are? What are the laws? What animals graze there?26
Empathy, in this sense, requires mind-reading—the ability to attribute mental states both
to others and to oneself, which is a form of reflexive thought, and much more besides
(perspective taking, imaginative reconstruction, and so on). We shall assume, with more
than a little confidence, that animals are incapable of empathy in Jamison’s sense. Not all
cases of empathy need be this complex, of course. Nevertheless, one can detect a pro
nounced tendency to suppose that empathy involves mind-reading abilities: the ability to
understand the minds of another by way of the attribution of mental states to them. Thus,
de Vignemont and Jacob write, (p. 333)
The motivational role of empathetic pain for moral and prosocial behavior … has
often been stressed… . In order to react appropriately to another’s pain, one needs
to understand the fact (or to believe) that she is in pain. Hence, prosocial behavior
requires third-person mind reading.27
Feeling for another person who is suffering … is the form of empathy most often
invoked to explain what leads one person to respond with sensitive care to the suf
fering of another… . To feel for another, one must think one knows the other’s in
ternal state … because feeling for is based on a perception of the other’s welfare28
The idea here is that, without the ability to attribute mental states to others, an empathi
cally motivated helping reaction simply cannot occur. If a creature cannot understand the
pain and suffering of the individual whose misfortune she is witnessing, then she has no
reason to help her. These are all examples of fairly complex models of empathy.29
Consider, now, the other end of the spectrum. The most basic form of empathy, so basic
that one might legitimately question whether it is indeed empathy, is emotional conta
gion: an involuntary affective resonance that occurs in presence of another individual
who is undergoing a certain emotion. It requires no understanding of what initiated the
reaction and yields a form of personal distress that is either nonintentional or directed at
one’s own well-being. There is no reason to suppose that this sort of reaction has a moral
character, for neither the emotional reaction nor the behavior triggered by it are directed
toward the other individual; so it is not an expression of other-directed concern.
If these two sorts of cases were exhaustive, the prospects for empathy occurring in ani
mals, as a specifically moral motivational state, would be bleak. The more complex forms
of empathy might be moral, but animals cannot possess them. The simpler forms of empa
thy animals can possess but have no moral import. In accordance with our aponoian
paradigm, we shall argue for the existence of intermediate forms of empathy that are
both moral and can plausibly be thought to be possessed by at least some animals. We
shall designate the least cognitively demanding of these forms as minimal moral empathy.
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[W]hat matters to empathy understood as a moral concept is that the subject per
ceives what is morally salient about another’s situation. Even this additional re
quirement doesn’t quite capture what needs to be added to cognitive empathy to
make it a morally significant concept, and that is its relation to sympathy or com
passion. These states are genuine moral emotions in the case where they motivate
a subject to help or to alleviate need, distress, or suffering when this is judged to
be “serious” and (p. 334) undeserved. The moral significance of the emotional
states of sympathy and compassion is explained by the presence of evaluative
judgments as well as the motivations to act on these evaluations or appraisals.30
At present, we have no convincing evidence that animals attribute beliefs and de
sires to others. … Similarly, we also lack evidence that animals have access to
their own beliefs, reflect on them, and contemplate how particular events in the
future might change what they believe. If this lack of evidence correctly reveals a
lack of capacity, then animals can certainly cooperate, beat each other to a pulp,
and make up after a war. But they can’t evaluate whether an act of reciprocation
is fair, whether killing someone is wrong, and whether an act of kindness should
be rewarded because it was the right thing to do [italics are Hauser’s].31
A creature’s empathic reaction to the plight of another would not be a moral emotion un
less the creature is able to view this reaction in, as Hauser puts it, “a context of right and
wrong.” But to view it in such a context seems to require that the animal be able to locate
her reaction in a network of judgments about right and wrong.32
If this is the case against animals possessing empathy as a moral motivation, then we
have already outlined an apparatus that can be used to undermine this case: the distinc
tion between making a judgment and tracking a judgment. To see how this works in the
case of empathy, consider the (notoriously immoral) experiment performed by Masser
man and colleagues.33 Monkeys would refuse to pull a chain that delivered food to them
when they found out that, by pulling said chain, a conspecific situated within their sight
received an electric shock. One of these monkeys—let us call him M—famously refrained
from eating for twelve days in a row.
Suppose M’s refusal to pull the chain was the result of a feeling of distress. This feeling is
not simply caused by the suffering of his fellow; it is also intentionally directed toward
that suffering. That is, M is distressed that the other is suffering. Even though this dis
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
tress motivates M to take steps to mitigate his fellow’s suffering, this would not, accord
ing to Hauser and Dixon, qualify as a moral motivation. To do so, M would need to be able
to make judgments concerning the moral status of his motivations and/or resulting behav
ior. This idea, however, is grounded in the making/tracking confusion.
must be true—namely, the proposition that the monkey’s suffering is wrong or bad. This
does not require that M be able to make this judgment. All that is required is that he pos
sesses an empathic motivational state that tracks this judgment, in the sense that the non-
misguided status of M’s motivation guarantees the truth of the relevant moral proposi
tion. Even if M’s emotional reaction is a form of contagion triggered by watching his con
specific suffer, this does not preclude its status as a moral motivation. This idea of a truth
preserving or truth guaranteeing relation between the emotion and a given moral judg
ment lies at the heart of the concept of minimal moral empathy.
The key to understanding minimal moral empathy lies in the idea of a reliable emotional
response to morally relevant features of a situation. Let us suppose, a supposition that
seems entirely reasonable, that the suffering of M’s fellow monkey is a bad thing. This
suffering is, therefore, a morally relevant feature of the situation: it is what we might call
a bad-making feature of this local situation. M’s response to this morally relevant, bad-
making feature is an emotional one: it takes the form of distress, built into which is an
urge to mitigate the situation. Thus, M refuses to pull the chain. Let us make one further
assumption: M’s response is not a random or arbitrary one. Rather, he responds to situa
tions such as this in a reasonably reliable way. When monkeys are tortured with electric
shocks, M reliably feels distress and an urge to mitigate the suffering. This, we might
suppose, is the result of some mechanism that reliably produces emotional responses to
at least some morally salient features of situations. In these circumstances, all that is re
quired for M’s emotional response to be a moral one is this: if M’s emotional response is
not misguided, then the moral claim “the suffering of this monkey is bad” must be true. M
does not need to be able to make this moral judgment, or entertain this moral proposi
tion. To suppose that he does is to fall victim to the making/tracking confusion. It is
enough that M’s emotional response tracks the moral proposition in the sense just ex
plained. If it does, M’s response is an example of minimal moral empathy.
We chose the example of Masserman’s monkeys for a reason. It is commonly thought that
their behavior is open to another interpretation. As Hauser puts it,
What is most remarkable about these experiments is the observation that some
rhesus monkeys refrained from eating in order to avoid injuring another individ
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
ual. Perhaps the actors empathized, feeling what it would be like to be shocked,
what it would be like to be the other monkey in pain. Alternatively, perhaps seeing
someone shocked is unpleasant, and rhesus will do whatever they can to avoid un
pleasant conditions. Although this has the superficial appearance of an empathic
or sympathetic response, it may actually be selfish.34
This claim is, if our arguments are correct, based on a false opposition. First, minimal
moral empathy does not require the ability to imaginatively feel “what it would be like to
be shocked.” Some cases of empathy are undoubtedly like this, but minimal moral empa
thy requires no such ability. Second, the supposition that, if M is motivated by the un
pleasant nature of his or her emotion, this automatically disqualifies it from being (p. 336)
moral is a supposition that is also unwarranted. M no doubt would find the shrieks of his
fellow distressing. But this experiential unpleasantness may be precisely the form M’s
concern for the other monkey takes. Compare: one would find the shrieks of distress of
one’s children distressing and would take immediate steps to try and stop them. Does this
mean one is merely engaging in a selfish attempt to stop this unpleasant noise? This
claim would be ridiculous. Of course one finds the shrieks of distress of one’s children un
pleasant. This is precisely the experiential form one’s concern for them takes.
The debate over whether the motivation of M is moral has, thus, been based on a false di
chotomy between a moral motivation and an aversive stimulus. The assumption has, typi
cally, been that if an emotion is the result of vicarious aversive arousal, this precludes its
qualifying as a moral emotion.35 If the idea of minimal moral empathy is correct, this as
sumption is unwarranted. The actual motivation of the monkey is an empirical matter, on
which we do not take a stand here. Our point is this: even if his emotional response is a
case of vicarious aversive arousal, this is perfectly compatible with its being a moral emo
tion—a case of what we call minimal moral empathy.
Here we begin to be tempted to use the language of action, and it is clear enough
why: when an animal’s movements are guided by her perceptions, they are under
the control of her mind, and when they are under the control of her mind, we are
tempted to say they are under the animal’s own control. And this, after all, is what
makes the difference between an action and a mere movement—that an action can
be attributed to the agent, that it is done under the agent’s own control.36
As the animal in question becomes more complex, the degree of control she is capable of
exerting over her movements becomes correspondingly greater:
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Even if there is a gradual continuum, it seems right to say that an animal that can
entertain his purposes before his mind, and perhaps even entertain thoughts
about how to achieve those purposes, is exerting a greater degree of conscious
control over his movements than, say, the spider, and is therefore in a deeper
sense an agent.37
This is the first appeal to the meta-level: an animal who can think about her purposes,
perhaps even her thoughts, is more in control of her movements than an animal who can
not do this. With humans, however, Korsgaard believes there is a qualitative leap. (p. 337)
The reason is that we can choose our ends, and not merely choose how to achieve ends
antecedently given to us by our nature and the demands of our environment: “For we ex
ert a deeper level of control over [our] own movements when we choose our ends as well
as the means to them than that exhibited by an animal that pursues ends that are given to
her by her affective states.”38 As Korsgaard notes, this ability to choose ends—to assess
and adopt them rather than merely have them—is what Kant called “autonomy.” And it is
only when we have autonomy, Korsgaard claims, that specifically moral agency
emerges.39 The reason this is a qualitative leap, Korsgaard claims, is because it requires a
specific form of self-consciousness that only humans, in fact, have.
What I mean is this: a nonhuman agent may be conscious of the object of his fear
or desire, and conscious of it as fearful or desirable, and so as something to be
avoided or sought. That is the ground of his action. But a rational animal is, in ad
dition, conscious that she fears or desires the object, and that she is inclined to act
in a certain way as a result … Once you are aware that you are being moved in a
certain way, you have a certain reflective distance from the motive, and you are in
a position to ask yourself, ”but should I be moved in that way?” Wanting that end
inclines me to do that act, but it does it really give me a reason to do that act? You
are now in a position to raise a normative question about what you ought to do
[italics are Korsgaard’s].40
The centrality of the concept of control is very evident in Korsgaard’s argument. The
greater the degree of control an individual has over his actions, the greater the warrant
there is for regarding that individual as an agent. In the case of humans, we have a type
of control over our motivations (“ends”) that no other creature has: we can choose our
ends. This is grounded in a uniquely human form of self-consciousness that provides us
with “reflective distance” between us and our motives, thereby allowing us to scrutinize
those motives and ask ourselves whether they are ones we should endorse or reject. This
is what makes moral action possible. In short, we have a form of control over our motives
that no other creature has; and it is this control that allows us to act morally.
It is easy to feel the intuitive pull of this idea. It is tempting to suppose that in the ab
sence of the relevant metacognitive abilities—the ability to form higher-order thoughts
about our motivations and purposes—we are at their “mercy.” They push us this way and
that. Unable to critically scrutinize these motivations, we have no control over what they
cause us to do. Metacognitive abilities, however, would transform us. Armed with these
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abilities, we can sit above the motivational fray: observing, judging, and evaluating our
motivations, coolly deciding the extent to which we will allow them to determine our deci
sions and actions. This gives us a control over our motivations that we would otherwise
lack.
Nevertheless, despite its intuitive appeal, it is doubtful that this picture of control can
work. Indeed, the problems here precisely parallel those faced by the HOT model of con
sciousness. Specifically, there is a recalcitrant property—the property (p. 338) of being un
der the control of the agent—that first-order states (motivations, purposes, etc.) lack. We
introduce higher-order states—thoughts about those motivations and purposes—to supply
this control. But then the same issue of control will, logically, arise at this higher-order
too. Metacognition was supposed to allow us to sit above the motivational fray, and calmly
pass judgment on our motivations, thus providing us with control over them. However,
there is no reason to suppose that metacognition is above this motivational fray. If first-
order motivations can pull us this us this way and that, then second-order evaluations of
those motivations can do exactly the same.
The appeal to metacognition to imbue us with control over our motivations, thus, faces a
dilemma: essentially the same dilemma we discovered with the HOT model of conscious
ness. Do we have control over our metacognitive assessments of our purposes and moti
vations? If so, then we have not explained the notion of control, but simply assumed it.
But if not, then it is difficult to see how these metacognitive assessments could supply us
with control over our motivations and purposes. The appeal to the meta-level as a way of
explaining control over motivations, therefore, gets us nowhere. It is another example of
premature meta-articulation (specifically, in its miracle-of-the-meta form).
This is a well-known problem with the idea that we can explain autonomy by the appeal to
meta-level phenomena. It is common to respond to this problem through the addition of
further factors concerning the conditions under which this metacognition takes place. For
example, a common response is to insist that the reflection must take place under condi
tions free of distorting factors, or must reflect an adequate causal history, and so on.
These are perfectly reasonable ways of trying to safeguard the idea of autonomy. But, if
they work, it is only by divorcing the concept of autonomy from that of control. Whether
or not one’s metacognizing takes place under conditions free of distorting factors or re
flects an adequate causal history is not something that is under the agent’s control—in
deed, these are things that may remain unknown, perhaps even unknowable, to the
agent.
The appeal to the meta-level to explain control is not only fruitless; it is also, in the eyes
of many, unnecessary. We can explain autonomy without venturing outside the first order.
On the contrary, all that is required is postulation of a choice mechanism that translates
beliefs about our alternatives, coupled with our desires, into plans of action that are de
signed to realize those desires. This alternative strategy is a, broadly, compatibilist one.
For the compatibilist, being produced in this way by the appropriate choice mechanism—
a mechanism that is “responsive to reasons”—is precisely what it is to be an autonomous
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
subject. There is, as yet, no reason to suppose that animals cannot possess such mecha
nisms.
Discussions of empathy and moral motivation, thus, habitually fall victim to both prema
ture meta-articulation and the making/tracking confusion. To understand the extent to
which animals are capable of empathic and even moral behavior, these confusions must
be expunged from the debate.
Acknowledgments
Mark Rowlands would like to thank the Provost’s Research Awards scheme at the Univer
sity of Miami for partially funding this research. This research was also partially funded
by an FPI scholarship awarded to Susana Monsó by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness (research project FFI2011-23267).
Notes:
(1.) D. J. Povinelli and J. Vonk, “Chimpanzee Minds: Suspiciously Human?” Trends in Cog
nitive Sciences 7, no. 4 (2003): 157–160; D. J. Povinelli and J. Vonk, “We Don’t Need a Mi
croscope to Explore the Chimpanzee’s Mind,” Mind and Language 19, no. 1 (2004): 1–28;
D. C. Penn and D. J. Povinelli, “On the Lack of Evidence That Non-Human Animals Possess
Anything Remotely Resembling a ‘Theory of Mind,’” Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 362, no. 1480 (2007): 731–744, doi:
10.1098/rstb.2006.2023; D. C. Penn and D. J. Povinelli, “The Comparative Delusion: The
‘Behavioristic’/‘Mentalistic’ Dichotomy in Comparative Theory of Mind Research,” in
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Agency and Joint Attention, edited by H. A. Terrace and J. Metcalfe (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2013).
(2.) Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Philosophy Is a Tool Useful Only against Philosophers and the
Philosopher in Us.” MS 219 (emphasis is ours).
(4.) This idea is developed in more detail in Mark Rowlands, Can Animals Be Moral? (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012), chap. 2.
(5.) Interpretations of Descartes diverge. Some claim that while he was committed to
denying animals thought or reason, Descartes did allow that animals were sentient, or
could feel. See J. Cottingham, “A Brute to the Brutes? Descartes’ Treatment of Animals,”
Philosophy 53, no. 206 (1978): 551–559. This animal-friendlier interpretation of Descartes
has been disputed by S. Sztybel in his unpublished manuscript “Did Descartes Believe
That Non-Human Animals Cannot Feel Pain?” (available at http://sztybel.tripod.com/
animal_feelings.html – accessed August 26, 2014), and in the opinion of at least one of the
authors is dubiously compatible with many of the things Descartes asserts in “On the Au
tomatism of Brutes,” in Descartes Selections, ed., R. Eaton (New York: Scribner and Sons,
1927). However, Descartes scholarship is not our business here, and so we shall simply
note that the denial of any sort of mentality—thought and feeling—to animals is a com
mon interpretation of Descartes.
(7.) Notably, Peter Carruthers, “Brute Experience,” Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 5 (1989):
258–269. Not all defenders of HOT, by any means, will endorse this conclusion. Indeed,
most regard such an implication as a reductio of the HOT account, and so seek to dis
tance themselves from this implausible conclusion by trying to find ways to show why
HOT does not entail it. See, for example, David Rosenthal, “Varieties of Higher-Order The
ory,” in Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness, ed. R. Gennaro (Amsterdam: John Ben
jamins, 2004).
(8.) HOT accounts come in two forms—actualist and dispositionalist. According to actual
ist versions, for my pain to be conscious, I must actually think that I am in pain. Accord
ing to dispositionalist versions, I need only be able to form the thought. The differences
between these two versions of the HOT account are not important for our purposes.
(9.) See Mark Rowlands, “Consciousness and Higher-Order Thoughts,” Mind and Lan
guage 16, no. 3 (2001): 290–310; Mark Rowlands, The Nature of Consciousness
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), chap. 5.
(10.) We understand the relation between premature meta-articulation and the miracle of
the meta as one of genus to species. All cases of the miracle of the meta are cases of pre
mature meta-articulation, but not the other way around.
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(12.) D. Davidson, “Rational Animals,” in Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philoso
phy of Donald Davidson, ed. E. LePore and B. McLaughlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 476.
This idea is also defended in D. Davidson, “Thought and Talk,” in Mind and Language, ed.
S. Guttenplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
(15.) Indeed, Davidson often puts the term “argument” here in scare quotes, recognizing
that the argument is far from compelling.
(16.) This point has been made by Peter Carruthers, “Meta-Cognition in Animals: A Scep
tical Look,” Mind and Language 23, no. 1 (2008): 58–89.
(19.) S. Stich, “Do Animals Have Beliefs,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 57, no. 1
(1979): 15–28.
(22.) See Rowlands, Can Animals Be Moral?, chap. 2, for an elaboration of this argument.
(23.) Sarah F. Brosnan and Frans B. M. de Waal, “Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay,” Nature
425 (Sept. 18, 2003): 297–299.
(24.) J. Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emo
tions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Panksepp questions whether surprise and
disgust should be classified as genuine emotions rather than simpler types of motivation
al state.
(25.) See, for example, A. I. Goldman, Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and
Neuroscience of Mindreading (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 17: “mindread
ing is an extended form of empathy (where this term’s emotive and caring connotation is
bracketed).”
(26.) L. Jamison, The Empathy Exams: Essays (Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2014), 5.
(27.) F. de Vignemont and P. Jacob. “What Is It like to Feel Another’s Pain?” Philosophy of
Science 79, no. 2 (2012): 295–316, doi:10.1086/664742, p. 310.
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Animals as Reflexive Thinkers: The Aponoian Paradigm
(28.) C. D. Batson, “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenome
na,” in The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, ed. J. Decety and W. Ickes (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2009), 3–15, at 9–10.
(29.) In our view, the assumption that empathy always requires mind-reading abilities is
an example of premature meta-articulation. We do not deny, of course, that mind-reading
abilities are implicated in some cases of empathy.
(30.) B. A. Dixon, Animals, Emotion and Morality: Marking the Boundary (Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2008), 140 (emphasis is ours).
(31.) M. Hauser, Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think (New York: Holt Paperbacks,
2001), 312.
(32.) In this passage, we can also scent, in the requirement of being able to attribute be
liefs to oneself and others, the pungent aroma of premature meta-articulation.
(35.) See also, for example, F. B. M. de Waal, “Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism:
The Evolution of Empathy,” Annual Review of Psychology 59 (2008): 279–300, doi:
10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093625, p. 283: “Perhaps the most compelling evi
dence for emotional contagion came from Wechkin et al. (1964) and Masserman et al.
(1964), who found that monkeys refuse to pull a chain that delivers food to them if doing
so delivers an electric shock to and triggers pain reactions in a companion. Whether their
sacrifice reflects concern for the other … remains unclear, however, as it might also be
explained as avoidance of aversive vicarious arousal.” See S. Wechkin, J. Masserman, and
W. Terris, “Shock to a Conspecific as an Aversive Stimulus,” Psychonomic Science 1
(1964): 17–18.
Mark Rowlands
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Susana Monsó
Susana Monsó is in the Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, UN
ED, Spain
Page 25 of 25
The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
Despite the fact that many more animals and much more suffering occurs in confinement
agriculture than in animal research, societal ethics focused first on research. As a result
of scientific ideology, the research community did not discuss the ethics of animal re
search. The numerous uses of animals in research raise many moral questions, particular
ly regarding how they can be morally justified. Various arguments defending animal re
search appear to be flawed. Benefits of animal research, for example, do not justify the
research that is not beneficial. In addition, animals do not receive the best treatment pos
sible consonant with their use, for example pain control or housing meeting their biologi
cal and psychological needs and natures. Some moral progress in this area has been ac
complished by the passage of research animal protection laws, which set standards for
animal use in research, and also help undercut scientific ideology.
Keywords: animal studies, animal research, scientific ideology, research animal uses, defending animal research,
animal research benefits, pain control, biological/psychological natures, animal protection laws, animal use stan
dards
Introduction
AS societal concern for animal treatment began to quicken in the 1970s to eventuate in
what I have called “the new social ethic for animals,” this concern focused far more ex
tensively on animal research than on animal agriculture. This may seem at first blush
odd, as the number of animals used in research was, according to the most extravagant
estimates, well under 100 million; whereas the number of animals produced in agricul
ture numbers in the billions—9 billion broiler chickens alone. Furthermore, most experts
on animal welfare would probably rank the suffering of farm animals, particularly poultry
and swine, as far in excess of that of research animals. The attention to laboratory ani
mals is probably the resultant of a variety of forces—the public misconception that animal
agriculture was still “Old McDonald’s farm,” rather than the severe confinement repre
sented by industrialized agriculture; public ignorance of how animal research is conduct
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ed, leading to an image that animals are tortured; and good old-fashioned American anti-
intellectualism of the sort classically chronicled by Richard Hofstadter in his Anti-Intellec
tualism in American Life,1 as today is manifested in belief in Creationism. (A 2008 US
presidential candidate publicly affirmed his belief that the world was 10,000 years old.)
Given the public suspicion of science, and the degree to which science funding depended
on public support, one would have expected the research community to pay a great deal
of attention to a reasoned ethical defense of animal research. In fact, this was far from
what actually transpired.
Historically, at least in the United States, animal research was not perceived as an ethical
issue by the research community. Indeed, anyone raising questions about animal (p. 346)
research tended to be stigmatized as an antivivisectionist, a misanthrope preferring ani
mals to people, an ingrate not valuing the contributions of biomedical science to human
health and well-being. In fact, I personally received a full barrage of such charges when I
was working to draft and promote through Congress what in 1985 became a US Federal
law protecting laboratory animals. In a 1982 New England Journal of Medicine review of
my book arguing for elevating the moral status of animals and codifying that status into
law for laboratory animals, I was compared to a “Nazi” and a “lab trasher.”2
My own experience of being vilified as “anti-science” when supporting these laws was re
flected in societal debate on animal research. (For the record, I am far from anti-science
and in fact, hold academic appointments in two university science departments.) As the
animal research abolitionists were arguing that the research produced “no benefits” for
humans, the research community was adopting an equally extreme posture. The Founda
tion for Biomedical Research, for example, produced a film entitled Will I Be All Right,
Doctor? This question, uttered by a frightened child before undergoing surgery, is an
swered, in essence, by the physician as “yes, you will be all right if these anti-vivisection
ist extremists leave us alone to do what we need to do with our animals.” So outrageously
extreme was this film that at its premiere before a putatively friendly audience of labora
tory animal veterinarians (which I attended), the only comment came from a veterinarian
who affirmed that “I am ashamed to be associated with something pitched lower than the
worst anti-vivisectionist propaganda.”
In all fairness, the antivivisectionists were not very much more conceptually or morally
sophisticated. Literally one day after I received the New England Journal of Medicine
review, my book was reviewed by abolitionists, who castigated me for “accepting the real
ity of science” and scolded me for proposing regulations that would result in short-term
improvements for animals, thereby retarding the extinction of animal research!
The failure of the research community to engage animal research as a rational ethical is
sue prior to the passage of our laws in 1985 was manifest. Between 1975 and 1985, I
fruitlessly searched scientific journals for reasoned discussions defending invasive re
search on animals and found none. What I did find were variations on the theme orches
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trated in the Foundation for Biomedical Research film. To what can we attribute this blind
spot in what is an otherwise sophisticated and informed community?
Scientific Ideology
In a number of publications, I have described what I call scientific ideology, the set of ba
sic, uncriticized assumptions presuppositional to twentieth-century science.3 Ideologies
operate in many different areas—religious, political, social, economic, ethnic. It is there
fore not surprising that an ideology would emerge with regard to science, which after all,
has been the dominant way of knowing about the world in Western societies since the Re
naissance.
The ideology underlying modern (i.e., post-medieval) science has grown and
(p. 347)
evolved along with science itself. And a major—perhaps the major—component of that
ideology is a strong positivistic tendency, still regnant today, to believe that real science
must be based in—and only in—experience, since the tribunal of experience is the objec
tive, universal judge of what is really happening in the world.
If one asked most working scientists what separates science from religion, speculative
metaphysics, or shamanistic worldviews, they would unhesitatingly reply that it is an em
phasis on validating all claims through sense experience, observation, or experimental
manipulation. This component of scientific ideology can be traced directly back to New
ton. The insistence on experience as the bedrock of science continues from Newton to the
twentieth century, where it reached its most philosophical articulation in the reductive
movement known as logical positivism, a movement that was designed to excise the un
verifiable from science.
Although logical positivism took many subtly different and variegated forms, the mes
sage, as it was received by working scientists and passed on to students (including my
self), was that proper science ought not allow unverifiable statements. This was no doubt
potentiated by the fact that one British philosopher, a logical positivist named A. J. Ayer,
wrote a book that was relatively readable, vastly popular (for a philosophy book), and ag
gressively polemical, in which he defended logical positivism, entitled Language, Truth,
and Logic )4; it first appeared in 1936 and has remained in print ever since. Easy to read,
highly critical of wool-gathering, speculative metaphysics and other “soft” and unground
ed ways of knowing, the book was long used in introductory philosophy courses and, in
many cases, represented the only contact with philosophy that aspiring young scientists—
or even senior scientists—enjoyed. Through positivism, one could clearly, in good con
science, dismiss religious claims, metaphysical claims, or other speculative assertions as,
not merely false and irrelevant to science, but meaningless. Only what could be verified
(or falsified) empirically was meaningful. This, in turn, rendered ethics scientifically
meaningless, and the denial of the relevance of ethics to science was taught both explicit
ly and implicitly. One could find it explicitly stated in science textbooks.
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We have argued that the logical positivism that informed scientific ideology’s rejection of
the legitimacy of ethics dismissed moral discussion as empirically meaningless. That is
not, however, the whole story. Positivist thinkers felt compelled to explain why intelligent
people continued to make moral judgments and continued to argue about them. They ex
plained the former by saying that when people make assertions, such as “killing is
wrong,” which seem to be statements about reality, they are in fact describing nothing.
Rather, they are “emoting,” expressing their own revulsion at killing. “Killing is wrong”
really expresses “Killing, yuk!” rather than describes some state of affairs. It is therefore
not surprising that when scientists were drawn into social discussions of ethical issues,
they were every bit as emotional as their untutored opponents
A second component of scientific ideology strongly buttressed the denial of ethics in sci
ence. It involved agnosticism about the ability of science to study or even know the exis
tence of consciousness in humans or animals. The logic of this position can be (p. 348) re
constructed as follows: one should allow into science only what is intersubjectively ob
servable. Mental states are not intersubjectively observable. Therefore mental states are
not able to be scientifically studied. Therefore mental states are not scientifically real.
Therefore mental states are not of concern to scientists. Felt pain in animals (as opposed
to the physiological substratum or machinery of pain) is a mental state. Therefore felt
pain in animals is neither scientifically real nor of concern to scientists.
Scientists were thus doubly insulated from the moral issue of animal pain and suffering in
research and thence from seeing animal research as a moral issue at all by the two com
ponents of scientific ideology: first, by virtue of the denial of the relevance of moral issues
to science, and second, by the denial of the scientific reality of animal thought and feel
ing. Scientists were able to see animal use not as a moral issue but as a scientific necessi
ty, and the moral objections to animal use expressed in society, as matters of emotion, not
as rational moral concerns.
Although different philosophers have approached the issue from different philosophical
traditions and viewpoints, it is possible to find a common thread in their arguments ques
tioning the moral acceptability of invasive animal use. Drawing succor from society’s ten
dency over the past fifty years to question the exclusion of disenfranchised humans, such
as women and minorities, from the scope of moral concern and the correlative lack of full
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protection of their interests, these philosophers applied a similar logic to the treatment of
animals.
In the first place, there appears to be no morally relevant difference between humans
and, at least, vertebrate animals that allows us to include all humans within the full scope
of moral concern and yet deny the same moral status to the animals. A morally relevant
difference between two beings is a difference that rationally justifies treating them differ
ently in some way that bears moral weight. If two of my students have the same grades
on exams and papers, and have identical attendance and class participation, I am morally
obliged to give them the same final grade. That one is blue-eyed and the other is brown-
eyed may be a difference between them, but it is not morally relevant to grading them dif
ferently.
Philosophers have shown that the standard reasons offered to exclude animals from the
moral circle, and to justify not assessing our treatment of them by the same moral
(p. 349) categories and machinery we use for assessing the treatment of humans, do not
meet the test of moral relevance. Such historically sanctified reasons as “animals lack a
soul,” “animals do not reason,” “humans are more powerful than animals,” “animals do
not have language,” and “God said we could do as we wish to animals” have been demon
strated to provide no rational basis for failing to reckon with animal interests in our moral
deliberations. For one thing, while these statements may mark differences between hu
mans and animals, they do not mark morally relevant differences that justify harming ani
mals when we would not similarly harm people. For example, if we justify harming ani
mals on the grounds that we are more powerful than they are, we are essentially affirm
ing “might makes right,” a principle that morality is in large measure created to over
come! By the same token, if we are permitted to harm animals for our benefit because
they lack reason, there are no grounds for not extending the same logic to nonrational hu
mans, as we shall shortly see. And while animals may not have the same interests as peo
ple, it is evident to common sense that they certainly do have interests, the fulfillment
and thwarting of which matter to them.
The interests of animals that are violated by research are patent. Invasive research, such
as surgical research, toxicological research, and disease research certainly harm the ani
mals and cause pain and suffering. But even noninvasive research on captive animals
leads to pain, suffering, and deprivation arising out of the manner in which research ani
mals are kept. Social animals are often kept in isolation; burrowing animals are kept in
stainless steel or polycarbonate cages; and in general, animals’ normal repertoire of pow
ers and coping abilities—what I have elsewhere called their teloi, or natures5—are
thwarted.
The common moral machinery society has developed for adjudicating and assessing our
treatment of people does not allow people to be used in invasive research without their
informed consent, even if great benefit were to accrue to the remainder of society from
such use. This is the case even if the people being used are intellectually deficient—in
fants, the insane, the senile, the retarded, the comatose, and the like. A grasp of this com
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ponent of our ethic has led many philosophers to argue that one should not subject an an
imal to any experimental protocol that society would not be morally prepared to accept if
performed on a retarded or otherwise intellectually disabled human.
The foregoing argument, extrapolated from ordinary moral consciousness, applies even
more strongly to the case of animals used in psychological research, in which one uses
animals as a model to study noxious psychological or psychophysical states that appear in
humans—pain, fear, anxiety, addiction, aggression, and so on. For here one can generate
what has been called the psychologist’s dilemma: if the relevant state being produced in
the animal is analogous to the same state in humans, why are we morally entitled to pro
duce that state in animals when we would not be so entitled to produce it in humans? And
if the animal state is not analogous to the human state, then why create it in the animal?
1. Basic biological, behavioral, or psychological research, that is, the formulation and
testing of hypotheses about fundamental theoretical questions, such as the nature of
DNA replication, mitochondrial activity, brain functions, or learning, with little con
cern for the practical effect of that research.
2. Applied basic biomedical and psychological research—the formulation and testing
of hypotheses about diseases, dysfunctions, genetic defects, and so on—which, while
not necessarily having immediate consequences for treatment of disease, is at least
seen as directly related to such consequences. Included in this category is the test
ing of new therapies: surgical, gene therapy, radiation treatment, burn treatment,
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and so on. Clearly, the distinction between category 1 and this category will consti
tute a spectrum, rather than a clear-cut cleavage.
3. The development of drugs and therapeutic chemicals. This differs from the earlier
categories, again in degree (especially category 2) but is primarily distinguished by
what might be called a “shotgun” approach; that is, the research is guided not so
much by well-formulated theories that suggest that a certain compound might have a
certain effect, but is rather a hit-and-miss, exploratory, inductive “shooting in the
dark” process. The primary difference between this category and the others is that
here, one is aiming at discovering specific substances for specific purposes, rather
than knowledge per se.
4. Food and fiber research, aimed at increasing the productivity and efficiency of
agricultural animals. This includes feed trials, metabolism studies, some (p. 351) re
productive work, and the development of agents like bovine somatotropin (BST) to
increase milk production.
5. The testing of various consumer goods for safety, toxicity, irritation, and degree of
toxicity. Such testing includes the testing of cosmetics, food additives, herbicides,
pesticides, industrial chemicals, and so forth, as well as the testing of drugs for toxic
ity, carcinogenesis (production of cancer), mutagenesis (production of mutations in
living bodies) and teratogenesis (production of monsters and abnormalities in em
bryo development). To some extent, obviously, this category overlaps with category 3,
but it should be distinguished in virtue of the fact that category 3 refers to the dis
covery of new drugs; and category 4, to their testing relative to human (and, in the
case of veterinary drugs, animal) safety.
6. The use of animals in educational institutions and elsewhere for demonstration,
dissection, surgery practice, induction of disease for demonstrative purposes, high-
school science projects, and so on.
7. The use of animals for the extraction of drugs and biological products—vaccines,
blood, serum, monoclonal antibodies, tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) from ani
mals genetically engineered to produce it in their milk, and so on.
Research on animals has been intimately connected with new understanding of disease,
new drugs, new operative procedures, all of which have produced significant benefits for
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humans and for animals. These significant results and their attendant benefits would
have been unobtainable without animal use. Therefore animal research is justified.
Critics of animal research might (and do) attack the argument above in two ways. First of
all, one may question the link between premises and conclusion. Even if significant bene
fits have been garnered from invasive animal use, and even if these benefits could not
have been achieved in other ways, it does not follow that such use is justified. Suppose
that Nazi research on unwilling humans produced considerable benefits, (p. 352) for ex
ample, as some have argued was the case in the areas of hypothermia and high-altitude
medicine. It does not follow that we would consider this use of human subjects morally
justifiable. In fact, of course, we do not. Indeed, there are significant numbers of people
in the research community who argue that the data from such experiments should never
be used, or even cited, regardless of how much benefit flows from its use.
The only way for defenders of animal research to defeat this counterargument is to find a
morally relevant difference between humans and animals that stops our extending our
consensus ethic’s moral concern for human individuals to animals.
Second, one can attack the argument from benefits in its second premise—namely, that
the benefits in question could not have been achieved in other ways. This is extremely dif
ficult to prove one way or the other, for the same reasons that it is difficult to conjecture
what the world would have been like if the Nazis had won World War II. We do know that
as social concern regarding the morality of animal research mounts, other ways are being
found to achieve many of the ends listed in our discussion of the uses of animals in re
search.
This approach is, in essence, an attempt to provide what we indicated was necessary to
buttress the argument from benefits. Such an attempt was made by Carl Cohen in 1986 in
a New England Journal of Medicine article7 generally considered by the research commu
nity to be the best articulation of its position.
One of Cohen’s chief arguments can be reconstructed as follows (the argument is specifi
cally directed against those who would base condemnation of animal research on the
claim that animals have rights, but it can be viewed as applying to our earlier version of
the general argument against invasive animal use). Only beings who have rights can be
said to have sufficient moral status to be protected from invasive use in research. Animals
cannot reason, respond to moral claims, and the like, necessary conditions for being
rights bearers. Therefore, they cannot morally be said to be protected from invasive use.
The problems with this argument are multiple. In the first place, even if the concept of a
right (or of sufficient moral status to protect one from being used cavalierly for others’
benefit) arises only among rational beings, it does not follow that its use is limited to such
beings. Consider an analogy. Chess may have been invented solely for the purpose of be
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ing played by Persian royalty. But given that the rules have a life of their own, anyone can
play it, regardless of the intention of those who created the rules. Similarly, rights may
have arisen in a circle of rational beings. But it doesn’t follow that such rational beings
cannot reasonably extend the concept to beings with other morally relevant features. In
fact, that is precisely what has occurred in the extension of rights to deficient humans.
To this, Cohen replies that this extension is legitimate, since deficient humans be
(p. 353)
long to a kind that is rational; whereas an extension to animals is not legitimate. The obvi
ous response to this, however, is that, by his own argument, it is being rational that is rel
evant, not belonging to a certain kind. Further, if Cohen’s argument is viable, and one can
cavalierly ignore what is by hypothesis the morally relevant feature, one can turn it
around on him. One could argue in the same vein that since humans are animals, albeit
rational ones, and other animals are animals, albeit nonrational ones, we can ignore ratio
nality merely because both humans and animals belong to the same kind (i.e., animal). In
short, his making an exception for nonrational humans fails the test of moral relevance
and makes arbitrary inclusion of animals as rights-bearers as reasonable as arbitrary in
clusion of nonrational humans.
One possible way to exclude animals from direct moral status and thereby justify invasive
research on them is a philosophically sophisticated exposition of the claim we discussed
by Cohen that morality applies only to rational beings. This position, which has its mod
ern roots in Hobbes, was in fact articulated even in antiquity. It has been directly applied
to the question of animals’ moral status by Peter Carruthers, who, as mentioned earlier,
advanced the neo-Cartesian argument in his book The Animals Issue.10 Interestingly
enough, Carruthers’s contractual argument is independent of his denial of consciousness
to animals. Carruthers believes that even if animals are conscious and feel pain, the con
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tractual basis for morality excludes animals from the moral status necessary to question
the moral legitimacy of experimentation on them.
According to Carruthers, morality is a set of rules derived from what rational beings
would rationally choose to govern their interactions with one another in a social environ
ment, if given a chance to do so. Only rational beings can be governed by such rules, and
they adjust their behaviors toward one another according to them. Thus, only rational be
ings, of which humans are the only example, can “play the game of morality,” (p. 354) so
only they are protected by morality. Animals thus fall outside the scope of moral concern.
There are a variety of responses to Carruthers. In the first place, even if one concedes the
notion that morality arises by hypothetical contract among rational beings, it is by no
means clear that the only choices of rules such beings would make would be to cover only
rational beings. They might also decide that any rule should cover any being capable of
having negative or positive experiences, whether or not that being is rational. Second,
even if rational beings intend the rules to cover only rational beings, it does not follow
that the rules do not have a logic and life of their own that lead to adding other beings to
the circle of moral concern, as indeed seems to be happening in social morality today.
Third, Carruthers seems to assume that according moral status to animals entails that
their status be equal to that of humans, “yet,” he says, “we find it intuitively abhorrent
that the lives and suffering of animals should be weighed against the lives or suffering of
human beings.”11 But it is not at all clear that contractualism, even if true, could not ac
cord animals sufficient moral status to prohibit experimenting on them, yet not say they
are of equal moral value to normal humans. Further, as Sapontzis12 has pointed out, Car
ruthers’ argument is circular. He justifies such uses as research on animals by appeal to
contractualism, and justifies contractualism on the grounds that it renders morally per
missible such uses as research on animals.
The final defense of research on animals that we shall consider is the utilitarian one ad
vanced by R. G. Frey.13 Unlike the previous arguments, it is a tentative one, offered up in
a spirit of uneasiness.
Frey’s argument essentially rests upon standing the argument from deficient humans on
its head. Recall that this argument says that animals are analogous to such deficient hu
mans as the retarded, the comatose, the senile, the insane, etc. Since we find experiment
ing on such humans morally repugnant, we should find experimentation on animals equal
ly repugnant.
Frey’s argument reaffirms the analogy, but points out that, in actual fact, many normal
animals have richer and more complex lives, and thus have higher quality lives, than
many deficient humans do. The logic of justifying research on animals for human benefit
(which assumes that humans have more complex lives than animals, and thus more valu
able lives) would surely justify doing such research on deficient humans who both have
lower qualities of life than some animals do and who are more similar physiologically to
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normal humans, and are thus better research “models.” If we are willing to perform such
research on deficient humans, we are closer to justifying similar research on animals.
Obviously, the force of Frey’s argument as a defence of research depends upon our will
ingness relentlessly to pursue the logic by which we (implicitly) justify animal research
and apply the same justification to using humans not different from those (p. 355) animals
in any morally relevant way. As Frey himself affirms, there are considerations relevant to
such humans that would work against such a decision. He cites the emotional (rather
than rationally based) uproar and outrage that would arise (because people have not
worked through the logic of the issue), and presumably such other responses as the knee-
jerk fear of a slippery slope leading to research on normal humans. But, in the end, such
psychological rather than moral/logical revulsion could conceivably be overcome by edu
cation in and explanation of the underlying moral logic.
I believe that Frey’s argument fails as a defense of research and ends up serving those
who originally adduced the argument from defective humans as a reductio against
research on animals. If people do see clearly and truly believe that doing research on ani
mals is (theology aside) exactly morally analogous to doing research on defective hu
mans, they are, in our current state of moral evolution, likelier to question the former
than accept the latter. In fact, Frey’s argument very likely serves to awaken a primordial
component in human moral psychology—revulsion at exploitation of the innocent and the
helpless—animals and deficient humans being paradigm cases of both. In a society that
increasingly and self-consciously attempts to overcome such exploitation, experimenta
tion on deficient humans, in fact often practiced in the past, along with experimentation
on powerless humans, is not a living option. In sum then, the force of Frey’s argument is
not to justify research on animals, but rather to underscore its morally problematic di
mension.
Thus, the only argument in defense of animal research that seems at all cogent is the ar
gument from benefit discussed above. A utilitarian thinker might argue that with regard
to animal subjects or human subjects utilized in research, even invasive research, such
research is justified if the benefits to sentient beings, humans or animals, outweighs the
cost to the subjects. Our societal ethic, embedded in our laws, does not of course accept
such an argument from benefits, and checks a purely utilitarian ethic by use of the deon
tological notion of rights, protecting individual humans from having their basic interests
infringed upon even for the sake of the general welfare. Hence, as we said earlier, society
roundly condemned Nazi research that was scientifically and medically valuable, such as
hypothermia and high altitude medical research along with the patently useless research
performed by Josef Mengele.
For the sake of argument, in order to illustrate another moral problem in animal re
search, let us assume that invasive animal research is justified only by the benefit pro
duced. It would then seem to follow that the only morally justifiable research would be re
search that benefits humans (and/or animals). But there is in fact a vast amount of re
search that does not demonstrably benefit humans or animals. Much behavioral research,
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weapons research, toxicity testing as a legal requirement, are obvious examples, as are
much of basic research which is invasive but has no clear benefit. Obviously a certain
amount of research meets that test, but a great deal does not. Someone might respond
that “we never know what benefits might emerge in the future,” and appeal to serendipi
ty or unknowns. But if that were a legitimate point, we could not discriminate in funding
between research likely to produce benefit and that unlikely; yet we do. If we appeal to
unknown but possible benefits, we are literally forced to fund everything, (p. 356) which
we do not! We do in fact weight cost versus benefit in human research and in animal re
search—why not weight cost to the animal subject as a relevant parameter?
Thus we find a second major moral issue in animal research.14 To recapitulate: The first
issue arises from the suggestion that any invasive research on an object of moral concern
is morally problematic. In response, researchers invoke the benefits of research. Even as
suming this is a good argument, it gives rise to another moral issue: Why do we not do on
ly animal research that clearly produces more benefit than cost to the animals? So even if
we disregard the general point about the morality of invasive animal research, we are still
left with the fact that much of animal research does not fit researchers’ own moral justifi
cation for it! I have referred in other writings to this moral claim about justifying invasive
research by appeal to benefits as the Utilitarian Principle15—if one accepts the benefit ar
gument, we are left with the conclusion that the only justifiable animal research is that
which produces results yielding more benefit than harm (however this is measured).
The demand that if we do use animals in invasive research, we at least do our best to
meet their interest and needs, minimize their suffering as much as possible, and respect
their telos seems to be a requirement of common decency, particularly if we are using
them in a way that ignores the moral problems recounted thus far. Sadly, this is not the
case!
Historically, in the US at least, basic animal care was a very low priority in animal re
search, ironically harming the science by failing to control pain, stress, and other vari
ables, and very much failing to meet the ideal set forth in the third set of moral issues just
enumerated. As a person who both helped draft and defended before Congress the 1985
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US laws for laboratory animals16 it was my business to know about the deficiencies in ani
mal care if I was to be able to prove to Congress the need for legislation strongly opposed
by much of the research community, who claimed that it would be obstructive (p. 357) of
research and prohibitively expensive. What I found could easily be chronicled in a book,
but we will restrict ourselves to two paradigmatic examples: pain control and housing.
Ordinary common sense would dictate that one of the worst things one can do to a re
search animal is to cause unrelieved pain to him. Since animals do not understand
sources of pain, particularly the sort of pain inflicted in experiments, they cannot rational
ize “that this will end soon,” but rather cannot anticipate its cessation, so their whole life
becomes the pain. This insight has led veterinary pain specialist Ralph Kitchell17 to sur
mise that animal pain may be worse than human pain; as I put it, humans have hope. Fur
ther, pain is a stressor, and can skew the results of experiments in numerous ways. Thus,
for both moral and scientific reasons, one would expect pain control to be a major empha
sis when scientists undertook painful experiments. If someone were conducting fracture
research, for example, one would thus expect liberal use of pre-emptive and post-surgical
or post-traumatic analgesia since the pain is not the point of the experiment, and unmiti
gated pain actually retards healing.
A central component of the 1985 federal legislation we authored was to mandate control
of pain in research animals. Though I knew anecdotally that pain control was essentially
non-existent in research, Congress demanded that I prove it, as the vocal portion of the
research community opposing the legislation proclaimed that pain was already being con
trolled, and they were a powerful political lobby. As proof, I did a literature research, and
was able to find only two papers on animal analgesia, and none on laboratory animal anal
gesia. Of the two papers I did find, one said, in essence, that there ought to be papers,
while the other said, in one page, we know very little, but here is what we do know. Fortu
nately, this convinced Congress to mandate control of pain and distress, and this in fact
became law in 1985. As I expected, a legislative mandate galvanized the research com
munity, and if one were to do a literature search today, one would find thousands of such
articles—over 11,000, I checked.
In the same vein, many veterinarians to this day, typically veterinarians trained before the
mid 1980s, still equate anesthesia with “chemical restraint“ or “sedation” and use these
words synonymously. The first textbooks of veterinary anesthesia, published in 1964 and
1972,18 do not even mention pain control as a reason for anesthesia (as opposed to keep
ing the animal still to prevent injury to the researcher and the animal), and do not men
tion analgesia.
Some of the neglect of felt pain in animals goes back to veterinary medicine’s historical
roots as ancillary to agriculture, and thus it was concerned only with the animal’s eco
nomic/productive role, as opposed to its comfort. Thus Merillat, in a 1906 textbook of vet
erinary surgery, bemoans the failure of veterinarians even to use anesthesia for surgery,
with the episodic exception of the canine practitioner, whose clients presumably valued
their animals enough in non-economic terms to demand anesthesia.19
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The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
In the end, the counter-intuitive denial of pain can again be traced back to what we have
called scientific ideology. The same logic that barred talking about ethics because of the
unverifiability of ethical statements similarly forbade talk of mental states. This (p. 358)
was potentiated by the advent of Behaviorism in the early 20th century, which affirmed
that, for psychology to become a real science, it needed to eschew talk about or study of
mental states in humans or animals and study only overt behavior. This did not signifi
cantly affect moral treatment of humans, but certainly reinforced ignoring pain in ani
mals. (In actual fact, pain has been ignored in human medicine as well, as discussed in
my Science and Ethics.)20
As important as the infliction of pain and suffering, which only sometimes arises in re
search, is the fact that 100% of the animals utilized in research have the basic needs and
interests flowing from the biological and psychological needs constituting their natures
thwarted by how we keep them. It is for this reason that the initial drafts of the legisla
tion we worked out mandated housing and husbandry for all research animals that met
their natures. Unfortunately this did not pass, but nonetheless ramified in an awareness
of “environmental enrichment” that can only benefit the animals.
The passage of laws in the United States bespeaks a society in transition. While society
does not wish to see innocent animals suffer, it is also not yet prepared to risk losing the
benefits of animal research. As a result, it has stressed the control of pain and suffering
of research animals, enriching living environments and generally assuring proper care.
Most importantly, the laws were meant to undercut scientific ideology. As we know from
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The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
discussions of religion or politics we all had as young people, one cannot be argued
(p. 359) out of ideology. I have in fact attempted to do so with scientists for many years.
The response is typically “good points” but no one abandoned scientific ideology as a re
sult of these “good points,” any more than anyone abandons belief in the benevolence and
omnipotence of the Deity when confronted with the Problem of Evil (i.e. how can an all
powerful and benevolent God allow the suffering of innocents). This persistence of ideolo
gy was the main reason we chose to write laws. We believed that, through the vehicle of
animal care and use committees legally mandated and created to discuss in ethical terms,
proposed research and teaching uses of animals, people would start thinking of these is
sues in ethical terms.
Similarly, we believed that through legally mandating control of pain and distress—i.e.
legally forcing the acknowledgment of their existence—scientists would again abandon
ideology and start to think in ordinary commonsensical terms. Ordinary common sense
takes for granted the existence of thought and feelings in animals, sometimes indeed errs
in attributing too much similarity to human thought, as when someone says “my dog
knows his birthday is coming.” Indeed the continuity of thought and feeling along the
phylogenetic scale, along with physical traits, is presuppositional to the Darwinian basis
of biology. To assure such thinking, the laws affirmed that if a research procedure is go
ing to hurt a person, it should be presumed to hurt animals as well.
The attempt implicit in the laws and the Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) system
which is their operational arm can be characterized as forcing the “reappropriation of or
dinary common sense” and overthrowing the “compartmentalization” that occurs when
one is trained as a scientist. Thus the ACUC system was devised to force thought into
channels involving animal thought and feelings and the ethics of animal research. Every
prospective review of any research proposal entails discussion of pain, suffering, distress,
cost and benefit to the animals (though not in fact legally mandated), proper surgical pro
cedure, control of stress, etc.
Plato points out that, in dealing with ethics and adults, one cannot teach, but only
“remind.” (Martin Luther King successfully reminded America of a moral commitment to
equality. Prohibition on the other hand—as an attempt to teach—failed abysmally!)
Our idea therefore was to remind scientists of what they as ordinary citizens must adhere
to in the treatment of animals—very likely an idea that they accept when not wearing
their lab coats (almost 90% of the general public and 90% of the twenty five thousand or
so Western ranchers I have addressed believe that animals have rights). Laws, to para
phrase Plato, are social ethics “writ large.” So if the law states that animals suffer and
that such suffering must count and be dealt with in scientific deliberations, and that ani
mal-care committees must work on the playing field of these assumptions, scientific ideol
ogy or common sense is suppressed in favor of ordinary common sense and consensus so
cial morality. If federal law states that animals feel pain and suffer, scientific ideology can
not respond with agnosticism about animal consciousness. If federal law states that it is
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The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
morally wrong to ignore animal suffering, scientific ideology cannot say that science is
morally neutral and value free.
In 1985, Congress passed two laws based on the model we proposed. One was an
(p. 360)
amendment to the Animal Welfare Act (PL99-198), whose major provisions were:
The second bill passed was called the NIH Reauthorization Act or the Health Research
Extension Act, and basically made NIH Guidelines, hitherto cavalierly ignored, into law.
This law, which complemented the Animal Welfare Act amendment, covered all vertebrate
animals, while the former exempted rats, mice, and birds from coverage. Violation
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The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
of the second law can result in seizure of all federal research funding to an insti
(p. 361)
tution, and was thus the major sanction for these new policies.
New laws and policies have been forthcoming in numerous other countries based on the
increased societal concern for the treatment of laboratory animals. Many are variations
on the Animal Care and Use Committee protocol review concept—such laws obtain in
Australia and New Zealand. Canada has not legislated, but adherence to such principles
in presuppositional to government research funding. Twenty European Countries also uti
lize the ethical review system—Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Nor
way, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (Smith et. al, 2007).21 The UK also deploys insti
tutional review, but it is a recent superimposition upon a complex system of licensure and
inspectors that goes back to 1876 and was considerably revised in 1986.
In addition to generating law, the emerging ethic has led to the abandonment of some
frivolous research animal use, for example, some of the uses of animals in cosmetic test
ing; the elimination of many invasive and brutalizing laboratory exercises in undergradu
ate, graduate, medical and veterinary curricula; and the development of new ways to
teach surgery, for example, by way of spay-neuter clinics, cadavers and models for teach
ing manual skills. Increasing numbers of scientific journals are refusing to publish manu
scripts detailing research where severe pain and suffering were involved. And there is far
more serious effort than ever before across the scientific community to consider alterna
tives to animal use, be these a reduction of numbers of animals, refinement of painful pro
cedures (e.g., substituting a terminal procedure for a painful one) and replacement of ani
mals by various modalities (e.g., cell culture, tissue culture, epidemiology).
In my view, there is a new and serious moral issue associated with animal research that
has not received sufficient attention. This arises from the advent of genetic engineering
technology. By use of this technology one can create animal “models” for the thousands of
gruesome human genetic diseases hitherto not able to be studied in animals. Since many
of these diseases involve symptoms of great severity, yet the research community is em
bracing the creation of such models, a new and significant source of chronic animal suf
fering is developing. The issue is worsened by virtue of the fact that few modalities exist
for controlling chronic pain and suffering. Unfortunately, this issue has hitherto occa
sioned little discussion.
The new laws and, more importantly, the growing societal concern for animals that drove
their passage, have had salubrious consequences for the moral status of animals in re
search. For one thing, they vividly underscore the fact that society sees invasive animal
research as a significant moral issue. For another, they explode the scientific ideology
which we have seen precludes ethical engagement by animal research scientists with the
issues their activities engender. Finally, they have led to what I call the “reappropriation
of common sense” with regard to the reality and knowability of animal suffering and the
need for its control. One can be guardedly optimistic that animal research will evolve into
what it should have been all along—a moral science.
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The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
Further Reading
Arkow, P. (1994). Child abuse, animal abuse, and the veterinarian. Journal of the Ameri
can Veterinary Medical Association, 204, 1004–6.
Baird, R. M. and Rosenbaum, S. E. (eds.) (1991). Animal Experimentation: the Moral Is
sues. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. (p. 363)
Fox, M. A. (1986). The Case for Animal Experimentation. Berkeley: University of Califor
nia Press.
Knight, A. (2011). The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments. London: Palgrave
Macmillan
Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rollin, B.E. (1985). The moral status of research animals in psychology. American Psychol
ogist, August, 920–6.
Rollin, B.E. (1989). The Unheeded Cry: Animal consciousness, Animal pain and Science.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rollin, B.E. (1990). Ethics and research animals—theory and practice. In B. E. Rollin and
M. L. Kesel (eds.), The Experimental Animal in Biomedical Research. Vol. I. Boca Raton,
FL: CRC Press, 19–37.
Rollin, B.E. (1995). Laws relevant to animal research in the United States. In A. A. Tuffery
(ed.), Laboratory Animals, 2nd edn. London: John Wiley, 67–87.
Rollin, B.E. (1995). The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic
Engineering of Animals. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rollin, B.E. (2006). The regulation of animal research and the emergence of animal
ethics: a conceptual history. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics Vol. 27 #4 pp 285–304.
Rollin, B.E. (2007). Overcoming Ideology. ILAR Journal. Volume 48 (1), 2007 pp 47–53.
Rollin, B.E. (2008). The moral status of animals and their use as experimental subjects, in
P. Rowan, A. N. (1984). Of Mice, Models, and Men. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Sapontzis, S. (1987). Morals, Reason and Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Page 18 of 20
The Ethics of Animal Research: Theory and Practice
Sapontzis, S. (1990). The case against invasive research with animals. In B. E. Rollin and
M. L. Kesel (eds.), The Experimental Animal in Biomedical Research, Vol. I. Boca Raton,
FL: CRC Press, 3–19.
Singer and H. Kuhse (eds.) (2001). A Companion to Bioethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd ed.,
1st ed. Singer, P. (1975). Animal Liberation. New York: New York Review of Books.
Notes:
(2.) M. B. Visscher, review of Animal Rights and Human Morality, by B.E. Rollin,” New
England Journal of Medicine 306 (1982): 1303–1304.
(3.) B. E. Rollin, Science and Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
(5.) B. E. Rollin, Animal Rights and Human Morality, 3rd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2006).
(6.) M. A. Fox, The Case for Animal Experimentation (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1986).
(7.) C. Cohen, “The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research,” New England
Journal of Medicine 315 (1986): 865–869.
(8.) P. Carruthers, The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1992).
(9.) P. Harrison, “Theodicy and Animal Pain,” Philosophy 64 (January 1989): 79–92.
(13.) R. G. Frey “Vivisection, Morals and Medicine,” Journal of Medical Ethics 9 (1983):
94–97.
(14.) B. E Rollin, “Animal Research: A Moral Science,” EMBO Reports 8, no. 6 (2007): 1–5;
B. E. Rollin, “The Moral Status of Invasive Animal Research,” in Animal Research Ethics:
A Hastings Center Special Report, Hastings Center, 2013., Hastings on Hudson, N. Y.
(17.) R. Kitchell and M. Guinan, “The Nature of Pain in Animals,” in The Experimental Ani
mal in Biomedical Research, vol. I, ed. B. E. Rollin and M. L. Kesel (Boca Raton, FL: CRC
Press,1989), 85–205.
(18.) W. Lumb, Small Animal Anesthesia (Philadelphia PA: Lea and Febiger, 1963); W.
Lumb and E. W. Jones, Veterinary Anesthesia (Philadelphia, PA: Lea and Febiger, 1973).
(21.) J. A. Smith, F. A. R. van den Broek, and J. Cantó Martorell, et al., “Principles and
Practice in Ethical Review of Animal Experiments across Europe: Summary of the Report
of a FEIASA Working Group on Ethical Evaluations of Animal Experiments,” Laboratory
Animals 41 (2007), 143–160.
Bernard E. Rollin
Page 20 of 20
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Jul 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.26
This chapter summarizes two strands of work on the ethics of food animal production. A
dietetic tradition emphasizes the questions of whether and under what conditions con
sumption of animal protein is morally acceptable. For those who do not adopt some form
of ethical vegetarianism, this approach has typically favored more traditional approaches
to husbandry. A productionist tradition focuses on the potential for ethically motivated
change in livestock production methods and policy. Beginning with the Brambell
Committee’s five freedoms, this identifies indicators for multiple dimensions of food ani
mal well-being, and recommends changes in existing industrial production systems. The
multiple dimensions of welfare differ from one food animal species to another, and opin
ion is divided between members of the lay public, who tend to favor indicators relating to
an animal’s ability to perform behaviors thought typical, normal, or natural, and scientific
experts, who tend to favor cognitive affect and veterinary health.
Keywords: livestock, husbandry, animal welfare, animal behavior, vegetarianism, meat, concentrated animal pro
duction operations, CAFO, Welfare Quality
THE appropriate focus for this chapter is strangely vexed in contemporary animal stud
ies. On the one hand, many authors would frame the topic in terms of whether food ani
mal production can be ethically justified, and if so, under what circumstances and con
straints. This approach leads immediately into ethical vegetarianism and ethical vegan
ism, the view that the nonconsumption of meat or, for vegans, of all animal products (in
cluding milk, butter, and cheese, which do not require an animal’s death) is morally oblig
atory. A second line of inquiry concerns whether contemporary forms of livestock produc
tion create a de facto obligation to adopt a vegetarian diet, even if there might be circum
stances in which meat consumption would be morally permissible. Both lines of question
ing emphasize ethical questions about the consumption of animal based foods, and I will
refer to this as a dietetic approach to the ethics of food animal production.
On the other hand, it is equally possible to approach the topic as an inquiry into the
ethics of producing food animals. Here, one might begin with an empirical survey of the
husbandry in use for various food animal species, and then move to an ethical evaluation
Page 1 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
of these production systems. This approach might encompass the health and working con
ditions for human workers in food animal production systems, as well as the environmen
tal impact of animal production, but a central focus will be on the health and well-being of
the animals themselves. And as will become clear below, the regulation and socioeconom
ic constraints on animal producers will also be a critical component of the ethics of food
animal production. Because these questions arise in the context of examining food animal
production systems in their details, I will refer to this as a productionist approach to the
ethics of food animal production.
There are, to be sure, points of contact and overlap between the questions that arise in
each approach. Nevertheless, a reader of the literature on food animal production
(p. 365) will notice that these perspectives create relatively distinct schools of thought in
animal studies, and that practitioners of one school generally find little reason or oppor
tunity for interaction with the other. Those who take the dietetics approach generally
have little interest in questions about how to improve the conditions of food animals (es
pecially in industrial production settings) because they are already committed to the view
that no amount of improvement could ever make industrial food animal production ethi
cally justifiable. For their part, those who focus on the condition of animals in contempo
rary farm settings take little interest in the case for vegetarianism (even though they
might themselves be vegetarian) because they presume that these production systems
will continue to exist, irrespective of their justifiability, and the focus of productionist
scholars is on the conditions that animals actually experience within them.
Both of these trends in animal studies refer to methods of livestock or food animal pro
duction, hence it is appropriate to begin with a very brief survey of contemporary hus
bandry. The balance of this chapter begins with brief overviews of key ideas and sources
that are representative of each approach. Many of the ideas and sources for the dietetics
approach overlap with Part I in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies. Although dietet
ic topics far outweigh productionist themes in the literature, detailed discussion of these
ideas would be redundant, and their applicability to arguments for vegetarianism is rela
tively obvious. As such, the chapter places more emphasis on the productionist approach
with a more extended overview of present-day livestock production systems in both indus
trial and industrializing areas of the world. The chapter continues with a discussion of the
interdisciplinary scholarship typical of the productionist approach, and concludes by re
viewing the literature on regulatory policy and the socioeconomic constraints on alter
ations of food animal production that would be pursued in support of improving food ani
mal welfare.
A few caveats are in order at the outset. Agricultural species are kept for an enormous
variety of human purposes. Although food production is certainly the most obvious and
most economically valuable, it is important to bear in mind that wool and leather are also
products of animal husbandry. For example, Sarah Franklin’s highly cited book Dolly Mix
tures contains an extended discussion of the development of the Australian sheep indus
try, a production system oriented primarily to fiber and only secondarily toward food.1 By-
products are extracted from the carcasses of food animals and used extensively in the
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
production of pharmaceuticals, glues, resins, and other industrial substances. In less in
dustrialized countries, agricultural species such as cattle, donkeys, and buffalo continue
to be used as draft animals or as sources of power, often to the exclusion of their use as
food.2 Scholars in animal studies have also noted that keeping livestock may have symbol
ic or cultural significance for human beings that has relatively little to do with their use
for food,3 a practice exemplified by the Texas aphorism, “he’s all hat and no cattle.” Al
though this chapter will indeed focus on food production, it is important for readers to
bear in mind that livestock production is a considerably broader category, albeit with
many of the same issues.
As discussed at more length later, interest in the ethics of food animal production tends to
focus on manufactured husbandry systems that utilize purpose-built structures and mech
anized feed and water delivery and that confine animals in cages, pens or stalls. These
systems are marketed by farm-supply companies, and each involves significant standard
ization, though important details may vary from one manufacturer to another. Housing
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
sows on concrete or slatted floors in narrow stalls that prevent them from turning around
is one particularly noteworthy example. Such systems are used for producing piglets who
will themselves typically be group-raised in indoor pens while they grow to slaughter
weight. These gestation crates should not be confused with even more widely used far
rowing crates, despite their similar appearance. The purpose of confining sows during
farrowing is to prevent newborn piglets from being inadvertently crushed. Alternative
systems of pork production utilize group housing both for (p. 367) gestating sows and sow
and piglet family groups. Groups of pigs are still generally raised indoors in these sys
tems, with controlled delivery of feed.
Besides gestation stalls, the most controversial types of concentrated animal feeding op
erations (CAFO) are used in egg production. The “battery cage” system confines relative
ly small groups of birds (3 to 10) in ranks of cages extending from the floor to the ceiling
of large metal buildings. Feed and water is delivered, eggs are collected and manure is
removed using mechanized systems, and light, temperature, and air movement through
out the building are also monitored mechanically. One key welfare consideration is stock
ing density—the total amount of space per bird—which may range from as little as 48
square inches to as much as 118 square inches, depending on the husbandry standards
that a producer has agreed to follow for marketing purposes. Such caged systems have
been banned in Europe, where a mix of systems (also used for so-called cage-free produc
tion elsewhere) take their place. In floor-based systems, the entire flock (sometimes ex
ceeding 100,000 birds) is raised on litter composed of straw, sawdust, or composite mate
rial. In floor systems, hens are enticed to lay in designated nest boxes. Floor systems are
relatively inexpensive (indeed, they are less costly than battery cages) but entail operat
ing costs tied to the collecting of eggs and maintaining sanitation, as well as to losses due
to pecking and aggression. As a result, aviary systems are increasingly popular among
producers. Aviaries look very much like battery cages without doors. Birds lay eggs in the
open cage facility, allowing for mechanized collection, but are free to leave the cages and
thus can perform a number of behaviors (wing-flapping, scratching, dust bathing) that are
constrained in battery cages. However, like the floor systems, aviary systems experience
episodes of pecking. As such the enhanced or furnished colony system, in which larger
groups of birds are kept in what amounts to large cages equipped with facilities for
perching, scratching, or nesting may be emerging as the favored housing system for egg
producers.
Meat chickens—or broilers—are entirely different breeds raised in large metal buildings
that resemble floor systems for egg production, save that they do not include nesting fa
cilities. Aside from breeding companies that supply both the meat and egg industries, in
the industrialized world, the broilers and layers constitute entirely separate industries us
ing totally distinct breeds of chicken. Broilers have been bred to grow exceptionally
quickly to achieve efficiencies in feed utilization and fixed capital. The distinct genetics of
broiler birds curtail issues with aggression that continue to plague layers. For broilers,
the key welfare issue has been skeletal problems stemming from their rapid growth.
Changes in breeding and feed for broilers have significantly reduced bone breakage and
skeletal deformity since these problems began to be understood within the broiler indus
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
try. However, adult broiler hens used for producing broiler chicks (brood hens) must be
prevented from growing too large. The method currently in use is to restrict their feed, a
practice that some commentators on animal welfare have described as cruel.6
Sheep, goats, and cattle continue to be raised in pens, pastures, and paddocks where
there is relatively little restriction of their movement, though some dairy cattle spend
much of their lives tethered in tie-stall dairy barns. These ruminant species are capable of
eating grasses; hence, the economic advantages associated with concentrated (p. 368)
feed delivery are less than for pigs and poultry. However, beef, especially, may be fed on
grain to achieve a desired flavor and texture. Such feeding may take place under relative
ly crowded or barren “feedlot” conditions where welfare can be compromised. Key issues
in both dairy and beef production concern feeding and breeding practices that (as with
broiler chickens) are intended to increase the production efficiency and may lead to pro
duction disease (a term for animal health problems that result from husbandry or breed
ing practices). Additionally, producers in the traditional and industrial systems alike may
engage in “tail-docking” (surgical shortening of the tail) for both cows and sheep or
mulesing (the removal of skin folds) on lambs. These painful procedures are still frequent
ly performed without anesthetic.
Slaughter and transport are also key practices in food animal production. Owing primari
ly to the work of Temple Grandin, dramatic changes in slaughter practices for large mam
mals have been introduced over the last three decades.7 Slaughter and transport in less
industrialized parts of the world, however, continue to be sources animal suffering that is
preventable, at least in principle.8
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
then the question of whether nonhuman animals deserve moral respect can easily be an
swered in the negative. A long line of philosophers from René Descartes (1596–1650) to
Donald Davidson (1917–2003) have associated the peculiar nature of human conscious
ness with the ability to use language, and have thus defended a radical separation be
tween human beings and other creatures in the animal kingdom. However, if some nonhu
man animals do have some kind of a mental life (p. 369) (which seems beyond dispute to
this author), the philosophical game is on. Once one concedes that animals of the species
humans use for food are sentient—that they register subjective feelings of both pain and
well-being—it is impossible to deny that vegetarianism is a topic for food ethics. Meat-eat
ing and other food practices that entail breeding, slaughter and keeping animals on farms
for their entire lives are inextricably tied to harm. The legitimacy of eating animal flesh is
a question that has sparked philosophical thinking since the times of Pythagoras (570–
495 BCE) and Porphyry (234–305 ce).10
This basic pattern describes the logic of most ethical arguments for vegetarianism. It is
not literally the eating of meat but the treatment of animals intended to become meat that
is the problem. This could be extended to the attitude or moral stance that one takes to
ward a given animal as meat. The latter theme was an especially prominent component of
Carol Adams’s argument in The Sexual Politics of Meat. The ethical problem goes consid
erably beyond the violence done to animal bodies in the process of slaughter; it extends
to a denial of their subjectivity through a stance or disposition that takes the object as an
object or “mere thing.” Contrarily, individuals in all vertebrate species (at least) should be
regarded as “subjects-of-a-life” in Tom Regan’s phrase. They have an internal subjective
experience that is characterized by interests and by caring about both other beings and
their own future. If this is the case, practices that require one to regard animals as “mere
things” are ethically unacceptable. This philosophical stance is generally thought to rule
out most forms of animal research and hunting and fishing practices that involve the con
finement or capture of animals and, certainly, practices of slaughter for the purpose of
obtaining human food.
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
A less ethically onerous form of ethical vegetarianism issues from the view that while
modern forms of livestock production are cruel and inhumane, slaughter itself can be
practiced humanely. Hence, if farmed animals live decent or pleasurable lives, the con
sumption of meat, milk, or eggs derived from their confinement is ethically acceptable.
This view requires an implicit distinction between the moral standing of human beings
and those species typically used for food production. Nevertheless, many who make
(p. 370) such a distinction hold that ethical vegetarianism is required precisely because
the conditions in modern industrial livestock farms are not humane and do, in fact, in
volve considerable animal suffering. Peter Singer, generally viewed as the most influen
tial philosopher of the animal liberation movement, has advocated such a view at various
junctures throughout his career. Singer advocates vegetarianism as a form of protest
against the treatment animals receive in CAFOs or so-called factory farms.12 Singer’s
views evolved in response to critiques that were primarily intended to initiate reforms in
animal production.
If ethical vegetarianism is a refusal based on the conditions that exist in CAFOs, the door
is open to a different kind of dietetic ethics that advocates abstinence from industrially
produced animal products, and endorses the consumption of meat, milk, and eggs from
farms where animals are treated humanely and compassionately. This type of strategy has
indeed been endorsed on ethical grounds.13 It has been described sardonically as a “hap
py meat” ethic by those who continue to endorse a stricter and more comprehensive form
of ethical vegetarianism.14 The key philosophical point under dispute in the happy-meat
debate is, in fact, the more comprehensive question of whether the confinement and
killing of nonhuman animals can ever be justified by the benefits that human beings de
rive from these consumptive uses. Again, it is less the fact that animals are being eaten at
all that drives the debate as the fact that eating animal flesh presupposes their captivity,
their instrumental use, and in many cases (milk and eggs are possible exceptions) their
death by slaughter.
Although the literature on ethical vegetarianism in animal studies is voluminous15 the re
liance on a dietetic ethical response is notable from another perspective. Virtually no one
who advocates for vegetarianism also thinks that vegetarianism is, in itself, likely to have
much impact on the conditions in which farmed animals are kept or the methods by which
they are slaughtered. The emphasis of a dietetic ethic is thus to remove a practicing vege
tarian from a situation in which he or she can assume personal responsibility for the
harms and insults farmed animals endure in contemporary animal production facilities.
This logical standpoint assuages moral guilt, but it is questionable as to whether it really
does much good for food animals, whether they are kept in CAFOs and slaughtered on
highly automated lines or, alternatively, raised in the putatively more humane conditions
of traditional livestock production. There is accordingly a parallel tradition for thinking
about the ethics of food animal production that addresses the condition of farmed ani
mals, while giving relatively little consideration to the question of whether human beings
should eat other animals in the first place.
Page 7 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
committee under the direction of embryologist F. W. Rogers Brambell, the report issued in
December 1965 found much to agree with in Harrison’s critique. In the 1970s, Britain’s
Farm Animal Welfare Council (a successor to the Brambell Committee) stipulated that all
food animals should be guaranteed five freedoms:
1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst—by ready access to fresh water and a diet to
maintain full health and vigor.
2. Freedom from Discomfort—by providing an appropriate environment including
shelter and a comfortable resting area.
3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease—by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treat
ment.
4. Freedom to Express Normal Behavior—by providing sufficient space, proper facili
ties and company of the animal’s own kind.
5. Freedom from Fear and Distress—by ensuring conditions and treatment which
avoid mental suffering.16
Harrison’s book and the Brambell Committee’s report sparked new scientific and philo
sophical discussions on the moral status of nonhuman animals at Oxford University, and
lead to a collection of essays on the topic in 1972.17 Peter Singer’s review of this volume,
published in the New York Review of Books in 1973 under the title “Animal Liberation,” is
what really brought the new era of animal ethics to widespread attention.
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
The Brambell Committee’s Five Freedoms were a framework for evaluating whether ani
mal production is morally acceptable, but they also function as a framework for consider
ing how animal welfare can be improved. Consider freedom from pain, injury, and dis
ease. While the word freedom connotes the total absence of the unwanted condition from
the animal’s life, this is not a reasonable interpretation of the Five Freedoms. (p. 372)
What freedom from pain, injury, and disease means in the context of livestock production
is that animals should not be kept under husbandry conditions where pain is a persistent
element of the animal’s experience, or where injury and disease are unrelieved by proper
veterinary care. Similarly, the freedom from fear and distress calls for “conditions and
treatment that avoid mental suffering.” This is often interpreted in terms of stress, but all
animals (including humans) experience short periods of physiological stress during peak
moments, such as sexual orgasm. This is not a kind of stress that we want to eliminate
from an animal’s life. The freedom from fear and distress is thus not an absolute condi
tion, but a gradient that suggests relative levels of well-being. Even a straightforward cri
terion, such as “ready access to food and water” can be translated into an indicator for
improving husbandry along a gradient: How many feet or inches should an animal need to
travel between the drinking spout and the feed trough?
It is also important to notice that there are possible trade-offs among the Five Freedoms.
Collectively, they stipulate a framework in which relative states of well-being can be eval
uated; but these freedoms do not imply absolute criteria that any livestock producer can
meet fully and unambiguously in every instance. For example, “normal behavior,” re
quires the company of the animal’s own kind, but other animals of one’s own kind can al
so be a source of fear, distress, and mental suffering. Individual animals engage in peck
ing, biting, and butting in order to establish dominance relations. While aggressive be
havior often subsides once a dominance order is established, there are individuals in all
species who engage in what we might call obsessive or compulsive persistence in these
destructive and harmful forms of natural behavior. In fact, specifying what is normatively
normal becomes a significant problem for farmed animal ethics.
During the two decades following the Brambell Committee recommendations, specialists
in animal behavior and veterinary medicine conducted a debate over the criteria for ani
mal welfare that was worthy of the most arcane and pedantic debates in twentieth-centu
ry analytic philosophy. Animal welfare is about feelings, some would claim; it is about the
animal’s conscious life. Does that mean that an animal has no welfare when it is asleep,
others would counter. As the twentieth century drew to a close, the scientists working in
the field came to recognize that a farm animal’s well-being was a complex blend of indica
tors identified by the Five Freedoms, as well as others that are not made particularly ob
vious by the Five-Freedoms approach. Ordinary elements of veterinary health are left
rather implicit in the freedom from pain, injury and disease, for example. In addition, ani
mal-welfare science came to acknowledge that there was a role for ethics in combining
and prioritizing these multiple elements of well-being.19
Page 9 of 17
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The term consensus approach summarizes the diverse elements of an animal’s well-being
in terms of three broad categories. First, it is recognized that biological indicators of
health are a major component of welfare. Animals of any species suffering from morbidity
and mortality as a result of disease, injury, or the conditions in which (p. 373) they live
have a compromised welfare. Other biological indicators of individual welfare include
growth, respiratory function, and other types of biophysical functions that can be normal
ized for the species. Calculating these statistical norms can be tricky with farm animals
because many of the animals used in agriculture have been bred to possess traits that are
far from typical of their wild or “unimproved” conspecific relatives. This problem notwith
standing, the category of biomedical or veterinary health measures represents a relative
ly obvious domain of welfare for all animals. It is furthermore noncontroversial in that it
is a domain that all livestock producers would recognize as valid.
Second, there are dimensions of welfare that derive from the way an animal feels. Affec
tive states, such as pain and pleasure, on the one hand, or more complex emotionally
charged experiences, such as fear or sexual orgasm, on the other hand, are almost cer
tainly widespread across the animal world, and there is little reason to doubt that farm
animals are capable of having such feelings. We might characterize the domain of affec
tive or experiential states as referring to animal minds, which suggests that the veteri
nary health indicators refer to animal bodies.20 Animal-welfare scientists include a third
category beyond that of animal bodies and animal minds. They observe that under some
forms of husbandry, animals are unable to perform some behaviors that are regarded as
typical for the species. For example, the wild jungle fowl from whom domestic chickens
have been bred engage in frequent perching on sticks, branches, or rocks, which are
available in their natural habitat. Domestic chickens given an opportunity to sit on a
perch will also exhibit this behavior, but quite obviously, chickens who live in production
environments where no perching places are to be had do not. Ever since the original
Brambell Committee, research on animal welfare has recognized that the ability to per
form species-typical behaviors is a component of animal welfare. In work pioneered by
David Fraser and other behavior experts, a third domain of welfare is specified to ac
knowledge that the ability to engage in such behavior is important. The scientist and ani
mal activist Mike Appleby has referred to this category as animal natures.21
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
mensions of welfare may conflict with one another, helping us to think of welfare as a bal
ancing act, rather than just a matter of not restricting an animal’s freedom.
All such insults can be visited on animals in CAFOs, to be sure, and when something in a
CAFO goes badly, many more animals suffer as a result. But it is largely in the trade-off
between animal bodies and animal minds that traditional production systems can be pre
sumed to score well. Farms with pastures, paddocks, coops, or pens allow animals to
move about, congregate, and socialize. As noted already, aggressiveness associated with
dominance orders can trouble these environments, so it is essential that group sizes be
kept small enough for the pecking order to be maintained with a minimum of this vio
lence.
There are, however, problems where the appropriate ethic for evaluating trade-offs is
somewhat unclear. For example, hens kept in traditional environments naturally stop lay
ing eggs on a cycle that conforms to the normal onset of cold weather. Even if they are
not in a cold climate, they will shed feathers (e.g., molt) in anticipation of spring, when
they will grow new feathers and resume laying eggs. Hens in CAFOs are in a tempera
ture-controlled environment, but they stop laying eggs after 8 to 10 months, nonetheless.
They can be induced to molt when producers sharply limiting feed rations to simulate the
scarcity of food the onset of winter would bring. However, the hunger hens experience
during feed restriction is clearly stressful from a cognitive standpoint (it is also contrary
to the Five Freedoms); therefore the practice of inducing a molt through feed restriction
has now been abandoned. Instead, producers simply “depopulate” the house (e.g., they
remove the birds and kill them) at the point when it is no longer profitable to feed them.
If the birds were to endure a molt, they would return to a higher rate of lay and would
subsequently have up to an extra year of life. There is thus a trade-off between cognitive
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The Ethics of Food Animal Production
well-being (the subjective experience of hunger) and the animal-bodies goal of extending
life.
If it is not obvious that eliminating the feed-restricted molt improves the hens’
(p. 375)
welfare, there are still other cases that are even more difficult. Intensive swine produc
tion has evolved systems in which breeding sows are kept in narrow pens called gestation
stalls during pregnancy and moved to only slightly larger farrowing stalls once their
piglets are born. The narrow stalls do not allow pigs to turn around (contrary to the Five
Freedoms), and some do not even permit the pig to lie down in a comfortable position. Al
though these production systems are the target of vehement opposition by animal-protec
tion groups, they do accomplish a number of things that are beneficial to pigs: (1) farrow
ing stalls prevent the crushing of piglets; (2) each individual pig gets precisely the right
amount and type of food needed at every stage during pregnancy; and (3) the stalls pre
vent the pigs from fighting with one another over access to food. Since these pigs are
large and can be very aggressive, limiting fighting also limits injuries. Although a few in
dividuals in these stalls will develop a stereotypy (an obsessive, repetitive pattern of be
havior), the vast majority of pigs kept in these facilities display neither behavioral nor
physiological signs of distress (e.g., persistently elevated cortisol levels). Pigs are highly
intelligent animals capable of complex social relationships, and many ethologists believe
that they would be much better off in a facility where their social and problem-solving ca
pabilities could be expressed. But it has proved difficult to design cost-effective systems
featuring these improvements in the quality of life that do not compromise the three ben
efits of confinement noted earlier.
What is more, a rights-oriented, egalitarian ethic says that we should take special pains
with respect to the effect of our actions on poor or marginalized groups. But these
Page 12 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
are precisely the groups who spend the greatest percentage of their income on
(p. 376)
food. Therefore, anything that lowers the price of food (rather than of other consumption
goods) has the added effect of skewing the overall distribution of wealth in a direction
that favors the poor. There is, thus, a presumptive argument for thinking that keeping the
price of food as low as possible would be recommended both by egalitarian and by more
classically utilitarian social ethics.22 The benefits to humans are not trivial and should be
taken seriously. Those who have taken the dietetics approach to farm animal ethics have
tended to discount the relevance of benefits to humans, thinking that they are confined to
the kind of pleasure (or putatively nutritional benefits) that meat eaters enjoy. In fact, the
economic benefits to poor people are quite real, even if they are benefiting from a prac
tice that is in itself not morally justifiable. It is a bit like arguing that we should simply ig
nore petty theft by poor people, because the combination of direct utilitarian and redis
tributive benefits outweighs any harm that accrues from the act of stealing. One may not
agree with this judgment, but, hopefully, everyone can appreciate why it is a plausible
claim to make from a moral perspective.
Nevertheless, economists Bailey Norwood and Jayson Lusk present a battery of evidence
suggesting that, on the whole, Americans (their particular study group) would be willing
to pay more for production systems that improve animal welfare.23 Only a small minority
(a little more than 10%) do not support any policies for improving farmed animal welfare
that also increase the cost of food. However, Norwood and Lusk’s work suggests that
there is a deep divide among consumers about the particular types of improvements they
would be willing to support. Roughly, equal numbers support reforms that improve para
meters such as comfort or reduce pain, on the one hand, and reforms that allow a greater
range of natural behavior, on the other. Respondents in the latter group would rather see
animals unconfined even if it also means that they are exposed to the elements and vic
timized by predators, for example. They do not see a lack of creature comforts as deeply
contrary to animal well-being because, Norwood and Lusk theorize, they presume that
animals in nature lack creature comforts, too. In short, there is a deep split in the public
mind between prioritizing animal minds or bodies, on the one hand, and animal natures,
on the other.
The Welfare Quality® Project in the European Union represented a large-scale coordinat
ed effort to combine social science and studies of animal behavior to achieve improve
ments in the welfare of food animals. The project included both extensive attempts to
gauge attitudes among the European lay public as well as collaboration among animal-be
havior specialists to identify a new approach for addressing the ethics of farm animal wel
fare in Europe. The project developed a methodology for the on-farm scoring of welfare
for food animals. This was an important departure from previous approaches that simply
specified permitted production practices, but made no attempt to directly assess the wel
fare of individual animals receiving husbandry on an operating farm. In the end, Welfare
Quality® drew upon approximately 50 different measures of welfare, which were articu
lated in terms of 12 key criteria for assessing a given farm situation. The criteria are sum
Page 13 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
marized in terms of four principles: good feeding, good housing, good health, and appro
priate behavior.24
ly be a subject of interest for animal studies scholars for the foreseeable future. However,
a number of ethically significant findings can already be highlighted. A (perhaps) over
simplified characterization would be that they cluster along the expert–lay public axis.
First, there is a tendency for animal-behavior experts to place ethical emphasis on the
health and cognitive well-being of farmed animals—the animal bodies and animal minds
categories. Three of the four principles cluster in this category, for example. However, re
search on the European public illustrates a strong tendency to interpret welfare in terms
of key behaviors judged “appropriate” and evaluating individual animal’s well-being in
light of the opportunity to engage in these behaviors.25 Interestingly, a study of the US
public by Norwood and Lusk also indicated a preference for “animal natures” among a
plurality of American consumers.26
There is also a gap between experts’ interpretation of the difficulty and trade-offs that are
inherent in welfare assessments and the broader public’s expectations with respect to an
imal welfare. There is, for example, significant demand for relatively simple information
on the welfare of farmed animals among the European public, yet experts in animal be
havior note a series of problems in reducing even the 12 criteria down to a judgment of
good, or even acceptable welfare. It is, for example, difficult to know whether welfare
should be “averaged” over an entire farm. Doing so can conceal significant welfare prob
lems for a few individuals. Experts and farmers alike prefer an approach that encourages
farmers to make improvements in welfare, however well they perform with respect to any
of the main criteria (not to mention the much larger class of independent measures).27
Conclusion
Animal studies scholars will almost certainly continue to produce scholarship in both the
dietetic and productionist modes. The survey here has emphasized the latter approach in
large part because it has been relatively underemphasized among scholars taking an ex
plicitly ethical orientation to animal studies. The productionist approach is at least logi
cally more attentive to changes in policy and practice that could have a short-term practi
cal impact on the conditions in which food animals currently live. At the same time, this
approach is also inherently vulnerable to the critique that productionist concerns capitu
late to the profit-seeking motives of the food industry, and of animal producers in particu
lar.
Notes:
(1.) Sarah Franklin, Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy (Durham, NC: Duke Uni
versity Press, 2007).
Page 14 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
(2.) Robert E. McDowell, “The Need to Know about Animals,” in World Food Issues. Cen
ter for the Analysis of World Food Issues, Program in International Agriculture (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University, 1984).
(3.) Ian Livingstone, “Economic Irrationality among Pastoral Peoples: Myth or Reality?”,
Development and Change 8, no. 2 (1977): 209–230.
(4.) James A. Serpell, “Having Our Dogs and Eating Them Too: Why Animals Are a Social
Issue,” Journal of Social Issues 65, no. 3 (2009): 633–644.
(5.) William Boyd, “Making Meat: Science, Technology, and American Poultry Production,”
Technology and Culture 42, no. 4 (2001): 631–664; Roger Horowitz, Putting Meat on the
American Table: Taste, Technology and Transformation. (Baltimore, MD: John’s Hopkins
University Press, 2005).
(6.) F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson L. Lusk. Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of
Farm Animal Welfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
(7.) Temple Grandin, “Factors That Impede Animal Movement at Slaughter Plants,” Jour
nal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 209, no. 4 (1996): 757–759; Temple
Grandin, “Progress and Challenges in Animal Handling and Slaughter in the US,” Applied
Animal Behaviour Science 100, no. 1 (2006): 129–139.
(8.) David Fraser, “Toward a Global Perspective on Farm Animal Welfare,” Applied Animal
Behaviour Science 113, no. 4 (2008): 330–339.
(9.) Richard W. Bulliet, Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Hu
man-Animal Relationships (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).
(10.) Richard Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western De
bate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
(11.) Tristram Stuart, The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from
1600 to Modern Times (New York: W. W Norton, 2006).
(12.) Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (New
York: New York Review and Random House, 1975); Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
(13.) Catherine Friend, The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy,
Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint and Still Eat Meat (Cambridge, MA:
Da Capo Press, 2009).
(14.) Vasile Stanescu, “Why ‘Loving’ Animals Is Not Enough: A Response to Kathy Rudy,
Locavorism, and the Marketing of ‘Humane’ Meat,” Journal of American Culture 36, no. 2
(2013): 100–110; Gary L. Francione, “Animal Welfare, Happy Meat and Veganism as the
Moral Baseline,” Philosophy of Food 39 (2012): 169.
Page 15 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
(15.) See Steve F. Sapontzis, ed., Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004) for a sampling of key positions.
(16.) This statement of the five freedoms is quoted from a now removed 2013 webpage of
the Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC), which operates under the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The FAWC is a successor to the Farm Animal Wel
fare Council, which was “nondepartmental public body” that was itself a successor to the
Brambell Committee, operating until 2011. A similar statement can be found in a 2009 re
port “Farm Animal Welfare in Great Britain: Its Past, Present and Future,” (London: Farm
Animal Welfare Council, October 2009). The report can be downloaded at https://
www.gov.uk/government/publications/fawc-report-on-farm-animal-welfare-in-great-britain-
past-present-and-future, accessed May 6, 2015.
(17.) Stanley Godlovitch, Roslind Godlovitch, and John Harris, eds., Animals, Men, and
Morals: An Enquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-Humans (New York: Taplinger Publish
ing Company, 1972).
(18.) Bernard E. Rollin, Farm Animal Welfare: Social, Bioethical and Research Issues
(Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1995).
(19.) David Fraser, Dan M. Weary, Edward A. Pajor, and Barry N. Milligan. “A Scientific
Conception of Animal Welfare That Reflects Ethical Concerns,” Animal Welfare 6 (1997):
187–205; David Fraser, “Animal Ethics and Animal Welfare Science: Bridging the Two Cul
tures,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 65, no. 3 (1999): 171–189.
(20.) Michael C. Appleby, What Should We Do about Animal Welfare? (Oxford, UK: Black
well Science, 1999).
(22.) F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson Lusk, Compassion by the Pound: The Economics of
Farm Animal Welfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
(23.) Norwood and Lusk, Compassion. See also R. Bennett and P. Thompson, “Economics,”
in Animal Welfare, 2nd ed., ed. M. C. Appleby, J. A. Mench, I. A. S. Olsson, and B. O. Hugh
es (Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK: CAB International, 2011), 279–290, which discusses
similar evidence for European consumers.
(24.) R. Botreau, I. Veissier, and P. Perny, “Overall Assessment of Animal Welfare: Strategy
Adopted in Welfare Quality,” Animal Welfare 18, no. 4 (2009): 363–370.
(25.) I. Veissier, Karsten Klint Jensen, R. Botrea, and Peter Sandøe, “Highlighting Ethical
Decisions Underlying the Scoring of Animal Welfare in the Welfare Quality® Scheme.” An
imal Welfare 20, no. 1 (2011): 89.
(26.) F. Bailey Norwood, Jayson L. Lusk, and Robert W. Prickett. “Consumer Preferences
for Farm Animal Welfare: Results of a Nationwide Telephone Survey,” working paper, Au
gust 17. 2007, Oklahoma State University, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stillwa
Page 16 of 17
The Ethics of Food Animal Production
Paul B. Thompson
Page 17 of 17
Animals as Scientific Objects
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Law and Politics, Political Theory
Online Publication Date: Jun 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.003
The chapter addresses the topic of animals as scientific objects by drawing on recent lit
erature that emphasizes the heterogeneous construction—or eventuation—of the object.
As such, the animal object is understood to emerge from a version of biomedical science
that encompasses various elements that derive from within and beyond the laboratory
and the experimental system. The chapter thus traces a number of ways the animal is
eventuated as an object, including the processes of animal supply and scientist self-selec
tion, the procedures of animal care and ethical assessment, and the prospects of collabo
ration and clinical translation. Along the way, the chapter points to the complex and con
joint eventuation of animals as subjects and of humans as objects. The chapter ends with
a brief reflection on how we might better engage with the complex ethics of the co-be
comings of human and animal, objects and subjects.
Keywords: animal studies, animal, object, biomedical science, experimental system, eventuation, becomings, labo
ratory, ethics
Introduction
IN this chapter, I will examine what it means to think of experimental animals as scientif
ic objects. However, as we shall see, each of these terms attracts numerous denotations
and many connotations. We shall have reason to interrogate the idea of experimental if
what is usually connoted by the term is the production of robust knowledge about nature
through the controlled manipulation of systematic preparations of nature under specified
conditions. What exactly is the knowledge that is produced, and how robust is it if we as
sume that this knowledge is meant, in one way or another, to be of benefit? Further, to
speak of a science as if it were a singular enterprise requires very considerable rhetorical
effort. Not only might different disciplines and subdisciplines function with divergent
“epistemic cultures,”1 but also even at the level of individual laboratories within the same
research field we find differences in their epistemic capacities—in what they are practi
cally capable of showing empirically.2
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Animals as Scientific Objects
It is not unusual to note that animals is a term whose meanings proliferate in many direc
tions. Within the academic literature addressed herein, laboratory animals can thus be
understood variously as victim or hero, unique individual or model organism, naturalistic
or analytic. When we move to popular culture, over and above the polarized representa
tions of those directly engaged in the animal experimentation controversy, we encounter
a range of narratives, some of which serve as critical commentaries on scientific hubris.4
Thus, in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, white (p. 381) lab mice,
rather than being the mere objects of experimentation, turn out to be multidimensional
beings who ironically experiment upon their scientists. Warner Brothers’ television car
toon series about two laboratory mice, Pinky and the Brain, ironizes science as both bril
liant and stupid. In both cases, science is undermined by either the cleverness or the stu
pidity, the complexity or the simplicity, of its animal object of study. How are these many
meanings practically dealt with within the laboratory and its associated, diverse settings?
Finally, to talk of an object is itself fraught with complication. To be an object can mean
many things: a commodity, the opposite of a subject, a source of data, a lack of agency or
self-determination, the absence of sentience, the presence of an essence. What sort of ob
jects do experimental animals become? How does the animal become a particular sort of
entity, or array of entities, through the processes and procedures of science (which, as
has already been hinted, are themselves multiple, heterogeneous, and distributed)?
These are big questions, and it will not be possible to address them all as fully as they in
dividually deserve. In part this is simply a practical matter. Animals are used in science in
many different ways—for testing, as bioreactors, as sources of tissues, for experiments.5
It’s simply not possible to cover all of these here, and the main focus will be in biomedical
experimentation. Further, animals are objectified in numerous ways. As we widen our an
alytic gaze on science, we find that objectification encompasses, for instance, divisions of
labor within laboratories, ethics in relation to personal values, regulatory regimes and an
imal rights politics, translational research and the imperative for collaborations with clini
cians, the pursuit of funding, and the mobilization of expectations. Again, it will be possi
ble to address only a few of these aspects of doing science in any detail. At a conceptual
level, given the rich variety of analytic treatments of the object, it will be necessary to
draw on a small selection of these. In the main, this choice is shaped not only by the need
to use versions of the object that address how animals are reduced but also, in part be
cause these processes of reductionism, are at once complexified and serve to complexify
what can be understood by science and its products.
Page 2 of 19
Animals as Scientific Objects
In what follows, then, I begin with a review of some of the theorizations of the object be
fore outlining the version—one that emphasizes heterogeneity, multiplicity, and emer
gence—used here. I will go on to examine a number of the heterogeneous practices that
constitute doing science—that is, I will dip into the ecology of practices (to adapt Isabelle
Stengers’s phrase) through which animal experimentation is enacted to trace the range
of ways animals are rendered scientific objects.6 I will end by briefly reflecting on the
broader implications of this analytic framing for thinking about the ways animal experi
mentation might be reevaluated.
On the Object
A standard Western view of objects is that they stand outside of the human: they are
there to be manipulated, used, or exchanged; they are generally mute, passive, insensi
ble, lacking the liveliness that is associated with those entities that are deemed to be
(p. 382) alive.7 In the case of experimental animals, they must be turned into objects that
yield particular types of data. In Lynch’s famous terms, there is a transformation from the
naturalistic into the analytic animal.8 We shall have much to say about (the ironies of) the
process of this transformation. For present purposes it is important to note that relatively
recent treatments of the object present a more nuanced picture. Rather than standing
outside of, and in contrast to, the social, it has been argued that objects are central to the
production and reproduction of social bonds. Social relations always—constitutively—en
tail objects that act as quasi-subjects impacting materially and semiotically on human ac
tors and shaping human affairs in myriad ways.9
Needless to say, scholars have developed a range of (often contrasting) terms to address
the complexity of objects as they interact with humans. For instance, it has been argued
that technological objects entail “scripts” that pre- and proscribe particular actions,10
that certain contemporary objects draw people into a relation of “sociality” with them,11
and that objects entail specific “propensities” that enable or disable particular social
practices.12 The point here is that objects are not the passive entities that stand external
to the social processes as is routinely assumed.
However, we need to clarify what an object is still further. Again, a standard Western view
is that the object has an essence or underlying substance: it is what it is in the sense of
having ontological stability, a uniformity, and consistency of being. By contrast, more
process-oriented perspectives take all entities to be emergent, immanent, and heteroge
neously constituted.13 Accordingly, what an object is depends on the event in which it is
embroiled (and this applies equally to the subject that Whitehead, to signal its nonfounda
tional status, prefers to call a super-ject). Every event involves a specific combination (in
Whitehead’s terminology, a concrescence) of specific social and material elements (pre
hensions). On this perspective, objects cannot possess a substance that preexists their
qualities: there is no abstracted or essential television that is retro, or overcomplicated,
or broken. There is only this retro television, this overcomplicated television, and this
broken television. Similarly, there is no abstracted “animal model” that is promising, con
Page 3 of 19
Animals as Scientific Objects
troversial, or productive. There is this controversial animal model, this promising animal
model, that productive animal model. And just as the abstracted television is in actuality
rendered in its specificity, in a particular event of abstraction by this or that engineer, de
signer, or consumer, so this animal model is abstracted by this scientist, regulator, funder,
ethicist, or rights (animal or patient) advocate.
There are three issues to draw out from this formulation with its emphasis on the eventu
ation of the object. First, the object is constituted out of multiple, heterogeneous entities.
This suggests that when we look at experimental animals as scientific objects, we need to
take a broad view of what counts as an experimental event. For example, these might in
clude not only the experimental system and the various scientists involved in the experi
ment itself but also animal technicians, caging provision, expectations attached to the in
dividual experiment, local laboratory conditions, promises associated with the research
program within which the individual experiment is embedded, and, more broadly, cultural
articulations of the status and utility of experimental animals. To be sure we cannot hope
to be exhaustive in accounting (p. 383) for all the elements—both here and elsewhere, as
Stengers14 puts it—that make up the event of an experiment in which the animal object
emerges, but we can at least begin to trace some of the complexities entailed in it. Se
cond, the object is emergent; its capacities and properties unfold through the complex
and heterogeneous relations that are formed in the conduct of the specific experimental
event. In the midst of such complexity, it is not always possible to know precisely how and
what an animal object is becoming. Of course, this uncertainty is, on one level, the whole
point of an experiment: the systematic manipulation of objects to generate the unknown.
To paraphrase Rheinberger,15 the stable technical objects, including experimental ani
mals, when brought together in an experimental system generate epistemic things that
are the focus of scientific study (e.g., biological functions) that are characteristically and
irreducibly vague embodying what is as yet unknown. In light of the extended version of
the experiment previously outlined, it follows that the generative potential of the animal
object in its experimental setting is not simply epistemic; it can be ethical, social, institu
tional, and political.16 As a corollary, in the event of the experiment (so reformulated)—
and this is the third implication—it is not simply the object that becomes through the
event; it co-becomes with, mutually changes, or intra-acts17 with other elements that are
involved in the experimental event.18 That is, as animal objects emerge, so do these other
components of the extended experimental event, and that includes experimenters them
selves.
We have moved a long way from the idea of an object and the experimental animal object
as passive, inert, discrete substance. This view of the object as eventuated suggests that
a rather different stance on the experimental animal object can be developed—indeed,
one in which a new sort of ethical relation to the animal might emerge.19 However, before
we get to this point, it is necessary to consider how an animal is indeed objectified—that
is, performed or enacted20 as objectifiable, a substance, something on which experimen
tation can be conducted and that can yield robust scientific findings. As we shall see, this
process of enactment is multiple and heterogeneous.
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Let us begin with scientists themselves. Students entering into biological sciences will
make choices over whether they will continue to work on animals. Some drop out; others
pursue careers in which they will do experimental work on animals and animal tissues. Al
ready there is a self-selection of those who can enter into particular sorts of laboratories
to enact animals as scientific objects. This is further complicated insofar as qualified sci
entists might choose to work on specific species. Thus, as Birke, Arluke, and Michael doc
ument, scientists might be happy to work with mice or rats but not cats or dogs.22 Here,
fine distinctions are drawn between the affects different species evoke: scientists ac
knowledge that their sense of empathy for or identification with animals varies across
species. On this score, they are no different from members of the public, who in judging
the value of an experiment will consider the species (e.g., severity of procedure, likely
benefit, and likely benefit for whom): the greater the empathy they feel toward a species
(dogs are particularly potent in this respect), the less likely they are willing to approve.23
Conversely, scientists who work with particular species can also identify with those
species. Though this can be as much concerned with scientific expertise and professional
differentiation as with empathy,24 scientists routinely situate their work with their species
of choice as ethically responsible. The transformation of animals from naturalistic (the fa
miliar animal of common sense, marked by liveliness and difference) to analytic (the ani
mal object which as part of an experimental system yields data) is couched in terms of an
ethics that spans several dimensions. First, there is the ethics of treating the animal re
spectfully and with care. In part this is about animal welfare: the animal “deserves” good
treatment. However, it also concerns the standardization of the animal—animals who are
stressed do not make good experimental objects. Thus, good handling, as Holmberg25
notes, addresses both an ethics of animal welfare and established scientific principles
(though this picture is rather more complicated because inconsistent handling across sci
entists seems unavoidable, despite common training26). The same argument applies to
the housing of animals: the more animals can be enabled to pursue species-specific social
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and individual behaviors, the less stressed they are; the fewer the uncontrolled variables,
such as hormonal and immune fluctuations, that will be present; and the more uniform
the sample of animals.27 Though this focus on “handling” might appear instrumental
rather than ethical, it can also be attached to another ethical principle: that of doing ef
fective science that yields urgently needed medical benefits. This opens up the possibility
of complex ethical stances: instrumentalist objectification and ethical treatment of ani
mals certainly need not be contradictory. This ethical consonance finds particular expres
sion in the animal experimentalist who is a vegetarian and condemns meat consumption
because, unlike animal experimentation, it is (p. 385) not needed.28 Relatedly, some scien
tists draw a contrast between the conditions under which animals are reared in the meat
industry and the far superior treatment animals receive in the laboratory.29
Now, this care for the experimental animal is not one based simply on training—it is also,
according to some scientists’ accounts, born of a profound interest in and understanding
of animals, one grounded both in long-term relations with companion animals and extend
ed scholarly knowledge about animals.30 As such, scientists can claim for themselves a
particular personal and natural historical view that best places them for the appropriate
humane treatment of experimental animals (which can also be extended to knowing how
to “kill animals well”).31 Brown and Michael32 suggest that in such accounts UK scientists
represent themselves as superior members of the public. That is, they embody common
sense public values better than the public itself, a public that can be regarded as relative
ly lacking in “deeper” knowledge about animals and thus prone to more “sentimental”
values as opposed to the more “realistic” values of science.
In this dual process of differentiation and identification with the public, we have an exam
ple of the ways scientists privilege their practices with regard to animal experimentation.
Through a series of contrasts with various disreputable others, they establish their ethi
cal (as well as epistemic) superiority.33 We have seen this in relation to meat production
and consumption, but an even more obvious, and highly referenced, other is the animal
testing of products for the cosmetics industry. Other others include the prehistory of ani
mal experimentation (things were much worse in the past), scientists from countries
where a tradition of animal welfare is not evidenced (they do not demonstrate the same
or appropriate levels of practical care toward experimental animals), even the veterinari
ans who inspect laboratory facilities (they do not have an intimate enough knowledge of
the experimental animals and thus make judgments that are on occasion ill-advised).
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tween the scientists and the animals: it is they who are best placed to detect when an ani
mal is in pain or distress, and in their view it is scientists who are divorced from the ani
mals. This begs the question of how care for animals is distributed across and policed by
the personnel in laboratories.
In this section, we have ranged over a number of instances in which the objectification of
animals within the laboratory is enacted, an enactment that is bound up with numerous
ethical, cultural, and epistemic arguments. However, the laboratory is necessarily a net
worked space through which flow many entities: for example, animals, equipment,
(p. 386) people, texts, funds, regulations, reagents. In the next section, we will consider
some of the trajectories that link the laboratory to other settings, trajectories that con
tribute to the objectification of the experimental animal.
As mentioned already, scientific experiments are embedded within a complex nexus of re
lations: most obviously, they are a part of individual careers, laboratory projects and per
spectives, research programs and research traditions. This complexity can be approached
through the idea of the animal model. In essence, this refers to a human condition that
can be studied through the use of an animal (or parts of an animal) that stand as proxies
for human bodies or biological systems. There is an enormous range of these models,
such as physiological, behavioral, genetic, psychological, oncological, immunological, and
reproductive,36 so what follows is necessarily selective.
A key observation is that animals who are exemplars of a model need to be standardized
if results are to be generalizable. Karen Rader documents the complex history of the stan
dardization of the mouse (especially for cancer research), which touches on the biology of
mice and economic constraints and institutional politics.37 The upshot is that through
standardization mice (and rats) became central to much biomedical research (together
they make up around 80 percent of all animals used in European Union countries).38 This
is also in part because on one hand they breed quickly and relatively easily and on the
other hand their traditional status as “vermin” means that they do not invite the same
public scrutiny as other species.39 In any case, as Birke40 points out, this centrality of
mice and rats has resulted in less laboratory animal diversity for modeling human condi
tions: consequently, rats and mice have to be reengineered as models, or genetically mod
ified so that they can express the required (human) biological “system.”
Here, we see the systemic objectification of the animal: even before he reaches the labo
ratory, he is already preconstituted as an analytic object. This is reinforced by the
processes by which animals are marketed and ordered. In suppliers’ marketing catalogs,
strains are set out with the genotype (e.g., what genes have been knocked out or intro
duced) and the phenotype (e.g., what conditions are expressed). However, strains are also
characterized in terms of the sorts of experimental systems to which they are best suited.
To put this another way, animals are subject to technoscientific bespoking: they are ge
netically designed for particular scientific purposes and then made available “off the
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rack.”41 So it would seem that the animals are enacted as just another a commodity, a
component that can be slotted into this or that experimental system, a tool that can be or
dered just like any other piece of equipment. This is doubly reinforced in that many of
these strains can be patented—they cannot be interbred to produce more of the same.42
Thus the specific principle of experimental animals as well as their bodies are considered
property: it is this principle, as much as their bodies, that renders them technically
unique and scientifically useful.43
However, this rendering of the animal model is not unproblematic—it can lead to
(p. 387)
Around half of these published chimpanzee experiments were never cited by any
subsequent publication. Given that many experiments remain unpublished, this in
dicates that the majority of invasive chimpanzee studies generate data of ques
tionable value which make little obvious contribution to the advancement of bio
medical knowledge. Only around 15 per cent of all invasive chimpanzee studies
were cited by papers describing well-developed diagnostic, therapeutic, and/or
prophylactic methods for combating human diseases. However, examination of
these medical papers revealed that none of the cited chimpanzee studies demon
strated an essential contribution, or in most cases a significant contribution of any
kind, to the development of the clinical method described.47
Now, claims about the human clinical relevance of animal models and animal experiments
in general are used to defend animal experimentation per se (and this is apparent not on
ly in the discourses of scientific spokespersons but also those of patient advocacy
groups). Further, making claims about the potential medical utility of individual animal
experiments or experimental programs is something that is part and parcel of the doing
of biomedical science. It is woven into the institutional fabric of funding application and
ethical analysis. To obtain the financial backing from the key funding bodies of biomedical
research (state research councils, biomedical charities, venture capital) and ethical
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agreement (from these same bodies, but also more or less local ethics committees), it is
necessary to offset the costs to animals against what benefits might accrue in the
future.48 In particular, applicants need to craft expectations about the eventual human
benefits of their specific research and to draft promissory notes about the likely clinical
usefulness of the findings that an animal model and a program of research will (p. 388)
generate.49 They must demonstrate that these benefits outweigh the expected levels of
animal distress and pain or numbers of animal deaths (and also, on occasion, show that
there are no alternative research methodologies that do not involve animals).
Increasingly, this is framed in terms of (the imperative for) translational research wherein
laboratory-based findings are translated into clinically useful interventions. Animals be
come translational objects that mediate the collaborations between experimental and
clinical scientists. However, this is not an unproblematic process. Michael et al. (in a
study of human embryonic stem cell research, but their analysis applies no less to animal
experimentation) show how scientists and clinicians differ in a number of ways that can
render collaboration fraught (e.g., in terms of their views about the nature and value of
evidence—crudely, scientists tend to emphasize the rigor of experiments and caution,
clinicians tend to stress rapid application to patients in urgent need of treatment).50
In some cases, the specific model might itself complexify the translational process. Gail
Davies51 considers the case of humanized mice, which have been genetically altered to
“hold open a space” (albeit in a limited way) for the introduction of components of the hu
man immunological system. However, “the complexities of immunology, and the role of
microbial agencies in shaping the immune system, prevent a simple exchange of insights
between animals in the laboratory and humans in the clinic.”52 Having noted this, she
suggests that the humanized mouse, in part because of this “opening up of a space” with
in it is becoming widely circulated, serving as a “collaborative thing” whose very “pliabili
ty” allows for this model to be recruited into “high-profile and well-funded research agen
das around stem cell science, infectious diseases and pre-clinical trials.”53 At the same
time, the humanized mouse is disruptive of such collaborations. The space that is opened
up is occupied by the immunological components, not of some generic human but of a
specific individual. Ironically, while the mouse model is itself standardized, what is stan
dardized is a personalized human immune system whose generalizability to the popula
tion is by no means assured. This disrupts not only the presumed value of collaboration
but also raises all sorts of ethical dilemmas (e.g., should a treatment developed on a spe
cific humanized mouse be tested on other humans?).
With Davies’s analysis we see how the value of particular animal models is promoted—in
her case study, this is partly grounded in the openness of the humanized mouse (and the
energetic promotional efforts of the mouse’s producer, the Jackson Laboratory). As she
shows, the process of establishing the generality of a particular animal model—that it can
illuminate biological processes of humans (and indeed other species) is indeed a complex
one. Friese and Clarke54 similarly trace how the generality of animal models in the repro
ductive sciences (specifically, the study of reproductive systems in the twentieth century
and the development of interspecies nuclear transfer technologies for safeguarding en
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dangered species in the twenty-first) were enacted in complex ways. In being proclaimed
as possessing generality these models could “forge connections between different sites of
practice such as the laboratory, the clinic and farm, as well as the biotechnology company
and zoo.”55 The irony is that the utility of these models rests less in their standardization
and proclaimed generality (which as hinted at already (p. 389) are idealizations) than in
their instability, which “delimited new sets of questions … As such, models may be mobi
lized in the reproductive sciences through generality and standardization, but they are
used in very local ways that defy standardization.”56 The point is that the idealization of
the animal model and its specific recalcitrance and uncertainty—its conjoint reduction
and complexification—enable its sometimes troubled movement across different fields of
research.57
To summarize: the work that goes into enacting animal models takes a number of forms,
ranging from generic claims about the biomedical value of models per se to the idealiza
tion of specific models (which can enable their mobility across different scientific loca
tions) and on to the practical uncertainty, contingency, and contestability of those models
(which can mediate their local utility). In these enactments, the animal is a scientific ob
ject to which are attached promises and expectations that are chronically controverted
both to dismiss and better utilize those objects. To put this in terms of eventuation, the
animal model emerges in diverse ways across scientific events that variously draw in pub
lic, clinical, and scientific constituencies: as we shall see in the next section, this complex
ity and fluidity has important implications for how we think about animals as scientific ob
jects. However, before that, we need to return to the matter of ethics.
We have seen how animals are enacted as scientific objects through their process of pro
duction and circulation as commodities and models, but they are also enacted as objects
in relation to ethics. To be sure, in considering the ethics of an animal experiment or ex
perimental program (using a particular animal model), the naturalistic animal has to be
taken into account—the severity of the impact on the animal as a sentient being is as
sessed against the likely benefits. However, the issue to be raised here concerns the prac
tices of ethics through which the animal is objectified as an object of ethical calculation.
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gard to ethical assessment, scientists note that neither human benefits nor animal suffer
ing can be transparently quantified. In other words, as objects of ethical calculation, ani
mal bodies as sources of benefit and bearers of pain are chronically indeterminate.59
to be the default mechanism by which the value of all manner of interventions (e.g., envi
ronmental, economic, engineering) is “rationally” calculated.60 The scientists’ skepticism
is a version of one of numerous issues raised about the value of this form of valuation,
namely, that the identification of costs and benefits is unavoidably negotiable. Other criti
cal issues that have been documented include the following: costs and benefits have a
tendency to proliferate wildly; costs and benefits are based in tacit cultural assumptions;
and costs and benefits incorporate implicit relations of trust. The upshot is that cost-ben
efit analysis is a process that is not simply calculative and rational, but grounded in cul
tural presuppositions, affective relations, and attributions of trustworthiness. Despite
these shortcomings (i.e., shortcomings within the supposedly disinterested frame of refer
ence of cost-benefit analysis), cost-benefit analysis remains the predominant mode of as
sessment. Those who cannot do cost-benefit analysis (e.g., because they are too emotion
ally attached to the rights of animals or patients) must be marginalized from the ethical
process.61 Conversely, those who can—for example, members of the clergy or the judicia
ry—should be celebrated and invited. Indeed, Macer et al.62 even suggest that cost-bene
fit thinking should be considered a universal sign of bioethical maturity. Writing about the
attitudes of the Japanese public toward using animals for xenotransplantation (crudely,
the transplantation of animal organs and tissues into humans), they say: “if we consider
bioethical maturity as a ratio of those who consider both benefits and risks, then the
(Japanese) public could be argued to be mature in this sense.”63 Another irony here is
that it is now people who are objectified—reduced to those who cannot control their emo
tions or, contrastingly, those who can act as disinterested calculators of ethical value.
But there are even further ironies here. The scientists who advocate such disinterested
calculation believe themselves to be objectified by those who are all too interested. These
are dangerous publics—notably, some radical animal right groups—who are not averse
from verbally abusing and physically attacking scientists. One result is that scientists feel
themselves under constant risk of attack to the extent that they need to avoid social situa
tions where they might reveal their involvement in animal experimentation, let alone
openly advocate animal experimentation.64 Yet it also seems that these worries, very real
as they are, are partly grounded in a reification of the animal movement—evidenced in,
for instance, a conflation of animal rights and animal welfare groups whose perspectives
on experimental animals can take markedly divergent forms.65 In all this, there seems to
be a circuit of objectification in operation where, in the struggle over what it means to ob
jectify animals in science, scientists and publics are caught up in a fragmented process of
mutual objectification.
In summary, in the foregoing, we have reviewed a number of ways animals are enacted as
scientific objects when we take biomedical science to be embedded in a complex network
of associations that include animal suppliers, interdisciplinary collaborators, and regula
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tory bodies, ethics committees, animal campaigners, and publics. We have also seen how
various humans are also objectified in this process. Throughout, and in keeping with our
analysis of scientists’ practices within the laboratory, we have also tried to remain alert to
the ways that in this process of enactment as scientific objects, (p. 391) animals, recur
sively, shape humans. Animals’ corporeal recalcitrance—their slippage into something
other than the discrete object of desire utilized by scientists and others (e.g., as a stable,
commodifiable model of specific utility, as a determinable object of ethical calculation)—
opens up possibilities for human and animal becoming. It is to this complex issue that we
now turn with a view to rethinking the implications of the animal as scientific object.
Concluding Remarks
This essay has been premised on the idea that the animal as scientific object has to be
made or accomplished: he emerges in various guises through a fractured nexus of prac
tices, discourses and relations that extends well beyond the confines of the laboratory, re
flecting the multiplicity that comprises science in action and straddling the diverse prac
tices of the scientist as “heterogeneous engineer” who is engaged in many activities
across many domains.66 Along the way, scientists are also enacted—enact themselves—in
particular ways: as cost-benefit analysts, as buffers, as natural historians, as human com
panions, as collaborators, as critics of numerous others, as promoters of models, and so
on. Yet both animals and people exceed these enactments. For instance, the pliability of
animal models prompt unexpected uses, and scientists find themselves sceptical about
cost-benefit calculations. What are the impacts of this “excess”? How might it afford the
prospect of a rethinking of what it means to do science on animals?
Bischur argues that the naturalistic animal cannot be totally effaced by the techniques
and technologies of biomedicine: “Animals’ being alive, their being living creatures and
their being recognized by the researchers and technicians as animated bodies … impose a
change in the relevance system of the researchers … this kind of (animal) resistance may
be called ‘shrewdness.’”67 We have seen how this is managed by researchers, how their
“relevance system” (the frame of reference which constructs animals as analytic) is re
asserted. However, we have also noted that this is partial and that the relevance system
of researchers is polyvalent—there are many dimensions both inside and outside the labo
ratory that both sensitize and desensitize researchers to animals’ shrewdness.68 In
Despret’s terms,69 the animal can be rendered docile and the scientist act as judge, but
the animal can also be experienced as shrewd and the scientist may take on the persona
of caretaker. As Davies notes, this can mean treating animal models altogether more
holistically—studying them under naturalistic conditions, or seeking out alternative ex
perimental systems, for example.70
But it can also mean attending to the nature of objectification within the broader scope of
doing science. Davies traces the philosophical arguments that depict animals as captivat
ed by their environment.71 Accordingly, they are so corporeally immersed in their particu
lar environment that they cannot do what humans can, namely, separate themselves from
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it; indeed, humans unlike animals can become bored by their environment. Davies argues
that the stereotypical behaviors of animals in laboratory and zoo cages suggest other
wise. But she also suggests that scientists themselves might well be (p. 392) so immersed
in a sociomaterial research environment that is perhaps no less captivating. Locked into
an audited “treadmill” of research, grant application, and publication, scientists might
well not have the luxury of boredom.72
In this chapter, the animal as scientific object has been portrayed as an accomplishment—
enacted through a variety of practices, discourses, and relations that straddle the inside
and outside of the laboratory. In attending to this objectification of the animal, the chap
ter has also paid some attention to the varieties of objectification of human actors. Over
and above this, it has also been suggested that animals exceed this objectification; they
display a certain shrewdness, an undisciplined corporeality that can trigger a reaction in
the experimental scientist that, to some extent, deobjectifies the animal and in the
process brings out a different way of being in the scientist.
Arguably, though, to attribute such an ethical reorientation to the shrewdness of the ani
mal might reflect a certain, for want of a better term, meta-objectification of the animal–
human relation wherein something intrinsic to the animal is invoked. For example, the
animal’s natural liveness evokes the liveness of the human handler, creating a medium of
empathy or identification. Moreover, perhaps it places too much weight on animal shoul
ders. As various authors have noted, such shifts in local relationalities between humans
and animals take place within wider networks that are not easy to unravel, networks that
place certain conditions on what human–animal relations might emerge in the laboratory
(most obviously research shaped by the demands of commercial funding structures).73 By
contrast, we can propose that such an emergent sensibility might be better situated in re
lation to a distributed, circulatory, and diverse shrewdness that traverses the many and
disparate practices that comprise animal experimentation. Put another way, we can look
at the various forms of excess that contingently accompany the numerous processes of
objectification. Let us recapitulate a few instances of these other forms of shrewdness
and excess: the continuing, ambivalent encounter with regulatory requirements to identi
fy, quantify, and balance costs and benefits; the frustrations of translational research
where the medical utility of animal experimentation is called into question by clinical col
leagues; the accumulated arguments over the usefulness of animal experimentation per
se; the division of labor within laboratories where animal technicians display their sensi
tivities to animal shrewdness; and the negotiated limitations of scientists’ willingness to
experiment on different species. Faced with this plethora of excess and shrewdness, there
is perhaps the possibility of gaining a distance on the ongoing practices that structure the
scientific life. Put another way, there is a chance that the meaning of biomedical science
can be opened up in creative ways, and with that come emergent prospects for what sci
entist and animal can co-become.
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Further Reading
Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton R. Sanders. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple Univer
sity Press, 1996.
Birke, Lynda. Feminism, Animals, and Science: The Naming of the Shrew. Milton Keynes:
Open University Press, 1994.
Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press,
2003.
Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Hobson-West, Pru. “The Role of ‘Public Opinion’ in the UK Animal Research Debate.” Jour
nal of Medical Ethics 36 (2010): 46–49.
Jasper, James M., and Dorothy Nelkin. Animal Rights Crusade. New York: Free Press,
1991.
MacNaghten, Phil. “Animals in their Nature: A Case Study on Public Attitudes to Animals,
Genetic Modification and ‘Nature.’” Sociology 38 (2004): 533–551.
Schuppli, Cathy A., and Dan M. Weary. “Attitudes Towards the Use of Genetically Modi
fied Animals in Research.” Public Understanding of Science 19 (2010): 686–697.
Twine, Richard. “Animal Genomics and Ambivalence.” Genomics, Society and Policy 3: 99–
117 (2007).
Notes:
(1.) Karin Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
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Animals as Scientific Objects
(3.) Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987).
(4.) Elizabeth S. Paul, “Us and Them: Scientists’ and Animal Rights Campaigners’ Views
of the Animal Experimentation Debate,” Society and Animals 3 (1995): 1–21.
(5.) For a recent survey, see Andrew Knight, The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experi
ments (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2011).
(7.) Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
(8.) Michael Lynch, “Sacrifice and the Transformation of the Animal Body into a Scientific
Object: Laboratory Culture and Ritual Practice in the Neurosciences,” Social Studies of
Science 18 (1988): 265–289.
(9.) For foundational accounts of this perspective in Science and Technology Studies, see
Michel Serres, Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni
versity Press, 1982); Bruno Latour, “Technology Is Society Made Durable,” in A Sociology
of Monsters, ed. John Law (London: Routledge, 1991), 103–131; Bruno Latour, “Where
Are the Missing Masses? A Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts,” in Shaping Technolo
gy/Building Society, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992),
225–258.
(10.) See especially Madeleine Akrich, “The De-scription of Technical Objects,” in Bijker
and Law, Shaping Technology/Building Society, 205–224; Madeleine Akrich and Bruno La
tour, “A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman
Assemblies,” in Bijker and Law, Shaping Technology/Building Society, 259–263.
(11.) Karen Knorr Cetina, “Sociality with Objects: Social Relations in Postsocial Knowl
edge Societies,” Theory, Culture and Society 14 (1997): 1–30.
(12.) Daniel Miller, “Introduction,” in Clothing as Material Culture, ed. Susanne Küchler
and Daniel Miller (Oxford; Berg, 2005), 1–19.
(13.) Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay In Cosmology (New York:
Free Press, 1929).
(16.) Mike Michael, Steven Wainwright, and Clare Williams, “Temporality and Prudence:
On Stem Cells as ‘Phronesic Things,’” Configurations 13 (2005): 373–394.
(17.) Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2007).
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(18.) Mariam Fraser, “Facts, Ethics and Event,” in Deleuzian Intersections in Science,
Technology and Anthropology, ed. Casper Bruun Jensen and Kjetil Rödje, (New York:
Berghahn Press, 2010), 57–82.
(19.) Mike Michael, “Toward an Idiotic Methodology: De-signing the Object of Sociology,”
Sociological Review, 60, no. S1 (2012): 166–183.
(20.) Annemarie Mol, The Body Multiple. Ontology in Medical Practice (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2002).
(21.) For a different interpretation of the differences between the inside and outside of
science see Pru Hobson-West, “Ethical Boundary-Work in the Animal Research Laborato
ry,” Sociology 46 (2012): 649–663.
(22.) Lynda Birke, Arnold Arluke, and Mike Michael, The Sacrifice: How Scientific Experi
ments Transform Animals and People (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2007).
(23.) Harold Herzog, Andrew Rowan, and Daniel Kossow, “Social Attitudes and Animals,”
in The State of the Animals, ed. Deborah Salem and Andrew Rowan (Washington, DC: Hu
mane Society Press, 2001), 55–69.
(25.) Tora Holmberg, “A Feeling for the Animal: On Becoming an Experimentalist,” Soci
ety and Animals 16 (2008): 316–335.
(26.) See Elissa J. Chesler, Sonia G. Wilson, William R. Lariviere, Sandra L. Rodriguez-Zas,
and Jeffrey S. Mogil, “Influence of Laboratory Environment on Behavior,” Nature Neuro
science 5 (2002): 1101–1102.
(27.) Lynda Birke, “Animal Bodies in the Production of Scientific Knowledge: Modelling
Medicine,” Body & Society 18 (2012): 156–178.
(29.) Mike Michael and Lynda Birke, “Accounting for Animal Experiments: Credibility and
Disreputable ‘Others,’” Science, Technology and Human Values, 19 (1994): 189–204.
(30.) Michael and Birke, “Accounting for Animal Experiments”; Hobson-West, “Ethical
Boundary-Work.”
(31.) Tora Holmberg, “Mortal Love: Care Practices in Animal Experimentation,” Feminist
Theory 12 (2011): 147–163.
(32.) Nik Brown and Mike Michael, “Switching between Science and Culture in
Transpecies Transplantation,” Science, Technology and Human Values 26 (2001): 3–22.
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(35.) Arluke, “Sacrificial Symbolism”; also see Arnold Arluke, “Moral Elevation in Medical
Research,” Advances in Medical Sociology 1 (1990): 189–204.
(36.) For a recent survey, see A. Knight, The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments
(Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave).
(37.) Karen Rader, Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Re
search, 1900–1955 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
(41.) Mike Michael, “Technoscientific Bespoking: Animals, Publics and The New Genet
ics,” New Genetics and Society 20 (2001): 205–224.
(43.) For a classic statement of this aspect of animal genetic modification, see Donna Har
away, Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan.Meets_OncoMouse: Feminism and
Technoscience (London: Routledge, 1997).
(44.) Kay Pegg, “A Hostile World for Nonhuman Animals: Human Identification and the
Oppression of Nonhuman Animals for Human Good 1,” Sociology 43 (2009): 85–102, espe
cially 98.
(47.) Ibid.
(48.) Nik Brown, “Organizing/Disorganizing the Breakthrough Motif: Dolly the Cloned
Ewe Meets Astrid the Hybrid Pig,” in Contested Futures: A Sociology of Prospective
Science and Technology, ed. Nik Brown, Brian Rappert, and Andrew Webster (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2000), 78–110.
(51.) Gail Davies, “What Is a Humanized Mouse? Remaking the Species and the Spaces of
Translational Medicine,” Body and Society 18 (2012): 126–155.
Page 17 of 19
Animals as Scientific Objects
(54.) Carrie Friese and Adele E. Clarke, “Transposing Bodies of Knowledge and Tech
nique: Animal Models at Work in Reproductive Sciences,” Social Studies of Science 42
(2011): 31–52.
(57.) For a parallel argument in relation to animal behavior genetics that emphasizes the
role of the diversity of understandings in the utility of an animal model, see Nicole Nel
son, “Modeling Mouse, Humans and Discipline: Epistemic Scaffolds in Animal Behavior
Genetics,” Social Studies of Science 43 (2012): 3–29.
(58.) See Birke et al., Sacrifice; Knight, Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments.
(59.) Mike Michael and Lynda Birke, “Animal Experimentation: Enrolling the Core Set,”
Social Studies of Science 24 (1994): 81–95; for a contemporary affirmation of this point,
see Hobson-West, “Ethical Boundary-Work.”
(60.) See, e.g., John Foster, (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and Environment
(London: Routledge, 1997).
(62.) Darryl Macer, Masakazu Inaba, Fumi Maekawa, et al., “Japanese Attitudes toward
Xenotransplantation,” Public Understanding of Science 11 (2002): 347–362. See also Pe
ter Aldhous, Andy Coghlan, and Jon Copley, “Let the People Speak,” New Scientist 163
(1999): 26–31.
(64.) Arnold Arluke, “Going into the Closet with Science: Information Control among Ani
mal Experimenters,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 20 (1991): 306–30. See also
Tora Holmberg and Malin Ideland, “Secrets and Lies: ‘Selective Openness’ in Animal Ex
perimentation,” Public Understanding of Science 21 (2012): 354–368.
(66.) John Law, “Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portugese Ex
pansion,” in Social Construction of Technological Systems, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P.
Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 111–134.
Page 18 of 19
Animals as Scientific Objects
(68.) Also see Ralph R. Acampora, Corporal Compassion (Pittsburgh: University of Pitts
burgh Press, 2006); Beth Greenhough and Emma Roe, “Ethics, Space, and Somatic Sensi
bilities: Comparing Relationships between Scientific Researchers and Their Human and
Animal Experimental Subjects,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29
(2011): 47–66.
(69.) Vinciane Despret, “The Body We Care For: Figures of Anthropo-Zoo-Genesis,” Body
& Society 10 (2004): 111–134; also see Vinciane Despret, “The Becoming of Subjectivity
in Animal Worlds,” Subjectivity 23 (2008): 123–129.
(70.) Gail Davies, “Captivating Behavior: Mouse Models, Experimental Genetics and Re
ductionist Returns in the Neurosciences,” Sociological Review 48 (2010): 53–72.
(73.) See Greenhough and Roe, “Ethics, Space, and Somatic Sensibilities.”
Mike Michael
Mike Michael is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney.
Page 19 of 19
The Problem with Zoos
Zoos and aquariums have been traditionally and commonly regarded as august civic insti
tutions that save animals from the immediate perils of a besieged wilderness and from ex
tinction. Zookeepers say that their institutions inspire audiences to work to make our
planet a place that is respectful of all living beings. But a more ecologically and ethically
critical reading of zoos suggests that they are prisons for kidnapped, alienated, tortured
specimens who are forced to live their lives in vastly unsuitable compounds for the titilla
tion of ignorant crowds brought in by marketing and advertising campaigns that promise
highbrow ecological experiences but actually pander to audiences’ less noble cravings for
amusement parks, or even freakshows. Zoos’ efforts at ecological education fail because
patrons show no inclination to improve their records as plunderers of natural resources
or to acknowledge the pain inherent in the forced displacement and captivity of other ani
mals.
Introduction
THESIS: Zoos and aquariums are august, longstanding civic institutions that save ani
mals from the immediate perils of a besieged wilderness and—in the widest perspective—
from extinction. Zookeepers literally rescue the hundreds of individual animals whom
they accommodate in their zoos. To extrapolate to a metaphysical level, zoos benefit all
creatures by inculcating in people a keen, intimate sense of how special and valuable oth
er animals are. Zoos thus inspire us to work to make our planet a place that is more re
spectful of all living beings and to mitigate the hazards that a thoughtless (non-zoogoing)
public wreaks on our fragile ecosystem.
***
Page 1 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
ANTITHESIS: Zoos and aquariums are prisons for kidnapped, alienated, tortured speci
mens who are forced to live their lives in vastly unsuitable compounds for the titillation of
ignorant crowds brought in by marketing and advertising campaigns that promise high
brow ecological experiences but actually pander to audiences’ less noble cravings for
amusement parks, or even freakshows. Zoos’ efforts to provide ecological education fail
because their patrons show no inclination to improve their records as plunderers of nat
ural resources, or to embrace the logic of sustainability in their exploitation of energy,
food, land, and natural resources that displaces other animals. Although hundreds of mil
lions of people visit zoos and aquariums each year, there is no tangible evidence that
these masses are reducing their devastating impact on the natural world (resulting from
their habits of eating, driving, living, buying, polluting, wasting, overconsuming, and
overpopulating). More to the point, there has been no improvement in animals’ habitats—
on the contrary, there is ever-worsening degradation. Zoos are merely palliatives, giving
the public the macabre opportunity to see the last surviving specimens, whose public dis
play titillates audiences aware that these specimens will soon be gone. Zoogoing is laced
with schadenfreude: spectators take perverse pleasure in the pain of others, selfishly
grateful that they, the paying customers, are the ones whose power allows them to stroll
outside the cages rather than fester inside them. Captive breeding (p. 398) programs are
pointless because of insufficiently broad gene pools; they are a short-term fix that serves
the interests of the zoo industry for a few decades—ensuring a few more generations of
endangered species for audiences to enjoy—but not the long-term imperatives of ecologi
cal survival. The problem of the destroyed natural habitats that has led to the animals’ en
dangerment is too complicated and too expensive to fix, and there are virtually no exam
ples of endangered species being successfully reintroduced into nature. If the zoo is an
“ark,” to use the analogy commonly invoked by zoo advocates, it is one that never releas
es its wards to return to their normal lives, because the dangers that necessitated their
protection never abate.
SYNTHESIS: Perhaps the truth about zoos lies somewhere between these two poles.
Some zoo scholarship finds such a happy medium: Elizabeth Hanson’s Animal Attractions:
Nature on Display in American Zoos, for example, offers mixed praise and critique of the
institutions, as do New Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the
Nineteenth Century (edited by Robert Hoage and William Deiss), and Eric Baratay’s Zoo:
A History of Zoological Gardens in the West, and Ethics on the Ark (edited by Bryan Nor
ton et al.).1 Other works are more radically critical: see, for example, Ralph Acampora’s
edited collection Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal Encounter after Noah; Beyond the
Bars: The Zoo Dilemma, edited by Virginia McKenna; Britta Jaschinski’s wordless but
hauntingly eloquent book of photography, Zoo; and my own Reading Zoos: Representa
tions of Animals and Captivity.2 Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s 2013 documentary film Black
fish examines SeaWorld, an institution which may seem peripheral to the mainstream
realm of zoos and aquariums, but which is actually accredited by the Association of Zoos
and Aquariums (regarded as the industry’s ultimate authority); many reviewers of the
film echoed Mike D’Angelo’s contention that “the same argument” Blackfish makes—a de
tailed exposé of the pain visited on captive animals and the pervasive deceptions perpetu
Page 2 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
ated by those who profit from putting animals on display—“would apply to any animal in
any zoo anywhere in the world.”3
My own belief, and my contention here, is that the argument I characterize as the “an
tithesis” fully and accurately conveys the realities of zoos. Unarguably, there have been
many bad zoos that the public would unilaterally condemn: zoos that are derelict, badly
designed, and underfunded, where the human audiences gape lethargically and the other
animals suffer and die. One British organization, the Captive Animals’ Protection Society
(CAPS), rigorously documents such abusive institutions. They have recounted such trans
gressions as zoos’ breeding lion cubs and selling them to circuses; a hippo dying after
eating a tennis ball thrown into her enclosure; animals in zoos with insufficient security
and protection being stolen and killed by vandals; and birds mutilated (pinioned) to keep
them from flying.4
about commerce and spectatorship, captivity and constraint, so it cannot facilitate better
understanding of or care for animals. Instead, zoos dangerously promote our belief that
we are entitled to see everything and have the power to control everything as well as our
anthropocentric (and anti-ecological) fantasy of human exceptionalism: that is, the con
ceit that we are somehow above the ecosystems in which we live.
The problem of endangered animals is vast in scale and is integrally interwoven with our
practices as a species: ecologically unwise and unsustainable development. The solution
would require profound changes on the part of human societies: effective measures for
population control, extensive dietary changes, abandonment of the gospel of economic
growth (and especially the mission to convert countries that have not yet reached Ameri
can and European levels of production and consumption to rise—or more properly, to sink
—to our level). People would have to trade cars for bikes, keep their homes (which would
need to be smaller and closer to their workplaces) warmer in summer and colder in win
ter, and stop creating so much garbage. These are problems that zoos do not address, and
cannot fix.
Page 3 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
other hand, might counter with the closing lines of Philip Larkin’s poem “The Mower”:
“we should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.”5 Or,
perhaps, Barry Commoner’s Fourth Law of Ecology: “There’s no such thing as a free
lunch.”6
The ecological reforms that our world needs are difficult measures, and they are unlikely
to be implemented on any significant scale. A quicker fix for our (p. 400) ecological guilt
and cognitive dissonance is to engage with other animals on a much smaller scale: small
er, that is, than “all of them,” reduced (as on the ark) to a handful, a token number, and
not even (as on the ark) representatives of every species but mostly just the cute ones: a
few who are very tall or very fat, who have interesting spots and patterns, make weird
noises, or crawl or hop around in funny ways—a “diverse” array. Not ecologically diverse,
really: bugs, the most prominent and in many ways the most important element of our
ecosystem, are almost invisible in zoos; rather, diverse in terms of our entertainment, our
attention spans: “charismatic megafauna,” as the zoo industry refers to them; marquee
attractions who will keep the paying customers coming back (at $25 a shot!).
The zoo fundamentally inscribes the looked-at animals inside their cages—or their “cage
less enclosures” that don’t look like cages (to us)—as subaltern. We, the people, the spec
tators, are free; they are trapped. We are in our natural habitats (San Diego or Hamburg
or London), and they are not. We stay in the zoo for as long as it amuses us to be there,
and they stay in there forever. We can move on to the next cage, the gift shop, the cafete
ria, and they cannot. We can escape, leave, go to places we would rather be; we can find
privacy away from prying eyes; they cannot. We are powerful, and they are fundamental
ly, quintessentially disempowered.
Perhaps we put these animals (and ourselves) in this situation, this position of power/
powerlessness, because we are jealous of their wildness, their power, their strength, their
speed, their life force. Caging them deprives them of these energies, and perhaps we fan
tasize that we have thereby abrogated those traits and are, by implication, ourselves pow
erful, fierce, strong, and swift, having subdued the other animals who thought they were.
Page 4 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
Perhaps we like to look at other animals in zoos, need to look at them in zoos, to affirm to
ourselves that there will always be zebras, and tigers, and platypi. This is probably a false
affirmation, a false assumption; nevertheless, we like to believe, and we are inclined to
believe, that any element of nature that we have mastered, harvested, framed, and inte
grated into our own cultural infrastructure is thereby “protected.”
In any case, the predominant effect of zoos is to make animals easily and conveniently
available to us, visible to us easily and on our own terms. With our typically self-serving
and sloppy ecological logic, we presume that this ease of access implies their prosperity,
their endurance. We hear whispers that animals are in trouble, that we are destroying
their world (which, of course, is also our world), that extinction rates are skyrocketing,
and we don’t want to believe it, so we create a tableau vivant that disguises the reality.
We tell our children, and ourselves, that we are building better relationships with other
animals—more empathetic, more aware of their specialness, of their delicately beautiful
existence—by keeping them in a compound and dropping in on them once a month to look
them in the eye and achieve a meaningful connection, and that this experience remedi
ates our ecological sloth because we now have a real “appreciation” for who they are.
(Somehow, though, despite two centuries of zoogoing, this appreciation (p. 401) has failed
to stem the tide of our destruction of their habitats, which instead increases, without any
sign of slowing.)
And here is the thing, the truth—the animals’ truth—that undergirds the entire enterprise
of zoos and aquariums and gives the lie to the possibility of positive ecological karma em
anating from this institution: the animals don’t want to be there.
Under such conditions, it is impossible to argue that zoogoers are learning important eco
logical lessons, learning about our proper place (in the web of life, not at the top of a
Great Chain of Being) in the ecosystem. Instead, the zoo confirms our sense of primacy, of
control. This is ironic, as our so-called control of the ecosystem is in fact hurtling out of
control, with global warming and rampantly increasing toxicities degrading our air, water,
and earth. But we prefer to create the illusion of control, and zoos facilitate this delusion,
this deception. If we can see the animals right there in front of our faces, we would like to
think, they must be ok.
Many scholars and activists who write about zoos—taking their cue from John Berger’s
highly influential 1977 essay, “Why Look at Animals?”7—predicate their work on the im
perative to explore the ethics and the praxes of looking.
“Zoo professionals strongly believe that by seeing zoo animals … in a naturalistic setting,
zoogoers will alter not only their beliefs about the importance of nature but also their
everyday consumer choices,” writes Irus Braverman in Zooland: The Institution of Captivi
ty. “They believe that through looking at animals, the human public will be taught to care
Page 5 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
about these animals and, by extension, about the animals’ body doubles in the wild and
therefore about nature at large.”8 But if zookeepers really do believe this, they are being
overly optimistic (if not naïve). Zoo audiences are conditioned to experience their specta
torship as a Foucauldian manifestation of power,9 privilege, isolation, and difference from
the rest of nature.
Unsurprisingly, the historical roots of zoos corroborate that they are in every way an out
growth of the imperial enterprise, the imperial consciousness, of nineteenth-century Eu
rope. Sir Stamford Raffles founded the Zoological Society of London in 1826 to be a home
for the animals he had collected in Southeastern Asia while working as a trader for the
East India Company. He plundered exotic commercial goods in his professional employ
ment, and plundered the animal world as a hobby.
When the London Zoo opened in 1828, it was not the first collection of captive wild ani
mals; private displays of exotic, ostentatious power had existed for centuries in the
menageries of the rich and powerful. Raffles’s innovation was to give the populous at
large the opportunity to share in the spoils of imperialism thus reaffirming the values and
ethics of that enterprise. Giving the masses access to these spectacular creatures showed
how the public benefited from imperial exploration and conquest: zoo displays featured
visible tokens of imported alien booty, marvelous and colorful and strange. Like spices
and gold, silk and tea, the animals were commodities taken from “there” and brought
home for display in a rarified setting, an imperial stage, and the suggestion was (p. 402)
that they were really better off here than there: “we” appreciated them more, by caging
and displaying them, than the “natives” who allowed them simply to run wild. The zoos
and the animals thus became part of the discourse that reinforced the hegemonies of im
perialism.
Zoos also provided a fitting canvas upon which to depict the prejudices of racial suprema
cy that undergirded imperialism. As Oliver Hochadel writes in “Darwin in the Monkey
Cage,” zoos became a stage for ethnographic displays that resembled freakshows. “Hu
mans staged as strange and exotic were exhibited alongside lions and monkeys. This was
a racist narrative, which suggested—argumentatively underpinned by contemporary zool
ogy and anthropology—that humans from Africa and Asia were closer to animals.”10
In the late nineteenth-century, a few generations after zoos had come into existence in all
the great European imperial cities, the German exotic animal dealer Carl Hagenbeck
came up with the innovation to expand the range of attractions: a friend had suggested
that “it would certainly excite significant interest if the reindeer [that several zoos had or
dered] were accompanied by a family of Laplanders, who naturally would also bring their
tents, weapons, sleds, and complete households along.”11 The show was popular across
Germany, and Hagenbeck next asked his Sudanese animal traders to include some na
tives along with the camels they provided. Subsequent human displays included Green
land Eskimos along with sled dogs and Sri Lankans (what Hagenbeck called the “Ceylon
Caravan”) along with elephants. Later shows included natives of North America, South
America, India, Mongolia, Burma, Russia, and Africa. In America, a popular and infamous
Page 6 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
parallel to Hagenbeck’s human shows was the display of the Congolese pygmy Ota Benga
in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo, where director William Hornaday placed him in a cage that also
contained an orangutan. (Benga was released later that year after vociferous protests
from New York’s African American community; he wished to return to the Congo, but was
never able to do so, and in 1916 he committed suicide.)12
“Shows of people had appeared fairly regularly in the major cities of Europe for cen
turies” before Hagenbeck, Nigel Rothfels notes, citing Roman displays of conquered peo
ple and Columbus’s display in Spain of Arawak Indians he had brought back to Europe.13
While there was some cultural and institutional attempt, both in those earlier displays
and in Hagenbeck’s transposition of them to zoos, to characterize these spectacles as sci
entific ethnographic expositions of intellectual merit, they were in fact closer to freak
shows and slave markets, where people came to lord themselves over the “other,” the sav
age. It is crucially significant that the formative years of zoos included this dovetailed
practice of both human and nonhuman voyeuristic exploitation: both people and other an
imals were taken from their homes and brought to Europe as captive spectacles. “These
shows consistently appealed to the most basic expectations of the general audience,”
Rothfels writes, and “crude stereotypes meant to degrade or at least mock the shows’
participants seem to have been at the very center of the programs.”14
Over time, human display became politically and ethically untenable; it was on the wane
in the early twentieth century, though it persisted into mid-century, and finally (p. 403)
faded away. But the animal exploitation that had accompanied human display endured,
associatively if no longer explicitly invoking the imperialist bravado that had accompa
nied the subjugation.
Braverman’s Zooland elucidates the contrast between the zoo’s public face and its private
workings: the difference between care for animals and power over animals, between what
you see and what you don’t see, and between what zoos want you to see and what I want
you to see. Both the zoo and the zoo critic paint a picture, a context, for the scenario that
plays out in these compounds. My context is historically contingent: I believe that zoos
have always been exploitative places that reiterate the human praxes of dominance, impe
rialism, and anthropocentrism; whereas zookeepers will tell you that zoos were bad in the
bad old days but are lately much improved. Zoos will focus on the resources they divert to
important ecological research, although they are very unforthcoming (I have asked) about
exactly how much money goes into conservation programs, which in any case are usually
inspired more by the popularity of certain charismatic megafauna rather than sound
ecosystemic considerations. (Panda bears, for example, as cuddly as they undeniably are,
receive an exceedingly disproportionate chunk of research funding given their ecological
significance.)
“Only a very limited part of available space in most organized zoos is dedicated to threat
ened species,” writes Koen Margodt,15 and what conservation efforts do exist are heavily
focused on large animals in disregard of ecological priority. “Zoos are typically about ele
phants, giraffes, lions, tigers, dolphins, bears, and gorillas,” he writes. “The motivation
Page 7 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
for this is not ecological, but rather anthropocentric—species selection by zoos is driven
largely by economic interests, perceived visitor preferences, and aesthetic appraisals.”16
Margodt quotes zookeeper Tom Foose explaining that zoos “tend, if only for their own
economic survival, to focus on creatures that the public finds most fascinating—animals
with whatever charisma it takes to propel those visitors through the turnstiles,”17 and
concludes that zoos’ interest in species preservation is “ecological camouflage to cloud
the fundamentally self-serving motivation of zoos: Zoo conservation is in the first place
about conserving zoos, not about conserving threatened species.”18
Zoos claim that providing ecological education is an important part of their mission,
though there are few data to support that claim. A 2007 study conducted by the American
Zoo and Aquarium Association claimed to offer the first direct evidence that visits to zoos
and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other ani
mals. The study reported that zoo visits “prompt individuals to reconsider their role in en
vironmental problems and conservation action, and to see themselves as part of the solu
tion” and that visitors “believe zoos and aquariums play an important role in conservation
education and animal care” and also that “they experience a stronger connection to na
ture as a result of their visit.”19
But a rebuttal found that the study was rife with methodological flaws and merely pro
ferred fantasies that zoo officials would like to believe are true: “there is no compelling or
even particularly suggestive evidence for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote atti
tude change, education, and interest in conservation in visitors.”20
cation are difficult and uncomfortable: people do not like to hear that our ecological situa
tion is dire, and that our cultural habits and practices are largely responsible. Such mes
sages may be at odds with the pleasant, rewarding experiences that zoos and aquariums
try to provide so that their audiences will feel the admission cost is justified and want to
return.
“Many managers are fearful of alienating visitors—and denting ticket sales—with tours or
wall labels that dwell bleakly on damaged coral reefs, melting ice caps or dying trees,” re
ports Leslie Kaufman in a New York Times article entitled, “Intriguing Habitats, and Care
ful Discussions of Climate Change,” in which she quotes many zoo professionals. “You
don’t want them walking away saying, ʻI paid to get in, I bought my kid a hot dog, I just
want to show my kid a fish—and you are making me feel bad about climate change,’” said
Paul Boyle, the senior vice president for conservation and education at the Association of
Zoos and Aquariums.”21
Kaufman also interviewed Brian Davis, the vice president for education and training at
Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium, reporting that “his institution ensures its guests will not
hear the term global warming. Visitors are ‘very conservative,’ he said. ‘When they hear
certain terms, our guests shut down. We’ve seen it happen.’”22
Page 8 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
Zoo and aquarium visitors are often simply not in the mood to learn when they visit;
rather, they are primed for entertainment, for spectacular exoticism; “the zoo animals are
so entrancing that a climate-related message may fall on deaf ears,” Kaufman writes.23
Zoos will tell you that the animals are happy to be in the zoo, and critics will counter that
they are not. I do not think that either faction can “prove” its case without speaking to
the animals themselves, which is impossible. But we can observe rampant stereotypies
(purposeless trance-like repetitive movements) in captive animals—walking or swimming
in circles, self-mutilation, swaying back and forth, grooming themselves to baldness, ex
cessive sleeping—that strongly suggest they suffer psychologically from being held in
such small spaces, in climates that are unnatural to them, alienated from their native
landscapes and the other species alongside whom they naturally live, with people stream
ing by every day staring at them. “Stereotypical behavior is generally associated with
poor welfare, monotonous environments, lack of autonomy, frustration, stress and/or
boredom,”24 writes Margodt.
And Stephen Spotte agrees that that zoos’ claims to be scientific institutions are belied by
“projecting captive animals as pets or errant children… . Often the viewpoint is one of pa
ternalistic oversight in the interest of Nature.”25 This strain of paternalism, or imperial
ism, or anthropocentrism arises ubiquitously to negate the ecosystemic consciousness of
cohabitation, interconnection amid the web of life, that must undergird any truly ecologi
cal program. “Animals held captive in these facilities,” Spotte writes, “have relinquished
their ontological status as part of the natural world.”26 Zoos are “not what they claim to
be—loci of conservation, science, and education—but rather isolated islands of simu
lacrums and confusing semiotic signs”; ultimately, they are “simple spectacle … destina
tions of amusement.”27
reptiles but applies equally to most if not all zoo and aquarium animals on display: “cap
tive conditions typically replace many features of the natural world with artificial and fre
quently poorly matched alternatives that deprive animals of known normal behaviour and
associated biological needs, such as hunting, spatial range, and macro-habitat investiga
tion.” As examples of stress-provoked stereotypy among reptiles, Warwick lists “hyperac
tivity, hypoactivity, anorexia, head-hiding, inflation of the body, hissing, panting, pigment
change and other abnormal patterns of behavior and physiological responses.”28
Every species suffers its own particular pain in zoos. Captive elephants, for example, usu
ally languish in zoo climates that are too cold and wet, lacking natural grazing (leaving
them prone to malnutrition); their handlers employ a system called “traditional free con
tact” to dominate them by psychological means, physical restriction, and punishment;
captive breeding rates are about 10 times slower than in the wild; circulatory problems,
foot problems, arthritis, tuberculosis, and herpes are especially common among captive
elephants; and they are significantly heavier than wild elephants (due to improper diets
and lack of exercise).29
Page 9 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
The captivity of animals is predicated upon the (false) presupposition that they don’t mind
captivity, that they aren’t very sentient, that they don’t have hopes and dreams and fears.
If audiences resisted this presumption, the cognitive dissonance would be too great. In
earlier times, people embraced the same rationalizations about the human subjects of im
perial exploitation: “they” don’t feel the pain of subjugation as keenly as “we” would, if
they feel it at all.
But illustrations of the depths of animal consciousness are profuse. “On what seems like a
monthly basis,” writes John Jeremiah Sullivan,
This appreciation of other animals’ consciousness refutes the antiquated (but per
(p. 406)
sistent) Cartesian presumption that other animals were automata who lacked reason or
the capacity for meaningful self-awareness. It is, consequently, now intellectually and eth
ically impossible to treat other species with the selfishly heedless brutality people mani
fested in the past.
Still, strange things continue to happen in zoos: witness the following headline on a news
story in the Washington Post:
Fundamentally, zoos are the same institutions they have always been. On the surface,
they adapt to reflect their audiences’ changing tastes. They want to seem new and au
courant, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. Zoos are keenly aware
of the problems of the past, the discomfort modern audiences feel with the mechanics
and pathways of taking, caging, and exhibiting animals, so they work to make the cages
Page 10 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
prettier, less obviously cage-like; they claim to give the animals access to all the latest
worldly pleasures.
The National Zoo’s iPad program provides a case study in how zoos depict and package
themselves, how they function as culturally savvy (but not zoologically or ecologically
savvy) institutions. The program has a catchy, appealing name, “Apps for Apes.” As
zookeeper Becky Malinsky explains, the gimmick “fits perfectly in this new era of zoo
keeping. It’s about changing up the day-to-day lives of our animals. We already vary their
food, toys and social interactions every day, but the iPad offers another way to engage
their sight, touch and hearing.” The apps include cognitive games, drawing programs,
and virtual musical instruments.
The tableau strikes me as surreal, ludicrous, and profane. Apes do not need apps; they do
not want apps; but they are given apps, courtesy of the zoo. Part of the subtextual mes
sage is, aren’t these apes lucky?! Luckier than their app-less cousins in the wild. Apes
would naturally want and enjoy everything that we want and enjoy: how could one better
honor another animal than by giving her human accessories? The logic is contorted and
anthropocentric; in the zoo, as in so much of our ecologically destabilized world, man is
the measure of all things.
Richard Zimmerman, who heads an organization called Orangutan Outreach that has pro
vided tablets for apes in twelve other zoos, says, “Primarily, we want the Apps for Apes
program to help people understand why we need to protect wild orangutans from extinc
tion. We do that when we show zoo visitors how similar humans and apes are, be it
through observation, talking with wildlife experts or seeing the apes use the same tech
nology we use every day.”
This is a non sequitur. Yes, people should be helped to understand that wild orangutans
(and millions of other species) should be protected from extinction. But it is intellectually,
ecologically, and ethically dishonest to claim that the best way to do that is by putting
iPads in their hands. Instead of learning to appreciate orangutans on their own terms,
zoos frame them in falsely human terms, and this falsity makes any ensuing environmen
tal “education” similarly false and inaccurate. The idea that we can understand animals
only when they come into our world—which is the foundational myth of (p. 407) zoos—
runs counter to the ecological imperative that we have to learn to leave these animals
alone: to leave them where they are, to stop kidnapping them and destroying their habi
tats, and to begin to appreciate and integrate the message that our cultural habits are
dangerous to them. The iPad scheme deludes us with just the opposite message: human
culture is good for animals. Imprisoned animals used to be bored in zoos (in the bad old
zoos, in the bad old days), but now we can give them iPads. Aren’t we enlightened? If we
like to waste our own days playing with iPads, we reason, why wouldn’t they? Let’s drag
them down to our level of time-wasting.
It is interesting to step back from this story (and countless other propagandistic guilt-as
suaging fairy tales about things we “give” animals in zoos and how zoos make animals
Page 11 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
happier and healthier), which, we pretend, justifies the lack of freedom and the pain we
impose on them by relegating them to zoos.
The photograph accompanying the story shows a tableau that strikes me as painfully
tragic: it shows an orangutan inside his cage sticking his hand through one small square
between the bars, tapping on the tablet that a human, outside the cage, holds. Because of
the way the image is lighted and cropped, we can’t see anything of the person besides his
hand and arm, nor can we see the ape’s face: just the outline of his body. The focus of the
photograph, the only discernible details, are the human hand, the ape hand, the iPad, and
the cage’s wires. The apes, presumably, can’t hold the iPads themselves (they are such
animals! They certainly wouldn’t treat this amazing device with the care it merits), so we
hold it up to the cage and watch while they tap on it—so proud of them, we pretend, but
really, so proud of ourselves. The photograph is supposed to be cute, surprising. Those
who patronize zoos are blind to the sadism being enacted here, and to the ludicrous mis
direction of our efforts to live equitably, sanely, and sustainably with other creatures.
Zoos, unfortunately, perpetuate misinformation, and delude us into believing that other
animals fit into our world in ways that are convenient and local and that we are managing
well. They tell us that we are interacting thoughtfully and responsibly with animals. When
we see the animals in the zoo, they appear to be ever-present and not endangered, so we
are cajoled not to worry—when what we should be doing is worrying a great deal.
Opposition to animal captivity, once widely perceived as a fringe issue, has become in
creasingly mainstream. Blackfish, about SeaWorld’s profound abuse of Orca whales,
played to large, enormously sympathetic audiences, and garnered many responses like
Nicholas Kristof’s on the New York Times op-ed page:
Orcas, also known as killer whales, are sophisticated mammals whose brains may
be more complex than our own. They belong in the open sea and seem to suffer
severe physical and mental distress when forced to live in tanks. Maybe that is
why they sometimes go berserk and attack trainers. You or I might also go nuts if
we were forced to live our lives locked up in a closet to entertain orcas. SeaWorld
denies the claims, which isn’t surprising since it earns millions from orcas. Two
centuries ago, slave owners argued that slaves enjoyed slavery … Some day, will
our descendants be mystified by how good and decent people in the early 21st
century—that’s us—could have been so oblivious to the unethical treatment of ani
mals?32
Further Reading
Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton R. Saunders. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple Uni
versity Press, 1996.
Blanchard, Pascal, ed. Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial
Empires. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008.
Page 12 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
Hancocks, David. A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain
Future. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. (p. 410)
Ritvo, Harriet. The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Malamud, Randy. An Introduction to Animals and Visual Culture. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2012.
Scully, Matthew. Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to
Mercy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Notes:
(2.) Ralph R. Acampora, (ed.), Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal Encounter after Noah
(Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010); Virginia McKenna, Will Travers, and Jonathan Wray,
(eds.), Beyond the Bars: The Zoo Dilemma (Wellingborough, Northhamptonshire: Thor
sons, 1987); Britta Jaschinski, Zoo (London: Phaidon, 1996); Randy Malamud, Reading
Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity (New York: New York University Press,
1998).
(4.) http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2013/07/zoo-industry-divided-on-cruel-practice-
of-bird-mutilation and http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2013/01/2713 (accessed July
12, 2013).
(5.) Philip Larkin, Collected Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 214.
(6.) Peter Dreier, “Remembering Barry Commoner,” Nation, October 1, 2012, http://
www.thenation.com/article/170251/remembering-barry-commoner# (accessed October 3,
2013).
(7.) This essay is reprinted in Berger’s collection About Looking (New York: Pantheon,
1980).
(8.) Irus Braverman, Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press, 2012), 8.
Page 13 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
(9.) In Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheri
dan (New York: Vintage, 1995), 99. Foucault associates Bentham’s penitentiary panopti
con design with the spatial arrangement of zoos, where the voyeur is similarly in the om
nipowerful position of all-seeing master.
(10.) Oliver Hochadel, “Darwin in the Monkey Cage: The Zoological Garden as a Medium
of Evolutionary Theory,” in Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History,
ed. Dorothee Brantz (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010), 81–107.
(11.) Quoted in Nigel Rothfels, Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 82.
(12.) Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume, Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo (New
York: St. Martin’s Press), 1992.
(15.) Koen Margodt, “Zoos as Welfare Arks? Reflections on an Ethical Course for Zoos,” in
Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal Encounters after Noah, ed. Ralph R. Acampora (New
York: Lexington, 2010), 13.
(19.) J. H. Falk, E. M. Reinhard, C. L. Vernon et al., “Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter: As
sessing the Impact of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium” (Silver Spring, MD: Association of
Zoos & Aquariums, 2007), 3. http://www.aza.org/uploadedFiles/Education/
why_zoos_matter.pdf (accessed July 17, 2013).
(20.) Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud et al., “Do Zoos and Aquariums
Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and
Aquarium Study,” Society & Animals 18, no. 2 (2010): 137. See also a response to this re
buttal in, John H. Falk, Joe E. Heimlich, Cynthia L. Vernon et al., “Critique of a Critique:
Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors?” Society & Animals 18, no.
4 (2010), 415–419; and a final word: Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud et
al., “Strong Claims, Feeble Evidence: A Rejoinder to Falk et al.,” Society & Animals 19,
no. 3 (2011), 291–293.
(21.) Leslie Kaufman, “Intriguing Habitats, and Careful Discussions of Climate Change,”
New York Times, August 26, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/earth/
zoos-and-aquariums-struggle-with-ways-to-discuss-climate-change.html?_r=1 (accessed
July 17, 2013).
Page 14 of 15
The Problem with Zoos
(25.) Stephen Spotte, Zoos in Postmodernism: Signs and Simulation (Madison, NJ: Far
leigh Dickinson University Press, 2006), 153.
(28.) Clifford Warwick, Phillip Arena, Samantha Lindley et al., “Assessing Reptile Welfare
Using Behavioural Criteria,” In Practice 35 (March 2013), 123–131, http://
inpractice.bmj.com/content/35/3/123.full.pdf+html (accessed July 17, 2013).
(29.) “Live Hard, Die Young: How Elephants Suffer in Zoos,” Royal Society for the Preven
tion of Cruelty to Animals, Horsham, West Sussex, http://www.idausa.org/wp-content/up
loads/2013/05/Satellite-1.pdf (accessed July 17, 2013).
(30.) John Jeremiah Sullivan, “One of Us,” Lapham’s Quarterly, Spring 2013, http://
www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/one-of-us.php?page=all (accessed July 17, 2013).
(31.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/national-zoo-orangutans-
use-ipads-to-amuse-themselves/2013/01/28/0d440118-6583-11e2-
b84d-21c7b65985ee_story.html (accessed July 17, 2013).
(32.) Nicholas D. Kristof, “Can We See Our Hypocrisy to Animals?” New York Times, July
27, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/opinion/sunday/can-we-see-our-hypocrisy-
to-animals.html (accessed July 28, 2013).
Randy Malamud
Randy Malamud is Chair and Regents' Professor of English at Georgia State Univer
sity
Page 15 of 15
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
A basic tool of scholarly ethics is argument analysis—the process of evaluating the sound
ness of the premises and the validity of arguments that underlie a particular ethical
claim. We apply that technique to the controversial concern about the appropriateness of
hunting wolves. Advocates of wolf hunting offer a variety of reasons that it is appropriate.
We inspect the quality of these reasons using the principles of argument analysis. Our ap
plication of this technique indicates that wolf hunting in the coterminous United States is
inappropriate. A value of argument analysis for public discourse is its transparency. If we
have misapplied the principles of argument analysis, critics will readily be able to identify
our error. While this particular application of argument analysis is contingent on details
particular to wolves and the desire to hunt them, this essay has the addition value of illus
trating one of the basic tools used in scholarly ethics.
Keywords: animal studies, animal welfare, conservation, critical thinking, environmental ethics, hunting, wolves
Introduction
THE ethics of hunting are complicated. Even ardent supporters of hunting disagree
among themselves, for example, over the appropriateness of hunting methods that maxi
mize the possibility of a clean kill (to minimize suffering) and the appropriateness of
methods that emphasize fair chase.1 A more basic ethical concern is, Under what condi
tions is hunting appropriate? That question rests, in turn, on an even more basic ques
tion, What counts as an adequate reason to kill a sentient creature? Some thoughtful peo
ple believe that hunting is generally wrong for the same reasons eating meat is wrong.
Other thoughtful people believe that hunting is morally acceptable, even virtuous, for
anyone who can reasonably conclude that eating meat is morally acceptable.2 These per
spectives offer a sense of the issues concerning the ethics of hunting such species as deer
and elk when the hunter, her family, and her friends will eat the animal being hunted.3
Page 1 of 21
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
In this chapter, we focus on the desire of some humans to hunt a variety of predators
whose flesh humans do not eat—species such as coyotes, cougars, lynx, tigers, lions, cor
morants, seals, and wolves.4 The considerations that arise in addressing such concerns
vary greatly with context, and include the particular species of predator to be hunted and
the reasons for wanting to do so. As such, we focus our assessment on the desire to hunt
wolves in the conterminous United States. Without such a focus, an assessment of the
ethics of hunting predators is limited to generalities that overlook critical specificities
that play a large role in understanding the appropriateness of hunting a predator. (p. 412)
Nevertheless, from a detailed and focused assessment such as that offered here, one can
readily anticipate the assessment of other specific cases.
We approach this assessment from the perspective of applied ethics as an academic disci
pline. The aim of applied ethics is, in large part, to understand the reasons we ought to
behave one way or another. A particularly powerful tool for such understanding involves
the analyzing of ethical arguments. An ethical argument is one whose conclusion can be
expressed in the forms We should … or We should not … . An ethical argument, like any
kind of argument, is sound and valid when all its premises are true or appropriate and
when it contains no mistaken inferences.5 We therefore describe and assess arguments
that are commonly invoked in discussions about wolf hunting.
Wolves
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, wolves lived throughout most of what is now the conter
minous United States. That population of wolves likely comprised approximately a half
million individuals.6 But by the mid-twentieth century, wolves in the conterminous United
States had been exterminated, except for a few dozen who lived in northern Minnesota.
Wolves were exterminated because too many humans hated them. This hatred was relat
ed to wolves’ killing of livestock and competing with humans for deer, elk, and moose and
was fueled by exaggerated claims about wolves’ capacity for killing and false beliefs
about the threat they pose to humans. Beginning in 1973, wolves came under the protec
tion of the Endangered Species Act. By 2012, approximately 5000 wolves inhabited the
conterminous United States, a remarkable improvement compared to their numbers in
1950, but also hardly worth noting compared to their numbers before humans began
their attempted genocide of wolves. Today, most wolves live in two populations, one in the
western Great Lakes area (northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and Upper Michi
gan) and the other in the Northern Rocky Mountain area (western Montana, western
Wyoming, and northern Idaho). But in 2012, wolves were removed from the list of US en
dangered species, except for the Mexican wolf subspecies (Canis lupus baileyi), repre
sented in the wild by a population of fewer than 60 wolves living in the desert southwest.
By 2013, all six states with established wolf populations had begun to allow wolf hunting.
The delisting and subsequent hunting of wolves has been controversial.
Humans have a tendency, for better or worse, to symbolize elements of the world in which
they live. To some, wolves are a symbol of much of what we love about nature; whereas to
Page 2 of 21
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
others wolves are a symbol of our adversarial relationship with nature. As powerful sym
bols of nature, our treatment of wolves is a critical indicator of our relationship with the
rest of nature.
The governments of five of the six states that allow wolf hunting (Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin) have begun to implement hunting plans that aim for
considerable reductions in wolf abundance. Such reductions are unlikely to threaten the
short-term risk of extinction for these populations. They are, however, likely to impair ge
netic processes and the ecosystem functions that wolves provide, and lead to social dis
ruptions in the wolf population. These effects are certainly detrimental to population
health and ecosystem health. While we have the technical ability to implement a harvest
that does not cause those harms, we appear not to have an interest to do so.
A second basic and relevant principle is that killing a sentient creature is a serious matter
because sentient creatures deserve at least some direct moral consideration. To use sim
pler language, it is wrong to kill a sentient creature without an adequate reason. This
principle is supported by robust rational considerations that have been articulated by
every scholarly and traditional perspective in environmental ethics, including animal lib
eration,7 animal rights,8 biocentrism,9 extended individualism,10 universal
consideration,11 deep ecology12 and ecocentrism.13 Sociological research also suggests
that most (at least nonsociopathic) humans attribute direct moral standing to sentient
creatures.14 This belief is also held by the hunting community itself, some of whose mem
bers have provided convincing and beautiful expressions about the seriousness of killing
a living organism.15
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
These two principles (Do not kill without an adequate reason and Can does not imply
ought) lead to the conclusion that one should refrain from wolf hunting until adequate
reason has been provided for doing so. With that inescapable burden of proof, advocates
of wolf hunting have moral obligations to provide adequate reasons for their interest and
to refrain from wolf hunting unless adequate reasons have been provided. While hunting
advocates have certainly offered reasons to hunt wolves, the question is which, (p. 414) if
any, are adequate reasons. To date, no one has detailed or analyzed the most important
arguments for why we should hunt wolves.
Argument Analysis
Before analyzing the arguments for wolf hunting, it will be valuable to review the two ba
sic steps of argument analysis.16 The first is converting a reason into a formal argument,
which requires discovering and stating all the premises that would have to be true for the
argument to have a valid logical form. The second is evaluating the truth or appropriate
ness of each premise. This second step is important because an argument is unsound if
just one premise is false or inappropriate. That an argument is unsound or invalid is not
definitive proof that a conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that the given argument fails
to justify the conclusion.
Wolves-Kill-Ungulates Argument
A common reason offered for why we should allow wolf hunting is that wolves reduce the
abundance of the ungulates that humans like to hunt.17 For the sake of pedagogy, we
transform this reason into a formal argument in several steps, with the intention of con
veying a sense of the thought process associated with converting a reason into a formal
argument. The first step in transforming this reason is to identify the conclusion (C) and
the key premise(s) (P) that characterize this reason:
The conclusion (C) does not logically follow from premise P1 alone. Additional premises
are required. In particular:
Page 4 of 21
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
Premises 1 through 4 trace the sequence of specific ecological processes that have to be
true if the conclusion is to be supported. While these premises are necessary, they are not
enough. Ethical arguments (whose conclusion can be expressed as We should …) (p. 415)
require more than premises that describe the condition of the world. Ethical arguments
must contain at least one descriptive premise (describing how the world is) and at least
one ethical premise (prescribing the basic moral obligations that pertain to the conclu
sion). An ethical argument without an ethical premise is assuredly an invalid argument.
For this argument, the relevant ethical premises are:
The argument is likely still incomplete. If we take for granted laws that require maintain
ing the population viability of wolves and a basic concern for ecosystem health,18 then
premises P2 and P3 should be revised:
P2. Wolf hunting reduces wolf abundance without compromising the health of the
wolf population or the ecosystem to which they belong.
Let us suppose this argument is sufficiently complete and that we can begin evaluating
the truth and appropriateness of each premise. Sometimes a missing premise is discov
ered during the process of evaluating the truth of premises. But bear in mind that the
conclusion of an argument is as reliable as its weakest premise. To be “very confident”
about the appropriateness of a conclusion, we have to be “very confident” about the truth
or appropriateness of each premise.
Premise 1. Asking an ecologist how predation affects prey abundance is not unlike ask
ing a physicist how gravity works. Predation is complicated and has been a focus of ecolo
gists’ attention for a century. While much is known, much remains unknown. Because eco
logical phenomena, in general, are the complicated result of many interacting causes, iso
lating the effect of a single cause in real ecosystems is notoriously difficult.
With those limitations, the best available science indicates that P1 is sometime true and
sometimes not true.19 Ecologists are also unable to reliably predict when or under what
circumstances P1 would be true.20 Ecologists cannot even always agree on whether
wolves caused an ungulate population to decline, even after the decline has occurred and
the circumstances surrounding it have been well-documented.21
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
Finally, trends in ungulate abundance suggest that P1 is wrong. For example, across the
Northern Rockies, some elk populations have increased and others have declined. That
kind of variation is normal and occurs regardless of wolves. Notwithstanding those varia
tions, elk numbers across the region appear to have increased by about 16 percent
(p. 416) during the period 1994–2012, which is when most of the increase in wolf abun
dance occurred.22 In Wisconsin, deer abundance tended to increase throughout the past
two decades23 and remains greater than target levels established by the Wisconsin De
partment of Natural Resources, which measures the detrimental impact of deer over
abundance.24 In Upper Michigan, deer abundance tended to decline in the first decade of
the twenty-first century. However, that trend appears to be the result of a pattern that has
existed for at least the past 50 years, whereby each year’s deer abundance is largely in
fluenced by the intensity of logging during that year.25
Premise 2. The effect of hunting on wolf abundance depends on the rate of hunting (i.e.,
proportion of wolves hunted each year). Low rates are unlikely to reduce abundance, and
high rates are likely to do so. The effect of intermediate rates on abundance is very uncer
tain.26 If reducing abundance were the only concern of P2, then one could be reasonably
confident about the truth of that premise by revising it: “High rates of hunting will reduce
wolf abundance.”
However, the concern is that P2 requires satisfying three requirements: reduce abun
dance and, at the same time, maintain population health and maintain ecosystem health.
A low rate of hunting would maintain population health and ecosystem health, but would
not reduce abundance; a high rate would reduce abundance, but risk population health
and ecosystem health, depending on how the terms “population health” and “ecosystem
health” are defined.
If population health includes such elements as social structure and dispersal, then rates
of hunting that reduce abundance would likely harm population health. If population
health entails only the legal requirement to avoid relisting wolves under the Endangered
Species Act, then moderately high rates of harvest for some period of time are unlikely to
harm population health.27
Wolves contribute to ecosystem health by affecting the abundance of prey; age structure
of prey populations; evolutionary pressures on prey populations; and behaviors of prey,
such as when, where, and how they feed on vegetation. The most plausible assumption is
that wolves fulfill their ecosystem functions when wolf abundance is determined primarily
by the abundance and condition of prey, and not by rates of hunting by humans.
Page 6 of 21
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
concern of this argument. Hunter success can be measured in a variety of ways. The two
most important measures are the proportion of successful hunters and the total number
of successful hunters. However success is measured, the truth of P4 is doubtful. For ex
ample, the number of successful elk hunters and the percentage of elk hunters who were
successful in the Northern Rockies did not decline during the period 1994–2008, which is
the time when wolf abundance increased the most.31 While it is appropriate to expect re
ductions in hunter success in the presence of a wolf population,32 this appears not to have
been the circumstance.
More generally, hunter success is affected by not only ungulate abundance but also ungu
late behavior and the skill and behavior of hunters. The presence of relatively few wolves
on the landscape may result in behavioral changes that affect hunters’ success.33 As such,
maintaining hunters’ success (or hunters’ perceptions of success) through reductions in
wolf abundance could easily require reducing wolf abundance to levels that are preclud
ed by federal policy.34 P4 also raises concerns about how high hunter success ought to be,
and about the responsibility hunters have for changing behaviors and improving their
skills to maintain their chances of success. We address these concerns below.
Additionally, one could grant the truth of P1 through P4 and consider the appropriateness
of P6 directly. To do so, suppose, at least momentarily, that the welfare of a human is
more important than the welfare of a non-human mammal. And also recognize that eating
wild ungulates is a vital need for wolves and a non-vital interest for humans who hunt un
gulates in the conterminous United States. Given those considerations, judging the appro
priateness of P6 depends on judging whether the vital need of a non-human outweighs
the non-vital interest of a human. In some cases, that judgment could be difficult. Passing
judgment in this case, however, seems straightforward after the following are recognized:
(1) no one is asking hunters to give up hunting; they are only being asked to share ungu
lates with wolves; and (2) today’s wolf population comprises only approximately 2 percent
of the wolves who would have inhabited the conterminous United States at the time when
humans began their attempted genocide against wolves.
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
Aside from those perspectives, there might be occasion for entertaining spirited debate
over the appropriateness of P6 if all the other premises of the argument were certainly
true. But this is not the case. Moreover, because P6 is an ethical premise, not a sociologi
cal premise, its appropriateness does not depend simply on majority opinion. Majority
views are sometimes indicative of that which is moral, and other times not.36
While wolf hunting is an ethical concern, it is no minor insight to recognize that the
greatest weaknesses of this argument are not its ethical premises but its scientific
(p. 418) premises. This circumstance is likely more common than is generally appreciated
and is certainly characteristic of other interests to kill predators, such as cormorants and
seals.37
Another important reason offered for allowing wolf hunting is that hunting them would
promote wolf conservation. The formal argument associated with this reason is:
P1. Wolf conservation requires that a critical minimum number of citizens have
positive attitudes about and behaviors toward wolves.
P2. Wolf hunting would positively affect attitudes and behaviors of many who hate
wolves.
This general argument represents two distinct, but related, arguments. One version is
particular to citizens’ attitudes, and the other version is particular to behaviors. The be
havioral version of the argument is:
P1. Wolf conservation requires that a critical minimum number of citizens behave
favorably toward wolves, especially by not killing them.
P2. To allow wolf hunting would prevent an otherwise inevitable public backlash
against wolves that would result in higher rates of poaching and loss of political
support that would threaten the viability of wolf populations.
In this behavioral argument, P1, P3, and P4 are appropriate and uncontroversial. More
over, poaching is a potentially serious concern and should be guarded against, but there
is no evidence to suggest that poaching has prevented wolf populations from expanding
Page 8 of 21
Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
in the western Great Lakes or Northern Rockies. If poaching were not an actual threat,
then the need for hunting, as supposed by this argument, would seem absent.
Moreover, the best available science suggests that provisions for killing wolves do not
tend to promote tolerance for wolves. In particular, a recent review found no evidence for
the claim that allowing higher quotas of legal harvest resulted in reduced rates of poach
ing.38 Also, attitudes tended to be more negative during a period of time when (p. 419) le
gal lethal control had been allowed than when wolves had been fully protected.39
Moreover, preliminary results from a study commissioned by the US Fish and Wildlife
Service fails to support this contention.40 Deep-rooted social identity is likely the most im
portant determinant of attitudes about wolves,41 not allowances for killing them.
In addition to those empirical problems, this argument is also ethically deficient. Poach
ing is a wrong, not only because of its potential to threaten population viability, but also
because it can be a wrong against the individual who was killed. Many instances of wolf
poaching, in particular, are wrong because they are primarily motivated by a hatred of
wolves. These instances of poaching qualify as wrongful deaths, if not hate crimes. To le
galize such killing does not make them any less wrong. Moreover, people who threaten to
poach wolves unless wolf killing is legalized42 are engaging in a kind of ecological black
mail by threatening harm against individual organisms and ecosystems unless their de
mands to kill are met. People who advocate for this argument, even without an interest in
killing wolves themselves, unwittingly abet this blackmail. If poaching is wrong because it
represents an adequate reason to kill, then it is not made right simply by legalizing the
killing of wolves. That would be analogous to solving the problem of illegal payments for
sex by legalizing prostitution.
P1. Wolf conservation requires a critical mass of people who respect wolves.
P3. Many people who do not respect wolves desire to hunt them.
In this argument, C1 is a conclusion rising from P1 through P4. C1 then serves as the first
premise in an argument that also includes P5, P6, P7, and C2.
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
For a hater, P4 could possibly be true in rare and particular circumstances. That is, ha
tred is sometimes dissolved when the hater becomes familiar with his victim, and hunting
provides an opportunity to become familiar with the victim. However, if P4 were common
ly true, killing would be a commonly prescribed therapy for unjustified hatred. It is not.
Finally, sociological evidence also suggests that P4 is false.43
Another concern with this argument is that the truth of P2 is impossible to evaluate. No
one knows how many people represent a critical mass or how the critical mass is affected
by the intensity of hatred among wolf haters. Nevertheless, concern for the truth of P2
cannot be completely dismissed. For example, the proportion of people reporting negative
attitudes about wolves has increased in at least one area.44 However, attitudes are a noto
riously poor predictor of how people will behave, especially when the behavior in ques
tion, that is poaching requires nontrivial effort and is accompanied by the risk of consid
erable punishment.
There is also reason to think that the truth of P2 is unlikely. In particular, if intolerance is
judged by the act of poaching, rather than by attitudes that are verbally expressed in sur
veys,45 then there are reasons to believe intolerance will decline. This intolerance is
caused by the risk that some perceive in wolves. Considerable evidence suggests that
perceived risk tends to decline as humans become increasingly familiar with the source of
the perceived risk.46 Also, wolf intolerance is likely not distinct from other irrational intol
erances (such as racism or sexism). That is, no one expects individual wolf haters to
change their attitudes. Instead, over time their behaviors become less tolerated, and their
attitudes become less common as the people holding them pass away. To paraphrase Mar
tin Luther King, the long arc of history bends toward justice. The strength of this argu
ment might be difficult to evaluate if P2 were the only weakness. It is not. P2 only adds to
the argument’s weakness.
Finally, P7 is worth highlighting. Its truth should not be taken for granted. This premise
represents an increasingly important and unresolved conflict between two of the greatest
ethical developments of the twentieth century, conservation ethics and animal welfare
ethics. Some ardent advocates of wolf hunting tend to be hostile to justified concerns for
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
animal welfare.47 Other advocates of wolf hunting are sensitive to the value of conserva
tion. The conservation tradition and its profession tends not to be very sensitive to or
adept at handling this conflict.48 Feeling comfortable with this argument would require
that someone explain the appropriateness of P7. That explanation has not yet been made.
Another important reason offered for why wolf hunting should be allowed is:
(p. 421) P3. It is wrong to kill a living creature without an adequate reason.
If the honorable tradition of hunting is different from attempted genocide, then wolf hunt
ing is not a tradition in the conterminous United States. No one alive today has ever spo
ken to a person who has hunted a wolf in the conterminous United States, except as part
of a nearly successful program to exterminate wolves. Even if wolf hunting were a tradi
tion, so also were slavery, child labor, and denying women the right to vote. Defending the
morality of a behavior on grounds that it is tradition is so widely known to be fallacious
that logicians have memorialized this particular kind of logical fallacy by naming it argu
mentum ad antiquitatem.
P1. Wolf hunting is valuable because the wolf pelt that comes with killing a wolf
has value as a trophy or an economic commodity.
A trophy is a kind of prize, memento, or symbol of some kind of success. To kill a sentient
creature for the purpose of using his body or part of it as a trophy is essentially killing for
fun or as a celebration of violence. And, although there was once a time when trapping
wolves for their pelts might have been a respectable means of making a living because
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
wolf pelts were then a reasonable way to make warm clothing, we no longer live in that
time.
Some argue that we should allow wolf hunting because reducing the wolf population will
reduce the threat to human safety. Arguments to this effect depend on a premise like
“wolves threaten human safety.” These arguments crumble because such premises are al
most universally false. Many who do not like wolves grossly exaggerate the threat that
wolves represent to human safety. In the very rare instances when human safety is threat
ened, that problem needs to be dealt with immediately, thoroughly, and precisely. Wolf
hunting has none of those properties. For example, if a particular wolf threatens human
safety in say, July, the problem cannot wait until the upcoming hunting season (p. 422) in
the hope that some hunter will have the “good fortune” to kill the offending wolf. The in
appropriateness of the argument underlying this reason has been discussed in detail else
where.51
Some assert that we should allow wolf hunting because reducing the wolf population will
reduce the threat that wolves pose to livestock. The challenges of raising livestock should
be of concern to anyone who eats meat. Nevertheless, several considerations suggest that
protection of livestock is a poor reason to hunt wolves. First, the loss of livestock to
wolves is absolutely trivial from an industry-wide perspective.52 Where losses occur, non-
lethal methods are feasible and in many cases effective in reducing or eliminating live
stock losses.53 From the perspective of an individual owner, livestock losses and the cost
of non-lethal control can be non-trivial. Nevertheless, as a wealthy nation, we are more
than capable of meeting those costs in a fair manner. Finally, the prevention of livestock
losses requires addressing the particular wolf associated with the problem and address
ing that wolf at the particular location and time of those problems. A general recreational
hunt is not an appropriate tool for dealing with such a specific problem and could even
exacerbate it.54 There are sensible ways to deal with livestock losses, but wolf hunting is
not one of them.55
Finally, some assert that we should allow wolf hunting because hunting them is necessary
to prevent wolves from growing “out of control.” “Out of control” is sometimes a eu
phemism for the idea that wolves can create challenges for some humans who live in ar
eas also inhabited by wolves (e.g., killing livestock). “Out of control” is also sometimes a
euphemism for an obsession with “controlling” nature, not to achieve any other objective,
but as an end in itself. That obsession represents a pathological relationship with nature;
it lies at the core of many conservation problems, and it should be resisted.56 Satisfying
that obsession incurs an ethical cost in addition to the ethical cost of killing a sentient
creature.
Each of these three reasons for hunting wolves deserve more attention than we are able
to provide here. There would be value in building and analyzing the arguments associated
with each reason. While space limitations preclude our providing such a treatment here,
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
we have nevertheless contributed the basic elements that would go into building those ar
guments.
Conclusion
The details associated with killing predators vary considerably with the species of preda
tor, reasons for wanting to kill, and sociological and ecological contexts surrounding any
particular interest to kill. The analysis presented here required careful attention to those
details as they pertain to hunting wolves in the conterminous United States. Despite the
importance of details, the basic themes associated with hunting any predator would be
similar to those presented here.
Because wolves (and other predators) are living creatures, the morality of killing wolves
(and other predators) depends on being able to provide a good reason to do so. (p. 423)
The analyses presented here and elsewhere57 suggest that good reasons have not been
offered. The results of argument analyses are like the results that emerge from the scien
tific process; they are never definitive. They are always provisional in the sense that it
may be conceivable that someone, at some time in the future, will provide a good reason
to hunt wolves. Until that time, however, one would be logically bound to the conclusion
that wolf hunting in the conterminous United States is wrong.58
This conclusion may raise the question, Who gets to judge what counts as a good reason?
That question is misplaced. In a free society, every citizen is free to judge what counts as
a good reason. The critical question is not who gets to judge, but rather, By what rules
and standards is one obligated in judging what counts as a good reason? The rule and
standard is that reasoning be sound and valid; that is, a conclusion must be supported by
an argument with no mistaken premises or missing premises (i.e., without gaps in logic).
This standard emerges directly from basic principles of justice. Justice is widely under
stood to depend on an idea that can be expressed as a thought experiment whereby the
members of a society are required to agree on the principles of governance and social in
teractions before anyone knows their position in society (i.e., their wealth, abilities, aes
thetic preferences, etc.).59 One of the required principles to emerge from such a process
would certainly be that social decision-making should be based on sound and valid rea
soning.
Sound and valid reasoning is not a silver bullet. Argument analysis can be manipulated by
those more concerned with winning political disputes than understanding what is good or
right. Some premises are difficult to discover, and others are difficult to evaluate. Sound
and valid reasoning does not completely clear all the fog associated with judging the ap
propriateness of normative premises. A number of controversies are genuinely pernicious
and not easily solved (though, as we show here, hunting wolves is not one of them). Con
sequently, argument analysis is not sufficient, but it is an absolutely necessary feature of
a just democracy.
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
Some may react with concern, thinking that the majority of citizens are not capable of en
gaging in argument analysis. Almost certainly, this is true. Nevertheless, one should at
least expect government technocrats working on such problems in the interests of citi
zens to have this capacity. Sadly, a large portion of these technocrats does not possess
this capacity. What exactly is the capacity of which we speak? In this analysis, we have
only applied some basic facts60 to some basic principles covered in every critical-thinking
textbook that has ever been published.61 Anyone graduating with a bachelor’s degree
should be expected to have a rudimentary capacity for sound and valid reasoning. Howev
er, the nature of the public discourse about wolf hunting, predator control, and dozens of
other controversial issues clearly indicates that we do not have this capacity. This inca
pacity may be the greatest failure of university professors and administrators.
Although a citizenry can become capable of sound and valid reasoning at a rudimentary
level, this kind of reasoning is nevertheless genuinely challenging. Consequently, most of
us are content with our intuitions about what is right and wrong for many particular cas
es, and we live according to such intuitions. Intuitive moral reasoning is fine (p. 424) and
normal, so long as one bears in mind that one’s confidence about such intuitions as they
apply to complicated issues should correspond to the degree to which one has studied
that judgment with the rigors of sound and valid reasoning.
Further Reading
For an accessible overview of the importance of top carnivores to ecosystem health,
Cristina Eisenberg, The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodi
versity (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011). For an overview of wolf ecology, L. D. Mech
and L. Boitani, (eds.), Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2007).
For an overview of wolf conservation in the United States, Martin A. Nie, Beyond Wolves:
The Politics of Wolf Recovery and Management (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2003).
For a broad and accessible overview of argument analysis, Peg Tittle, Critical Thinking:
An Appeal to Reason (New York: Routledge, 2011). For an overview of basic themes in en
vironmental ethics, Paul Pojman and Louis Pojman, (eds), Environmental Ethics: Readings
in Theory and Application (Andover, MA: Cengage Learning, 2011). (p. 430)
Notes:
(1.) The conflict between those two principles, for example, underlies concerns about the
appropriateness of bow hunting and hunting over bait piles.
(2.) Reasons for being vegetarian or vegan are varied. Moreover, a person might conclude
that eating meat is appropriate in some circumstances but not others. For example, a per
son might think eating meat is wrong in general but acceptable for Native Alaskan Inuits,
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
whose welfare would seem to depend on eating animal flesh. While that kind of complexi
ty is important, it does not obviate the central point, which is a demand to confront the
question, What counts as an adequate reason to kill a sentient creature? The hunting
community has long recognized the value of this question for understanding the condi
tions under which various kinds of hunting is appropriate. See also Tovar Cerulli, The
Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance (New York: Pegasus, 2012); Lily
R. McCaulou, Call of the Mild: Learning to Hunt My Own Dinner (New York: Grand Cen
tral Publishing, 2012).
(3.) For a more detailed accounts of these issues, see David Peterson, (ed.), A Hunter’s
Heart: Honest Essays on Blood Sport (New York: Holt, 1997); Jim Posewitz, Beyond Fair
Chase: The Ethics and Tradition of Hunting (Helena, MT: Falcon, 2002); Jose Ortega y
Gassett, Meditations on Hunting (Belgrade, MT: Wilderness Adventures Press, 2007);
Nathan Kowalsky, Hunting—Philosophy for Everyone: In Search of the Wild Life. (Oxford,
UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); Allen Jones, A Quiet Place of Violence: Hunting and Ethics in
the Missouri River Breaks (Bozeman, MT: Bangtail, 2012).
(4.) “Hunting” is not the best term to describe the relationship between humans and
some of these creatures. For example, the relationship with seals in the North Atlantic is
better described as “predator control,” because the primary purpose of killing seals is to
reduce their abundance in order to increase the abundance of their prey, which are fish
that humans harvest. The relationship with wolves in the conterminous United States be
tween 1850 and 1950 might be best described as “attempted genocide,” since the goal
had been complete extermination. Moreover, in many cases, predators are killed by trap
ping, rather than by shooting. While the above-mentioned distinctions are critically im
portant, our main interest is in the basic question, What counts as a good reason to kill a
sentient creature? So, despite its shortcomings, we use the term “hunting” to refer to all
of these relationships.
(5.) Irving M. Copi, Carl Cohen, and Kenneth McMahon, Introduction to Logic, 14th edi
tion (New York: Pearson, 2010).
(6.) J. A. Leonard, C. Vila, and R. K. Wayne, “Legacy Lost: Genetic Variability and Popula
tion Size of Extirpated US Grey Wolves (Canis Lupus),” Molecular Ecology 14 (2005): 9–
17.
(7.) Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edition, Modern Classics (New York: Harper
Perennial, 1990).
(8.) Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983).
(9.) P. W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986).
(10.) Lawrence. E Johnson, A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and
Environmental Ethics (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
(12.) Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univer
sity Press, 1989).
(13.) J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); J. Baird Callicott, Beyond the Land
Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1999); Holmes Rolston, Conserving Natural Value (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994).
(14.) For example, S. Kellert, “The Biological Basis for Human Values of Nature,” in The
Biophilia Hypothesis, ed. S. R. Kellert and E. O. Wilson (Washington, DC: Island Press,
1993), 42–69; R. E. Manning, “Social Climate Change: A Sociology of Environmental Phi
losophy,” in Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground, ed. B. A. Minteer and
R. E. Manning (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003), 207–222.
(15.) For example, Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game (New York:
Scribners, 1973); David Peterson, (ed.), A Hunter’s Heart: Honest Essays on Blood Sport
(New York: Holt, 1997); Gassett, Meditations on Hunting.
(16.) John A. Vucetich and Michael P. Nelson, A Handbook of Conservation and Sustain
ability Ethics. CEG Occasional Paper Series, issue 1, 2012, www.conservationethics.org
(accessed July 15, 2013). This document also provides an accessible overview of the appli
cation of argument analysis to conservation. See also Michael P. Nelson and John
Vucetich, “Environmental Ethics for Wildlife Management,” in Human Dimensions of
Wildlife Management, ed., D. J. Decker, Shawn J. Riley, William Siemer et al. (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 223–237.
(17.) “Ungulate” is a general term that includes species like deer, elk, moose, caribou,
and bison.
(18.) In some cases, a concern may be that a law or policy is unjust and immoral. If so,
then it would be inappropriate to take such laws or policies for granted. Instead, there
may be a need to develop an argument to assess whether the law or policy is appropriate.
Whether such issues should be taken for granted or demonstrated depends largely on the
judgment of the humans with an interest in the issue surrounding the argument.
(19.) For example, C. C. Wilmers, E. Post, R. O. Peterson et al., “Predator Disease Out-
break Modulates Top-down, Bottom-up and Climatic Effects on Herbivore Population Dy
namics,” Ecology Letters 9 (2006): 383–389.
(20.) Oswald J. Schmitz, Resolving Ecosystem Complexity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni
versity Press, 2010).
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
(22.) Anonymous, “Wolves by the Numbers,” Bugle, Sept./Oct. 2009, p. 84, http://
switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/mskoglund/elk%20numbers.pdf (accessed July 7, 2013).
(23.) 1990–2012, the period of time when wolf abundance increased from approximately
30 wolves to approximately 800 wolves.
(24.) Deer Population Goals, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 2013, http://
dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/popgoal.html (accessed July 15, 2013).
(26.) John A. Vucetich, “The Influence of Anthropogenic Mortality on Wolf Population Dy
namics with Special Reference to Creel And Rotella (2010) and Gude et al. (2011),” in “Fi
nal Peer Review of Four Documents Amending and Clarifying the Wyoming Gray Wolf
Management Plan,” United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 2012, pp. 78–95, http://
www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/
WY_Wolf_Peer_Review_of_Revised_Statutes_and_Plan_Addendumt2012_0508.pdf
(accessed July 15, 2013). http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/.
(27.) Each state government is legally required, under policies set in accordance with the
US Endangered Species Act (1973), to maintain a minimum number of wolves. For exam
ple, Wisconsin has approximately 800 wolves but may be legally obligated to have only on
the order of 100 wolves. The state of Wisconsin has for some time said that it will aim to
have 350 wolves. “Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan,” Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources., 1999, http://dnr.wi.gov/files/PDF/pubs/ER/ER0099.pdf) (accessed July 15,
2013).
(28.) See, for example, B. Miller, B. Dugelby, D. Foreman et al., “The Importance of Large
Carnivores to Healthy Ecosystems, Endangered Species UPDATE 18 (2001): 202–210; R.
L. Beschta and W. J. Ripple, “Large Predators and Trophic Cascades in Terrestrial Ecosys
tems of the Western United States,” Biological Conservation 142 (2009): 2401–2414; J. A.
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
(29.) J. Vucetich, D. W. Smith, and D. R. Stahler, “Influence of Harvest, Climate, and Wolf
Predation on Yellowstone Elk, 1961–2004,” Oikos 111 (2005): 259–270.
(31.) Anonymous, “Wolves by the Numbers,”. Bugle, Sept/Oct. 2009, p. 83, http://
switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/mskoglund/elk%20numbers.pdf (accessed July 7, 2013). See
also Steven Hazen, “The Impact of Wolves on Elk Hunting in Montana” (MS thesis, Mon
tana State University, 2012).
(33.) J. A. Winnie, “Predation Risk, Elk, and Aspen: Tests of a Behaviorally Mediated
Trophic Cascade in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” Ecology 93 (2012): 2600–2614.
(34.) Failure to recognize these principles is a particularly weak aspect of the rationale
for hunting wolves as stated in Vucetich, “Influence of Anthropogenic Mortality,’ 2012.
(35.) This circumstance (i.e., killing with little or no chance of realizing the intended out
come of that killing) characterizes many efforts to restore ecosystems that have been af
fected by exotic and invasive species; see, for example, J. H. Myers, D. Simberloff, A. M.
Kuris et al., “Eradication Revisited: Dealing with Exotic Species,” Trends in Ecology &
Evolution 15 (2000): 316–320; J. Vucetich and M. P. Nelson, “What Are 60 Warblers
Worth? Killing in the Name of Conservation,” Oikos 116 (2007): 1267–1278; D. K. Rosen
berg, D. G. Vesely, and J. A. Gervais, “Maximizing Endangered Species Research,” Science
337 (2012): 799.
(36.) When the majority do not believe what can reasonably be shown to be ethical, there
is a problem. But that problem is not so much an ethical problem (in the sense of not
knowing how we ought to behave) but is instead a behavioral problem, whereby the chal
lenge is to behave as we know we ought to. This perspective does not address the more
complicated concern of who has the privilege of judging what counts as a “reasonable”
explanation. Although standards exist for making such judgments, discussion of those
standards is beyond the scope of this chapter. See, for example, John Rawls, A Theory of
Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971); Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
(38.) H. Andrén, J. D. C. Linnell, O. Liberg et al., “Survival Rates and Causes of Mortality
in Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx) in Multi-use Landscapes,” Biological Conservation 131
(2006): 23–32; A. Treves, “Hunting for Large Carnivore Conservation,” Journal of Applied
Ecology 46 (2009): 1350–1356.
(41.) L. Naughton-Treves, R. Grossberg, and A. Treves, “Paying for Tolerance: Rural Citi
zens’ Attitudes toward Wolf Depredation and Compensation,” Conservation Biology 17
(2003): 1500–1511.
(42.) For example, in 2005, “a federal judge struck down a Bush administration rule that
lowered Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for wolves that are migrating out of
strongholds in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes into neighboring states … Sharon
Beck, an Eastern Oregon rancher and former president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Associ
ation, said the ruling leaves ranchers little recourse but to break the law—known around
the West as ʻshoot, shovel and shut upʼ—when wolves move into their areas.” See J.
Barnard, “Ruling Halts Downgraded Wolf Protections,” Associated Press, February 9,
2005, www.propertyrightsresearch.org/2005/articles02/
ruling_halts_downgraded_wolf_pro.htm (accessed July 15, 2013).
(43.) A. Treves and K. A. Martin, “Hunters as Stewards of Wolves in Wisconsin and the
Northern Rocky Mountains, USA,” Society and Natural Resources 24 (2011): 984–994.
(45.) Such as the survey described in Treves et al., “Longitudinal Analysis,” 315–323.
(46.) L. Sjoberg, “Factors in Risk Perception,” Risk Analysis 20 (2000): 1–11; P. Slovic,
“Perception of Risk: Reflections on the Psychometric Paradigm,” in Social Theories of
Risk, ed. S. Krimsky and D. Golding (New York: Praeger, 1992), 117–152.
(48.) Vucetich, “What Are 60 Warblers Worth?” 1267–1278; J. Vucetich and M. P. Nelson,
“The Infirm Ethical Foundations of Conservation,” in Ignoring Nature No More: The Case
for Compassionate Conservation, ed. Marc Bekoff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
2013), 9–26; C. Draper and M. Bekoff, “Animal Welfare and the Importance of Compas
sionate Conservation: A Comment on Mcmahon et al. (2012),” Biological Conservation
158 (2013): 422–423.
(49.) American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).
(50.) Hunting has other incidental values, such as providing an opportunity to spend time
outdoors and better understand nature. Not only are these values incidental, they can al
so be accomplished without killing.
(52.) Wolves account for 0.2% of all causes of premature death in cattle. The most com
mon causes are various kinds of health issues, many of which could be mitigated by bet
ter husbandry. About twice as many cattle are stolen each year than are killed by wolves.
Even among mammalian carnivores, wolves only account for 2% of kills (domestic dogs
account for 12%). See “Cattle Death Losses” (report by the United States Department of
Agriculture, May 12, 2011), http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CattDeath/
(accessed July 15, 2013). CattDeath-05-12-2011.pdf.
(53.) E. Bangs, M. Jimenez, C. Niemeyer et al., “Non-lethal and Lethal Tools to Manage
Wolf-Livestock Conflict in the Northwestern United States,” in Proceedings of the 22nd
Vertebrate Pest Conference, ed. R.M. Timm and J.M. O’Brien (Davis: University of Califor
nia Davis, 2006), 7–16, also available at www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/publi
cations/06pubs/shivik067.pdf.
(54.) For details, see Vucetich, “Using Basic Principles.” Moreover, harvesting could exac
erbate losses to livestock. This concern rises, in part, from the likely effect that a harvest
will increase the number of dispersing wolves in areas where livestock are raised. Dis
persing wolves that have not been acculturated to living in areas with livestock may be
more likely to kill livestock. See E. E. Bangs and J. Shivik, “Managing Wolf Conflict with
Livestock in the Northwestern United States,” Carnivore Damage Prevention News 3
(2001): 2–5; A. Treves and L. Naughton-Treves, “Evaluating Lethal Control in the Man
agement of Human-Wildlife Conflict,” in People and Wildlife: Conflict or Coexistence? ed.
R. Woodroffe, S. Thirgood, and A. Rabinowitz (London: Cambridge University, 2005), 86–
106.
(55.) In some cases, lethal control is the most effective way to stop livestock losses.
Lethal control is different from hunting and refers to the targeted killing a particular wolf
at the particular time and place associated with a problem. Evaluating the appropriate
ness of lethal control requires the analysis of different arguments. Important questions in
evaluating lethal control include, Have alterative methods for solving the problem been
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Wolf Hunting and the Ethics of Predator Control
tried and shown to have failed? Is the problem being caused serious enough to merit the
use of lethal control?
(58.) To reiterate, we are not saying that lethal control of wolves is never appropriate.
See footnote 18.
(59.) Various expressions of this idea exist, including the “veil of ignorance”; see John
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971) and “the impartial spec
tator” (Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (New York: Empire, 1759/2011). Impar
tiality was also central to Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. For an accessible treatment of
these ideas, see Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2009).
(60.) None of the premises in the preceding arguments are overly complicated or particu
larly difficult to evaluate.
(61.) See, for example, Irving M. Copi, Carl Cohen, and Kenneth McMahon, Introduction
to Logic, 14th edition (New York: Pearson, 2010).
John Vucetich
Michael P. Nelson
Michael P. Nelson is Ruth H. Spaniol Chair of Renewable Resources and Lead Princi
pal Investigator for the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest at Oregon State University;
and Senior Fellow with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written
Word.
Page 21 of 21
Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
Contemporary art has entered a stage where the animal has been degraded to the status
of mere artistic material. Dehumanization, sensationalism, and the provision of moral cov
er by powerful art institutions are the three components of the culture of contemporary
art ensuring that the moral considerability of the animal merits little serious discussion.
The views of those concerned with animal welfare are pitted against those who see free
dom of artistic expression as untouchable. The result is a sterile debate between polar
ized and irreconcilable positions. Cultural norms are changing and will likely result in
changes in the culture of contemporary art. While formal censorship approaches are un
likely to be either acceptable or effective, there are opportunities for institutional
changes that give the ethics of artists’ use and misuse of animals a seat at the table in the
mainstream art world.
Keywords: animal studies, animals, contemporary art, ethics, moral considerability, censorship, freedom of artistic
expression, dehumanization, sensationalism
Introduction
Who more aggressive than the artist when he shatters our habits of eye and ear as
a means to violate our minds?
(Jacques Barzun1)
IN 2001, Canadian student Jesse Powers and two classmates captured a stray cat, tor
tured the cat, skinned him alive, and decapitated him—all activities captured on a film
presented to the students’ art class at the Ontario College for Art and Design in Toronto.
The stated artistic purpose was to call attention to hypocrisy and greed in the general
public.2 This episode is one of the most graphic illustrations of the state (and status) of
the animal in contemporary art. Over the ages, the animal in artistic expression has tran
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
sitioned from creature of fascination and fear to deity to curiosity to decorative object to
primary subject and, in its contemporary incarnation, to a final degradation as no more
than artistic material. This final degradation is well captured in the inclusion of the ani
mal as one of the materials that Richard Serra uses with disdain:
I was using paint with a certain disdain, with the attitude that any material was as
good as any other material. And once you find that you’re not using paint for its il
lusionistic capabilities or its color refraction but as a material that happens to be
“red,” you can use any material as equally relevant. I started using a whole load of
materials. I was living in Fiesole outside of Florence at the time and I started us
ing everything that was in the parameters of my surroundings; sticks and stones
and hides. I did a whole show of 22 live and stuffed animals.3
the hands of contemporary artists. The use of the animal in this way is ubiquitous and
most often passes unremarked. Even when mounted in the context of animal-centric con
ferences or events, exhibits of “animal art” routinely display works consisting of animal
parts or taxidermied animals—most of which can be viewed while people are eating their
politically correct vegan lunch.
In this chapter I review some of the current practices in the use of the animal in contem
porary art and the controversies raised about the practice. I use a selection of examples
to provide an overall picture of the range of forms and content for which contemporary
artists utilize animals. I then briefly address the ethical questions that such practices
raise. Is it ethical to imprison or kill for art? Can such a question even be reasonably ad
dressed, let alone answered? More importantly, I examine what drives artists to engage in
such practices and the interplay between the art world and those concerned with animal
welfare. I propose suggestions for how the issues raised might reasonably start to be ad
dressed. Throughout this chapter, I am concerned only with the use of the physical animal
—dead or alive. I will not address questions related to animal representation except
where directly related to the use of the physical animal or to the ethical arguments being
raised.
tertain while hiding under the mantle of science education. More explicitly, decorative
and artistic are hunting trophies that both glorify the hunt as a human victory over the
beast and indulge our propensity to collect and display.
The use of taxidermied animals more explicitly as art that belongs in the gallery and in
the mainstream art world is a recent phenomenon. Aloi traces the first appearance of
taxidermy in the gallery space to a Robert Rauschenberg exhibit in 1955–1959.6 Since
then, the use of taxidermy as a purely artistic form (what one might call high art) has
grown, with the taxidermied animal presented no longer as subject but rather as the
artistic material through which a wider commentary is being made. Artists using (p. 435)
taxidermied specimens are too numerous to list comprehensively in this chapter. A few
examples will serve to show the breadth of artistic approaches and illustrate how these
artworks engage with societal questions.
In nanoq: flat out and bluesome, Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson brought to
gether the taxidermied specimens of 34 polar bears and combined these with images and
documentation to construct a cultural history of these specimens. Their commentary on
the complex and evolving place of these animals in our culture—from hunting trophy to
symbol of climate change—brings into sharp relief the fact that, in cultural terms, the life
of these animals only started with their death, which is the point at which the animal was
transformed into cultural specimen. In using taxidermy to produce hybrid animals,
Thomas Grünfeld continues a long artistic tradition of constructing fantastical, surreal
creatures—an approach also used in some of the taxidermy-based sculptures of Korean
artist Myeongbeom Kim. Our emotional reaction to these contemporary chimeras differs
significantly from how we might react to the wide variety of hybrid and unreal creatures
produced by many cultures in previous centuries. This may be a result of our changing
sensibility to the animal and our contemporary obsession with the scientifically factual
over the imagined and the fantastic—an attitude that easily slips into a moral righteous
ness over some supposedly correct or faithful way that we should be representing ani
mals today—whether in the visual arts, in film, in literature, or in any other form of artis
tic expression.
Some artists use taxidermied specimens not as sculptures in their own right but rather as
props to construct tableaux vivants—cinematographic scenes that are then photographed
to produce the final artwork. Karen Knorr photographs taxidermied animals placed in op
ulent human surroundings that make us realize, through jarring juxtaposition, just how
separate our own world has become from that of the animal. On the other hand, Amy
Stein, in her series Domesticated, uses taxidermied animals to construct scenes of human
interaction with the animals. Images are so realistic that many viewers fail to realize the
nature of the artifice. In Howl, “A coyote howls helplessly at an overbearingly bright
street lamp. The coyote looks incongruous and powerless. His howls ineffectual in terrain
that has been appropriated and ‘domesticated’ by humans—two pathetic trees, planted
and tied down, the only nod towards the natural landscape that was once here”7 (Figure
23.1).
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Damien Hirst produced what must be the most notorious—and most spectacular—sculp
tures using preserved animals. Larger than life, drowned in formaldehyde, mounted in
huge glass cases, and sometimes embellished with gold and other references to our cul
ture of consumption—be it consumption of entertainment, of knowledge, of consumer and
luxury goods—Hirst’s work shows his ability to shock, mesmerize, and provoke. Hirst
shows his mastery at using the animal to create spectacle, provocation, and commercial
success with pieces that range from his monumental shark titled The Impossibility of
Death in the Mind of Someone Living to the bisected bodies of cow and calf in Mother and
Daughter to The Golden Calf—a piece that sold for $18.6 million in his final auction in
2008, the same week that Lehman Brothers collapsed and with it the global financial sys
tem.8 (p. 436)
Some artists have embarked on what might be called fake taxidermy. Chinese artist Cai
Guo-Ciang’s Head On consists of a spectacular production of a pack of 99 wolves flying
through the air in an arc before colliding with a glass wall. The “wolves” themselves do
not, however, contain any wolf parts. They are life-size replicas constructed in Quanzhou
and made out of resin, sheepskin, hay, and metal wire. It may be somewhat ironic to be
converting sheep into wolves though that particular irony is not, it seems, part of the art
work.
tence.9 Every day the coyote would urinate on two piles of torn-up Wall Street Journal
newspapers. The performance was full of potential meanings. One interpretation was that
it was intended to show the artist’s preference for America’s tradition and (p. 437) her
itage as symbolized by the coyote—an animal sacred to Native Americans—over contem
porary American values.10
Most installations that use live animals keep them in a state of captivity for the purpose of
the artwork. This, it could be argued, is no different from keeping animals captive in zoos
for the purpose of entertainment and, some claim, education. However, the death of the
animal can be an integral part of the artwork—whether as an accidental and unintended
consequence, as a known possible, though not certain, outcome of the artwork, or as a di
rect intent of the artwork.
In 2007, Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas tied up a sick and emaciated street dog as part of a
work titled Exposición No.1 at a gallery in Nicaragua. On an adjacent wall the words Eres
lo que lees (“you are what you read”) were spelled out in dry dog food. This artwork soon
became the subject of international outrage. Rumors abounded about the state of the dog
and whether she had been allowed to starve to death—and the artist reportedly con
firmed that the dog did die in the course of the work. When asked in the same piece
whether he thought that those who criticized him were hypocrites, Vargas responded that
proof of that were the number of beings, whether animals or people, who live daily in con
ditions of indignity.11
In Helena, the work of Marco Evaristti (2000), the death of the animal is a possible,
though not certain, outcome. Evaristti’s installation consisted of 10 water-filled blenders,
in each of which swam a goldfish. Visitors to the exhibit had the opportunity to turn on
the blender and liquidize the fish if they so wished. The confrontation between the law,
animal welfare, and freedom of artistic expression is well described as follows:
Two of the fish were blended to death by an anonymous visitor to the museum,
and the museum director was fined €269 because he had left the blenders plugged
into electrical outlets despite being warned not to do so. A technician from the
blender company testified in court that it takes less than one second for the
blender knife to reach between 14,000 and 15,000 rounds per minute from the
time the button is pressed, killing the fish “instantly and humanely,” so the fine
was dropped. During the controversy, the director of the museum said that the
work was a comment on human beings often making themselves masters of (con
trolling) life and death, for instance through abortions and respirators. In court,
he refused to pay the fine, noting that artistic licence allows for the creation of
works that defy the concept of right and wrong.12
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In some cases, the death of the animal is an integral part of the artwork, as in the case of
Powers described at the start of this chapter. In December 1989, Canadian artist Rick
Gibson announced his intention to execute a piece of “performance art” involving Sniffy
the Rat (Figure 23.2). The intention was to crush the rat between two canvases by drop
ping a heavy concrete weight on top of him and thereby creating a diptych of (p. 438) two
imprints of the rat. The performance was scheduled for January 1990 but did not take
place because Gibson’s execution device had been stolen by animal rights activists. How
ever, when Gibson arrived to announce the cancellation, he was chased by an angry mob
of animal lovers and media representatives. Everyone involved in that scene was partici
pating in his performance art piece, which TV broadcast around the world. Gibson’s artis
tic concept for the intended killing of Sniffy was his interest in exploring the discrepancy
between popular morality and the law—an interest that had previously led him to the cre
ation of A Cannibal in Vancouver, in which he ate a legally obtained human testicle.14
Finally, in some artworks animals are not killed; rather, they are created. In 2000, artist
Eduardo Kac created an artwork titled GFP Bunny. This transgenic work involved the
transfer of a green fluorescent protein into a rabbit to create Alba, a unique, transgenic,
albino rabbit who glows in the dark. Kac describes the artwork as including “the creation
of a green fluorescent rabbit, the public dialogue generated by the project, and (p. 439)
the social integration of the rabbit.”15 Here the artwork involves the biological manipula
tion of an animal and the creation of a unique being with the intent of stimulating the so
cio-scientific debate about the complex issues that such an act involves. Kac has always
been careful to stress that Alba suffered no pain or discomfort and that there was always
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“a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created” (see previous end
note).
The debate about the use of the animal in art boils down to a conflict between two moral
imperatives: freedom of artistic expression versus the limits of acceptable moral behavior.
This conflict is the subject of an ongoing if time-worn and hoary debate that some may
consider insoluble based as it is on different values among different groups of society.
One interesting characteristic of this debate is that, unlike many other discussions with a
moral or ethical dimension, both sides of the animals-in-art debate would consider their
position to be liberal or progressive. This is not a debate that can conveniently be brack
eted as progressive versus conservative. Rather, this is a civil war between those who
consider themselves progressive (or liberal). In some respects this makes the debate even
more challenging as it is difficult to adopt the usual tactic of simply dismissing your oppo
nents as not being worthy of serious consideration because they are either Neanderthal
or degenerate—depending on which side you happen to be sitting.
Nevertheless, even in this civil war the actors are as predictable as the acts each will play
out. The broad thrust of the debate can be encapsulated in two short extracts from a spe
cial issue of the Art Journal. Though these extracts refer to the publication of images that
some found offensive rather than the use of animals in art, they are representative of the
same debate. In response to the publication of the now infamous work of Robert Map
plethorpe, one editor quotes a typical response from some readers:
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Over the years little seems to have been added to these two polarized positions. Neither
side has been willing to concede that the other perspective may have some legitimacy.
Opponents of art they find offensive fail to acknowledge either that part of the value of
art lies in its ability to be transgressive and challenge social norms or that perceived of
fensiveness may be a matter of personal interpretation. Conversely, the modern liberal
tradition dismisses all too easily the question of what can be called common decency and
people’s reasonable expectation not to be gratuitously offended. Further, in our cyber-
connected, media-dominated world, neither is the comment that “if it offends you, you
don’t need to view it” particularly convincing.
Some argue that the use of the live or dead animal as an actual component of a work of
art involves the use, exploitation, and imposition of harm and suffering on other living be
ings. Such harm is real and immediate and must be avoided. “A theatrical depiction of suf
fering may be art; real suffering is not.”18 This was one comment in the universal outrage
caused when composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was mis(?)-represented as having (p. 441)
described the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a great work of art. Causing actual harm calls for a
different set of considerations from its representation.
Yet others would argue that, in opposing offensive imagery, they are also opposing real
harm—the harm that such imagery does to those who view it. We are then left with argu
ing whether one harm is worse than the other and that therefore one should be subject to
censorship and the other not. Although difficult, these are, in fact, exactly the sorts of
judgments that our societies make all the time in balancing social benefits of certain ac
tivities against potential harm. We should therefore not be seduced by the absolutist posi
tion that no censorship is acceptable because censoring one type of artistic endeavor au
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tomatically opens the door to the widespread censorship of everything else. Each situa
tion deserves to be, and indeed must be, evaluated on its own merits.
Let us consider Gibson and Evaristti as practical examples. How would CAA’s statement
have helped us in these cases? Both artists would argue that theirs was legitimate art
making a social point. They would also maintain that the animals would die instanta
neously—probably suffering less pain than the millions of farm animals executed daily—
and that the work did not therefore qualify as cruelty under the law. In Evaristti’s case,
such a legal position was in fact tested and upheld in the courts,21 though that the judg
ment made headlines suggests that it may well go against many people’s intuitive moral
judgment. In this situation, the CAA statement is unhelpful as a case can (p. 442) certainly
be made for harm and maybe cruelty (even if not in the strictly legal sense) as well as for
opposing any form of censorship for an artist operating within the law. One could come
up with a number of similar situations—and construct an endless number of hypothetical
others—where more clarity is needed than the CAA statement provides.
Many difficulties arise when trying to establish general principles to define the bound
aries of the use of animals in art. The questions become more indefinable still when, as
some argue it should, the debate is taken beyond just issues of cruelty and harm to en
compass the ethics of the whole idea of the instrumental use of animals for the purpose of
artistic expression. Gigliotti, for instance, argues that, even in the absence of obvious
pain and suffering, the use of live, nonhuman animals in art rests on a worldview that
“sees all of nature as available for human intervention”22 and should therefore be discour
aged.
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While all of these positions have merit as part of the debate, it is questionable whether
they move us any further toward establishing boundaries beyond which artists should not
stray. Of course for some the answers may seem perfectly clear. For the animal rights ac
tivist living in a world that is black and white, “causing an animal to suffer or die in the
name of art is always unjustifiable.”23 On the other side of the discussion there will no
doubt be those who will argue that, provided their behavior falls within the law, there is
no justification for curtailing artists’ freedom of expression in any way and that any such
attempts would be unconstitutional. These are irreconcilable positions that simply lead to
polarization rather than further enlightenment.
For some, art is trivia and does not provide sufficient social benefit to justify either of
fence or harm. For others, art may be considered of a higher level of importance such
that they declare themselves “perilously close to arguing that artists should be allowed
certain freedoms that scientists should not be allowed!”24 Once again, this is likely to be a
sterile discussion more concerned with one’s personal worldview than with yielding use
ful practical guidance.
Since the discussion on the value of art relative to other human activities is unproductive,
I suggest that as a starting point we adopt the position that artists should not be consid
ered special cases one way or the other. Artists should have the freedoms that are afford
ed to all other members of society. With freedoms come responsibilities, and there is no
reason that artists should, in any way, be considered individuals afforded special privi
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leges that are denied to others. However, this is not much different from the declared
CAA position and, in practice, does not get us very far at all.
The first issue to get out of the way is that, as Gibson’s artwork so colorfully showed, the
law should not be our only guide to thinking about what constitutes ethical behavior. So
cial norms, moral intuitions, and moral emotions—our intuitive, affective sense of what
should and what should not be considered acceptable—are important components of what
makes society function even when they do not have the force of law. “Moral emotions are
evolved mechanisms that function in part to optimize social relationships.”26 Many activi
ties are perfectly legal but still offend our moral intuitions. Conversely, many laws still on
the books, laws against sodomy being one example, are routinely ignored as they no
longer represent the prevailing moral standards. Legislation tends to follow rather than
lead evolving social norms, and often with some considerable lag. Some consider animal
protection legislation as one area where legislation remains weak, lagging behind current
social norms and moral intuitions and with penalties that, when they kick in at all, do not
necessarily serve as deterrent. We should not therefore allow those who believe that cur
rent legal interpretations favor their position to use the law as a tool to cut short reason
able discussion and open exploration. Whether something is legal is not beyond discus
sion of whether it is ethical.
That said, the issues to be addressed are complex and unclear. Attempting to develop
rules requires us to define standards of behavior and impose controls that have wide and
generic applicability to different forms of artistic expression, many of them as yet (p. 444)
unimagined. It is likely to be a fruitless task. Rather, we need to find approaches that can
cope with uncertainty and ambiguity, the reconciliation of differing and multiplying world
views, the melding of cultural attitudes in a globalizing world, and the resulting numer
ous shades of gray that will emerge. To move forward, I suggest that our starting point
should not be to focus on methods of control but rather first to understand why some
artists behave the way they do. In large part, such behavior reflects human attitudes to
the animal—a function of economic imperatives as well as the social and political environ
ment.27 For artists, the architecture of that socioeconomic-political environment is deter
mined by the culture of the art world itself.
Are there elements of the culture of the art world that allow or maybe even facilitate the
misuse of animals as forms of artistic expression? Are there practical ways issues related
to such misuse can be approached, ways that address some of the main drivers of these
behaviors without rapidly sinking into polarized positions, legal battles and lack of
progress—either practical or intellectual? These are the questions I address next.
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When we seek to ascertain the most general and most characteristic feature of modern
artistic production we come upon the tendency to dehumanize art.29 Ortega y Gasset
talks about the dehumanization of modern art along many dimensions that go far beyond
the mere abandonment of realism. One of the dimensions he develops is the “conversion
of the subjective attitude to the objective” (p. 28). In this he describes a process of the ex
tirpation of emotional content from art that was to be considered modern. For instance,
he writes that Debussy made it “possible to listen to music serenely, without swoons and
tears” (p. 27) and how the poetry of Mallarmé “need not be ‘felt’” (p. 29). This progres
sion of artistic expression away from the emotional on to the intellectual, (p. 445) away
from the centrality of “beauty” to the negation of aesthetic content has culminated in the
contemporary artistic manifestations often grouped under the moniker of conceptual art.
Conceptual art places the conceptual process ahead of the aesthetic—and even ahead of
the production of a physical artwork of any form.30
In contemporary art, many view this dehumanization not as an option but rather as a re
quirement. The self-consciously serious artist today eschews any art that can be interpret
ed as sentimental or that has significant emotional content fearing that this may contami
nate and undermine the perceived seriousness of an art based on rationality.31 For the
last 100 years or so, artists have been captured within modern notions of the primacy of
rationality over feeling and emotion—including those whose art purports to challenge log
ical positivism. This does not, of course, apply to all of the art that we see today. But I
suggest that they provide a reasonable description of the broad trajectory of the contem
porary art world. In addition, many contemporary artists are interested in creating art
that appeals to the art world elite rather than the general public.
What are the implications of these attitudes for animals in art? The first is that artists are
determinedly unsentimental not only about their art but also about the animals in their
art. Baker reports that artists like Emily Mayer who works with taxidermy and Olly and
Suzy who work with animals in the wild are quick to point out that they feel no sentimen
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tality (undefined) toward the animals with whom they work. The animal in art is convert
ed into an object to be regarded dispassionately or as material necessary to fulfill the
artist’s intent. It is much like a scientific specimen where the value of the animal as a liv
ing creature is subordinated to his value as a source of knowledge. As in industrial farm
ing and animal experimentation, the manipulation, exploitation, and killing of animals are
accepted norms. A distance from the animal is created lest one is seen to be emotionally
invested and therefore no longer rational, business-like, objective, and therefore serious.
In this culture it is no surprise that misuse of animals has the opportunity to flourish and
that there is not only unwillingness but also determined opposition to allow concerns that
can be dismissed as mere sentimentality to draw any lines that might constrain artistic
freedom.
The favoring of the intellectual and the analytical over the emotional is accentuated in an
artistic culture in which many artists see their work as a research-based exercise. Some
describe themselves using terms like “visual researcher”32 or describe their practice as
having “a strong research grounding.”33 Studios are transformed into laboratories for in
vestigation and inquiry34 from where it is but a step to the morphing of the animal in art
into the equivalent of laboratory rat or dissection specimen. These attitudes are sympto
matic of the relatively recent inclination for the humanities and the softer sciences to de
velop physics envy. Rationality and objectivity are celebrated and sentiment is frowned
upon as we are almost required to view (or at least pretend to view) the world “with
willed stoicism, forcing [ourselves] not to empathize.”35 This inverse relationship between
the analytical and the empathic may be biologically based. Recent neuroimaging studies
have shown that the activation of those neural networks associated with analytical rea
soning leads to the actual suppression of brain activity associated with social, emotional,
and moral cognitive processes.36 These findings are supported by (p. 446) behavioral data
and by further imaging data showing that dehumanization is associated with switching
out of the empathic brain network into the analytical network.37
This increasingly rational and analytical artistic culture does not, of course, inevitably
lead to animal misuse, and many artists involved with animals care deeply about them.
When Lucy Kimbell abandoned her idea of a Rat Evaluated Artwork (REA) because of her
personal discomfort with her proposed use of the rats, her self-censorship did not lead to
limitations on her freedom of expression but rather to the evolution of a different art
work, and maybe a richer, more meaningful form of expression involving rat lovers and a
celebration of the rat.38 However, today such choices remain firmly with the individual
artist. There is neither an institutional framework nor an accepted set of values and
norms to guide artists’ actions. A resolution issued by CAA in 2011 following a survey of
its members on the use of animals in art once more combines an objection to animal cru
elty with the defense of freedom of artistic expression.39 It makes clear that freedoms
come with responsibilities and suggests that artists ask themselves a set of questions be
fore embarking on the use of animals in art. They are the same type of questions that led
Kimbell to reevaluate her REA. However, once more judgment is left to the individual
artist who is not provided with clear institutional guidelines.
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In summary, the artistic culture of dehumanization is an enabler, making it easier for ani
mal misuse to take root and possibly even thrive. In today’s artistic culture, it is as well to
recognize that anti-aesthetic–rationality–dehumanization–detachment–abuse lie on a con
tinuum: one that is different and that encourages a different set of values from the beau
ty–emotion–empathy–kinship–care continuum that modernism has displaced.
Art as Sensationalism
If dehumanization is one leg of the contemporary art culture on which animal abuse can
stand, then sensationalism is the second. Here we see the interaction between artists and
their art, the world of art criticism and the commercial art market.
Sensationalism pays. The traveling exhibit Sensation was a huge commercial success and
launched the career of many of the participating artists. Damien Hirst’s dead shark was
one of the centerpieces. In his commentary on Sensation Arthur Danto described Hirst’s
shark as follows:
The first work you will encounter, dominating the first gallery of the show, is a real
shark in an immense tank. The child will gasp at the majesty and beauty of a work
it would have been difficult to anticipate from photographs of it or from descrip
tions or representations on the Internet … Putting a huge fish in a large tank of
formaldehyde sounds easy enough for even a city official to do. But imagining do
ing it requires a degree of artistic intuition of a very rare order, since one would
have to anticipate what it would look like and what effect it would have on the
viewer. The work in fact has the power, sobriety and majesty of a cathedral, some
of which, of (p. 447) course, must be credited to the shark itself. It does not look
preserved but as if it rests in its fluid medium ready to strike.40
Danto goes on to talk about the title of the art piece in the context of the difficulty of envi
sioning one’s own death as laid out in Heidegger’s philosophy of authenticity and
Wittgenstein’s view that death is not something we can live through.
Danto does not, however, spare a thought for the shark except for the “wow” effect
caused by the majestic nature of the creature. The shark is material in the artist’s cre
ation of a sensation. The thought that the shark herself may have interests does not even
appear as a passing consideration. Neither does the fact that the artist commissioned the
death of several sharks for his artworks merit any comment. Danto reaches into philoso
phy only to validate and aggrandize the artistic concept, not to address any questions
about the moral considerability of the animal. The ethics of such instrumental use of a
majestic animal deserve not a mention in a discussion focused on artistic erudition and an
admiration of the sensational as spectacle.
Clearly, not all critics and commentators find such sensationalism admirable. A number of
Royal Academicians resigned in protest at the Sensation exhibit, and many column inches
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were written in condemnation. However, the effect was achieved, the money rolled in,
and the genie could not be put back in the bottle.
Misuse of the animal is a relatively easy way artists can be sensationalist and achieve no
toriety. Negative reaction from animal rights groups and others can be almost guaranteed
and, as with Gibson’s work, becomes part of the artwork. It is possible that an exhibit
may be shut down and lawsuits might follow. There may be minimal fines to contend with.
All in all, the publicity is literally priceless—“Evaristti gained notoriety for a museum dis
play entitled ‘Helena.’”41 And the greater the abuse, the greater the outrage, the more
likely it is that an army of critics will support the work as being original, as showing an
artist who has something to say and whose right to say it must be defended at all costs.
All this may help artists take their first steps on the road of the artist as celebrity brand in
today’s competitive but potentially lucrative commercial art market. Further, whatever
the fate of the artwork at the time, the artist and the work can be guaranteed immortality
—destined to live on in the pages of articles and books such as this one and in confer
ences where the work will be analyzed and pored over in discussions of ethics and free
dom of expression.
Some of this sensationalism may result in an overall positive effect. Gibson’s piece with
Sniffy the Rat could, maybe, be considered the “ideal” artwork. The performative nature
of the threat to the animal resulted in a train of events where the artist made his point
very effectively without any actual harm to Sniffy.
Finally, I would like to talk about one last aspect of the art culture—the third leg on which
the potential for animal abuse might rest. “People … engage in a variety of (p. 448) psy
chosocial maneuvers—often aided by the institutions that organize and direct their ac
tions (Darley, 1992)—which absolve them from moral responsibility for harmful acts.
These include reframing the immoral behavior into a harmless or even worthy one.”42 As I
have said already, artists who, while remaining within the law, misuse animals for their
artistic purpose can largely be assured of the support of a number of individuals in the art
establishment who will fight off any attempt to limit such artists’ freedom of expression.
Behavior that may be considered potentially unethical is therefore reframed by powerful
individuals and organizations. Not only does this reframing absolve the artist of any
moral responsibility, but also the work becomes a totem in the defense of a worthy cause:
freedom of expression.
Largely influenced by the writings of radical author George Bataille, it has become ac
cepted wisdom that the very transgressive nature of some artwork is what makes it valu
able. “The transgressive is the utopian aspect of every artwork, the one that offers us
glimpses of an existence unconfined by rules or restraints.”43 Transgression, an integral
part of Bataille’s base materialism and self-described overwhelming lack of respect,
seems to have become one route to creating value in works of art—and the more trans
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gressive, the more valuable such works become. Such art of the transgressive sublime
even becomes an act of supreme ethical value.
“In the period of the aftershock, it will be seen that, through a consummate tragic
art, Hirst’s work involving nonhuman animals transforms a specific immoral prac
tice into a meta-ethical artistic phenomenon that finally, having shocked us to its
moral wrongs, causes us reflexively to reevaluate prevailing human attitudes to
animals by displaying these wrongs clearly to investigation. Because of its tragic
transgressive sublime, I conclude, we are compelled to recognize seriously, even
despite ourselves, the ancient importance, the inescapable significance, and, final
ly, the real shocking ethical value of Hirst’s work.”44
This self-serving rationalization provides artists with what is, literally, a license to kill. It
is a perfect example of Žižek’s interpretation of Hegel’s Cunning of Reason that “makes
even the vilest crimes instruments of progress.”45 Using reason, Cashell enjoins us to get
past our plebian shock and move on to the aftershock, a higher state of being where the
enlightened among us can see the sublime in such artwork. But the rationale he puts for
ward is analogous to saying that every time I (as an artist, of course) go out and beat up a
few elderly people, it brings me so close to the sickening reality of human suffering that it
makes me and all those who watch my performance better people. In fact, beating up the
elderly becomes an ethical imperative. If we buy into this logic, then we will also support
Stockhausen’s previously mentioned suggestion that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were a
great work of art—or at least all that it might have taken to turn them into the transgres
sive sublime would have been an assertion by the perpetrators that this was an act not of
terrorism but of art. As one philosopher pointed out in a recent conference, this all goes
to show the unsustainability (he actually used the word “nonsense”) (p. 449) of purely util
itarian approaches to moral questions.46 Yet this utilitarianism has become omnipresent.
Whether something works or not has become the primary discourse even around acts as
abhorrent as the torture of human prisoners for intelligence gathering purposes. This
leads some to conclude that “our culture has almost lost the ability to have a genuinely
moral conversation.”47
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Maybe more important is to attempt to address the question of whether any possibilities
exist for mitigating the incentives that seem to have become built into the culture of art
to avoid the potential for animal misuse to become routine. How can we move in this di
rection without either incurring the wrath of those who will fight anything that vaguely
smells of censorship or, conversely, being sucked into the tiresome levels of political cor
rectness that now envelop other parts of our society? How can we encourage artists to
thrive and to explore new ideas and new forms boldly and meaningfully while accepting
that this should be done within some type of ethical framework regarding the moral con
siderability of the animal? How can we avoid, or at least minimize, the chances of artists
engaging in animal misuse being rewarded for their efforts by celebrity, notoriety, and
commercial success? To move in this direction, I have three suggestions: cultural; individ
ual; and institutional.
There is mounting evidence that society is recognizing the bankruptcy of modern culture.
The supremacy of reason over emotion, the belief in human salvation through science and
formal academic knowledge, the “purity” of form for function, the elitism of the modern
intellectual, and the belief in the supremacy of “science driven decisions” as well as other
aspects of the modern are being superseded. A globalized, decentralized, cyber-linked
world undermines the views propagated as certainties by traditionally modern institu
tions such as museums, universities, and other repositories of imposed authority. People
are reconnecting with values and with the spiritual (if not necessarily the religious) as a
counterbalance to the factual, the practical, and the utilitarian. This trajectory seems un
stoppable and, when it reaches the fine arts, will undermine the modern dehumanization
that I have described.
Of course, in the past the arts used to be at the forefront of such change. No longer. The
high arts are now themselves trapped within modern institutions that will resist the un
dermining of their authority. Such resistance will ensure that the road away from the
modern will be long and relatively slow, and it may be that, by the time we move forward
(p. 450) sufficiently, the animal’s place in art will have been further degraded. We there
fore need to explore other methods—ones that may even bring to bear the enduring pow
er of the modern institutions referred to here.
Institutions are made of people, and it is at the individual level that the first steps need to
be made. In today’s art critical world it remains much easier, and more likely to be well
viewed by one’s peers, to step up and support bold, transgressive art that pushes the en
velope than to criticize such art on the basis of its misuse of the animal. It is also particu
larly difficult to embark on such criticism in a way that, when such is deserved, criticism
undermines the value of that art rather than creating a platform for increasing its notori
ety and sensationalism.
If we are to move forward, we need a greater amount of thoughtful criticism of art that
uses animals, and we need that criticism to engage with the art world from the inside,
broadening the debate beyond the language of art theory to include the languages of
ethics, social decency, and the human–animal relationship in evaluating such artwork.
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
Such engagement from the inside is the only way that thinking can evolve and reasonable
positions explored while avoiding the polarization and tedium created by the endless re
gurgitation of the entrenched positions of ideologues on both sides. Critics who step up to
the mark also need to be prepared to challenge the mantra of freedom of artistic expres
sion at any cost, a difficult task for those whose career lies within the art establishment.
Finally, it is important that this debate is engaged in the mainstream art world and on the
pages of the mainstream art media, not just among the small numbers of people specifi
cally engaged in animal art issues or in the pages of journals targeted at those interested
in animal studies.
There are hopeful signs of an increasing momentum in this direction. The previously men
tioned CAA survey of its membership returned results overwhelmingly in favor of animal
protection. A full 92 percent of respondents supported banning cruelty (undefined) to ani
mals in the creation of an artwork, and 81 percent supported the development of institu
tional guidelines. The CAA board accepted the need to set up a committee to put together
such guidelines, though timing remains uncertain.48
My final suggestion is institutional and draws on the power that institutions still hold. I
started this chapter by suggesting that artists should be subject to no more restrictions or
afforded any greater rights than other members of society. Artists are, in fact, already
bound by animal welfare regulations just like anyone else. But these regulations are not
fit for purpose. Eventual guidelines drawn up by CAA or any other body would go a long
way toward institutionalizing animal protection in the arts. However, such guidelines are,
by the nature of these things, likely to be broad, especially as CAA attempts the difficult
task of balancing animal protection with its defense of freedom of expression.
In the sciences, scientists who wish to embark on experiments that utilize animals almost
always require the approval of some type of ethics committee or institutional review
board. These multidisciplinary groups evaluate such work on many dimensions including
the ethical and include the views of laypeople. Could a similar model be followed for the
evaluation of art that utilizes or depicts animals? Could all art schools require students to
submit proposals for such a review before they are allowed to utilize (p. 451) animals in
their work? Could museums submit their proposals for multidisciplinary review prior to
mounting exhibits? Such committees would not need to be given powers of veto. Their
aim need not be to pass judgment on difficult issues. Rather, their value would lie in sim
ply asking questions and creating a forum for having a debate that currently does not
even exist. Bringing into the debate viewpoints other than those of the art establishment
itself leads to an expansion of perspectives. Assuming we can find ways for alternative
perspectives to be valued rather than treated with disdain by the art establishment, this
might allow the exploration of ways to move forward in an area that is fraught with diffi
culty. It would be a soft hurdle that ensures that artists did, in fact, question whether they
can achieve their aims in ways other than through the misuse of animals while art educa
tors and curators would have a forum to help them explore issues that are laden with
complexity and uncertainty. And for those who would object to having such forums—how
ever soft their functions—why might it be appropriate for scientists’ work to be discussed
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
in this fashion but not that of artists? Some institutions already have such review mecha
nisms in place. Others fight the very idea tooth and nail.
Conclusion
Artists get noticed in today’s competitive, media-driven world through sensationalism.
Sensationalism pays. When sensationalism is layered onto the dehumanization of modern
art and the provision of moral cover by much of the art establishment, the stage is set for
the misuse of animals in artistic expression. The animal becomes mere material in the
artist’s quest to explore new concepts and new forms. To boldly go!
The issues raised by the use and misuse of animals in art are complex and difficult to re
solve. Yet the current debate has become sterile and largely unproductive. The art com
munity feels duty-bound to defend freedom of expression at any cost—however distasteful
and morally offensive artists’ behavior—and continues to value transgression seemingly
without being interested in a debate about whether such transgression should be limit
less. Animal welfare groups feel duty-bound to protest in the most vehement fashion even
though their protests are part of the sensation that contributes to the artists’ success.
This pantomime has become part of the artwork itself.
“Morality is not a body of knowledge that can be learned by rote or codified in general
ethical codes or decision procedures.”49 Traditional censorship approaches are crude and
unlikely to be either desirable or successful. A change in social culture is under way, and
contemporary art will catch up with that change in due course. However, there are oppor
tunities to accelerate the process of giving the moral considerability of animals a seat at
the table of contemporary art. Individuals can step up to engage the art critical world in
discussions from within, while institutions can establish processes that have already been
shown to be valuable in other fields and that can broaden and enrich the debate around
the ethic of the use of animals in artistic expression.
(p. 452) Steve Baker sums up some of the issues in a recent interview:
There are no limits to what can be done to an animal by an artist, whether through
thoughtlessness or, occasionally, through cruelty. In terms of where artists choose
to set their limits, there are some genuinely complex cases where the artist is
clearly working with seriousness, awareness, and a sense of integrity, but where
I’m personally uncomfortable with some of their decisions and actions. My ap
proach has generally been to report in detail on these works and on the artist’s ac
count of them, and to leave my readers to draw their own conclusions. There is no
single “correct” limit.50
While there may, indeed, be no single correct limit, is it time we broke out of the de
tached observational approach? Is it time we stopped avoiding engagement in a challeng
ing debate by framing the issue as one of personal judgment rather than as an ethical de
bate where the moral considerability of the animal is becoming part of our social norms?
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
Contested moral considerations, fraught and variable as they are, need not and indeed
maybe should not be the primary determinants of artists’ behaviors. But it is hard to con
tinue to argue that they should not even have a seat at the table.
Further Reading
Baker, Steve. Artist/Animal. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Haidt, Jonathan. Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pan
theon, 2012.
Wolfe, Cary. “From Dead Meat to Glow in the Dark Bunnies Seeing the Animal Question in
Contemporary Art.” Parallax 12, no. 1, (2006): 95–109.
Notes:
(1.) Jacques Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1975), 67.
(2.) Zoe Peled, “Discussing Animal Rights and the Arts,” Antennae: The Journal of Nature
in Visual Culture 19 (Winter 2011): 53–61.
(3.) Richard Serra, cited in Giovanni Aloi, Art & Animals (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 7.
(4.) Karl Schulze-Hagen, Frank Steinheimer, Ragnar Kinzelbach, et al., “Avian Taxidermy
in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance,” Journal für Ornithologie 144, no. 4
(2003): 459–478.
(5.) P. A. Morris, A History of Taxidermy. Art, Science and Bad Taste (Ascot: MPM Publish
ing, 2011).
(7.) Joe Zammit-Lucia, The Third Ray, October 30, 2009, http://www.thethirdray.com/pho
tography/man-and-animals-amy-steins-domesticated/ (accessed November 23, 2012).
(8.) Carol Vogel, “Bull Market for Hirst in Sotheby’s 2-Day Sale,” New York Times,
September 16, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/arts/design/17auct.html
(accessed November 22, 2012).
(9.) Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys: Coyote (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008).
(11.) Diego Guerrero, “Responde artista Habacuc Guillermo Vargas, quien exhibió atado,
sin agua ni alimento, a un perro,” El Tiempo, April 26, 2008, http://www.eltiempo.com/
archivo/documento/CMS-4125438 (accessed November 22, 2012).
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
(12.) Linda Kalof, Looking at Animals in Human History (London: Reaktion Books, 2007),
162–163.
(14.) Jon Steeves, “The Snuffing of Sniffy: An interview with Rick Gibson,” Vancouver Re
view, Spring 1992. http://www.odlt.org/interviews/rick_gibson_interview.pdf (accessed No
vember 22, 2012).
(16.) Barbara Hoffman, “Censorship II,” Art Journal 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 14.
(17.) Richard Storr, “Censorship II,” Art Journal 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 15.
(18.) A. Tommasini, “Music; The Devil Made Him Do It,” New York Times, September 30,
2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/arts/music-the-devil-made-him-do-it.html. (ac
cessed November 22, 2012).
(19.) Peter Schmidt, “Supreme Court Sides with College Art Association in Dogfighting-
Video Case,” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 20, 2010, http://chronicle.com/blogs/
ticker/supreme-court-sides-with-college-art-association-in-dogfighting-video-case/23297
(accessed November 23, 2012).
(20.) P. B. Jaskot and L. Downs, “CAA Statement,” CAA News Online, July 28, 2009, http://
www.collegeart.org/news/2009/07/28/caa-signs-anticensorship-amicus-brief-for-us-v-
stevens/ (accessed July 17, 2012).
(21.) BBC, “Liquidising Goldfish ‘Not a Crime,’” BBC News Online, May 19, 2003, http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3040891.stm (accessed November 23, 2012).
(22.) Carol Gigliotti, “Leonardo’s Choice: The Ethics of Artists Working with Genetic Tech
nologies,” AI & Society 20 (2006): 29.
(23.) Yvette Watt, “Artists, Animals and Ethics,” Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual
Culture 19 (Winter 2011): 66
(24.) Steve Baker and Carol Gigliotti, “We Have Always Been Transgenic,” AI & Society 20
(2006): 37.
(26.) G. D. Sherman and J. Haidt, “Cuteness and Disgust: The Humanizing and Dehuman
izing Effects of Emotion,” Emotion Review 3, no. 3 (July 2011): 245.
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
(27.) Richard L. Tapper, “Animality, Humanity, Morality, Society,” in What Is an Animal, ed.
Tim Ingold (London: Routledge, 1988), 47–62.
(28.) T. Dean, “Art as Symptom: Zizek and the Ethics of Psychoanalytic Criticism,” Diacrit
ics 32, no. 2 (2002), 21–41.
(29.) José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art and Other Writings on Art and Cul
ture (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), 19.
(31.) Steve Baker, The Postmodern Animal (London: Reaktion Books, 2000).
(34.) Robin Held, Genesis: Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics (Seattle, WA:
Henry Art Gallery, 2012).
(35.) Deborah Thompson, “Risking Sentiment,” in An Orange County Almanac and Other
Essays, ed. Joe Zammit-Lucia (New York: WOLFoundation.org), 40.
(36.) Anthony I. Jack, et al., “fMRI Reveals Reciprocal Inhibition between Social and Phys
ical Cognitive Domains,” NeuroImage 66 (2013): 385–401.
(37.) Anthony I. Jack, pers. Comm., February 25, 2013, publications in review.
(38.) Lucy Kimbell, “An Aesthetic Enquiry into Organizing of Some Rats and Some Peo
ple,” Tamara—Journal for Critical Organization Enquiry 9, nos. 3–4 (2011): 77–92.
(39.) Excerpt from CAA Board Resolutions following the report from the Task Force on
the Use of Human and Animal Subjects in Art:
Page 22 of 24
Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
Artists and other professionals in the visual arts must be allowed the full range of
expressive possibilities in order for art to maintain a vital role in human society.
With that expression, however, comes responsibility when artists and others use
animal subjects in art. CAA does not endorse any work of art that results in cruel
ty toward animal subjects. Further, given that animals do not have the right of re
fusal, CAA calls on artists and other professionals in the visual arts to examine
with the greatest of care any practices that require the use of animals in art. To
perpetuate this ethical standard, professionals in the visual arts should consider
the following issues and questions before engaging in any practice using live ani
mals:
(•) No work of art should, in the course of its creation, cause physical or psy
chological pain, suffering, or distress to an animal.
(•) CAA recommends that any user of animals in art pose these three questions
before beginning the work of art: Can you make the same point by replacing
the animal? By reducing the number of animals? By refining the use of animals?
(•) Have you explored the institutional standards and guidelines at your home
institution, if any, that apply to the use of animal subjects for research?
(•) Are you aware of the national standards and guidelines for the use of ani
mals in research, such as those produced by the National Science Foundation
or by other professional organizations to which you belong?
(•) Have you discussed any practices that may result in pain or discomfort for
the animal subject? Have you considered alternatives?
(•) Have you done research on the biology of your animal subject to understand
aspects of its physiognomy and experience?
(40.) Arthur C. Danto, “‘Sensation’ in Brooklyn,” Nation, October 14, 1999, http://
www.thenation.com/article/sensation-brooklyn# (accessed November 26, 2012).
(42.) Jonathan Haidt and Selin Kesebir, “Morality,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 5th
ed., vol. 2, ed. Susan T. Fiske, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Lindzey Gardner (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley,
2010), 812.
(43.) Anthony Julius, Transgressions: The Offences of Art (London: Thames and Hudson
Ltd., 2002), 21.
(44.) Kieran Cashell, Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2009), 199.
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Practice and Ethics of the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art
(45.) Slavoj Žižek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (London: Verso, 2009), 116.
(47.) David P. Gushee, quoted in “‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ through a Theological Lens,” New
York Times, February 23, 2013, A12.
(48.) Linda Downs, executive director, College Arts Association, pers. comm., March 6,
2013.
(49.) Jonathan Haidt and Selin Kesebir, “Morality,” in Fiske et al., Handbook of Social Psy
chology, 798.
(50.) Steve Baker, “Animals, Artists, and the Question of Ethics: A Dialogue with Steve
Baker,” Blog of the University of Minnesota Press, January 30, 2013, http://
www.uminnpressblog.com/2013/01/animals-artists-and-question-of-ethics.html (accessed
February 2, 2013).
Joe Zammit-Lucia
Joe Zammit-Lucia, Animal Portraiture Artist and President, Web of Life (WOLF) Foun
dation
Page 24 of 24
Animals in Folklore
Animals in Folklore
Boria Sax
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
This essay surveys the representation of animals in folklore from the fables of Aesop to
the search for Bigfoot. Unlike most of modern culture, folklore attributes great power, un
derstanding, autonomy, and significance to animals. While folklorists have often found
this deeply poetic, they were also made uncomfortable by the suggestion of magic and, to
protect their claim to superior rationality, tried to distance themselves from folktales. The
English demonized animal helpers in fairy tales, while the French gave these figures hu
man form. The Grimm brothers and other romantics removed fairy tales from the context
of everyday life by placing them in a remote realm such as an ancient civilization, a mar
ginal social order, or the enchanted world of childhood. As the naturalistic paradigm, with
its implicit anthropocentrism, declines, folk literature provides models for more balanced
relationships between animals and human beings.
Keywords: animal studies, Aesop, anthropocentrism, animal helpers, Bigfoot, fairy tale, fable, folklore, Grimm
brothers, juniper tree
That is because anthropocentrism, despite its dominance in Western culture, has seldom
prevailed in folklore. This can make the subject attractive to participants in movements
such as environmentalism and animal rights, who often aspire to a biocentric or zoocen
tric orientation. Nevertheless, folklore also often presents us with a world where extreme
Page 1 of 19
Animals in Folklore
violence is frequently taken for granted and where life, either animal or human, does not
necessarily count for much at all. Without human supremacy, there is also little or no
sense of human stewardship, and concepts such as the legal protection of animals hardly
even come up.
Many widely disseminated stories probably come ultimately from animal divination,
which was universal throughout the ancient world, especially in Greco-Roman civilization.
Birds were often accorded prophetic significance, since their behavior reflected the sea
sons and the weather. In Greece, the appearance of the swallow announced the coming of
spring and the time for planting, while cranes and storks marked the arrival of autumn.
Toward the end of the Iliad, King Priam of Troy, hoping to obtain the body of Hector his
son from Achilles, prays to Zeus to send an omen. Immediately a huge black eagle (possi
bly a raven) appears, and Priam knows his petition will be successful. In the secularized
context of fables, the behavior of birds and other creatures remained a source of impor
tant lessons.1
The beast fable is probably the oldest genre of literature that focuses mostly on
(p. 457)
animals, and it is certainly the most influential. Although we now know the fables of Ae
sop primarily from books, their dissemination has followed a sort of pattern that we gen
erally associate with oral traditions. They have been passed on informally and have no
canonical versions. Individual tellers are entirely free not only to change the wording but
also to alter the story or append different morals. The form, social context, and style of
Aesopian fables have varied greatly over millennia, but they have never, even temporarily,
lost their popularity.
Their tradition actually begins not with the Greek Aesop but with Sumero-Akkadian con
test literature and animal proverbs, some of which exist in manuscripts that go back to
the early second millennium BCE. The contest literature has given fables the dialectical
form, in which two parties such as a hare and a tortoise or a grasshopper and an ant com
pete for supremacy. The proverbs have given the tradition its linguistic economy. These
ancient texts promoted stereotypical concepts of animals that have continued to this day.
Already, not long after the start of the second millennium BCE the fox is renowned for
cleverness, and the lion is “king of beasts.”2
The beast fable is best known, however, from Greco-Roman models. Fable of Aesop is a
generic term for an anecdote, especially one involving animals, written in antiquity. Aesop
himself is a legendary character who, according to an anonymous biography from the
first century CE or earlier, lived on the Island of Samos in the seventh century BCE. He
was a slave, a stutterer, and a hunchback. When his new master brings Aesop home from
the slave market, the mistress of the house is terrified at first, since she takes the new
purchase for a monster. Aesop gains his freedom for his skill in telling stories and be
comes the most trusted councilor of the king. Eventually, however, he declares the
revered Oracle at Delphi to be a fraud, and angry villagers throw him off a mountain to
his death.3 In the perspective of Greek culture, which idealized the human form, Aesop
Page 2 of 19
Animals in Folklore
would have appeared to be half-animal and thus qualified as a mediator between the hu
man and bestial worlds.
Most fables traditionally attributed to Aesop are either later or earlier than their reputed
author, and there is little evidence that the storyteller ever existed; however, the stylistic
uniformity of the early Greco-Roman fables suggests that they may reflect the personality
of a single editor. This might, however, have been not Aesop but Demetrius of Phaleron, a
governor of Alexandria at the end of the third century BCE, who compiled a collection of
fables that has been lost. However that may be, the two most extensive collections of Ae
sopian fables that have come down to us are one in Latin by Phaedrus, written in the first
century CE, and one in Greek by Babrius, written in the second or early third. Remark
ably, both of these authors were, like the legendary Aesop, among the extremely few
slaves in ancient Greece and Rome who not only attained their freedom but also passed
on their names and legacy to posterity. As Phaedrus, especially, makes very clear, the fa
ble was a sort of secret language, with which especially slaves might evade censorship
and comment upon the foibles of the mighty.4 In the anthropocentric world of the Greeks
and Romans, this authorship also reflected a sense that slaves were close to being ani
mals and, for that reason, were able to interpret bestial behavior.
We all know some fables of Aesop from childhood, such as “The Tortoise and the
(p. 458)
Hare,” “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” and “The Boy who Cried Wolf,” so examples of the
genre seem almost superfluous. So that we do not take the literary conventions of the fa
ble for granted, however, let us look at one titled “The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox” (in
many other editions, “The Lion’s Share”):
The lion, the ass, and the fox, having made an agreement together, went off hunt
ing for game. When they had taken plenty of game, the lion asked the ass to divide
the spoils between them. The ass divided the food into three equal parts and invit
ed the lion to choose his portion. The lion became enraged, pounced on the ass,
and devoured him.
Then the lion asked the fox to divide the spoils. The fox took all that they had ac
cumulated and gathered it into one large heap, retaining only the tiniest morsel
for himself. Then he invited the lion to choose.
The lion then said: “Well, my good fellow, who taught you to divide so well? You
are excellent at it.”
The fox replied: “I learned this technique from the ass’s misfortune.”
Moral: This fable shows that we learn from the misfortunes of others.5
Blumenberg proposes that the animals in Aesop’s fables were a reversion of the anthropo
morphic gods (e.g., Athena or Hera) to their original forms as animals, which parodied
the frivolity of the deities’ endless leisure and mocked their pretense of heroism.6 The fa
ble quoted seems to allude to the Greek practice of taking most of the meat from sacri
fices for human consumption while leaving mostly bone and gristle for the deities, a prac
Page 3 of 19
Animals in Folklore
tice that would be called into question in times of crisis, when the gods seemed to be de
manding more. The fable may even satirize a passage in Hesiod’s Theogony, where the
cunning Prometheus (represented by the fox) tricks Zeus (the lion) into picking the lesser
of two piles from a sacrificed ox, thus bringing a terrible punishment on humankind (the
ass).7
Just beneath the placid surface of these tales, we can sense a terrifying and far more
primeval world, which is pervaded by extreme violence and magic. They are filled with
the sort of animal sages and tricksters that, despite being deprived of their more numi
nous qualities, resemble those found in zoomorphic mythologies from Africa to the Ameri
cas. Much like the Brothers Grimm in the nineteenth century and Disney Studios in the
twentieth, Aesop (whether he was one person or many) imposes a façade of bourgeois or
der and rationality on preternatural materials. One might even say that Aesop represents
an ancient “Disneyfication” of myth.
This tale migrated east to Persia and India where it provides a frame for the Panchatantra,
attributed to Vishnu Sharma written down in the second or third century CE, in which
two jackals (formerly the wolf and fox) are courtiers to the lion king. One is loyal, while
the other is deceitful and stirs up trouble; they use numerous tales to explain their coun
cils to the king, some of which have analogs in the fables of Aesop. In addition, the Pan
chatantra incorporated tales from a collection of fables originally written in Pali around
the fourth century BCE, known as the Jakatas, reportedly told by the Buddha himself
about experiences from his previous lives in human and animal forms. The Panchatantra
migrated back toward the west and was loosely translated by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa in
the twelfth century CE as Khalila wa Dimna. This work, in turn, was soon loosely translat
ed into Greek, Latin, and several Western languages and evolved into the European cycle
of Reynard the Fox.9
Fables in the tradition of Aesop continued to thrive in large part because they could be
adapted to a vast number of purposes. In Europe, fables in the Aesopian tradition were
given Christian morals by an author known as Physiologus, probably Didymus of Alexan
dria, in the second century CE, and later in bestiaries of the High Middle Ages. As the Ro
man Empire became increasingly Christianized, Avianus wrote a collection of animal fa
Page 4 of 19
Animals in Folklore
bles in the fourth century CE to help preserve traditional pagan culture. In the latter
twelfth or early thirteenth century, Berechiah ha-Nakdan used fables to illustrate Jewish
moral and religious lessons. At roughly the same time Marie de France and others adapt
ed the fables to tell of life in a feudal court, with its pageantry, power struggles, and
amorous ideals. Many Aesopian fables also found their way into works of popular science
such as The History of Four-Footed Beasts, Serpents, and Insects, by Topsell and Moffet,
published in mid-seventeenth-century England.10 In the latter seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, distinguished authors such as Jean de Lafontaine (France), Ivan Krylov (Rus
sia), and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Germany) gave the fable unprecedented prestige.
However, with the growing emphasis on individual authorship, it becomes far more a
genre of literature than of folklore, so we must look elsewhere for tales of animals that re
flect ongoing oral traditions.
The fables of Aesop have never been confined to anthologies but regularly entered politi
cal rhetoric, scientific writings, and discussions of every conceivable kind. It is possible to
view the beast fable not only as a folkloric and literary genre but also as a distinctive per
spective on animals and their relationship to human beings. The previously quoted fable,
like most, is anthropomorphic in that the characters speak and enter into agreements in
the manner of men and women. Illustrators of Aesopian fables generally portray animals,
so far as possible, as wearing clothes and walking upright.
Nevertheless, the anthropomorphism in the tales has distinct limits. Unlike peo
(p. 460)
ple, the animals in fable are not individuals but simply play roles according to their
species. Millennia before Darwin or Herbert Spencer, the fables show the sort of philoso
phy that we know as social Darwinism. The characters live in a world where the govern
ing rule is, “Eat or be eaten.” The fables may illustrate morals, but they tend to conflate
virtue with victory or at least survival. Defeat almost never has anything tragic, heroic,
nobly unselfish, or otherwise redeeming about it, as it often does in myths. The same one-
dimensional quality that adapts the characters in beast fables to serve as bearers of intel
lectual lessons also deprives them of pathos. When the ass is eaten by the lion, we are not
likely to spend much time in lamentation.
The collection of tales that is probably closest to the spirit of the original beast fables of
any since at least the Roman Empire is Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, a collection
of tales told by African Americans in Georgia, written down in dialect by Joel Chandler
Harris and first published in 1880. As a frame for the stories, Harris has an old black man
known as Uncle Remus telling stories to a little white boy. The central character in most
of the tales is Brer Rabbit, who constantly matches wits with other animals such as Brer
Fox, Bear, Mr. Buzzard, and Terrapin. Uncle Remus is gentle and wise after a fashion, but
he becomes stern and dismissive whenever he is asked about more than he is ready to
tell.
Uncle Remus shares enslavement with such legendary fabulists as Aesop, Babrius, Phae
drus, and Scheherazade, narrator of Arabian Nights Entertainments. In the 1960s
through the 1970s, as Black Nationalist movements rose to prominence in the United
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States, black militants often condemned Uncle Remus as an “Uncle Tom,” a servile Negro
who upheld the practices of a racist society. They viewed Brer Rabbit, by contrast, as a
black rebel, who had been deprived by the narrator of his proper dignity. The stories,
however, are far too farcical and outrageous for such heavy-handed, political moralizing.
Like most other tales of tricksters, they are essentially models of how people should not,
though often do, behave. Status as a slave does not necessarily reduce all of life to ques
tions of rebellion or submission. It does, nevertheless, at times provide a vantage point
from which one can observe the human zoo as well as the bestial society with special clar
ity.
By far the most famous of the Brer Rabbit tales is known as “The Wonderful Tar Baby Sto
ry.” In it, Brer Fox makes a doll out of tar and leaves it by the side of the road where Brer
Rabbit will pass. When the doll does not respond to his repeated greetings, Brer Rabbit
becomes infuriated and starts to pummel it. With every blow, the rabbit finds himself
more firmly enmeshed in bonds of tar. Brer Fox comes along and captures him and then
tries to torment his captive by threatening to kill him in all sorts of horrible ways, includ
ing roasting, hanging, and drowning. Brer Rabbit pleads with his captor, saying that he is
willing to accept any of these fates as long as Brer Fox does not throw him in the briar
patch. Brer Fox does just that, and Brer Rabbit, who actually is completely at home in the
briar patch, escapes.11
There is a lively debate about the origins of the Brer Rabbit stories. Some scholars be
lieve that Brer Rabbit is primarily a figure brought over with the slave trade, a version
(p. 461) of a trickster such as Anansi the Spider (West Africa) or Hare (East Africa). Some
of the tales are derived from European stories of Reynard the Fox. But, while individual
stories may have different points of origin, the major protagonist and the essential inspi
ration of the series is probably Native American. Brer Rabbit could be a version of
Mishaboz or Nanabozho, the trickster hare in many tales of the Algonquin Indians who
were at times enslaved and assimilated into African American culture. The story of the tar
baby has elsewhere been recorded only among Native Americans where it is known in a
few versions.12
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The resemblance between the two forms is notable as well. Both, as already mentioned,
are filled with talking animals and often even grant speech to trees or streams. While
their actual origins are far more complex, both forms have usually been attributed largely
to marginalized social groups. In the case of fables, the reputed authors were slaves,
while fairy tales were ascribed to peasants and, to a very large extent, women.13 But most
significantly, both forms, especially the fairy tale, are not anthropocentric, despite having
been developed in highly anthropocentric societies.
At least since the Brothers Grimm made fairy tales a subject of serious study, readers
have found them both extremely beautiful and unaccountably strange. Since they owed
very little to either Christianity or science, fairy tales also did not seem to belong to mod
ern civilization. The tales had to be placed in some other realm in which their odd per
spective, enjoyed from a distance, could not interfere with duty or reason. In the first edi
tion of their tales, this realm was the archaic myths of Germany where the Grimms be
lieved fairy tales had originated as well as of the peasant farms and villages where they
had allegedly been preserved. In later editions, as they adapted the tales to a juvenile
public, the realm became the enchanted world of childhood. Two centuries of intense
study still have not dissipated this perplexity, and recently Jack Zipes argued that fairy
tales were a resurgence of Greco-Roman religion, in which the old deities had taken other
forms.14
But the occasional references to motifs from old mythologies were likely to have been in
serted by highly educated storytellers who provided the Grimm brothers with (p. 462)
tales. More significantly, derivation from old myths cannot explain the zoocentric and ani
mistic nature of these tales. The paganism of the Greeks and Romans was not less anthro
pocentric than Christianity. Both religions featured deities in human form arranged in a
hierarchical bureaucracy. Fairy tales are full of mysterious powers, often associated with
animals, but they do not have any pantheon.
My view is that fairy tales were in no way anachronistic, but they revealed a facet of Eu
ropean and world culture that was radically at odds with the way that members of the in
telligentsia of the time wished to view themselves and their history. Fairy tales represent
ed a contemporary perspective that was opposed to highly systematized varieties of pa
ganism, Christianity, and deism. The magical characters in fairy tales are not so much
deities as local and household spirits such as brownies (Scotland), hobs (England),
kobolds (Germany), elves (Northern Europe), trolls (Scandinavia), lars (Rome), domovoi
(Eastern Europe), kami (Japan), jinni (Arabia), spirit animals (Plains Indians), and many
others. Such spirits are able to inspire belief alongside a great many universal religions
such as Greco-Roman paganism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism,
although, or because, they are seldom very profoundly integrated into a religious context.
They are at times conflated with such figures as goddesses, saints, demons, or bod
hisattvas, but they generally belong more to folklore than to religion.
The prominence of these figures remained one of the defining features of fairy tales. Ac
cording to Vladimir Propp’s study, The Morphology of the Fairy Tale, the Helper/Donor,
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which so often took on zoomorphic form, is the fourth of seven essential roles in Russian,
and perhaps all, fairy tales.15 In the earliest version of “Cinderella,” from the ninth centu
ry CE in China, the protagonist is assisted not by a fairy godmother but by a talking
fish.16 But the often zoocentric nature of such helpers was hard for members of the Euro
pean intelligentsia to accept. Animal helpers were demonized by the English and anthro
pomorphized by the French, while the Germans dealt with their discomfort by displacing
the tales, and their origin, into remote and exotic realms.
The attribution of fairy tales to people who either lived in ancient times or were low in the
social hierarchy was a way to disclaim responsibility for material that, though lyrical and
entertaining, seemed irrational and bizarre. Serfdom, a status at least close to slavery,
was not abolished in the kingdom of Hesse, the native country of the Grimm Brothers, un
til 1811, when their collection of fairy tales was already well under way. In viewing their
stories as the voice of the peasantry, the brothers were, therefore, placing them in a long
tradition of storytelling slaves, which as we have seen now extends from Aesop to Uncle
Remus.
“The Juniper Tree” begins about 2,000 years ago, as a beautiful young wife is peeling an
apple beside a juniper tree. The blade slips, she cuts her finger, and drops of blood fall in
the snow. She wishes for a child as red as blood and as white as snow and then goes in
side to her home. Nine months later, she bears a son and dies in childbirth and then is
buried at her request under the juniper tree.
After a time of mourning, her husband remarries and has a daughter, Marlene, with his
second wife. The new mistress of the house hates her husband’s son; one day as the son
is reaching for an apple in a chest, she severs his head. She then chops up his body and
makes a stew of it that she feeds to her husband, who devours it ecstatically. When he has
finished, Marlene (who mistakenly thinks she killed her brother) wraps up the bones in a
silk handkerchief and buries them under the juniper tree. The tree begins to stir and a
mist rises from it, and then a flame. A bird emerges from the flame and flies into the sky,
gloriously singing:
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My sister, Marlene,
Gathered my bones,
Tied them in silk,
For the juniper tree.
Tweet, tweet, what a fine bird am I!
A smith gives the bird a gold chain for his song, a shoemaker gives it a pair of red shoes,
and millers give it a millstone, all of which the bird carries away in its talons. He flies
back to his home, still singing, and gives the shoes to his sister and the gold chain to his
father. Finally, he drops the millstone on the head of the wife, killing her. The bird seems
to be consumed in flames, but when he vanishes the boy has reappeared. Together with
his father and sister, he goes into the house to eat.18
Claudine Farbe-Vassus in her book The Singular Beast provides an important key to re
constructing the original context of the tale, when she points out that in many traditional
European tales, pigs and people, especially young boys, are close to being interchange
able. In the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, these include the famous “Hansel and Gre
tel” (#15), which much resembles “The Juniper Tree,” where the wicked witch keeps
Hansel in a cage and endeavors to fatten him up like a pig for slaughter.19 It also includes
“The Children Who Played Butcher,” published in the first edition of their tales but left
out of subsequent ones because its violence, was, even for the Grimms, too extreme. In it,
a father demonstrates to his children how to slaughter a pig, and they then practice on
one another.
In traditional European peasant culture, domestic pigs were fed scraps from the
(p. 464)
household table, were allowed to run almost freely, and at times mated with their wild
counterparts. They would be cared for primarily by females who might develop a special
bond with them. Eventually, however, after all the family members had gathered to pay
their last respects, a pig would be ritually slaughtered at the time of the winter solstice or
slightly later. The slaughter would be performed carefully by a trained specialist who was
highly respected in the village and would perform the work in such a way as both to avoid
causing unnecessary pain and to properly prepare the body for dismemberment. This
would be followed by a grand feast of “St. Pig” lasting throughout the night, during which
the animal would be consumed. The meal was accompanied by games, songs, dances,
farces, and wearing of masks. The remains of the pig would then be disposed of accord
ing to rituals that varied from place to place. Sometimes a leg would be offered to Saint
Anthony, the patron of pigs.20
At least in its original inspiration, “The Juniper Tree” is about the young Marlene, who is
the only character in the tale with a name, coming to terms with the slaughter of a pig
she has nourished. For the Brothers Grimm, as for almost all pioneers in the collection of
folklore, the peasantry belonged to nature and thus was not to be individualized, so they
did not much concern themselves with the cultural context in which tales were told.
There were aspects of peasant culture that they probably would not have been able to
comprehend, at least not without relinquishing their idealization of “the people.”
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For all their extravagant magic, the tales of Grimm present us with a world that is highly
structured and in which different spheres are generally very clearly marked off from one
another—evil from good, nature from culture, animals from people, earth from heaven,
women from men, and commoners from royalty. One may move back and forth between
these kingdoms, yet the boundaries separating them remain unambiguous. This is why
many characters in their fairy tales often shape-shift between human and animal identi
ties, but hybrid beings such as centaurs or mermaids are very rare. This ambiguity of the
pig, poised between the realms of animals and human beings, would have seemed very
strange to the Grimms and their colleagues. The rituals surrounding a pig’s slaughter,
had they known of these practices, might have seemed barbaric, in rather the way Voodoo
and Santeria appear to many people today.
An Aesopic tradition continues in urban legends, anecdotes passed on without exact attri
bution but usually told in such a zestful but earnest tone that listeners seldom think to
doubt their veracity. These stories are short and almost plausible, generally have an unex
pected twist at the end, and address secret fears. In one, a hunter shoots down a huge
deer and then lays his expensive, high-powered rifle across the antlers to be pho
tographed with the trophy. The deer suddenly gets up, still carrying the rifle, and runs
away into the woods with it. Folklorist Jan Brunvand calls this type of tale “the animal’s
revenge.”21 The stag is an extremely old symbol of Christ, and this story, for all its mod
ern setting, could almost be a medieval allegory of death, resurrection, and divine retri
bution.
The mythic dimension is more overt in the story of the six to eight ravens kept on the
grounds of the Tower of London, ostensibly because of an old legend that “Britain will
fall” if they leave. They are said to have lived at the Tower since ancient times but were
actually imported only in the 1880s to serve as props for tales of Gothic horror told to
tourists. The legend dates from World War II, when the ravens were used to warn the
British of approaching bombs and planes, and the experience of shared peril bonded
them to the people of London. Like myths and legends of antiquity, this has been dis
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placed from history into the indefinite past, essentially the “Once upon a time …” of fairy
tales.22
The rhetoric and methods of science contribute mightily to the dissemination of folklore.
Technologically sophisticated devices such as video cameras that operate under water or
pick up infrared images constantly show unexplained flickers and outlines, which can
suggest the presence of an ape-man, a mermaid, or a dragon. As people do more tests,
these mysteries accumulate, and speculations are quickly spread via the Internet. Howev
er, this phenomenon is actually not unprecedented. The rise of early modern science dur
ing the Renaissance also produced a big upsurge in sightings of mermaids and other
mythological creatures from antiquity.
This paradoxical symbiosis of science and folklore is perhaps best exemplified by a recent
increase in animal divination. This acquired renewed popularity when Paul the Octopus of
the Oberhausen Zoo in Germany became an international celebrity by successfully pre
dicting the outcomes of all seven games of the German team plus the final in the World
Cup football (i.e., soccer) games in 2010. The method of prediction was carefully de
signed according to methods used by scientific researchers to eliminate bias. Before each
game, Paul was placed before two jars of mussels, one with the logo for each of the op
posing teams, and his selection of a jar was taken as the prediction of an eventual winner.
Statisticians calculated that the probability of the correct predictions being due to chance
was miniscule. No other animal has since equaled Paul’s success in prophesy, but many
people are now experimenting with the use of octopuses, elephants, pythons, cows, ot
ters, goats and other animals to predict the outcomes of sporting events.
In the United States and Canada, there are now thousands of contemporary re
(p. 466)
Until recently, folklorists, apart from a very few articles in the late 1950s and early 1960s,
paid hardly any attention to Bigfoot, probably because the specter is of Native American
origin. Until recently, Indian stories were usually considered the province of anthropology
rather than folklore. It was widely assumed, if not always explicitly stated, that Euro
peans represented the dominant culture, so the flow of cultural heritage would be from
them to less “civilized” people. Researchers were not prepared to seriously consider the
possibility that much Native American folklore had been adopted by Europeans and other
non-Native peoples. Legends of Bigfoot originated in tribes of Northern California and
can be traced back in oral traditions to about 1850, though the name “Bigfoot” only was
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used nearly a century later.23 Bigfoot was soon conflated with Sasquatch, a creature in
the folklore of Native Americans from the Canadian province of British Columbia,24 and
eventually became a blend of several monsters and demons from Indian tribes throughout
North America, further combined with Medieval European tales of the wild man.
There are also many reports of the Chupacabra, a monster that resembles a wolf in some
accounts and a lizard in others and kills goats and other animals by sucking their blood.
This monster was probably first reported in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, from where it
quickly spread to Mexico, the Southwestern United States, and most of Latin America.
The Mokele-Mbeme, by contrast, has been reported in Central Africa since the nineteenth
century. According to descriptions, it closely resembles a dinosaur such as brontosaurus
(now called “apatosaurus” by scientists), and rumors of it are still enough to terrify entire
villages. Except perhaps for Bigfoot and the Yeti, the most famous folkloric creature is
still the Loch Ness monster, but there are similar aquatic creatures reported in many
lakes from Scotland to Canada and Australia. Folklore is developing far too quickly for
any researcher to keep up with it or for any theorist to sort out its implications.
Conclusion
In examining human-animal relations both on an individual and on a societal level, puz
zles, paradoxes, and apparent contradictions are very much the norm. Herzog25 (p. 467)
documented many such enigmas: most people who claim to be “vegetarians” eat meat
regularly; cockfighting elicits far more indignation than industrial breeding of broiler
chickens, even though roosters raised for fighting lead immeasurably better lives; oppo
nents of animals in the laboratory make their case by citing knowledge gained through
painful experiments on animals; hoarders keep apartments full of animals under atro
cious conditions, convinced that they are providing a service of love; enthusiasts of thor
oughbred dogs, in their zeal to improve breeds, create animals who have chronic respira
tory problems, are prone to disease, and cannot whelp without human assistance. This list
of apparent contradictions seems to go on endlessly and to permeate every sector of soci
ety, regardless of gender, class, religion, education, ethnicity, or political affiliation.
But Herzog, except in special cases, does not even seriously attempt to address the ques
tion posed in the title of his book, “why it’s so hard to think straight about animals.” Is
this inability, with the resulting enigmas, an inevitable part of the human condition? Have
people always found their behavior toward animals impossible to explain, at least without
continuously confronting new conflicts, problems, and ambiguities? From the perspective
of history, anthropology, or folklore, the answer is to these questions is no. The sense of
helplessness before the endless paradoxes of human–animal relationships may well be
unique to the modern and contemporary West. The difficulty is that prevailing conceptual
frameworks do not enable us to think about animals in a coherent way.
The anthropologist Philippe Descola offers an explanation for this perplexity. First of all,
he distinguishes four basic paradigms used by different cultures to synthesize their expe
rience: animism, totemism, analogism, and naturalism. He finds the purest examples of
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totemism among the aborigines of Australia. Animism tends to predominate among the in
digenous people of the Americas, though generally in combination with totemism. West
ern culture of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance—as well as, at least until his
torically recent times, China and most of East Asia—was primarily that of analogism.26
What we call Western culture today is based, according to Descola, on the paradigm of
naturalism. This model divides the cosmos into two realms: culture, a product of human
autonomy; and nature, determined by absolute order and necessity. This dualism now per
vades not only our science but also our common sense, yet, in the words of Descola,
“Viewed from an unprejudiced perspective… .the very existence of nature as an au
tonomous domain is no more a raw given of experience than are talking animals or kin
ship ties between men and kangaroos.”27
Because naturalism juxtaposes these two broad realms, creating a long boundary be
tween them, it continually produces hybrids, yet it remains unable to conceptualize these
hybrids, and constantly insists on locating them in one realm or another. The boundary
between culture and nature has not been constructed in any one consistent or abiding
way. Western culture at times perceives women, “savages,” children, early civilizations,
and “lower” social classes as living close to this border, although on the “human” side,
and occasionally crossing over to the domain of nature. Since we regard (p. 468) animals,
especially pets, in some contexts as belonging to culture and in others as products of na
ture, they are a source of continuous perplexity.
The inability to conceptualize animals within the framework of naturalism led to their de
monization, as soon as that paradigm became dominant in the West. In the early modern
period, devils were increasingly depicted with the features of many animals, for example,
the wings of bats and the faces of dogs. Since the emerging paradigm of the Early Mod
ern period offered no place for them, intelligent or friendly animals seemed, by their very
existence, to be a violation of the cosmic order. Particularly in England of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, almost any intimacy with an animal could be accepted as evi
dence of witchcraft, with the result that fairy tales, which so often feature animal guides
and sages, almost died out within English oral traditions.28
In the late twentieth century, the imperative to assign creatures to the domain of either
culture or nature has often been carried to nearly unprecedented extremes. Dogs are
ever more intimately drawn into the human realm, where they now have their own de
signer clothes, jewelry, five-star hotels, psychiatrists, spas, television programs, gourmet
restaurants, and hospices, while their owners are increasingly referred to as “pet par
ents.” Meanwhile, especially since the 1970s, food animals are far more objectified than
ever before in industrialized farms.
We should remember that the four categories given by Descola—animism, totemism, anal
ogism, and naturalism—refer not to societies but rather to ways of synthesizing experi
ence. Naturalism became the most dominant paradigm in Western culture during the late
Renaissance, but it was never the only one. Folklore, in general, has retained the analo
gist paradigm of the European Renaissance, together with animist and totemist elements,
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within a society largely governed by naturalism. As the dominance of the naturalistic par
adigm begins to decline, we are now seeing these, and perhaps other, paradigms further
emerge from the margins, and this is why folklore no longer appears to stand out so
starkly from the rest of our civilization.
The movements for animal rights/liberation do not truly challenge either the division be
tween nature and culture or the associated belief in human superiority. Instead, they con
sist mostly of attempts to redraw this division in ways that might appear more rational,
more humane, or more stable. Most often, this means displacing a few kinds of animals
such as apes or dogs from the domain of nature to that of culture. At times, it may also be
a matter of making the separation more of a hierarchic continuum than a relatively
abrupt line. All such endeavors, in my opinion, will be rendered futile by the elusive, con
tinually shifting character of the division between nature and culture.
If this analysis is correct, the resulting changes are impossible to foretell in any detail. At
some risk of oversimplification, we can predict that human beings will see animals less as
either a resource or a protectorate than as an assortment of cultures that are very
(p. 469) profoundly different from our own. It is hard to envision this, since the change
will place in question ideas that are now implicit in our language, including our very con
cept of humanity and even our notions of life and death. We might be confined to increas
ingly elusive abstractions, except that folklore can often embody cultural alternatives in
ways that are simple, vivid, entertaining, and reassuring enough to be beloved, especially
in books of fairy tales, by children.
Further Reading
An inventory of interesting writings on animals in folklore could be virtually endless. This
list is confined to works that are either broad in scope, which might serve as an introduc
tion to the subject, or else focus on specific topics discussed in the preceding chapter.
The list also contains only works that have not been cited within the endnotes.
Abrahams, Roger D., ed. Afro-American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the
New World. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. (p. 471)
Anonymous. The Arabian Nights Entertainments: Tales of 1001 Nights. Trans. Malcolm C.
Lyons. 3 vols. London: Penguin, 2011.
Aftandilian, Dave, Marion W. Copeland, and David Scofield Wilson, eds. What Are Animals
to Us? Approaches from Science, Religion, Folklore, Literature, and Art. Knoxville: Uni
veristy of Tennessee Press, 2007.
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Babrius and Phaedrus. Babrius and Phaedrus. Trans. Edwin Ben Perry. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Univerity Press, 1990.
Bastine, Michael, and Mason Winfield. Iroquois Supernatural: Talking Animals and Medi
cine People. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions/Bear, 2011.
Beal, Timothy K. Religion and Its Monsters. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Bulliet, Richard W. Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human–
Animal Relationships. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Bruchac, Joseph. Native American Animal Stories. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing 1992.
Campbell, Joseph. Historical Atlas of World Mythology. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row,
1988.
Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary
Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Trans. Jack
Zipes. New York: Bantam Books, 1856/1987.
Gubernatis, Angelo de. Zoological Mythology: Or, the Legends of Animals. 2 vols. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Library, 1872/2009.
Herzog, Harold A., and Shelley L. Calvin. “Animals, Archtypes, and Popular Culture: Tales
from the Tabloid Press.” Anthrozoös 5, no. 2 (1992): 77–92.
Marchesini, Roberto, and Karin Anderson. Animal Appeal: Uno Studio Sul Teriomorfismo.
Bologna: Hybris, 2001.
Nigg, Joseph, ed. The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient
Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Porter, J. R., and W. M. S Russell. Animals in Folklore. Ipswich, UK: D.S. Brewer, 1978.
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Ritvo, Harriet. The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying
Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge,
1994.
Sax, Boria. The Frog King: Occidental Fables, Fairy Tales, and Anecdotes of Animals. New
York: Pace University Press, 1990.
Sax, Boria. The Serpent and the Swan: Animal Brides in Folkore and Literature. Knoxville:
McDonald & Woodward/University of Tennnessee Press, 1998.
Shepard, Paul. The Others: How Animals Made Us Human. Washington, DC: Shearwater
Books, 1996.
South, Malcolm, ed. Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Sourcebook and Research Guide
New York: Peter Bedrick, 1988. (p. 472)
Tatar, Maria, ed. The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
Thomas, Keith. Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800.
London: Allen Lane, 1983.
Trout, Paul A. Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination. Amherst,
NY: Prometheus Books, 2011.
Wootton, Anthony. Animal Folklore, Myth and Legend. New York: Blandford Press, 1986.
Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon, and Ash DeKirk. A Wizard’s Bestiary. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New
Page Books, 2007.
Zipes, Jack David, ed. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Zipes, Jack. Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. London:
Routledge, 2006.
Notes:
(1.) John Pollard, Birds in Greek Life and Myth (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1977),
14, 116–29; Homer, The Illiad, trans. Peter Jones, D. C. H. Rieu, and E. V. Rieu (New York:
Penguin, 2003), book 24.
(2.) For some discussion of Mesopotamian fables, their history, and their relation to the
Aesopian tradition, see Gillian Adams, “The First Children’s Literature. The Case for
Sumer,” Children’s Literature Quarterly. 14 (1986) 1–30; E. I. Gordon, “Sumerian Animal
Proverbs and Fables: Collection Five,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 12 (1958): 6–21; Sa
Page 16 of 19
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muel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago: Uni
versity of Chicago Press, 1971).
(3.) Anonymous, “Life of Aesop,” in Aesop’s Fables: With a Life of Aesop (Lexington: Uni
versity of Kentucky Press, 1993/ ca. 1st century CE), 7–51.
(4.) For the development of early fables, see Ben Edwin Perry, “Introduction,” in Babrius
and Phaedrus, ed. Ben Edwin Perry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), xi–
cii; Niklas Holtzberg, The Ancient Fable (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
(5.) Aesop, The Complete Fables of Aesop, trans. Oliva Temple and Robert Temple (New
York: Penguin, 1998), Fable 209.
(6.) Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1985), 132–133.
(7.) Hesiod, Theogony/Works and Days, trans. M. L. West (New York: Oxford University
Press, 750 BCE/1988), 19–20.
(9.) Anonymous, The Jatakas: Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta, trans. Sarah Shaw (New
York: Penguin, 2007); Vishnu Sharma, The Pachatantra, trans. Arthus W. Ryder (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1964); Patricia Terry, ed., Renard the Fox: Translated from
the Old French (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1983); Ramsay Wood, Kalila and
Dimna: Selected Fables of Bidpai (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). For a discussion of
the routes of diffusion of these tales, see Boria Sax, “Bestial Wisdom and Human Tragedy:
The Genesis of the Animal Epic,” Anthrozoos 11, no. 3 (1998), 134–141.
(10.) Avianus, The Fables of Avianus, trans. David R. Slavit (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni
versity Press, 1993); Didymus of Alexandria Physiologus (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1979/150–200); Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan, Fables of a Jewish Aesop,
trans. Moses Hadas (Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2001); Edward 1and Thomas Moffet,
The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents and Insects, 2 vols. (New York: Da Capo,
1658/1967); Marie de France, Isopet I, Isopet II de Paris, Isopet de Chartres. Fables from
the Old French: Aesop’s Beasts and Bumpkins, trans. Norman R. Shapiro (Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982).
(11.) Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (New York: D. Appleton,
1921), chapters II, IV.
(12.) Jay Hansford C. Vest, “From Bobtail to Brer Rabbit: Native American Influences on
Uncle Remus,” American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2000): 19–43.
(13.) For the contribution of women, see Valerie Paradiž, Clever Maids: The Secret Histo
ry of the Grimm Fairy Tales (New York: Basic Books, 2005).
Page 17 of 19
Animals in Folklore
(14.) Jack Zipes, The Irresistable Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 82–84.
(15.) Vladimir Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott, 2 ed.
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), 10.
(17.) Heinz Rölleke, Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: Reclam,
2004), 58–66.
(18.) Maria Tatar (ed.), The Annotated Brothers Grimm (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004),
208–223.
(19.) Claudine Farbe-Vassas, The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig, trans. Car
ol Volk (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 90–91.
(20.) Michel Pastoreau, Le Cochon: Histoire d’un cousin mal aimé (Paris: Gallimard,
2009), 60–65.
(21.) Jan Brunvand, The Mexican Pet: More “New” Urban Legends and Some Old Fa
vorites (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), 24–25.
(22.) Boria Sax, City of Ravens: London, Its Tower, and Its Famous Birds (London: Duck
worth-Overlook, 2011–2012).
(23.) Lynwood Carranco, “Three Legends of Northern California,” Western Folklore 22,
no. 3 (1963): 183.
(24.) Joshua Blu Buhs, Bigfoot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 74–89.
(25.) Hal Herzog, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think
Straight about Animals (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
(26.) For a detailed explication of this theory, see Philippe Descola, Par-delá nature et cul
ture (Paris: Gallimard, 2005).
(27.) Philippe Descola, “Constructing Natures: Symboloic Ecology and Social Practice,” in
Nature and Society: Anthropological perspectives, ed. Philippe Descola and Gísli Pálsson
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 109.
(28.) Boria Sax, “The Magic of Animals: European Witch Trials in the Perspective of Folk
lore,” Anthrozoös 22, no. 4 (2009): 317–346.
Boria Sax
Page 18 of 19
Archaeozoology
Archaeozoology
Juliet Clutton-Brock
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Public Policy
Online Publication Date: Jun 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.001
Keywords: animal studies, archaeozoology, faunal materials, zooarchaeology, osteology, isotope analysis, molecu
lar biology, radiocarbon dating
Introduction
FROM ancient times, people the world over have been interested in their origins. This is
reflected today in the myths and legends that have survived from long-gone societies,
ranging from those in the Bible to the writings of Aristotle and Pliny, and across conti
nents to the oral legends of America’s First Nations. However, it is not just the question
of how human beings arrived on Earth that fascinates us. The material remains of past
human societies as well as fossils of extinct plants and animals have always been collect
ed as mysterious objects that deserve respect and often reverence. Ammonites may be
seen as one example of fossils that have intrigued the curious since classical times and
probably earlier. It is now well-known that they are the fossilized remains of many species
of marine cephalopods who became extinct with the dinosaurs at the end of the Creta
ceous Period, but they are still collected and valued for their strange shapes.1
Page 1 of 15
Archaeozoology
Another example may be seen in the legend of the land of the Cyclops, the one-eyed gi
ants who were believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to inhabit the Mediterranean
islands. The legend is best known from Homer’s Odyssey, written around 800 BCE. How
ever, its origin must have been much earlier as Homer was clearly familiar with the be
lief, for he took the existence of the Cyclops for granted. Since the beginning of the twen
tieth century the basis for the legend has often been attributed to the fossil skulls of
dwarf elephants who lived on several Mediterranean islands during the Pleistocene Peri
od. The skull of an elephant has a single large round cavity in the frontal bone, the nasal
orifice to which the muscles of the trunk are attached, and the skulls of dwarf elephants
would have been found in the island caves, which could have spread the legend through
out the ancient world that they were the skulls of one-eyed giants.2
There have always been scholars who wanted to learn more about the history of past civi
lizations, and from the middle of the seventeenth century in Europe the desire to know
more about the material past of human history slowly grew into the subject of archaeolo
gy. In Egypt in 1638, John Greaves, an English professor of geometry, carried (p. 476) out
measurements of the pyramids and was one of the earliest to publish a detailed descrip
tion of archaeological fieldwork in English. In Britain this began in 1649 with what may
be termed the earliest field archaeology, carried out by John Aubrey who, when out hunt
ing, “stumbled across the stone circles at Avebury” and then made a meticulous examina
tion of the site.3 Many of the early archaeologists, however, were dedicated amateurs who
used their private incomes to fund their excavations and whose main aim was the re
trieval of valuable antiquities. Then, with the rise of the biological and physical sciences
in the nineteenth century and the spread of knowledge about the evolutionary process,
the study of paleontology and human evolution became acceptable as research. But the
development of the many sciences, including archaeozoology, that are today associated
with archaeology was a slow process that lagged behind the excitement of excavation.
The animal remains that filled the trenches were considered to be a troublesome by-prod
uct of the antiquities or structural remains, and all but the most complete were usually
reburied with the soil. If the bones were collected they were given to another amateur to
identify and produce a summary of their numbers.
In the nineteenth century, there were exceptions to those who were interested only in an
tiquities. A notable English naturalist among these was Frank Buckland (1826–1880), who
while excavating Pleistocene deposits in Kirkdale Cavern in Yorkshire found part of a
skull, which he believed to be that of a young hyena. Having no comparative material at
hand he requested Robert Burchell, the South African explorer and naturalist, to send
him a young hyena from the Cape, and in 1821 a baby hyena named Billy arrived by ship.
Buckland had intended that the hyena should be killed for his skull. However, he had be
come such a pet on the journey over on the ship as well as to Buckland that this did not
happen, and he was kept alive to contribute to the beginnings of archaeozoology in anoth
er way. Buckland observed that Billy’s excreta closely matched the coprolites (fossil drop
pings) found in the cave, and he was therefore able to prove that the site had been an Ice
Age hyena den.4
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Archaeozoology
The commissioning of a live animal to be brought thousands of miles by sea from the
Cape to England simply to provide a skull for comparison with a fossil was a remarkable
and possibly a unique event, and it emphasizes how crucially the identification of animal
remains from archaeological sites depends on comparison with skeletal remains of known
species. Today archaeozoology may be defined as the scientific evaluation of faunal mate
rials that are retrieved from archaeological sites. It is a multidisciplinary subject that in
cludes many associated sciences like radiocarbon dating, isotope analysis, and molecular
biology. The most important was, and arguably still is, comparative osteology, though, for
if a bone cannot be accurately ascribed to its species then all the rest of the information
around it is of little value to the archaeozoologist.
The years between 1971 and 1976 saw the beginnings of the widespread application of
science to the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites, culminating in
the founding of the International Council of Archaeozoology (ICAZ),5 which is today a
thriving society that holds international conferences every four years and workshops on
specialized subjects at intermittent times. One of these subjects on which periodic
(p. 477) workshops are convened is the new science of archaeogenetics, and particularly
the analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from bones. This has become an increasingly
important tool in revealing finer details in the identification of populations of species, the
relationships between domestic species and their wild progenitors, and the spread of va
rieties of domestic species from their location of origin.
Beginning with the random collection of animal remains in the nineteenth century, the fol
lowing examples of archaeozoological investigations have been selected from publica
tions to demonstrate the development of archaeozoology as a multidisciplinary science. It
will be shown how collaboration with scientists in the physical and genetic sciences in re
search on mammalian assemblages from sites of a diversity of periods, species, and conti
nents can reveal, in extraordinary detail, how people lived and interacted with animals in
the past. Of course all other living organisms, particularly birds, fishes, and mollusks,
play an equal role in archaeozoology, but this article is restricted to mammals as it is the
author’s research field.
Page 3 of 15
Archaeozoology
metal tools, and the bone remains from their meals—have been collected in great num
bers and are often exceptionally well preserved.
The archaeology of the prehistoric alpine lakes has provided an inestimable source for
collectors and for scientific research, and from the nineteenth century until the present
day a great many descriptions have been written about the faunal assemblages retrieved
from lakeshores. Ludwig Rütimeyer (1825–1895) was one of the earliest naturalists who
collected, identified, and wrote about the animal remains from the Swiss lakes. Although
there was no definitive way of dating the finds, his work is still valued for its descriptions
and lists of the great variety of wild species of mammals, birds, and fishes that were
present in Switzerland in the prehistoric period and that were hunted for food and other
resources by the lake village inhabitants.6
During the nineteenth century, the English-speaking world knew little about the Swiss
lake villages and their marvelous accumulations of finds because the reports were written
in German. However, a summary of Rütimeyer’s results was included in (p. 478) J. E. Lee’s
translation of Ferdinand Keller’s book on the archaeology of the lake dwellings of Switzer
land, which was published in London in 1878.7
In view of what is now known about the worldwide domestication of the pig, Rütimeyer’s
identifications are of historical interest:8
The pig is another domestic animal of which several races were found very early.
Yet, as far as I can make out, it did not occur tame in the oldest settlements of the
stone age; but, on the contrary, there were two races of wild swine, which might
almost be called species—one the wild boar of the present day, and the other what
I have designated as the marsh swine …
This description may be compared with that of the pig remains from the excavation of the
site of Yvonand IV (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland) in the 1970s. This site covered two main
Neolithic periods, the Horgen (2700–2500 BCE) and the Lüscherz (2400–2200 BCE),9 and
there were three sizes of pig bones and teeth recovered from the site. The largest were
ascribed to wild boar, the smallest to domestic pigs, and a small number of intermediate
size that were postulated to have resulted from the interbreeding of wild and domestic
pigs.10 The findings of both Rütimeyer and Clutton-Brock, which were based on the clas
sic archaeozoological technique of measurement of bones and teeth, indicated that local
wild boar and domestic pigs from the lake village sites were closely related.
Within the first decade of the twenty-first century, the new technology of analyzing mtD
NA has given strong support to the high probability that the Swiss Neolithic pigs were in
terbred with local wild boar (Sus scrofa), if they were not originally descended from wild
boar. The combination of zooarchaeological evidence and mtDNA analysis has shown that
the story of European pigs is, however, a lot more complicated than the straightforward
domestication of local wild boar. In a series of projects carried out over the past eight
years, the collaboration of geneticists and zooarchaeologists has documented the evi
dence for proving that the early domestication of pigs had occurred in southwest Asia by
Page 4 of 15
Archaeozoology
8500 BCE. Domestic pigs then spread across the Near and Middle East and westward in
to Europe alongside the first agriculturalists, thus linking the Neolithization of Europe
with Neolithic cultures of western Asia. By tracing the detailed genetic record of the bone
remains of pigs, a complex set of interactions and processes has unraveled the spread of
early farmers into Europe. Near Eastern pigs reached the Paris Basin by at least the early
fourth millennium BCE, but at this time they were also being interbred with European
wild boar, who may have been independently domesticated by then. This new race of Eu
ropean domestic pigs gradually replaced the introduced domestic pigs of Near Eastern
origin and are represented in the osteological remains of pigs from all later archaeologi
cal sites, including those of the Swiss Neolithic lakes.11
Many aspects of the keeping of pigs in the prehistoric period, apart from tracing their
early domestication, can be studied. One of these is the effects of climate, and particular
ly rainfall, on the successful distribution and husbanding of domestic pigs. In a (p. 479) de
tailed survey of sites in the Middle East between the fifth and third millennia BCE, Caro
line Grigson shows that the presence of pig remains is almost entirely dependent on the
amount of rainfall in the area. There were no pigs from sites that were in dry and arid re
gions unless there was evidence of irrigation, but there were many from areas that were
“moist enough to support at least dry farming.”12 Grigson also suggests that the social
stratification that developed in later periods in the Middle East led to prohibitions on eat
ing pork by the ruling elite, who farmed large, strictly managed herds of cattle, sheep,
and goats. Because pigs remained in the ownership of individuals in the lower orders of
society, they came to be considered unclean by the elite and the lawgivers.13
For the ancient Israelites, anything to do with pigs became forbidden by religious laws, as
it is for Jews and Muslims today. In the Old Testament, the pig “though he divide the hoof,
and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall
ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch,”14 and in the Qur’an it is decreed, “That
which dieth of itself, and blood, and swine’s flesh … is forbidden you.”15
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Archaeozoology
In their reexaminations of faunal remains from sites in Europe, the Ukraine, and Siberia,
Mietje Germonpré and her colleagues identified more than six skulls, which they claim as
Palaeolithic dogs, among large numbers of wolf remains together with the bones of their
prey, particularly mammoth.17 The identification of these skulls as dog rather than wolf is
based on the osteological characters accepted as distinguishing dog from wolf: reduction
in overall size; a shortening of the jaws; and widening of the snout, often without reduc
tion in size of the teeth so that the cheek teeth are compacted. However, as yet there has
been no general agreement that these six skulls show definite evidence for domestication,
this being that the animals lived in close interaction with humans and were reproductive
ly isolated from wild wolves.
From 10,000 years ago the remains of domestic dogs become readily recognizable by
their small size and morphology compared with that of wolves, and they have been identi
fied in some numbers from Mesolithic sites in Europe and from Natufian sites of (p. 480)
comparable date in southwestern Asia. A well-documented example involves the skulls of
a dog and a wolf from the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr in Yorkshire, England. The
site was occupied around a waterlogged lakeside for 350 years from c. 10,700–10,350 be
fore present during the Preboreal and Boreal climatic periods. The Ice Age had ended,
and temperatures were close to those of recent times. However, the sea levels had not
risen enough to separate Britain from the Continent. As with the Swiss lake deposits, al
though Star Carr is much earlier in date, a huge number of organic artifacts had been
preserved in the peat, including nearly 200 harpoon points made of red deer antler. The
site was first excavated by J. G. D. Clark in 1949–1951, the faunal remains were studied
by Fraser and King,18 and the dog was described in detail by Magnus Degerbøl.19 Still,
work has continued on the site and on the artifacts and fauna ever since.
In 1985, during excavations at the nearby Mesolithic site of Seamer Carr, the neck verte
brae of a dog were retrieved that match in age and size the skull of the Star Carr dog.20
On testing two samples of bone from the dog vertebrae for their carbon isotopes, they
yielded ratios of –14.67 percent and –16.97 percent. These ratios reveal that this dog ob
tained a significant part of his food from marine fish. Clutton-Brock and Noe-Nygaard21
therefore postulated that the site of Seamer Carr, and possibly also Star Carr, were hunt
ing camps visited by people who lived for much of the year nearer to the coast and ob
tained most of their food by sea fishing.
Over the next few thousand years, domestic dogs proliferated and spread over every part
of the world inhabited by people. With a combination of natural and artificial selection
they were transformed into the 400 or so distinctive breeds that are known today, but in
some regions they have remained as commensal carnivores living and breeding in a loose
association with human societies. These are the village dogs of Africa and Asia and the
pariah dogs of India, who have little human contact and live as truly feral populations. A
canid who lives as a completely wild carnivore and is yet descended from domestic dogs
is the dingo of Australia. Living dingoes are not so much feral domestic dogs as wild car
nivores who over thousands of years in reproductive isolation subject only to natural se
Page 6 of 15
Archaeozoology
lection, have developed into a geographical species that should be classified with the
Latin binomial Canis dingo.
Archaeological evidence indicates that humans first reached Australia more than 50,000
years ago, but there were no dogs on the island continent until after 12,000 years ago.
This is known because there are no remains of dogs from archaeological sites on the is
land of Tasmania, which was joined to mainland Australia until the sea broke through the
150-mile-wide Bass Straits at the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago. Al
though obtained in the 1970s, the earliest radiocarbon date for dog remains from Aus
tralia is still 3450 ± 95 years before present.22 However, on cultural grounds it is proba
ble that people took dogs to Australia considerably earlier than this date because the
Aborigines never acquired domestic pigs, who, in the later prehistoric period, became
widespread over the whole of Southeast Asia, including New Guinea and the Pacific is
lands.23
In skeletal anatomy, the dingo closely resembles the small wolf of India, Canis lupus pal
lipes, as well as the pariah dogs of Southeast Asia, and therefore it has been (p. 481) a rea
sonable hypothesis to assume that the dingo is a direct descendant of dogs who were
originally domesticated from tamed Indian wolves.24 With the advance of molecular biolo
gy, however, it has now been possible to establish the genetic relationships of the dingo
and thereby his probable origin. The molecular research has been carried out by Peter
Savolainen and colleagues who analyzed 211 Australian dingoes and 19 pre-European ar
chaeological dog samples from Polynesia as well as a large sample of dogs and wolves
from worldwide sources. The results showed that a majority of the dingoes had mtDNA
type A29, which was found only in dogs from East Asia and Arctic America, whereas 18 of
the 19 other types of mtDNA were unique to dingoes. The mean genetic distance to A29
among the dingo mtDNA sequences indicated an origin 5000 years ago. From these re
sults it was deduced that dingoes have an origin from domesticated dogs coming from
East Asia. They were introduced from a small number of dogs, possibly at a single occa
sion.25 In a more recent molecular analysis Oskarsson and colleagues have refined these
results.26 Their aim was to investigate the origin and route of introduction of Polynesian
domestic dogs and the feral Australian dingoes and closely related but distinctive New
Guinea singing dogs (NGSD) to establish how dogs populated this part of the world and
which human cultures may have been involved in these migrations. The results showed a
clear indication that the ancestry of all three groups of dogs can be traced back to South
China and their migration route was through Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
Furthermore, although the earliest archaeological evidence for dingoes in Australia has
been dated to 3500 years before present, based on the mtDNA data, the estimated time of
arrival of dingoes in Australia is between 18,300 and 4600 years before present. This date
is considerably earlier than that suggested by the archaeological evidence and earlier
than the arrival of the Neolithic to the surrounding regions.27 However, it fits with the
lack of pig remains from any archaeological site of pre-European date in Australia. In
Polynesia, the remains of pigs and dogs occur together with the arrival of the Neolithic
Lapita culture, between 3000 and 2000 years ago.
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Archaeozoology
[The aurochs] as well as the bison (or wisent) were at first considered as rather
rare, but now they are found to have been the most abundant animals in the
forests of the stone age; we ought, however, to state that at Concise they entirely
disappeared with the introduction of metal weapons. From this time forward in
general, all game or (p. 482) wild animals which in early ages far preponderated in
number over the domestic animals, began to decline in a most marked manner …
Rütimeyer was aware that Bos primigenius was extinct in his day29 but that bison were
still to be found wild in European forests. After the First World War European bison were
exterminated in the wild and remained only in a few zoos and private parks. Reintro
duced European bison are found today in the Bialowieza National Park in Poland and in a
few other forests.
The only way that Rütimeyer could carry out investigations into faunal remains from ar
chaeological sites was to identify the bones and teeth by comparing them with those of
known species, establishing the age at death of the animals, listing the numbers of each
species represented, and dating them by their cultural context. And for almost the next
100 years, these remained the only research tools available to archaeozoologists, until in
1949 American scientists Willard Libby and colleagues invented the technique of radio
carbon dating, which is based on carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon that can be
used to date materials up to 50,000 years old. It became possible to establish reliable rel
ative dates for individual specimens, and in the 1970s and 1980s a project was set up that
attempted to find the latest dates for the survival of wild species, now extinct, and the
earliest dates for their domesticated descendants. One example was a bone, identified as
aurochs (Bos primigenius) from a cave site in Britain. The date was 3245 ± 37 bp (c. 1295
BCE),30 which showed that the wild aurochs survived in Britain into the Bronze Age.31
Then came the first analyses of stable isotopes to be published in an archaeological study,
by J. C. Vogel and N. van der Merwe in 1977,32 and from this time on isotopes of stron
tium, carbon (for the Seamer Carr dog), nitrogen, and oxygen have been increasingly
used in the analyses of animal bone (collagen and apatite), tooth enamel, hair, and pot
tery residues.
An important and exciting use of strontium isotopes was published in the work of Sarah
Viner and colleagues in 2010,33 which revealed how cattle were moved long distances to
the Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, one of the largest settlements and henge mon
uments in Britain and two miles from Stonehenge. The site was occupied, according to
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Archaeozoology
the latest radiocarbon dates, between 2515 and 2460 cal BCE at 95.4 percent probability.
The 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratio of 13 molar teeth of cattle was measured from the site.
These measurements revealed that two of the teeth came from animals certainly raised
under the local conditions of chalk grassland but that the other 11 teeth provided signa
tures so distinct that the cattle could not have been raised on chalkland. The results indi
cate that cattle, and therefore also people, traveled considerable distances to reach the
site, probably for ceremonial reasons:34
The animals are likely to have been moved to the site while still alive, and proba
bly contributed to the feasting activity that has been identified through zooarchae
ological studies. The within-tooth variation in signatures suggests that individual
animals were exposed to different patterns of movement during the period of
tooth development. In some cases, the animals clearly began a general movement
towards (p. 483) chalkland areas while the tooth was in growth but, for others,
tooth development was complete before movement towards Durrington Walls be
gan. This also indicates that both young and adult animals were driven to the site.
Not only archaeology and knowledge about human prehistory but also the management
and economics of modern livestock and other domesticates have benefited from modern
archaeozoological studies. For the past 50 years, Britain as well as many European coun
tries and North America have recognized that the ancient, native breeds of all livestock
who have evolved in perfect adaptation to their local environments are of great value, and
efforts have been made and societies founded for their preservation. For example, the
British Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) celebrated its fortieth year in 2013, and no
rare breed of livestock or horses has become extinct since its foundation. Another exam
ple is the foundation of the Africanis Society for the indigenous village dogs of southern
Africa.35
At the same time as breeds of livestock were being conserved in the developed world,
great efforts were made by colonialists until very recently to improve the local native
breeds of cattle in Africa and to control or outbreed the village dogs. For example, Euro
pean breeds of cattle such as the Friesian and the Hereford have been imported and
crossed with local breeds such as the Boran in Ethiopia who are perfectly adapted to the
semi-desert region of the Sahel in that they need to drink only once every three days.
They cannot be improved by introgression from European cattle who have evolved in a to
tally different environment and climate.36 Although there are many details still to work
on, the prehistory of the breeds of cattle throughout Africa has now been traced, and ef
forts are being made to preserve them. Through a combination of archaeozoological and
genetic studies it is now assumed that many breeds have an autochthonous origin from
wild Bos primigenius who roamed across the Mediterranean border of North Africa in the
early prehistoric period.37 They are humpless and are known as taurine breeds. The earli
est finds of domestic cattle in Africa (apart from ancient Egypt) are reputed to come from
Grotte Capéletti in Algeria and are dated from the seventh to the sixth millennium BCE.38
Page 9 of 15
Archaeozoology
If these finds can be verified the cattle could have been direct indigenous descendants of
the local wild Bos primigenius.
Over the past thousand years, indigenous local breeds of taurine cattle have been cross
bred with humped cattle imported across the Indian Ocean from Arabia and further east;
they are known as Sanga cattle.39 Humped, or zeboid, cattle are descended from a sepa
rate form of wild Indian bovid, Bos namadicus; they are known as zebu and are distin
guishable from taurine cattle by a variety of osteological and morphological features,40
but the two forms will readily interbreed and produce fertile offspring. On archaeological
sites, zeboid cattle can be distinguished from taurine by the shape of the skull and by the
posterior thoracic vertebrae, which have bifurcated neural spines in zebu.
In 2012, Olivier Hanotte and colleagues published a detailed review of the genomics of 50
breeds of African cattle that fully supports the archaezoological evidence for the origin
and spread of cattle throughout Africa.41 In summary, there is archaeological (p. 484) and
genetic evidence for the spread of autochthonous taurine cattle south through the Sahara
to West Africa, where they are represented today, for example, by the indigenous, dwarf
breed, the N’Dama, who has evolved natural immunity to trypanosomiasis, the disease
carried by tsetse flies. In East Africa, the remains of cattle are found on archaeological
sites from the late third millennium BCE, and, with Iron Age farmers, they spread south
along an eastern route to South Africa, arriving in the eastern Cape around 2000 years
ago. Along the route and over time these cattle were crossed with imported zeboid cattle
to produce the Sanga breeds, represented today, for example, by the Ankole cattle of
Uganda and the Afrikander cattle of South Africa.42
the northern Deccan. Here Dhavalikar was able to infer that, during the first half of the
first millennium BCE, the inhabitants had turned from settled farming to semi-nomadic
pastoralism because the land could no longer sustain their crops and animals.44 This had
resulted from a drastic change in climate with much lower rainfall, leading to greatly in
creased aridity and frequent droughts that made life insupportable in the villages.45
Further archaeozoological research since the 1980s has widened the hypothesis that no
madic pastoralism always develops after depletion of resources around a settlement. In
regions of semi-desert, it appears that nomadism developed very soon after the first
(p. 485) domestication of sheep and goats in western Asia. The earliest radiocarbon dates
for the Neolithic in southeast Arabia are older than 8000 BCE. They indicate that these
first farmers spread into the Arabian steppes and deserts, which were probably much
greener at that time but not green enough for true farming. Here, nomadism first devel
oped as a division of labor: sedentary inhabitants produced cereals while the young men
moved with their sheep and goats farther and farther away from their origin into the
neighboring steppe and adopted an economy that could be called “herders and gather
ers.”46
During the second half of the twentieth century, study of the behavior of living wild ani
mals became formalized as ethology, and it was linked with archaeozoology in ways that
may not seem immediately obvious. Ethological studies of the behavior of living wild
species, combined with interpretation from their osteological remains of their distribution
in the past, provide invaluable information about their domesticated descendants. This
has led to the realization that domestic animals are not just the unnatural products of hu
man culture to be treated like animate vegetables—they retain many of the physical at
tributes and much of the behavior of their wild progenitors. So knowledge of the biotope
and behavior of these wild progenitors can be used to promote improvements and stan
dards in animal welfare of their domesticated descendants. For example, it is now well-
known that wild boar, although widespread in many habitats, prefer the thickets along
riverbanks where they can wallow and dig nests for the birth of their young; wild goats
are mountain animals inhabiting rocky outcrops with sparse vegetation; wild sheep can
inhabit lower mountain areas than wild goats and prefer to browse and graze on the veg
etation of semi-deserts. The wild ass (Equus africanus) is a true desert animal, and the
domestic donkey (Equus asinus) has inherited his character and requirements.
Hans-Peter Uerpmann is an archaeozoologist who has led the field in this research, and
his monograph The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East
(1987)47 has become a classic work of reference. This work provides a factual basis for all
those who are involved with the past, present, or future environment of the region,
whether they are archaeozoologists, archaeologists, or conservationists involved with the
reintroduction of locally extinct species, such as the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) in the
deserts of western Asia. Furthermore, the ancient distribution of domestic species re
vealed from their remains on archaeological sites has been an important influence in the
Page 11 of 15
Archaeozoology
foundation of the many societies in different parts of the world for the preservation of en
dangered indigenous breeds of domesticates.
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to Professor Linda Kalof for inviting me to write this chapter for the Oxford
Handbook of Animal Studies, of which she is editor. Grateful thanks to Caroline Grigson
for telling me the story of Frank Buckland and his hyena and for more than 40 years of
friendship and collaboration in archaeozoology.
Further Reading
Davis, S. J. M. The Archaeology of Animals. London: Batsford, 1987.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Eagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1997.
Manning, A., and James Serpell, eds. Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives.
London: Routledge, 1994.
Zeder, Melinda A., Daniel G. Bradley, Eve Emshwiller, and Bruce D. Smith, eds. Document
ing Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006.
Notes:
(1.) See, e.g., C. M. Nelson, “Ammonites: Ammons Horns into Cephalopods,” Journal of the
Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 5, no. 1 (1968): 1–18.
(2.) Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
(4.) F. T. Buckland, Curiosities of Natural History, Second Series (London: Richard Bent
ley, 1890), 86–92.
(6.) L. Rütimeyer, Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten in der Schweiz, Untersuchungen über die
Geschichte der wilden und Haus-Säugethiere Mitteleuropas (Basel: Verlag von
Bahnmaier’s buchhandlung (C. Detloff), 1861).
(7.) F. Keller, The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Other Parts of Europe, Vol. 1, trans.
J. E. Lee (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1878).
Page 12 of 15
Archaeozoology
(8.) L. Rütimeyer, “Results of the Investigation of Animal Remains from the Lake
Dwellings,” in ibid., 539.
(10.) J. Clutton-Brock, “Animal Remains from the Neolithic Lake Village Site of Yvonand
IV, Canton de Vaud, Switzerland,” Archives des Sciences, Genève 43, no. 1 (1990): 1–97.
(12.) C. Grigson, “Culture, Ecology, and Pigs from the 5th to the 3rd Millennium BC
around the Fertile Crescent,” in Pigs and Humans 10,000 Years of Interaction, ed. U. Al
barella, K. Dobney, A. Ervynck, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 83–108.
(13.) Ibid.
(16.) J. Clutton-Brock, “Origins of the Dog: Domestication and Early History,” in The Do
mestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour, and Interactions with People, ed. James Serpell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7–20.
(17.) M. Germonpré, M. V. Sablin, R. E. Stevens, et al., “Fossil Dogs and Wolves from
Palaeolithic Sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia: Osteometry, Ancient DNA and
Stable Isotopes,” Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009): 473–490; M. Germonpré,
M. Láznicková-Galetová, V. Mikhail, et al., “Palaeolithic Dog Skulls at the Gravettian Pred
mostí Site, the Czech Republic,” Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012): 184–202.
(18.) F. C. Fraser and J. King, “Faunal Remains,” in Excavations at Star Carr an Early
Mesolithic Site at Seamer near Scarborough, Yorkshire, ed. J. G. D. Clark (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1954), 70–95.
(19.) M. Degerbøl, “On a Find of a Preboreal Domestic Dog (Canis Familiaris L.) from Star
Carr, Yorkshire, with Remarks on Other Mesolithic Dogs,” Proceedings of the Prehistoric
Society 27 (1961): 35–55.
Page 13 of 15
Archaeozoology
(21.) Ibid.
(22.) P. Milham and P. Thompson, “Relative Antiquity of Human Occupation and Extinct
Fauna at Madura Cave, South-Eastern Western Australia,” Mankind 10, no. 3 (1976): 175–
180.
(23.) J. Clutton-Brock, Animals as Domesticates: A World View through History (East Lans
ing: Michigan State University Press, 2012), 101–104.
(29.) The last recorded aurochs, a cow, died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, in 1627.
(31.) R. Burleigh and J. Clutton-Brock, “A Radiocarbon Date for Bos primigenius from
Charterhouse Warren Farm, Mendip,” Proceedings University Bristol Spelaeological Soci
ety 14, no. 3 (1977): 255–257; J. Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Mam
mals, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 81–84.
(32.) J. C. Vogel and N. J. van der Merwe, “Isotopic Evidence for Early Maize Cultivation in
New York State,” American Antiquity 42 (1977): 238–242.
Page 14 of 15
Archaeozoology
(35.) J. Gallant, The Story of the African Dog (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press,
2002).
(37.) C. Grigson, “An African Origin for African Cattle? Some Archaeological Evidence,”
African Archaeological Review 9 (1991): 119–144.
(40.) C. Grigson, “The Craniology and Relationships of Four Species of Bos. 5. Bos indicus
L.,” Journal of Archaeological Science, 7 (1980): 3–32.
(41.) Oliver Hanotte, Daniel G. Bradley, Joel W. Ochieng, Yasmin Verjee, Emmeline W. Hill,
and J. Edward O. Rege, “African Pastoralism: Genetic Imprints of Origins and Migrations,”
Science 296 (2012): 336–339.
(43.) A. M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, trans. J. Crookenden (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984).
(47.) H.-P. Uerpmann, The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East
(Wiesbaden: Dr Reichert, 1987).
Juliet Clutton-Brock
Page 15 of 15
Animals and Ecological Science
Ecological science, which studies the relationships between organisms and their environ
ments, developed from natural history. Aristotle’s teleological chain of being and detailed
description modeled natural history until the eighteenth century. Linnaeus and Buffon re
placed Aristotelian categories with new criteria for classification, leading the way to
Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Darwinian evolution depended on environmental factors
and led to the birth of ecological science by the end of the nineteenth century. The
ecosystem concept emphasizes populations and systems rather than individuals. Case
studies, of wolves and fish show the range of modern ecological science. Anthropogenic
changes to the environment have led to extinction and endangered species. Attempts to
meliorate human influence include rewilding and synthetic biology.
Keywords: ecological science, chain of being, ecosystem, endangered species, evolution, extinction, natural
history, rewilding, synthetic biology, taxonomy
Introduction
THE chapter examines the scientific study of animals in the ecological sciences under
three broad headings. Before there was ecological science, there was natural history,
while today some believe that the future of ecological science is in what has been called
de-extinction or synthetic biology. Between these two extremes, I look at some current
practices in ecological science, with case studies of wolves and fish.
Page 1 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
in some ways persists today. Historia (Greek ἱστορία) originally meant simply an “inquiry”
or an “investigation,” or an account of such an inquiry. It did not imply the passage of
time. Aristotle’s History of Animals offered detailed descriptions of all animals known to
him. Unlike his mentor Plato, Aristotle was no armchair philosopher, and he took every
opportunity to observe every animal he could: wild and domestic, native and exotic, ter
restrial and aquatic. He investigated morphology, habitat, behavior, and what he called
“manner of life”; what parts were the same and what were different; how they ate and re
produced. He noted natural kinds and attempted various classifications. Broad groupings
seemed obvious: birds were different from fish. Some animals had two feet, some four,
others none. Some animals were “blooded”; some, like (p. 490) insects, were not. But
when Aristotle began to look at generation, he found categories that cut across others
and that seemed to fit a hierarchical system based on degrees of perfection as measured
by degrees of natural heat. Thus warm-blooded viviparous animals were “hotter” and
“more perfect” than oviparous animals, and so forth, down to those animals he believed
produced larva rather than eggs. This hierarchical system, later known as the “chain of
being” or “ladder of nature,” proved to have remarkable staying power in Western
thought. The chain of being was not only hierarchical but full, including every animal
(and plant) that could be created. It was also unchanging, so that species were fixed in
time and space. And it was teleological: nature always worked toward a purpose.1
From the outset, the natural history of animals did not consist merely of passive observa
tion. Aristotle dissected many dead animals and a few living ones. He collected and pre
served specimens. These remained essential practices for the science of natural history,
as did recording observations in words and pictures. Natural history overlapped with oth
er uses of animals: collections of exotic animals in menageries conferred prestige on their
owners but also provided opportunities for naturalists to observe new species, and
hunters and fishermen often provided materials for study. The Roman physician Galen (c.
129–210 CE) used animals in anatomical studies to learn about human function, but at the
same time, he also learned about animals. Naturalists from antiquity to the nineteenth
century followed Aristotle’s example and collected, dissected, and observed.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews adopted Aristotle’s hierarchical concept of nature and sci
entists still refer to “higher” and “lower” animals. Beginning with the influx of New World
animals to Europe in the sixteenth century, however, the chain of being began to fall
apart. For example, the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner (1516–1565) did not quite know
what to do with the armadillo, and he strained to fit her into a known niche on the chain
of being. As translated by Edward Topsell (1572–1625) a half century later, the “Tatus or
Guinean Beast” (“Guinean” in this era simply meant “foreign”),
is brought for the most part out of the new-found world, and out of Guinia, and
may therefore be safely conveyed into these parts, because it is naturally covered
with a harde shell, devided and interlined like the fins of fishes, outwardly seem
ing buckled to the backe like coat-armor, within which, the beast draweth up his
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Animals and Ecological Science
body, as a Hedghog doth within his prickled skin; and therefore I take it to be a
Brazilian Hedghog.2
Gessner and his contemporaries, such as Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), made no at
tempt to classify beyond very general categories. The lack of consensus about classifica
tion among naturalists is evident in cabinets of curiosities, assembled in this period as
physical counterparts to Renaissance natural history texts. Cabinets served as prototypes
for natural history museums, which emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. A cabi
net belonged to an individual and reflected that person’s tastes and interests. Usually a
single large room, it functioned as a naturalist’s workplace and as a site of display, open
or not to spectators. Collectors mingled natural history and antiquities, natural objects
and made objects, using surprising juxtapositions to produce particular effects: aesthetic,
moral, or philosophical. Unusual specimens and natural anomalies were particularly
prized, but cabinets also documented the ordinary course of nature. Illustrated catalogs
mapped the collections. For example, the cabinet of Italian apothecary Ferrante Imperato
(1550–1625) featured many preserved animal specimens, with an emphasis on the rare
and unusual—the diarist John Evelyn reported seeing chameleons and “an extraordinary
greate Crocodile.”3 Preservation methods included drying and “wet” preparations in jars
with some kind of preserving fluid, as well as taxidermy. Late seventeenth-century works
of natural history, such as Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire naturelle des animaux (1671–
1676) of the Paris Academy of Sciences served as a kind of paper cabinet or paper
menagerie, since it consisted of animals from Louis XIV’s menageries.4
The idiosyncratic organization of cabinets and such works as the Mémoires reflected con
tinued debate about the proper criteria for classification. The ideal, a system that dis
played the order of nature, seemed increasingly out of reach. Aristotle had attempted and
failed to establish such a natural system. The naturalist John Ray (1627–1705), who edit
ed the comprehensive natural history of birds of Francis Willughby (1635–1672), attempt
ed at the end of the seventeenth century to outline a natural classification of animals, but
it was generally viewed as too complex to be useful. The discovery of the sexuality of
plants, which emerged from the work of a number of late seventeenth-century naturalists,
provided a key to the classification of both plants and animals. Swedish botanist Carl von
Linné (Carolus Linnaeus, 1707–1778), classified plants according to sexual parts in his
Systema naturae (1735), which also presented a scheme for classifying animals, organiz
ing them in six broad classes: quadrupeds, birds, amphibians, fish, insects, and worms.
The tenth edition in 1758 established the now standard binomial nomenclature of genus
Page 3 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
and species. Linnaeus aimed to establish order rather than to reproduce nature’s plan,
but he saw that order as a revelation of God’s design.5
Buffon acknowledged in his preface that we cannot pretend to be able to understand all
of nature’s complexity and abundance. He dismissed much of the work of earlier natural
ists and claimed a method of observation and comparison of numerous individuals de
rived from the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626), although he also referred
to both ancient and more recent works such as the Paris Academy’s Mémoires. Perhaps
most importantly, he disregarded any religious framework; although nature revealed a de
sign, it did not come from God. Buffon’s first discovery was, he noted, “perhaps humiliat
ing to humans: it is that we must classify ourselves as animals.”7 He went on to condemn
all current classification schemes as being artificial and incomplete, displaying “an error
of metaphysics,” what we might call a category mistake. The systems for classifying ani
mals were, he said, even worse than those for plants.8
Buffon sought a natural system based on close observation of all characteristics of an or
ganism. Such a system would not be as complete and complex as that of Linnaeus, but it
would, he believed, be truer to nature. In the volumes on quadrupeds (what we would call
mammals, following Linnaeus), Buffon and Daubenton organized them first into domestic
and wild, then into local and exotic, with further divisions according to teeth and other
criteria. But over the 40 years of the Histoire naturelle, Buffon added the critical concept
of time to natural history. Acknowledging studies of fossils that had begun with Nicholas
Steno (1638–1676) in the previous century, Buffon came to emphasize contingency and
historical process in nature, arguing that present life forms can be explained by their his
tory. In addition, Buffon acknowledged what Steno and others had been reluctant to rec
ognize: the fact of extinction. Not all life forms survived; nature’s plan, whatever it was,
included imperfection and dead ends. In Epoques de la nature (1778), Buffon presented a
story of natural development over time that greatly extended the traditional Christian
time frame based on biblical chronology. Together with Linnaean classification, Buffon
laid the groundwork for the development of a secular science of natural history in the
nineteenth century. Buffon’s King’s Garden, which the French Revolution re-created as
the Paris Museum of Natural History, became a central site for the development of this
new science.9
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Animals and Ecological Science
Museum collections of animals in the nineteenth century, based on voyaging and collect
ing over the previous 200 years, engendered the professionalized and specialized natural
history of animals that in turn gave birth to a number of new sciences, including ecology.
Historians have traced the development of evolutionary theory from Georges Cuvier’s
studies of fossils at the Paris Museum of Natural History in the 1790s to Darwin’s 1859
Origin of Species, a development that was neither smooth nor inevitable. The work of nu
merous naturalists, artists, collectors, curators, anatomists, and experimenters con
tributed to Darwin’s theory and its elaboration in the second half of the nineteenth centu
ry. Many of the same individuals contributed to the beginnings of the science of ecology,
which historian Lynn Nyhart attributes to “taxidermists, zookeepers, school teachers, mu
seum reformers, amateur enthusiasts, and nature protectionists.”10
The science of ecology, defined by Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) in 1866 as the rela
(p. 493)
The concept of the ecosystem was first enunciated by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in
1935, but the idea had been around for a while. Whether nature was an organism, as
Clements argued; a community, as Charles Elton maintained in his influential book Ani
mal Ecology (1927); or a complex biogeochemical system of feedbacks and nutrient cy
cling, as G. Evelyn Hutchinson and later Eugene Odum demonstrated, it became increas
ingly clear that ecological science was one of systems rather than of individuals.12
Page 5 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
Wolves
Although Romulus and Remus were said to have suckled on a she-wolf, wolves have more
often been feared as predators of humans and symbols of an unknown and uncivilized
world. In the Middle Ages, the taming of the wolf of Gubbio by St. Francis reflected this
widespread fear of wolves in particular and the wilderness in general. In the eighteenth
century, the bête féroce of the Gévaudan—finally revealed to be a wolf—terrorized a re
gion in the Massif Central of France for a year.13 Wolves had become extinct in much of
Western Europe by the end of the nineteenth century. In the early years of westward ex
pansion in the United States, wolves were obstacles to be extirpated, but by the late
twentieth century they had become symbols of lost wilderness and human hubris. (p. 494)
In Eurasia and the United States, modern wolves have a mixed status as both an exotic
animal in a zoo and a wild and not necessarily welcome native animal.
In the United States, grey wolves were among the first animals to be listed after passage
of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 (the Bern Convention of 1979 performs a similar
function in the European Union). Long considered to be vermin, wolves in the lower 48
states were confined to a small area in northern Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Penin
sula by the 1930s. Although the noted wildlife ecologist Aldo Leopold (1886–1948) had
noted the “fierce green fire” die out in the eyes of a wolf he shot in Arizona in 1909 (as he
recounted in his 1944 essay, “Thinking Like a Mountain”), he continued to hunt wolves
and to advocate their slaughter for the next 20 years.14 Only in the early 1930s, when
wolves had been nearly hunted, trapped, and poisoned out of existence, did he begin to
recognize the role of predators in ecosystem maintenance. His 1933 book Game Manage
ment, for many years the main textbook on the subject, revealed in its title two enduring
characteristics of human relationships with, and study of, wild animals: they were “game”
for the use and sport of humans, and they required human management.15 The manage
ment context remains prominent in research on wild animals. Unlike laboratory animal
research, ecological research is often applied research, particularly in the United States,
as reflected in funding sources that include the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish
and Wildlife Service (at the federal and state levels), and the Department of Agriculture
(which oversees the Forest Service).16
By the 1980s, wolves were on the rebound in the United States and, owing to similar con
servation measures, in parts of Europe as well. Wolves trickled across the border into the
United States from Canada, and in a controversial measure, Canadian wolves were rein
troduced into Yellowstone National Park and areas of central Idaho in 1994–1995. The
reintroduction of wolves to areas that had not seen them in over half a century continues
to raise many issues, both scientific and political, as well as a significant public response.
In ecological terms, wolves are known as keystone predators, whose influence on an
ecosystem extends far beyond their immediate impact on specific prey. The presence of
such keystone species triggers “trophic cascades” of nutrient circulation, affecting a num
ber of species throughout an ecosystem.17 For example, Ripple and Beschta recently
demonstrated that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone diminished elk popula
Page 6 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
tions, which in turn allowed aspen and cottonwood trees, beavers, and a number of other
species to increase in numbers.18
Idaho wolves soon crossed the border into the states of Oregon and Washington, and in
December 2011 an Oregon wolf known as OR-7 crossed the southern border of Oregon in
to California. The last known wolf in California had been shot in 1924. Scientists from the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife have tracked OR-7’s travels with a GPS collar he
has worn since early 2011. Radio tracking, first used in the 1950s, has been used to ac
quire data that is then used on a metascale in population studies and modeling, where the
individual wolf disappears into the statistical model.19 Ripple and Beschta’s much-cited
work on trophic cascades in Yellowstone did not look directly at (p. 495) wolves at all, but
measured the effects of their reintroduction on other plant and animal species.20
Although tracking allows wolves to be studied at a distance, wolves must be found and
trapped in order to attach the collars, and while in captivity they can undergo further ma
nipulation, including measurement and blood sampling.
OR-7’s travels reflect the uneasy balance between individuals and communities in ecolog
ical research on animals as well as the particular emotional and political space that
wolves occupy. In a well-known 1980 article, the environmental philosopher J. Baird Calli
cott explored this tension in terms of the philosophical incommensurability between ani
mal liberation and environmental ethics. One focused on individuals, the other on systems
and species. The science of ecology, he argued, overturned the idea that nature was a
“collection of subjects” in favor of seeing it as “a unified system of integrally related
parts.”21 But in the case of the wolf, the individual has not quite been subsumed into the
system.
Wolves are among the most intensely studied animals in North America. The case is simi
lar in Europe: after being hunted almost to extinction in the 1930s, wolves began to recol
onize France in 1992 by crossing over the border from the Italian Alps, and have been
subject to intense scientific and political scrutiny. A few years later, Polish wolves crossed
the border into Germany, and wolves have been spotted in Denmark, the Netherlands,
and Belgium. With their small and scattered populations as well as their status as key
stone predators and charismatic megafauna, it remains difficult for either researchers or
the public to see wolves solely in terms of anonymous populations.22 OR-7 has become in
ternationally famous, with his own Wikipedia entry; similarly, researchers know each indi
vidual wolf in the Isle Royale pack in northern Michigan, closely studied by Vucetich and
Nelson who also have a chapter in Part III of this volume.
Behavioral ecologist Marc Bekoff, among others, has examined the social lives of wolves.
Beginning in the 1970s, Bekoff compared the play behavior of wolves, coyotes, and dogs.
He found that infant coyotes were more aggressive than either wolves or dogs, and that
play behaviors had important roles in communication and social relations within the
pack.23 In other work, he showed that aggressive behavior among wolves did not neces
sarily lead to dominance in the pack, and that wolves were more social animals than coy
otes, who were much more solitary.24 Other ethologists have further elaborated the social
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Animals and Ecological Science
interactions within a wolf pack. David Mech showed that the size of the wolf pack, long
thought to be related to the size and availability of prey, was in fact regulated by other
factors as well, including kinship relations and social interactions among the wolves.25
Mech and his colleagues examined data from a number of wolf studies in the United
States and Canada over a period of more than 40 years.
The focused and long-term ecological study of wolves is echoed in work on other animals,
mainly charismatic megafauna, such as elephants, lions, tigers, and great apes. Such at
tention can be seen as part of a long tradition of symbolic values as well as modern eco
logical concepts. Other species may play equally important roles in ecosystems but re
ceive less public attention: fish are one example.
In contrast to the intense individual scrutiny of wolves, it is difficult for most people to
see fish as individuals. Far from being charismatic megafauna, fish are nonetheless sen
tinels of climate change and ocean pollution, a critical food source, and strikingly diverse.
They live in oceans and rivers, lakes and streams, in deep and shallow waters. Many
species are game animals, and others have been domesticated to the extent of being in
tensively farmed. Ecological research on fish is correspondingly diverse, and takes place
both in the wild and in laboratories.
“In the wild” can in turn be broadly interpreted. The Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research
Laboratory near Mammoth Lakes, California is a natural setting that is heavily managed:
Convict Creek is divided into channels, and a complex system of artificial streams allows
for experimental manipulation of both native and nonnative fish. Research takes place in
these streams, in the laboratories, and in the surrounding lakes. Since the mid-1800s,
many lakes in the high Sierra have been stocked with trout for sport fishing, mainly with
nonnative varieties, such as brook and brown trout. The California Department of Fish
and Game aerially stocks lakes with fingerling trout each spring and summer; many of
these lakes would naturally have no fish. This occurs in high-altitude lakes outside Cali
fornia as well. Researchers since the 1990s have documented the negative impact of fish
stocking on native species of fish and on other animals, including the endangered moun
tain yellow-legged frog.26 This research includes studies not only of fish, but also of frogs,
insects, fungus, birds, and phytoplankton, well illustrating the interconnectedness of this
ecosystem. In perhaps the most dramatic demonstration, researchers eradicated all fish
from a lake by means of gill-netting, a less toxic alternative to the usual fish management
tool, the pesticide rotenone. The endangered frogs subsequently flourished.27
Nonvalued species, in this case nonnative trout, were therefore sacrificed (a standard
term in animal experimentation) for a greater ecosystem good. Such species may be de
liberately targeted or may be collateral damage from the collection of other species. Elec
trofishing is a common method of sampling to assess fish distribution and abundance in
streams. The fish are stunned by an electric current, caught in a net, and then measured,
sampled, or otherwise examined before being returned unharmed. However, recent stud
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Animals and Ecological Science
ies have noted that electrofishing may not be entirely harmless to the fish, and that re
peated electrofishing could cause physical and stress-related injuries to both targeted
and nontargeted species.28 Some researchers have also questioned the utility of lethal
sampling, particularly in the case of top oceanic predators, such as sharks, whose popula
tions are already endangered. Hammerschlag and Sulikowski point out that such sam
pling would be out of the question for large terrestrial carnivores.29
Like wolves, some fish are tracked rather than caught. Tracking migratory fish such as
salmon had long been sought to assess survival along the much-dammed Snake and Co
lumbia Rivers in the US Pacific Northwest. The development of PIT (passive (p. 497) inte
grated transponder) tags in the early 1980s made this possible. Tiny electronic tags are
injected either intramuscularly or into the body cavity of fish, who are then tracked via a
series of antennas that pick up the tags’ electrical signal. Each individual fish is uniquely
identified in a database. Millions of fish have been tagged since the 1980s, and their life
cycles traced from river to ocean and back to the river.30
As these brief examples show, ecological research on animals ranges widely and encom
passes both the field and the laboratory. Particularly in the case of charismatic megafau
na such as wolves, research is deeply intertwined with social and political ideas of value
and use. As indicators of the health of waterways and oceans, fish are increasingly stud
ied. But mysterious outbreaks, such as sea star wasting syndrome, reveal how much re
mains to be learned about oceanic wildlife.31
By the nineteenth century, the fact of extinction, if not its scientific or theological implica
tions, had become widely accepted. The discovery at the end of the eighteenth century of
the bones of mammoths and of the giant sloth that Cuvier named the megatherium pro
vided convincing evidence of animals who no longer occupied the planet. These animals,
unlike some fossils, had no living analogues. Extinction became a key concept for Darwin,
Page 9 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
who argued that species that could not adapt to changing environmental conditions
would become extinct.
While Cuvier and Darwin established that extinction was a natural process, most modern
extinctions are based on human activity, whether hunting or destruction of habitat. Sever
al scientists and journalists have argued that we are presently at the beginning of a sixth
mass extinction. Past mass extinctions caused the loss of half or more genera; during the
last mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous era, 66 million years ago, 75 percent of
all species disappeared.33
emerged in the mid-twentieth century. Building on work begun in the 1940s, the Interna
tional Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), founded in
1948, established its Red List in 1964 to document rare and endangered species. Now on
the web, it is constantly updated.34 The US Endangered Species Act focused particular
concern on habitats, as did the Bern Convention. In addition, the CITES agreement (Con
vention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), drawn
up by IUCN and signed by 80 countries in 1973 (it now has 180 signatories), regulates
the international wildlife trade with the aim of conserving endangered species of both
plants and animals. It is administered by the United Nations Environment Program. All
these programs aim to conserve existing species. But by the early 2000s, other ideas be
gan to emerge surrounding the question of endangered animals and endangered habitats.
Rewilding
The idea of rewilding encompasses both the rehabilitation of landscapes and the reintro
duction of particular species. While the reintroduction of extant species into places where
they have become extinct is a long-standing practice—the reintroduction of wolves is one
example—rewilding takes this another step.35 In 2005, ecologist Josh Donlan, then a grad
uate student, burst onto the scene as the lead author of a short report in Nature entitled
“Re-wilding North America.” Coauthored with a plethora of heavy hitters including Dave
Foreman, founder of Earth First, conservation biologist Michael Soulé, and evolutionary
biologist Harry W. Greene, among others, “Re-wilding North America” made a radical pro
posal: to restore the lost megafauna of North America by bringing large wild vertebrates
elsewhere to fill these lost ecological niches. In other words, mammoths, American lions,
and cheetahs, and the ancient Camelops, all of whom disappeared at the end of the Pleis
tocene era some 13,000 years ago, could be replaced with analogous species including
elephants, African lions and cheetahs, and camels.36
What one blogger called “bringing sexy animals back”37 created a sensation, with wide
attention in the global press. In a more detailed account a year later, Donlan and his
coauthors explained their reasoning: “Earth is now nowhere pristine”; therefore, re-creat
ing missing ecological functions could be justified, even though it would introduce nonna
tive species. They suggested that the functional significance of megafauna had been un
dervalued and that therefore reintroducing them could help to arrest the “ecological
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Animals and Ecological Science
chain reactions” that would lead to additional extinctions. One of the animals they cited in
support of their argument was the gray wolf, noting that in his absence from the United
States, species such as deer and elk had increased the predation of certain plants. In par
ticular, the predation of young trees had led to declines in aspen and other desired trees
and to the degradation of riparian areas, leading in turn to impacts (p. 499) on birds and
other animals and plants. Citing the work of Ripple, Beschta, and others on trophic cas
cades at Yellowstone, Donlan and his coauthors argued,
The restoration of functionality from the reintroduction of wolves may even in
clude a buffering of Yellowstone’s biodiversity to climate change…. Similarly com
plex but now extinct ecological roles for the dozens of lost Pleistocene predators
and megaherbivores of North America would seem possible if not likely.38
Presenting this plan as “an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation,” Don
lan and his coauthors argued that “we can no longer accept a hands-off approach to
wilderness preservation as realistic, defensible, or costfree.”39
While the “Pleistocene Park” Donlan envisages has not yet come to pass in North Ameri
ca, rewilding efforts have taken hold in widely varying places. In Siberia, scientist Sergey
Zimov has joined native Yakutian horses, moose, and reindeer in a reserve with wisent
(European bison) and musk ox, and plans to reintroduce native antelope and Bactrian
camels in lieu of the extinct native camel. These herbivores appear to have had some suc
cess in recreating the grasslands that once dominated this area. He calls this reserve
Pleistocene Park. The missing animal here is the woolly mammoth, who, in this climate,
cannot be replaced by an elephant.40 Other parks are in various stages of development in
Latvia, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia.41 But what two ecologists recently called, with
vast understatement, the “tricky issue” of species substitution is far from resolved.42
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Animals and Ecological Science
they will make the journey to the reserve. Given the thousand-mile wanderings of OR-7,
this is not improbable.43
If some, like New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, find Oostvaardersplassen “faintly
ridiculous”; others, she admits, find it “inspiring,” and an active Rewilding Europe move
ment aims to “make Europe a wilder place,” with plans to rewild one million hectares by
2020 and “providing a viable business case for wild nature.”45 Like Donlan, the Rewilding
Europe proponents view rewilding as a way to deal with rural depopulation as agriculture
becomes more and more industrialized and more people move to cities.
Only in the past few years have the new genomic technologies known as synthetic biology
become sufficiently developed that the prospect of de-extinction has become more than
wishful thinking. Geneticist George Church, in his 2012 book Regenesis, cited the 2003
cloning of the recently extinct Pyrenean ibex or bucardo as evidence that “extinction [is]
no longer forever.”49 Church is at the forefront of a group promoting the de-extinction of
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a number of species by genetic means. At the top of the list is the passenger pigeon, a
species that was once abundant in the United States but became extinct in 1914. Critics
point out that the cloned bucardo lived only for seven minutes, succumbing to lung mal
formations that had also, though less severely, affected Dolly.50
Enough genetic material remains in preserved specimens that the prospect of re
(p. 501)
Geneticists also see possibilities in genetic engineering for improving currently endan
gered species. Theoretically, genetic manipulation could introduce disease resistance or
even diversify small, inbred populations. In such contexts, rewilding takes on a new
meaning, and ecosystem scientists, conservation biologists, ethicists, and legal scholars
have debated the possible consequences of de-extinction and the genetic engineering of
the environment. Animal welfare has not been at the forefront of this discussion. For ex
ample, little has been said about the 57 goats who were implanted with engineered bu
cardo eggs to yield one birth. Since cloning continues to be a risky and unpredictable pro
cedure, even target species may have less than optimal outcomes.
Ecosystem scientists and conservation biologists point out that the environment is con
stantly changing, and that the niche that passenger pigeons, for example, occupied in the
nineteenth century may no longer exist. The chestnut trees they favored are long gone,
and other birds may now fulfill their ecological role. Habitat loss has been the major
cause of modern extinction, and reintroducing formerly extinct animals will not in itself
create habitat. Among many potential risks are the introductions or spread of diseases,
unexpected species interactions, and invasiveness.53 Some are optimistic that these risks
can be dealt with: Donlan points to successful eradications of invasive species on islands
as an example of the increased human ability to manage wild populations. But he notes,
“We are currently better at manipulating genomes than at rewilding landscapes.”54
The ethical implications, for animals, humans, and landscapes, are numerous. Some con
tend that de-extinction is a form of restorative justice, a way to undo the wrongs of the
past. Others believe that de-extinction is mere hubris, and in the words of environmental
activist George Monbiot, “lonely captivity is likely to be the fate” of animals produced by
de-extinction.55 The legal and social implications are even more daunting. Could engi
neered organisms be patented? How will reintroduction be conducted and regulated?
Who will fund such research (which are now largely funded through private foundations)?
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Animals and Ecological Science
How will such reintroductions affect current protections of endangered and threatened
species? Legal scholars Jacob Sherkow and Henry Greely point out that “current protec
tion of endangered and threatened species owes much to the argument of
irreversibility.”56 If extinction is not forever, will protections for existing animals be weak
ened or even disappear?
Even the most sober commentators acknowledge that the “gee-whiz” factor in de-
(p. 502)
extinction exerts a powerful pull. How cool would it be to see a mammoth? But venturing
into such speculative realms has taken popular perceptions of animal ecology far from its
roots in natural history and its concern for systems over individuals. The loss of species
and the decline of biodiversity continue. The genetic tools of de-extinction may at some
time in the future help to mitigate some of these losses, but animals still stubbornly resist
their reduction to cells and genes, and ecological science still has much to learn about
and from animals in the wild.
Conclusion
Aristotle would, I think, be intrigued and delighted to learn about modern ecology and its
discoveries about animals. Convinced of the fecundity of nature, he would nonetheless
find it difficult to abandon the philosophical principles of hierarchy and teleology that
formed the basis of the great chain of being. Neither the idea of extinction nor the idea
that extinct animals can be brought back would fit his system of values or his idea of sci
ence.
Modern ecological science has incorporated ideas from natural history into a comprehen
sive theory of the interactions of living nature. Although ecology has retained its connec
tion with the field, the individual animal often disappears amid statistical models and
more recently genetics. But connection with the field, along with a concern with applica
tions, continues to distinguish the ecological sciences from other biological sciences. En
tangled in policy and politics, the ecological study of animals will continue to be a prac
tice embedded in broader ideas about the value and future of wild nature.
Notes:
(1.) The classic work on this topic is Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936). For a broad (and still unsurpassed)
overview of premodern ideas of nature, see also Clarence Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian
Shore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).
(2.) Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (London: William Jaggard,
1607), 705.
(3.) John Evelyn, Diary, ed. E. S. de Beer, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 330–331.
(4.) On these points, see Anita Guerrini, The Courtiers’ Anatomists (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2015).
Page 14 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
(5.) For further discussion of these points, see Paul Lawrence Farber, Finding Order in
Nature (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Phillip Sloan, “Natural
History, 1670-1802,” in Companion to the History of Modern Science, ed. R. C. Olby, G. N.
Cantor, J. R. R. Christie, and M. J. S. Hodge (London: Routledge, 1990), 295–313.
(6.) E. C. Spary, Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
(9.) Farber, Finding Order in Nature, 20; Sloan, “Natural History, 1670-1802,” 304–306.
(10.) Lynn Nyhart, Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
(11.) Keith R. Benson, “The Emergence of Ecology from Natural History,” Endeavour 24,
no. 2 (2000): 59–62. The tension between field and lab is explored in Robert Kohler, Land
scapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab-Field Border in Biology (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2002).
(13.) Jay M. Smith, Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2011).
(14.) Aldo Leopold, “Thinking Like a Mountain,” in A Sand County Almanac (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1949). On Leopold’s thought, see Susan L. Flader, Thinking Like
a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer,
Wolves, and Forests, 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994).
(15.) Aldo Leopold, Game Management (1933; rpt. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1987).
(16.) On the history of the concept of biodiversity, see Robert Kohler, All Creatures: Natu
ralists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850-1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2006).
(17.) For a cogent explanation of trophic cascades, see Cristina Eisenberg, The Wolf’s
Tooth (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010).
(18.) William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta, “Trophic Cascades in Yellowstone: The First
15 Years after Wolf Reintroduction,” Biological Conservation 145 (2012): 205–213.
Page 15 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
(19.) Tim Coulson, Daniel R. McNulty, Daniel R. Stahler, et al., “Modeling Effects of Envi
ronmental Change on Wolf Population Dynamics, Trait Evolution, and Life History,”
Science 334 (2011): 1275–1278.
(22.) Charismatic megafauna are defined as large animals (over 50 kg) who have wide
spread popular appeal.
(23.) Marc Bekoff, “Play Signals as Punctuation: The Structure of Social Play in Canids,”
Behaviour 132 (1995): 419–429.
(24.) Marc Bekoff, “Mammalian Dispersal and the Ontogeny of Individual Behavioral Phe
notypes,” American Naturalist 111 (1977): 715–732.
(25.) See L. D. Mech and Luigi Boitani, eds. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), esp chap. 1, pp. 1–34; Paul A. Schmidt and
L. David Mech, “Wolf Pack Size and Food Acquisition,” American Naturalist 150 (1997):
513–517.
(26.) R. A. Knapp, “Non-Native Trout in Natural Lakes of the Sierra Nevada: An Analysis
of Their Distribution and Impacts on Native Aquatic Biota,” in Sierra Nevada Ecosystem
Project: Final Report to Congress, vol. III, Assessments, Commissioned Reports, and
Background Information, 363–407 (Davis: University of California, Centers for Water and
Wildland Resources, 1996).
(27.) R. A. Knapp, P. S. Corn, and D. E. Schindler. “The Introduction of Nonnative Fish into
Wilderness Lakes: Good Intentions, Conflicting Mandates, and Unintended Conse
quences.” Ecosystems 4 (2001): 275–278; R. A. Knapp, D. M. Boiano, and V. T. Vreden
burg, “Removal of Nonnative Fish Results in Population Expansion of a Declining Amphib
ian (Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog, Rana muscosa),” Biological Conservation 135 (2007):
11–20.
(28.) Frank M. Panek and Christine L. Densmore, “Electrofishing and the Effects of Deple
tion Sampling on Fish Health: A Review and Recommendations for Further Study,” in
Bridging America and Russia with Shared Perspectives on Aquatic Animal Health, ed. R.
C. Cipriano, A. W. Bruckner, and I. S. Shchelkunov (Landover, MD: Khaled bin Sultan Liv
ing Oceans Foundation, 2011), 299–308.
(29.) Neil Hammerschlag and James Sulikowski, “Killing for Conservation: The Need for
Alternatives to Lethal Sampling of Apex Predatory Sharks,” Endangered Species Re
search, 14 (2011): 135–140. See also Ben Minteer, James P. Collins, Karen E. Love, Robert
Puschendorf, “Avoiding (Re)extinction,” Science 344 (2014): 260–261.
Page 16 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
(30.) “PIT Tag Information Systems (PTAGIS),” Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commis
sion (PSMFC.org), n.d. http://www.psmfc.org/program/pit-tag-information-systems-ptagis
accessed 17 November 2014.
(31.) Dylan McDowell, “Environmental Drivers May be Adding to Loss of Sea Stars,”
Breaking Waves 24 July 2014 http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/breakingwaves/2014/07/24/en
vironmental-drivers-may-adding-loss-sea-stars/ accessed 17 November 2014.
(32.) Wladyslaw Szafer, “The Ure-ox, Extinct in Europe since the Seventeenth Century: An
Early Attempt at Conservation That Failed,” Biological Conservation 1 (1968): 45–47.
(33.) See Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction (New York: Henry Holt, 2014).
(34.) “The IUCN Red List of Endangered Species,” Red List. 2014.3 http://
www.iucnredlist.org/ accessed 17 November 2014.
(36.) C. Josh Donlan, Harry W. Greene, Joel Berger, et al., “Re-wilding North America,”
Nature 436 (2005): 913–914.
(37.) Neil Chambers, “Josh Donlan on Bringing Sexy Animals Back via ‘Rewilding’,”
treehugger.com, 24 December 2008, http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/ecolo
gist-josh-donlan-on-bringing-sexy-animals-back-via-rewilding.html accessed 17 November
2014.
(38.) C. Josh Donlan, Joel Berger, Carl E. Bock, et al., “Pleistocene Rewilding: An Opti
mistic Agenda for Twenty-First Century Conservation,” American Naturalist 168 (2006):
660–681, at 662–663.
(40.) Sergey Zimov, “Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth’s Ecosystem,” Science 308
(2005): 796–798.
(41.) Emma Marris, “Reflecting the Past,” Nature 462 (2009): 30–32.
(42.) Joshua Tewkesbury and Haldre S. Rogers, “An Animal-Rich Future,” Science 345
(2014): 400.
Page 17 of 18
Animals and Ecological Science
(45.) Elizabeth Kolbert, “Recall of the Wild,” The New Yorker, December 24, 2012; “Our
Mission,” Rewilding Europe: Making Europe a Wilder Place, www.rewildingeurope.com/
about/mission, accessed 17 November 2014.
(46.) “Are Movies Science? Dinosaurs, Movies, and Reality,” DinoBuzz, n.d. http://
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/buzz/popular.html accessed 17 November 2014.
(48.) Stewart Taggart, “Aussies Roaring on DNA Cloning,” Wired.com, 5 May 2000, http://
archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/05/36117, accessed 17 November
2014.
(49.) Lesley Evans Ogden, “Extinction Is Forever … or Is It?” Bioscience 64 (2014), 469–
475.
(51.) Ogden, “Extinction Is Forever”; see also Nathaniel Rich, “The Mammoth Cometh,”
New York Times Magazine, March 2, 2014; Carl Zimmer, “Bringing Them Back to Life,”
National Geographic, April 2013.
(53.) Jacob Sherkow and Henry Greely, “What if Extinction Is Not Forever?” Science 340
(2013) 32–33; Carrie Friese and Claire Marris, “Making De-extinction Mundane?” PLOS
Biology 12, no. 3 (March 2014): 1–3; on the ethical issues, Ben Minteer, “Is It Right to Re
verse Extinction?” Nature 509 (2014): 261.
Anita Guerrini
Page 18 of 18
Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
Based on case studies of tourism in the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica, this chapter ar
ticulates a concept of “extreme animal tourism” as a category of analysis. Suggesting that
tourism deserves increased attention in animal studies, the chapter tracks the conditions
of possibility for this growing sector of hyperprivileged tourism, as opposed to mass
tourism. It is a form of tourism that promises those who can afford to pay for it exception
al proximity and the “glorious indifference” of the animals to human presence. The chap
ter argues that these animal encounters promote the idea of an “Edenic encounter” of
mutual regard between humans and charismatic nonhuman animals. Animals, as avatars
of the “wild,” are still largely seen as outside history, and as such are available to the
tourist industry to do the continuing work of representing premodernity when encoun
tered in remote locations. Analyzing this ideological work is an essential part of deepen
ing our understanding of human relations with non-human animals
Keywords: tourism, Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, wild animals, animal studies, animal encounters
WALKING among 10,000 penguins on icy shores, or slipping past a thousand sun-basking
iguanas arranged like shingles on a dull grey lava flow… These are examples of what I
term “extreme animal tourism.” In this chapter I will describe this phenomena, argue for
its utility as a conceptual category in our growing understanding of human relations with
nonhuman animals, and suggest that this realm of human cultural endeavor gains its
charge, its power, from the fact that human populations (other than elite tourists) are
largely banished from the frameworks of encounter.
“Extreme animal tourism” offers an analytical end point that is unique, separate from
mass tourism experiences of animal encounters, such as in local zoos and even the ubiqui
tous whale-watching rides on easily accessible sea shores. It is distinct, too, from what we
might term “supplementary animal tourism”—that is, touristic encounters with animals
who supplement forms of ecotourism that are primarily built around the experience of ge
ographic uniqueness—often termed “nature tourism” (such as trips to Alaska that feature
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Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
majestic mountain peaks and include opportunities to see moose) or cultural encounters
(such as tours for Americans to London or the Pyramids) that only peripherally engage
animals, perhaps through feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square or through the prof
fered camel rides by the Nile. In extreme animal tourism, encounters with “wild” animals
are the primary draw.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to sketch the contours of tourism scholarship over
the last four decades, but key issues have included the questions of appropriate frame
works for interpretation.4 Is it “hosts and guests” or “colonized and imperial colonizer?”
Is the primary mode of encounter visual—that is, “the gaze”—a construct, as John Urry
notes, that is a form of attentive looking that discerns similarities and differences from
what is already familiar and assigns value5; or, it is necessary to theorize a more fully em
bodied experience?6 Do tourists seek a specific type of experience? Is “enchantment” or
“pilgrimage” a useful trope for interpretation? What role does imagination play?7 These
are crucial questions because across the globe the practice of tourism—as opposed to
other types of travel—constitutes one of the largest industries in the world. As a key com
ponent of the global economy, the role animals play in this arena deserves concerted at
tention in animal studies.
Despite this, the role of human-animal encounters in tourism has yet to be fully explored.8
Recently, however, we are beginning to see more writing on this issue, especially by geog
raphers and environmental anthropologists. Much of this research focuses on human en
counters with so called wild animals, such as during safaris. Some focus on more quasi-
domesticated encounters, such as swimming with dolphins, where the status of the ani
mals encountered is ambiguously wild.9
As the category “wild” is germane to this chapter’s discussions, a moment to consider this
term is needed. The term wild, like domesticated, or feral, is contextually and historically
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Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
contingent in its meanings. As anthropologist Rebecca Cassidy succinctly puts it, “The
idea that the authentic wild is somehow ‘out there’ occupying space that is untouched by
human influence distorts understandings of places that are not out of time, or out of
space.”10 Although scholars in environmental science, anthropology, sociology and sci
ence studies have been working to “put the social back into the wild”11 as Cassidy notes,
public discourse and publics still reverberate with the notion of a place outside human in
fluence. Ecotourism, and especially extreme animal tourism, mobilizes and depends on
this ideological framework, and helps to burnish its continuing power and allure.
Cassidy’s point applies here: “animals and plants are not born wild or domestic, it is peo
ple who designate them as such, according to priorities that are not always obvious, con
sistent, or permanent.”12 These seemingly antithetical terms of wild and domestic mask a
much more complex, interdependent, and mutually constitutive web of relations between
humans and other animals and places, which change (p. 508) over time. Part of the draw
of “extreme animal tourism,” which may feature a trip to see polar bears in Churchill,
Canada, for example, is the fulfillment of the fantasy that these animals live their lives
outside human spheres of influence. This is hardly ever true, of course, since during the
Anthropocene, or that stage of the earth’s time that we live in now, dominated by the ac
tions of humans, it is hard to conceive of any living being not influenced in some way by
human presence on the earth, if only through the carbon emissions that play a role in cli
mate change and result in less ice for the polar bears of Churchill to rest on while chas
ing fish for their sustenance. Nonetheless, the ideological construct of the authentic
“wild” is crucial for extreme animal tourism.
You push aside a tangled rope of vine, pressing through the maze of foliage, when
at last you see them. Ten or twelve gorillas sit in a forest clearing, two more up in
a tree. They stop munching for a moment to observe you, nonchalant. A few feet
away you spy the big silverback. Twice the size of the young females, he sits on
massive haunches, stripping leaves from branches. He’s close enough to hold your
gaze with his liquid brown eyes. Something primal, inexplicable, connects the two
of you in that moment, when the world exists only within this rarest of encounters.
On this riveting wildlife expedition meet mountain gorillas at close range and ob
serve a host of other primates too, including chimpanzees.”13
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Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
Key tropes emerge in this short passage. The gorillas are “spied upon,” with a drawing
back of a jungle curtain. They look back at you (with liquid brown eyes), recognizing you,
yet sensing no danger, or perhaps even sensing some sort of comradeship without compe
tition, they hold your gaze. This mutual subjective recognition is among the rarest of rare
commodities—so much so that the blurb promises that “the world exists only within this
“moment.” This notion of trans-species encounter and mutual recognition is, I argue, one
of the hallmarks of extreme animal tourism. It assures us of what I term a “glorious indif
ference” on the part of the animals, who seem to understand that we are not there to
harm or compete with them, but just to “be” as co-constituents. Humans are not seen as a
source of danger. A mutually respectful recognition is described in this blurb as “some
thing primal,” and inexplicable, connecting human and nonhuman animal.
This is a promised moment of transcendence, where human and nonhuman animals are
on the same plane, mutually respectful, mutually self-recognizing, and thus (p. 509) mutu
ally co-constituting a special world. This world, I suggest, is one of pre-Edenic fullness,
trust, and mutuality. It is a fantasy of a “peaceable kingdom”14 come to life, a search for
an innocent past.
This search reaches a promised end in extreme animal tourism whereby a special realm
of human-animal experiences is commodified and sold as desirable, elusive, and exclu
sive. For most of those who sign up, such trips are a “once in a lifetime” adventure, de
manding substantial investments of time, physical energy, and money. By definition, such
a highly desirable experience can be available only to a privileged few since its value de
pends in part on its limited availability, precisely its non-mass appeal, so necessary is the
work of protecting, and constricting access to, this commodified “good.”
I offer two brief case studies as examples of this phenomenon: first, tourism to the Gala
pagos Islands, owned by and located off the coast of the nation of Ecuador; and, second,
tourism to Antarctica, a land and ice mass owned by no single nation but subject to a
complex division of scientific missions and international agreements. Both areas are heav
ily managed to protect their renditions of “the wild.”
Through an analysis of these sites and what they typify, I will argue that extreme animal
tourism represents the most idealized form of human-animal encounter with “the wild”
that is available for elite touristic consumption, and as such sets the bar for other willed
encounters between consuming humans and commodified animals. As a shorthand, I call
this the “Edenic encounter,” and ask to what extent it is a compelling fantasy, reflecting
deeply ingrained ideological formations, and to what extent might it actually be an attain
able state of being? What human political and material work is necessary to create the
conditions for extreme animal tourism and its goal of providing access to a nonhumanized
locale and population of animals? Why does it appear to be so highly valued, at least
among those who can afford to experience it? The implications of these case studies lend
themselves to further questions, too, for future research: What effects on the animals
might it have? What effects might it have on any nearby resident human populations, if
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Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
there are any? What policy implications might emerge? And, are there wider implications
for our study of tourism and of human-animal relations?
I floated, snorkeling, in the green sea, cold in my wetsuit and struggling to man
age my ungainly newly finned feet, and there, just six feet below me in the clear
water, hovered a large sea turtle, his or her broad shell about as big as my table in
the breakfast nook at home. Between us was the emerald-tinged, calm sea, and I
could see clearly her beak and head, relaxed out of the shell. As I spread my limbs
out like hers, (p. 510) we became almost the same size, my torso and her shell, our
softly moving limbs now parallel, sleepily undulating in the mild currents. Did she
(or he?) know I was there hovering right above her in an imitation of her float? Did
he care? Touching prohibited, I stayed in this echo formation with her for a while,
several minutes at least, and then finally swam off to the zodiac, a type of swift, in
flated rubber boat, hovering nearby. I’d fulfilled one of my fantasies for this trip—
swimming with a Galapagos sea turtle!
Why did I arrive in the islands with that fantasy, and what did it take to bring my fantasy
of cross-species oneness to life? I say “cross-species oneness” here with some irony, be
cause I have no idea to what extent the sea turtle took note of my presence, desired it,
took pleasure in it, or wished I would just go away. Seeing that she could easily swim
away but did not, I hope that this temporary sharing of her watery quarters was not an
adverse event that cost her extra energy or elevated her stress hormones. But, even so, it
is I, and not the turtle, who has expended large amounts of money and energy to enable
us to be in the same place at the same time under conditions of tightly controlled limited
human access that allow me to swim with her. She becomes, in a sense, an object of my
desire for which I am willing to invest significant resources to obtain. This desire echoes
what Halloy and Servais call “enchantment” in their discussion of dolphin-encounter ses
sions in Egypt and Australia.15 While their focus is different, and I am not seeking a mutu
ally engaged, uncanny “encounter” with the turtle, they, too, capture the intense kines
thetic involvement, and the temporary sense of immersion in another space-time, here
the clear, body-embracing waters of the Galapagos and the ear-thrumming pulse of
snorkeled breathing in my ears fostering a narrowed focus on the sight and movement
shared in our differentially carapaced bodies—hers, en-shelled; mine, encased in the rub
ber tourniquet of a diving wet suit.
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Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
I am not alone in swimming with the turtles, there were a few others on the same zodiac,
but neither am I among a crowd of finned and snorkeled masses, whose presence would
surely drive the turtles away, destroying the very attraction for which we had all paid.
This is the delicate balance, a source of intense political debate, between access and de
nial of access that must continually be replayed and recalibrated in the realms of extreme
animal tourism. The Ecuadorian state has taken a very aggressive role in controlling ac
cess to the Galapagos, now a national park and marine reserve, and in assuring that
Ecuador and Ecuadorians remain in control of a region that UNESCO (the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has claimed as part of world patrimo
ny, denoting it a world heritage site.16 The national park website calls it “the best pre
served tropical archipelago on Earth.”17
Understanding the infrastructure of this tourist industry is crucial to grasping how the ex
treme animal tourism phenomenon unfolds in this unique site. The 19 Galapagos (p. 511)
Islands, located, approximately 1000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, can only be
reached by plane or large ships. Overall, tourism has rapidly expanded from an annual es
timated total of 12,000 visitors in 1979 to 180,000 in 2012. During that time foreign visi
tors have consistently outnumbered domestic ones. Today, according to statistics devel
oped by the Galapagos National Park, Ecuadorian citizens comprise just over a third—an
estimated 34 percent—of all tourists. Fiscal preferences exempt them from the hefty en
try fee (US$100) to the national marine park and subsidies help lower air fares to the is
lands in order to foster domestic tourism there. Members of Mercosur and of the Andes
community also qualify for discounted access, but numbers remain relatively low. Argenti
na, for example, contributes only about 1.6 percent of all visitors.18
In contrast, the United States contributes about 26 percent of all tourists, followed by ap
proximately 5 percent each from the United Kingdom and Germany. Canada, Australia,
France, Switzerland and Italy round out another total of 12 percent, bringing the total of
US and European visitors to just under half of all visitors, with other countries making up
the final 16 percent. No country-by-country breakdown on that 16 percent is currently
available to determine if they come predominantly from within Latin America, Asia, or
other countries. To the extent that my cruise-ship experience was representative, the
ages of the passengers ranged from the teens to late adulthood, but on my ship, at least,
middle age was a predominant segment. This life stage certainly can correlate with ac
crued savings and income—needed to afford an expensive trip that ran approximately
US$5000 for a week. I have not found any statistics on a racial, ethnic, or regional origin
or background on the US travelers. To the extent that income in the United States is still
skewed along racial lines, we would expect that members of racialized minority groups
would be underrepresented.
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in the Galapagos archipelago where human settlement is allowed, such as San Cristobal,
and they stay for fewer days, and spend less money per day, than the foreign tourists.
However, greater percentage of their money stays in the islands.19 The foreign tourists
mostly fly in from Quito or Guyaquil, and then board foreign-owned cruise ships to travel
among the islands. They stay on board the ship, not in hotels, taking their meals and
evening entertainment on board as well. In this type of arrangement, foreign money flows
back primarily to the country of origin of the tour company, although some goes to the is
lands for permits.
In all cases, though, access to the uninhabited islands in the Galapagos chain is con
trolled by the state, which issues permits to boats to visit certain islands at certain times
only; this includes not only the large cruise ships but also the smaller, island-based boats
that take mostly Ecuadorian tourists out for a few hours or a day, but do not dock
overnight on those islands.20 This scheduling of access is so tightly controlled that, for ex
ample, our snorkeling group was only allowed to be in a spot off a certain island for two
hours, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on a specific date, and we were not to linger, and not to
return. While we were there, we saw no other groups of tourists, as the group visits
were tightly scheduled in a different part of the archipelago. The active produc
(p. 512)
tion of this absence of others is crucial in supporting the Edenic fantasy of being “alone
with untouched nature.”21
Like most foreigners, I flew into Ecuador and then immediately out to the Galapagos,
spending a week on board a cruise ship manned by a team of six Ecuadorian naturalists
and headed by an Ecuadorian “expedition leader” named Carlos Romero.22 Cruise ships
can only operate legally in the archipelago with state-certified naturalists on board.
whose certification depends on passing a series of state-administered tests of their knowl
edge of the ecologies of the islands. Only Ecuadorian nationals can apply for certification.
This implies that only Ecuadorians can adequately know—or represent—Ecuadorian nat
ural history. Not only are the animals owned by Ecuador, the knowledge about them is
owned by Ecuadorians; or, rather, tourists’ on-site access to knowledge about the islands
and their animals can only be obtained through Ecuadorian gatekeepers of that knowl
edge.23 And the naturalists must live in the Galapagos on one of the few islands where hu
mans are permitted to live.24
The result for the tourist is that no matter what island is visited, wildlife is abundant; the
human presence is very limited; visitor perception of the experience is heavily mediated
by Ecuadorians, since it is impossible to legally visit without a guide; and touristic behav
ior is closely monitored by Ecuadorians as well. In fact, guides are required to file reports
on all out-of-the-ordinary incidents on any tourist outing, and to report any environmental
desecration. Thus, Ecuador and Ecuadorians have successfully instituted numerous gate
keeper functions that help them to keep control over the islands.
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The extensive legal restrictions guarantee the continued existence of the Galapagos as a
special site, inhabited by animals found nowhere else and only outside the realm of hu
man habitats. The combination of immersion and lack of human habitation are two
twinned markers of extreme animal tourism.
In the Galapagos, human habitation has historically been minimal due to the isolated ge
ography and the inhospitable terrain of the islands. Contemporary habitation, which
could now be more practical due to improvements in water-desalination technology and
geographic access, is now tightly restricted in terms of which islands people can live on
and who can own property and what they can do with it. Only a few of the islands allow
residents.
Tourists go to the Galapagos to see huge numbers of animals who cannot be seen any
where else, like the giant tortoises. And they go to see them up close. They do not go to
the islands to see animals they can see elsewhere, like goats, pigs, or cats, nor do they ar
rive expecting to see animal life only through huge telephoto lenses. This up-close unique
ness is another defining aspect of extreme animal tourism. In the Galapagos, producing
this sense of immersion in a unique “natural world” takes a lot of work and a lot of politi
cal will, and to be successful, it must be unseen, revealing, of course, the fiction (p. 513) of
a “natural world,” but not diminishing its touristic appeal and economic power. In the
next section, I analyze the labor of producing the “natural world.”
Since the animals are protected, they are not apparently frightened by the presence of
humans (at least as far as we can judge from their behaviors and the fact of successful re
production). Bright-orange Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttle among rocky crevices; sea igua
nas cruise the shoreline waters; seals and frigate birds come close, and hundreds of land
iguanas bask in the sun (Figure 27.1) in our presence. The result is that the tourist has
the experience of being immersed in the animals’ world.
To maintain this access and freedom from fear, the government must monitor how close
animal colonies are to human trails, move the trails away from the animals periodically,
and enforce the behavioral proscriptions for the humans. Tourists are not supposed to
feed the animals, scare them with loud noises or aggressive movements, get within six
feet of the animals, and they must move away if any of the animals come closer than that.
or if an animal must change her desired path across the terrain. They cannot touch the
animals, capture and eat the animals, or take any animals, plants, or rocks home as a sou
venir. Vision is the primary mode of consumption, but the physically close co-presence of
tourists and animals enables visitors to use their ears and noses as well as their kines
thetic experience of climbing on the shared volcanic terrain to embody their experience
across several senses.
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A second example of our embodied experience came on Day 2 of our tour and ex
(p. 514)
On our second day in the islands, different groups rode in zodiacs from the ship to land
on one of the islands for a walk led by one of our knowledgeable naturalist guides. There
were 16 in our group (the maximum allowed by law). At carefully timed intervals, other
groups of 16 from our ship had preceded and would follow us, so that at no time were
tourists allowed to gather in larger groups, or roam on the island at will or step off the
designated walking paths, which are changed by the government’s park service over time
to preserve vegetation and nesting grounds. We came upon several pairs of iconic blue-
footed boobies (Figure 27.2), their comic name reflecting something of their cartoonish-
looking bright blue eyes and bright blue feet, and their pointed beaks and ungainly, wide
necks. Their courtship display continued as we stood in a sort of semicircle on the walk
way to observe. Mating pairs were flirting (they seemed to be saying, “what? who, me?”),
courting, and bonding while we watched. Most memorable was the “dance” of courtship,
which consisted of the male blue-footed booby alternately lifting his right foot and his left
as if to say “hey, look at these beautiful feet,” while the female looked on. (Apparently, our
naturalist said, the density of color of the feet is a desirable marker of sexiness.) Tails
straight up on both a male and a female indicated their “interest” in each other. Wide-
spread wings in a chest-dipping position was a final punctuation in the male display as he
walked around the female, showing himself off. This continued for at least ten minutes
three feet away from me, far less than the legally required six foot distance, while my
group took photos. The next phase was one of offerings, as the male picked up a twig to
offer it to the female for nest building. His offer was sometimes accepted; sometimes, re
jected and summarily tossed aside by the female. Meanwhile, audio accompanied this vi
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sual. The male made a repeated whistling sound while the female squawked, especially
when she chose to rebuff such advances.
Seemingly, they truly were oblivious to our presence. (But, really, how could we know?
Has there been research on the behavior of tourist-visited bird colonies when the tourists
aren’t there? Have scientists hidden secret boobie-cams in the rocks? Not to my knowl
edge). To my untrained eye though, the birds seemed to be proceeding as if we were not
there, and continued these behaviors for a long time. We eventually walked on, hastened
by our guide who had to keep to the schedule, but the birds were still at it when we came
back on the return loop of our walk 20 minutes later.
I have no idea whether our presence is increasing the presence of stress hormones like
corticosteroids or not, and whether our presence is subtly changing the duration or out
come of the courting behavior or the selection of mates and ultimately the ability of the
birds’ reproduction to sustain the population. What I do know is that the birds seemed to
ignore us, and that that is a key part of the appeal of such animal/nature tourism … the
sort of “you are there” effect without any obvious negative impact on the situation.
(p. 515)
This opportunity to watch the blue-footed boobies was terrific not only because their
Broadway style choreography with its widely telegraphed intentions was exciting to see,
but because it seemed to say, see, this is what I do even when you are not here … you are
now seeing “authentic, non-human-influenced” behavior! We had every presumption, and
were given no reason to doubt, that this behavior would proceed just as it did with us or
without us present. That “authenticity,” the pulling aside of the curtain to peer in on an
other life, is part of what is being sold on this type of extreme animal tourism.
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However, the preservation of “authenticity” also seems to require extreme killing mea
sures to produce this pristine vision. The unique animal ecology of the Galapagos, the site
that stirred Darwin’s theories of natural selection, of change over time, must, apparently,
be subject to preservation and protection from what are deemed to be “invasive (p. 516)
species.”25 In other words, the unique and famous giant tortoises are welcome, as their
ancestors came to the islands centuries ago and they do not exist elsewhere, but more re
cently arriving feral goats, rats, donkeys, and cats, too late on the historical timeline and
too common elsewhere to be valuable, are subject to massive eradication campaigns so
that they do not out compete endemic species for natural resources. For example, in a six-
year, six-million dollar campaign started in 2001, The Ecuadorian government employed
local hunters and helicopter sharpshooters brought in from New Zealand to kill 80,000
feral goats on the island of Santiago in the Galapagos. In 2012, the state began a poison-
bait campaign designed to kill 180 million rats, whose ancestors had arrived on the is
lands on whaling ships in the seventeenth century. The director of conservation for the
Galapagos National Park Service, Danny Rueda, “called the raticide the largest ever in
South America.”26
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Most life in Antarctica is not human but animal, and penguins, whales, flying squas, and
seals exist on a massive scale. If getting close to a hundred sun-basking land iguanas in
the Galapagos was a unique experience, walking among a colony of ten thousand
penguins was even more so. For, while Antarctica, unlike the Galapagos, offers few
species who exist nowhere else, what it does offer is a scale of uninhabited landscape and
of groups of animals that is nearly unimaginable. Icebergs a mile long float by, and rook
eries of thousands of penguins bristle with the squawks of assertive adults watching their
chicks (Figure 27.3).
Tourism to the Antarctic has expanded steadily since the 1960s when “Lars-Eric Lindblad
started ship-borne tourism operations in the Antarctic under a strong environmental ethic
that is still applied today.”27 In just the last two decades, the number of Antarctic cruise
passengers has exploded, from 6000 in 1993 to more than 40,000 in 2012, as reported by
IAATO (the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators).28 The very high cost of
accessing the Antarctic—averaging US$10,000 for a twelve-day trip from the United
States, for example—will, however, continue to set a limit on who can choose to go.
(p. 517)
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The “Neo-Sublime”
Antarctica is a realm of the sublime, or what we might better call a twenty-first century
“neo-sublime.” Like earlier historical invocations of sublimity, this one elicits a sense of
awe at its scale, bordering for many on the religious, as tourist blogs reveal.29 Like the
Galapagos but even more so, Antarctica places humans in a world dominated by the ele
ments of water and an indescribable scale of animal habitation, which literally dwarf any
human presence, and seem to both precede and exceed it.
While vision and scale are very important elements of Antarctica’s allure, I would argue
that the physical experience of immersion is paramount in eliciting the neo-sublime. In
Antarctica, this is usually fostered in immersion in animal colonies, although some other
kinesthetic experiences, like climbing a steep hill to a heightened viewing point, or slid
ing down icy slopes like kids on a sled, are not so focused. Yet, even in these cases, the
presence of animals is undeniable.
It is not that the animals are not aware of us, clearly. They give us the eye, but apparent
ly, having perhaps judged us to be too loudly dressed in our assertive red parkas, deem us
not a threat and carry on. Occasionally, we provide a point of entertainment or interest,
and a particularly brave or inquisitive penguin will come directly toward us as (p. 518) we
sit among them, but mostly they simply detour around us as we try not to make large ges
tures or too much noise, or to block their path. The sense of acceptance is extraordinary,
and based, our guides say, on the fact that the penguins have not recently experienced
danger from humans. We are clearly in their world, not they in ours, and they outnumber
us by a factor of a thousand to one.
For me, there was something profoundly peaceful in this experience. My breathing alter
nately accelerated with excitement and slowed in contemplation. A rush of words at the
dinner-table conversations on board that night attempted to capture the sense of the ex
perience, but failed to render in verbs what was essentially a nonverbal experience.
Intense affect, being stunned into non- or preverbal state, an inability to articulate the
feeling or effect of an experience, combined with physical exertion—clambering in and
out of the zodiacs, climbing on ice trails or rocky hills—come together to provide what for
some is a transcendent experience. Animals are the crucial element constructing this ex
perience. Such emotional experiences can be transformative, but they are so within his
torically constituted matrices of emotional legibility and value.
As David Picard notes in his work on affect and tourism, while many anthropologists and
psychologists today now believe that some emotions are widely felt across many commu
nities (anger, sadness, joy), we increasingly recognize that the cultural contexts through
which those feelings may gain value, become articulated, even become recognized as
present is one of culturally specific cultivation.30
British tourism theorist Mike Robinson argues, as Picard puts it, that “the emotions and
their expressions are culturally framed and beyond any simple ‘cause and effect’ princi
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ple; rather they are intimately bound to ways in which the world is imagined, mediated
and communicated and to the ways in which we perform, record, and recall our place in
the world.”31
Conclusion
I have proposed a new delineation of tourism that we can call “extreme animal tourism.”
Costly in terms of time and money, and labor intensive in terms of staffing needs, this
type of tourism demands multiple types of supporting expertise, including the sci
(p. 519)
entific expertise of local or imported guides with specialist information, sailors, naviga
tors, and hotel and kitchen staff for the tourists’ travel. Unlike other expensive, elite
tourist opportunities that promise urban luxuries or other ecotourism journeys to stun
ning geographies, these activities are focused around promised, even guaranteed, oppor
tunities for intimate, embodied proximity with nonhuman animal species who have, for
specific visitor populations, a high charisma quotient and symbolic value as representa
tives of specific ecosystems, such as the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica.
In addition, they provide access to “nearly pristine” ecosystems, such that the presence of
any nearby resident or (in the case of Antarctica) temporary human population is mini
mized. This access promises a vision of a pre-Edenic past, a ecosystem undisturbed by on
going human presence and instead presenting an in situ experience in which the world
the tourist enters is the world of the animals, who seemingly conduct their lives in a glori
ous indifference to the human presence, or, even better, greet that presence unafraid,
with mutual recognition, tolerating if not welcoming our temporary intrusion, or, more
ideally, our “visit,” to their world.
Extreme animal tourism is at once nostalgic and idealized, promising in the present a mu
tuality that usually exists only in a conception of a prehuman, prehistoric past. If history
is a human realm, if not a human invention, then these sites of privileged access promise
a glimpse of a world apparently (or wishfully thought to be) not shaped by the narratives
of change that history delineates. Dominant European-derived notions of animals as be
ings outside history provide, for those tourists steeped implicitly or explicitly in those ide
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ologies, the perfect meeting ground for human fantasies of animal life to take place on
the terrain of extreme animal tourism.32
A large part of the appeal of extreme animal tourism lies in its separation from human
presence. Local populations, if any, are largely absent from the tourism sites, kept at bay
by inhospitable conditions, as in Antarctica, or extensive legal restrictions on residence
and activities regarding animals, as in the Galapagos Islands. At a historical moment
when even the most isolated human communities, such as some in the Amazon basin, are
fighting for their civil rights and to control the economic and political results of engaging
with the tourism industry, it appears that tourism focused on nonhuman-populated re
gions like most islands in the Galapagos and on the Antarctic continent can provide the fi
nal and ultimate resource for access to an imagined realm of the prehistoric (heretofore
dubbed the “primitive” when applied to human communities). Animals cannot demand
reparations, produce media to press their legal cases, nor make claims on the income to
be generated from “contact.” Their inability to form a political bloc, to use Gramsci’s
term, and their ascribed status as avatars of time beyond or outside history, render them
extremely valuable and extremely vulnerable as we strive to better understand the vari
eties, dynamics, and outcomes of contemporary tourism.
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Notes:
(1.) Dean MacCannell, Empty Meeting Grounds: The Tourist Papers (New York: Rout
ledge, 1992), 1.
(3.) John Urry named this mode of attention “the tourist gaze” in his 1992 book of the
same title, and since then, scholars have elaborated the concept, emphasizing other
modes of attention, the ways looking is learned, the fact that surprising “samenesses”
may also be attended to, and the importance of pre-and posttravel engagements with the
tourist destination and experiences.
(4.) For just a sampling of the key writings that have shaped this field of inquiry, see the
foundational books by Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class
(1976; repr., New York: Schocken Books, 1989), and his Empty Meeting Grounds (see
note 1). Also critical to setting the conversations in scholarship on tourism are John Urry,
The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage Publish
ers, 1990) and his Consuming Places (London: Routledge, 1995). Valene Smith’s Hosts
and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism (originally 1997, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press) and second edition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1989) ushered in a vigorous discussion of tourism in anthropology circles. An updated
version appears as Valene L. Smith and Maryann Brent, eds., Hosts and Guests Revisited:
Tourism Issues of the 21st Century (Putnam Valley, NY: Cognizant Communication Corpo
ration, Publishers, 2001). See also Noel Salazar and Nelson Graeburn, eds., Tourism
Imaginaries: Anthropological Approaches (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014); and Ed
ward M. Bruner, Culture on Tour: Ethnographies of Travel (Chicago: University of Chica
go Press, 2004) for important contributions to debates in tourist studies.
(5.) Jonathan Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies
(Theory, Culture and Society Series), cited above. For an updated version, see: The
Tourist Gaze 3.0 (Published in Association with Theory, Culture and Society), Sage Publi
cations, third Edition, 2011.
(6.) For example, see the work of Sally Ann Ness, who integrates a study of kinesthesia in
to tourism analysis in “Tourism in Yosemite Valley: Rethinking ‘Place’ in Terms of Motili
ty,” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 12, no.7 (2007): 79–84.
(7.) See Jonathan Skinner and Dimitrios Theodossopoulos, eds., Great Expectations: Imag
ination and Anticipation in Tourism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011).
(8.) My use of the term “animal” underlines that emphasis and its importance as a com
modifiable good. While animal tourism can also be seen as part of ecotourism or nature
tourism more broadly, I suggest that the later terms are more capacious in their focus on
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mutually influential relations among geography, landscape, place, humans, and animals.
In extreme animal tourism, by contrast, although the locale may be stunning and unique,
the ultimate focus is on encounters with the special, charismatic animals to be found
there. Human populations are not generally resident.
(9.) See Jane Desmond, Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) for an extended discussion of the relations
between “cultural” tourism and “animal” tourism and the role that embodiment plays in
both realms. For a sample of some recent work on tourism and wild animals focusing on
sites in different parts of the world, see Susanna Curtin, “Nature, Wild Animals and
Tourism: An Experiential View,” Journal of Ecotourism 4, no. 1 (2005): 1–15; John S. Aka
ma, Shem Maingi, and Blanca A. Camargo, “Wildlife Conservation, Safari Tourism and the
Role of Tourism Certification in Kenya: A Postcolonial Critique,” Tourism Recreation Re
search 36, no. 3 (2011): 281–291; Elisabeth Brandin, “Versions of ‘Wild’ and the Impor
tance of Fences in Swedish Wildlife Tourism Involving Moose,” Current Issues in Tourism
12, no. 5 (2009): 413–427; Rosaleen Duffy and Lorraine Moore, “Neoliberalizing Nature?
Elephant-Back Tourism in Thailand and Botswana,” Antipode 42, no. 3 (2010): 742–766.
(13.) “The Great Uganda Gorilla Safari,” online brochure, Natural Habitat Adventures,
http://www.nathab.com/africa/the-great-african-primate-expedition, accessed December
24, 2014.
(14.) This is a reference to the iconic 1826 painting “The Peaceable Kingdom” by the
American painter Edward Hicks, based on a verse in the book of Isaiah in the Christian
Bible depicting peaceful coexistence of predator and prey animals in a verdant setting.
(15.) Arnaud Halloy and Veronique Servais, “Enchanting Gods and Dolphins: A Cross-Cul
tural Analysis of Uncanny Encounters,” Ethos 42, no. 4 (2014): 479–504. The authors
compare the spirit-possession experiences of some Afro-Brazilian individuals with the ex
periences of tourists swimming with free-roaming dolphins to identify what they call
“technologies of enchantment.” These arrangements provide transformative experiences
of ontological uncertainty and depend on immersion in a safe, sensorially organized envi
ronment and the activation of culturally prepared expectations. In extreme animal
tourism, while face-to-face “encounters” may take place, too much of this contravenes the
glorious indifference I discussed earlier that frames our perception of the animals as “just
being themselves,” as if we weren’t there.
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(16.) Is this aggressive role of the state a defining aspect of areas devoted to extreme ani
mal tourism? Do the national governments always recognize the importance of this touris
tic resource as a potential money-maker, based (I think) mostly on the money of non-state
citizens? What role does a supranational body like UNESCO play in adjudicating access
and preservation for a wider population—the so-called world heritage—and how are ani
mals (and, presumably the ecosystems of which they are a part) conceived of in these
conceptualizations, as opposed to human-built structures or historically occupied sites
even when no current structures remain? Do animals fall under the conceptual umbrella
of “tangible” or “intangible” property, or “heritage?” These are issues for future investi
gation.
(19.) Martha Honey, “The Galapagos Islands: Test Site for Theories of Evolution and Eco
tourism,” in Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? 2nd ed.
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008), 121–159, esp. 126–132.
(20.) I think, too, that the day trips also appeal to younger foreigners traveling in Ecuador
who want to come to the Galapagos for a short side trip. The larger foreign cruise ships
often are just the opposite—they host foreign travelers who have come to the Galapagos
as their primary destination, who spend many days touring the islands and landing by zo
diac by day and sleeping on the ship at night, and then spend little time and money on
mainland Ecuador except flying in and out on their Galapagos-bound trip. Ours was a co
hort of 100 passengers, mainly adults, supported by a large crew of 70 people, not count
ing the professional naturalists.
(21.) Lindblad, for example, as a key long-time operator in the area, may well have priori
ty in asking for highly desirable landing sites or times. Our guides explained that the com
plex choreography of which ship is where, doing what, and for how long is carefully
charted in advance.
(22.) Since I am drawing on my own tourist experience here, and not on Institutional Re
view Board–approved interviews, for some of these reflections, I do not refer to natural
ists by their full name nor quote them based on my individual conversations with them.
Carlos Romero is formally named as Expedition Leader and is photographed in public
promotional materials, so I do include his full name here.
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(23.) I say “implies” because obviously non-Ecuadorians also hold and produce knowledge
about the Galapagos ecosystems, including foreign scientists now and in the past, and
tourists also bring with them guidebooks written by non-nationals that provide additional
information. The Darwin connection also looms large and provides an ongoing sense of
connection to Europe and European-derived science. My larger point is about perception
and the necessary respect that the naturalist guides command, not only because they am
ply demonstrate vast stores of knowledge, but also because they represent an authorita
tive elite presence on board the ships, where a majority of and passengers come from na
tions with more political and economic power.
(24.) There are ways around these laws. For example, one of our naturalists maintained
an island apartment to satisfy the legal requirements but actually lived in Miami with his
wife and child. Our guides told of a recent case of an Ecuadorian trying to smuggle out
three protected iguanas in his suitcase through the airport. My impression, however, is
that illegal tourism, poaching, or trade in protected species in the islands is not wide
spread. For Ecuador, extreme animal tourism in the Galapagos is an important source of
income and of national pride, and as such is a tightly controlled national resource. These
laws are not just on the books; they are enforced by patrolling marine police.
(25.) The notion of “invasive species” has recently received increasingly nuanced discus
sion, but in tourist discourse it still has a blunt meaning of “those who belong” and “those
who came from elsewhere and don’t belong.” For two extensive considerations, see
Yvonne Baskin, ed., A Plague of Rats and Rubber Vines: The Growing Threat of Species
Invasions (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002) and, from a more humanities-based stand
point, Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman, eds., Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the En
vironmental Humanities (New York: Routledge, 2014). My questions to our naturalist
guide about the necessity of killing cats on the islands to prevent their predation of tor
toise eggs, was quickly dismissed. Other solutions like trap and re-release programs to re
distribute the cats elsewhere were deemed impractical.
(26.) Quoted in Gonzalo Solano, “Corrective: Galapagos-rat Kill Story,” Quito, Ecuador,
www.times-gazette.com/aptravel/2012/11/16/corrective-galapagos, accessed June 14,
2013.
(27.) Eke Eijgelaar, Carla Thaper, and Paul Peeterset, “Antarctic Cruise Tourism: The
Paradoxes of Ambassadorship, ‘Last Chance Tourism,’ and Greenhouse Gas Emission,”
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 18, no. 3 (April 2010): 337–354, at 340.
(28.) David Picard cites these figures in his article with co-author Dennis Zuev, “The
Tourist Plot: Antarctica and the Modernity of Nature,” in Annals of Tourism Research, 45:
102–115. Picard and Zuev’s is one of the best of relatively few cultural studies of Antarc
tic tourism, and he applies a narrative and performative framework to understand how
current tourists make sense of what they do and see on the typical Antarctic voyage.
Page 19 of 20
Staging Privilege, Proximity, and “Extreme Animal Tourism”
(29.) Picard takes up the concept of touristic “awe” in “Tourism, Awe and Inner Journeys,”
in Emotion in Motion: Tourism, Affect, and Transformation, ed. David Picard and Mike
Robinson (London: Ashgate Publishers, 2012), 1–20. He links it to the European and Eu
ro-American legacy of the sublime as a form of moral learning and notes that the experi
ence of specific emotions and their public rendition are informed by social standing, in
cluding the category of gender.
(32.) Erica Fudge, in her astute overview Animal (London: Reaktion Books, 2002) makes
the point about animals and history.
(33.) Certainly, some evolutionary biologists and biological anthropologists would position
certain animals in this way, and reports of their work seeps into public media regularly
under the category of science reporting. The ways that contemporary humans might be
similar to their evolutionary cousins in prehistory—for example, in the distribution of sex-
linked roles, or sexual habits—are prime targets of public discourse and newspaper re
portage that debates whether social formations are based on so-called natural tenden
cies, such as competition, violence, and sexual difference.
Jane Desmond
Jane Desmond is Professor in Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies, and
co-founder and Director of the International Forum for U.S. Studies at University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Page 20 of 20
Commensal Species
Commensal Species
Terry O'Connor
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Public Policy
Online Publication Date: Jun 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.004
Urban areas and their surrounding environments present a challenge and an opportunity
to other species. Some animal populations have adapted successfully, taking advantage of
food stores and garbage as predictable trophic resources and man-made structures as se
cure living space. Archaeological and historical records show that this synanthropic adap
tation began in prehistory, probably before the advent of agriculture, for example in some
fox populations. Some commensal species show successful ethnophoresy, such as rodent
populations that have accompanied human colonization of the planet. Once established,
commensal animals form a part of the everyday scene for millions of people. Our re
sponse to them ranges from food handouts to extermination, from welcome neighbors to
vermin, exemplified by our range of attitudes to urban pigeons. It is argued that commen
sal animals are an important social and educational resource that deserves further re
search and encouragement.
SOME of the most widespread and distinctive ecosystems on Earth are those that have
developed in the built environment of our towns and cities and in the highly modified en
vironments of agricultural and industrial land, transport corridors, and landfill sites that
we develop around and between them. Animals are an intrinsic part of those ecosystems,
whether persisting under duress as the environment around them changes in new and
challenging ways or adapting successfully to benefit from those changes. Species that are
successful adapters to, and adopters of, the anthropic environment gain a range of bene
fits.1 Living space is one, and reduction of competition by the exclusion of less pragmatic
species is certainly another. However, it is the provision of food that most clearly facili
tates the adaptation and that gives those synanthropic systems their characteristic troph
ic webs. We acknowledge the primacy of food supply by categorizing the successful
species as commensal, literally as animals who share our table and thus eat with us.2 We
might also use the term synanthropic because they live with people. However, this would
include animals who persist in urban environments despite human activities, relict popu
lations of species that manage to exist in the interstices of our constructed world.3
Page 1 of 19
Commensal Species
Important though they are, those animal populations have a quite different relationship
with their human neighbors than do the commensal species that positively gain from their
proximity to people.
The terms commensal and commensalism are commonly used in biology, mostly in the
context of the abundant microorganisms that inhabit the human gut and other organs. Al
though some of our microbial companions are detrimental to our health and (p. 526) oth
ers positively beneficial, many simply find the gut a congenial place to call home, provid
ing a suitable living environment and a supply of nutrients, with no detriment to the hu
man concerned. Commensal relationships are typically of this (+, 0) form, with benefit to
one party and neither benefit nor detriment to the other. In that respect, they differ from
true mutualism, in which the benefit should be mutual (+, +), or parasitism, in which
there is detriment to the host (+, –).4 These terms are matters of convenience, categories
that we apply to aid the study of a deeply complex subject, and the boundaries are some
what blurred and porous. For the present purpose, we are concerned with animals who
live around us, not within us, so it is sufficient to use the term commensal to refer to ani
mal species that utilize the modified or constructed environment of human habitations for
food and living space.
When we consider how and why some animals share our living space, we again run up
against the challenge of imposing categories and precise terminology on adaptations and
behaviors that are flexible, situationally expedient, and overlapping. If we focus on an
thropic food webs, the disposition of human populations to create concentrations of po
tential food leads to three forms of commensal adaptation.
First, some species adapt to exploiting the food stores that we create for ourselves. These
stores constitute loci of extremely high food abundance, often of a single resource that
will be part processed, thus reducing both foraging time and handling time for the ani
mals concerned. The loci are likely to be highly predictable as to location, though they
may fluctuate in content and composition over time. Exploiting such sources will require
an accurate “memory” for the location and means of access, whether on the part of indi
viduals or through some form of cultural transmission within the group, such as adult ani
mals “teaching” their young. For the humans involved, the species that exploit these feed
ing opportunities tend to be the ones we regard as vermin, or more politely as “pests of
stored products.”5
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Commensal Species
Second, animals will adapt to scavenging the food wastes and other organic garbage that
people generate and that, in most cultures, tend to be spatially concentrated. As with
stored products, these resources will be locally abundant, often in very predictable loca
tions, and may show quite low seasonal fluctuation. From an ecological perspective, we
can include the deliberate feeding of animals by people in this category since the food in
question is effectively garbage rather than food intended for subsequent human consump
tion and the same predictability of location often applies. From the animals’ point of view,
the main differences between raiding stored food supplies and scavenging garbage are
likely to be accessibility, as people are more likely to protect food than to protect
garbage, and diversity, as garbage will usually offer a greater range of foodstuffs at any
one location. Local concentrations of food at particular locations may constitute a behav
ioral challenge to some species by requiring a high degree of tolerance and the suppres
sion of intraspecies antagonism.
Third, there is what might be termed secondary commensalism, in which either of the
above feeding opportunities attracts primary feeders who then constitute a concentration
of prey for an opportunistic predator. Garbage accumulations commonly attract inverte
brate scavengers such as flies, who then become an attractive target for (p. 527) insectivo
rous vertebrates. Traditionally maintained farmyards often have accumulations of herbi
vore dung and decomposing plant matter that become an attractive feeding and breeding
pabulum for flies. Barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) benefit from an association with farm
yards in two ways: through the use of structures such as barns and stables as sheltered
nest sites; and through a local and reliable abundance of prey. A more distinctly urban ex
ample is the recent colonization of city centers in Europe and North America by pere
grine falcons (Falco peregrinus), who exploit the concentrations of pigeons (Columba
livia), who in turn exploit garbage and food handouts.6
These three categories are linked by the provision of a substantial energy donation to the
concerned food web, an energy input not directly derived from gross primary productivity
at the base of that food web but introduced to it from other systems. These donor-con
trolled food webs are not restricted by the efficiency with which autotrophic organisms,
usually green plants, can generate GPP.7 The abundance of animals at any trophic level
within the food web is determined by the scale and reliability of the donation, which will
generally be of mixed plant, animal, and fungal origins and thus will allow animals at dif
ferent trophic levels to benefit directly. Unsurprisingly, omnivorous animals tend to be
particularly successful in most such systems. One theoretical consequence is that donor-
controlled food webs are particularly susceptible to perturbation, because the predomi
nance of omnivores and the utilization of the primary energy input by multiple trophic
guilds mean that the web shows a high rate of linkage. Perturbation affecting just one
node of the web, for example through people attempting the local extirpation of one
species, is likely to ramify widely and rapidly through the whole web, sometimes with
quite unpredictable results.
Page 3 of 19
Commensal Species
Although food lies at the heart of commensal adaptations, the physical nature of the an
thropic environment offers further opportunities and challenges.8 Most populations of
people construct places to live, whether huts, shacks, bungalows, or apartment blocks.
The exteriors of these buildings provide vertical surfaces that often mimic cliffs or tree
trunks, usually with sheltered niches or ledges and isolated plateaus on the rooftops. In a
landscape that is otherwise of low relief and perhaps predominantly farmland, a town or
village may be a patch of high structural diversity. Building interiors will vary more than
their exteriors but are likely to provide niches and tunnels, spaces inaccessible to larger
predators and competitors. Here we see the first hints of a behavioral coevolution be
tween humans and our commensal neighbors. Our cultural decisions—whether to deposit
garbage in bins or middens, whether to incinerate or landfill, to build in brick or wood, to
roof in tile or thatch—condition the opportunities and the behavioral repertoire that will
be necessary in order to take advantage of those opportunities. And the adaptations
shown by different commensal populations may in turn lead to a cultural adaptation on
the part of their human neighbors, such as prohibiting the feeding of urban pigeons or de
veloping the better mousetrap.
Before going on to examine some commensal species in more detail, it is worth asking
why this guild of animals merits study. They are generally not species of significant con
servation value, nor do they underpin our economic systems in the same way as livestock
animals. What they do offer is exceptional close-quarter opportunities to study (p. 528)
adaptability in other species. We need to make little effort to find study populations of
commensal animals: they come to us. Furthermore, some of the species that have adapt
ed to living within human settlements have done so worldwide, making it possible to
study, for example, pigeons in a wide range of climatic and cultural settings, exemplifying
the behavioral and physiological flexibility of a single species and the diversity of our re
action to them. Furthermore, that research need not be restricted to professional scien
tists. The ubiquity of commensal animals and their everyday familiarity make them an ex
cellent subject area for citizen science, allowing a far wider range of people to be in
volved in the research and encouraging public engagement with animals in the familiar
environment of their parks and streets rather than in zoos or through the medium of TV.9
Apart from that democratization of research, a great strength of citizen science lies in the
scale of the data sets that it can generate. The individual data records may sometimes
lack the rigor and precision that we would expect from professionals (and will equally of
ten exceed it!), but that is more than compensated by the sheer quantity of data and the
long periods of time over which survey data, for example, can be collected. Thus, the an
nual Big Garden Birdwatch in the United Kingdom has been recording species frequen
cies on a weekend in January for 34 consecutive years and collates records from over half
a million observers every year.10
Commensal animals are a fundamental part of anthropic ecosystems and can be seen as
the canary in the coalmine, the first indication that all is not ecologically well. A sharp de
cline in numbers of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in the United Kingdom in the
early twenty-first century provoked considerable public concern and discussion.11 In part,
that was a simple response to the loss of a very familiar bird of parks and gardens, but
Page 4 of 19
Commensal Species
there was also concern that whatever had caused the sparrow decline might indicate
some more generic problem with other possible consequences. Some research linked the
sparrow decline to reduced breeding success because of a shortage of invertebrate prey
during the spring months, which opened up investigations and discussion as to why in
sect numbers generally seem to be in decline in the United Kingdom. For many people,
reading about this sparrow story and its many turns in newspapers or other media was an
informative introduction to the complexity of ecosystems and of the unexpected conse
quences that can arise. Understanding the commensal guild and the details of their close
association with us and with other species that associate with us adds depth and nuance
to our understanding of human environmental impact. It also reminds us that other
species are not necessarily the passive recipients of whatever perturbation we hand out
but are adaptable and resourceful organisms with their own priorities.
Perhaps, too, we can see commensal animals as part of the shared heritage of our
species. The guild is present wherever people are present across the world today, regard
less of national boundaries, regimes, or religions, though each of those parameters influ
ences our reaction to other species. There can be a sense of time depth, too.12 We are ac
customed to the idea that domestic livestock have been with us for millennia, and the
term heritage is applied to breeds and strains thought to have a particularly long genealo
gy.
The commensal guild has a deep heritage. The archaeological record shows that
(p. 529)
some species associated with people just as soon as people settled in one place in suffi
cient numbers and for long enough to create a patch of modified environment and some
altered trophic opportunities. In the archaeology of Upper Palaeolithic Europe, 30,000 to
12,000 years ago, bones of foxes and birds of the crow family (Corvidae) are associated
with human residential sites much more often than first-principles ecology would lead us
to expect.13 Although many of those individual animals were probably killed and possibly
utilized by their human neighbors, the frequent association itself suggests some degree of
adaptation by the foxes and corvids to the human environment. Foxes are commonly asso
ciated with hunter-gatherer and early farming settlements in the Middle East around the
Pleistocene/Holocene transition, and then they seem to become less so later in the Ne
olithic.14 Rats, house mice, and house sparrow bones also feature in those early farming
sites.15 In short, commensal animals have certainly been with us for 10,000 years and
quite possibly two or three times as long. Their continued association with us today is a
constant reminder of a shared past that is of greater antiquity than most surviving an
cient monuments. Looking to the future, the more that we understand the past and
present of our commensal neighbors, the more we may be able to facilitate successful
adaptation by animal populations that are forced into closer association with people. By
studying the successes, we can learn to modify our settlements and their infrastructure in
ways that will allow more species to adapt and sustain viable populations alongside us.
That modification has to be a policy priority since more than half of humanity lives in
cities and most of the rest in heavily modified anthropic environments. Contact with ani
mals is widely recognized to be therapeutically beneficial, and especially children need
Page 5 of 19
Commensal Species
this contact if they are to respect and care for animals in later life.16 Companion animals
and livestock provide some such contact, but very much on humanity’s terms and at our
instigation. The commensal animals offer a different experience, that of wild animals who
can be experienced within the human environment of their own free will. As Nature be
comes more and more remote from most people’s daily experience and increasingly pack
aged and commoditized and thus put beyond some people’s economic reach, so the ani
mals who live independently among us will assume an ever greater importance in en
abling people to have something in their lives beyond our own noisy and disputatious
species.17
Some commensal species are of near-global extent, sharing the human environment al
most everywhere that we have set up home. Their widespread presence makes them the
fossils of the current geological epoch that some refer to as the Anthropocene.18 It is not
difficult to see that anthropic environments offer similar opportunities regardless of geog
raphy, but for a species to be widespread in that environment it has to colonize success
fully, to translocate in sufficient numbers from one such environment patch to another.
With many of the more widespread commensal animals, it is clear that deliberate and ac
cidental transport by people has played a major role, obviously so when mammals suc
cessfully colonize oceanic islands. The term ethnophoresy is sometimes applied to trans
portation of animals by humans from one suitable patch to another. With some (p. 530)
species, some of the time, these events will have been inadvertent, a few individual ani
mals having stowed away in a cargo while in others they will have been deliberate. A full
treatment of exactly why some animals have been deliberately translocated by people is
beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say that the reasons are not always absolutely
clear even when there is a detailed historical account and that such translocations were
going on deep in prehistory.19 The translocated animal may have been believed to have
some useful function, perhaps as an emergency food or as a useful scavenger, or may sim
ply have been something familiar taken from home to a new place. Whatever the specifics
of an individual case, ethnophoresy has been remarkably effective.
Rats (Rattus spp.) provide the outstanding examples of global ethnophoresy, with three
species in particular having hitched a ride over most of the world. The ship rat (or black
rat, roof rat, Rattus rattus) is probably a South Asian species in origin, though that origi
nal range is now quite difficult to discern. The species has spread itself throughout East
and Southeast Asia, despite the presence of numerous other rodent competitors, and was
establishing itself in Africa comfortably before European colonization of that continent. In
the Middle East, the ship rat was one of the first commensal animals to associate with vil
lage settlements, at the time of the Natufian culture at the end of the Pleistocene. Its sub
sequent spread through the Mediterranean region and into Western Europe was rather
gradual at first and then was greatly accelerated by the road building and increased car
go transportation of the Roman period.20 The decline in rats seen in parts of Western Eu
rope in the immediate post-Roman period probably reflects a reduction in the volume of
cargo moving by road and ship and thus the extent to which an isolated rat population
could recruit new individuals. As trade resurged in medieval Europe, the rats were back
in force and accompanied Christopher Columbus into the New World at the end of the fif
Page 6 of 19
Commensal Species
teenth century.21 Today, there are populations of ship rat in the Aleutian Islands, close to
Arctic regions, and on the subantarctic island of South Georgia. The association of ship
rats with the Black Death outbreak that slaughtered so many Europeans between 1347
and 1351 has done little for their reputation. Scholarly debate continues over the identity
of the Black Death and hence the culpability of rats and their fleas. The weight of evi
dence points to bubonic plague and thus to a likely role for rats as vectors, though the liv
ing conditions of their human neighbors must have been a factor.22 Despite that, looking
at the global distribution of the species it is difficult not to admire the success with which
ship rats have lived up to their vernacular name.
Earlier in this essay, the comment was made that commensal animals are generally not of
conservation concern. Somewhat ironically, European populations of ship rat are recog
nized as being seriously reduced and vulnerable, having virtually disappeared from the
United Kingdom within this author’s lifetime.23 In part this has to be a consequence of the
deliberate extirpation from docks and warehouses of a species generally perceived to be
vermin, but competition for space and resources from the larger and more aggressive
common rat (brown rat, Norway rat, Rattus norvegicus) has also been a major factor. This
species probably originates in China and Mongolia, where free-living populations can be
found today. The route and timing of its introduction to Western Europe are debatable,
with different sources authoritatively asserting different historical details.24 (p. 531) A
likely candidate is the visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, of the Russian Imperial Fleet in
1716. Given that another rat species was already well-established in European towns and
villages, the rapid spread of common rat indicates successful competition but also some
subtle niche partitioning. Norway rats are mentioned by English diarists and nature writ
ers by the end of the 1700s, and the species makes its first appearance in the archaeolog
ical record of towns such as York and London in the later part of the eighteenth century.
It was inevitable that common rats would cross the Atlantic, which they seem to have
done during the second half of the eighteenth century, ousting ship rats from much of the
New World despite their 200-year head start.
Both ship rats and common rats have the attributes of a successful commensal animal.
They are broad-spectrum omnivores, common rats in particular being willing to eat al
most anything though showing a preference for meat. They breed rapidly in good condi
tions and do so year-round, allowing substantial populations to be built up quickly.25 They
are also intelligent, behaviorally flexible animals, capable of learning from experience and
of transmitting learned behaviors between individuals. That transmission allows rapid
adaptation to new circumstances, reducing the vulnerability of a newly translocated
group, and allows rapid dissemination of an innovative and beneficial behavior.
The third rat who deserves our attention and respect is the kiore (Maori rat, rice rat, Rat
tus exulans). One of a number of rat species endemic to Southeast Asia, as their vernacu
lar names suggest kiore have been closely linked to the expansion of Polynesian peoples
throughout the Pacific region. Introduced populations of kiore have been recorded on 126
Pacific Ocean islands, and in most cases those populations persist.26 Whereas the recent
spread of common rat across the Atlantic region and its islands has been associated with
Page 7 of 19
Commensal Species
European travel and transport, the Pacific spread of kiore substantially predates Euro
pean exploration of the region. Kiore bones are sometimes the earliest archaeological evi
dence of human contact with isolated oceanic islands. Furthermore, analysis of the genet
ic diversity of kiore shows a strong correlation with artifactual and linguistic evidence for
the timing and sequence of human colonization of the Pacific region.27 Three mitochondri
al DNA haplotypes tell the story. Group I rats are predominantly found in the region that
modern humans colonized during the Pleistocene—Borneo, the Philippines, and Sulawesi.
Group II rats seem to represent an early spread into the Western Pacific, mainly occur
ring on the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. Group III rats occur right
across the open ocean, with a subdivision between Group IIIa, typical of New Caledonia,
Fiji, and Samoa; and Group IIIb, typical of the Polynesian Triangle, the vast area delineat
ed by Rapa Nui, Hawaii, and New Zealand, colonized by our species and our attendant
rats only within the last thousand years. When James Cook and his crew first visited Rapa
Nui in 1744, he noted the abundance of rats, though he was not to know that they were
all of the same mitochondrial haplotype.
The case for kiore as highly successful commensal rodents is clear enough, though their
sheer ubiquity raises the question of whether the original translocation of them was en
tirely inadvertent. Their bones are abundant in Polynesian middens, indicating (p. 532)
that they were used for food, and it is possible that at least some offshore populations
were deliberately established to seed remote islands with a reliable source of meat, one
that could be kept alive on-board during long ocean crossings. European sailors in the At
lantic region commonly deposited goats on remote islands for much the same reasons.
Perhaps the answer in the case of kiore, though not of goats, is that they were successful
stowaways, exploiting the cargoes and stores that must have been carried on oceanic voy
ages. Their adoption as a source of meat may have been little more than a pragmatic
adaptation by their Polynesian shipmates to a commensal rodent who was almost un
avoidable. The same human disposition to adapt pragmatically to a species that is persis
tently present on its own terms may underlie our present relationship with cats and with
guinea pigs.
today.30 The apparent delay in colonizing Western Europe from the Mediterranean re
quires explanation. Given the close association of house mice in the Middle East with
dense constructed environments such as Çatal Hüyük, differences in the density and form
of settlements between the Eastern and Western parts of the Mediterranean region dur
ing, say, the fourth to second millennia BCE may have militated against the establishment
of house mouse populations. There may also have been competition. Bones of wood mice
(Apodemus spp.) are quite common on prehistoric sites across Western Europe, and these
endemic mice may have been better preadapted to the building styles of the region,
based more on timber than on brick and tile. In Western Europe, a synanthropic wood
mouse population could easily be increased by recruitment from local “wild” populations,
whereas house mouse populations would have been more isolated and more vulnerable
until the transportation of cargoes was regular enough to serve as an ethnophoretic path
way. Modern wood mouse populations readily adopt structures such as sheds and green
houses, especially if there is some form of stored food, so house mice in Western Europe
may have had to overcome well-established commensal Apodemus populations to gain a
foothold.
Having established themselves in Europe, house mice have accompanied people and rats
around the world. We lack detailed archaeological or historical evidence for their (p. 533)
first arrival in the Americas, though genetic and sparse documentary evidence suggests
the late eighteenth century. House mice probably arrived in Australia around the same
time, and modern house mouse populations in Australia are predominantly of the Western
Europe M. domesticus group. In contrast, the house mice of New Guinea are mostly of
Southeast Asian origin, typically of the M. castaneus group.31 As with the kiore, the genet
ics of house mice reflects the population movements of the people that they accompanied.
European seafaring of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries moved house mice around
the world, from Iceland to subantarctic Macquarie Island. Whereas rats, especially the
common rat, seem to have adapted by utilizing their intelligence and wide behavioral
repertoire, house mice have adapted their social structures. Feral populations of house
mice tend not to breed during the winter months, whereas commensal populations will
breed year-round. Commensal house mice also show a reduction of the intraspecies an
tagonism that is seen in feral mice, making it possible for greater numbers to take advan
tage of localized feeding opportunities. Where food is sparse and unpredictable, it is ben
eficial to protect and defend that resource. However, if food is present in abundance then
the adaptive advantage is lost, and antagonism merely wastes energy and risks injury.
Rats and mice have perhaps been the most successful of commensal animals, measuring
success in terms of abundance and global ubiquity. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has suc
cessfully adapted to human settlements around Eurasia and has been partially successful
in colonizing Australia. For larger mammals such as foxes, ethnophoresy must be a less
effective means of extending their range. They are inherently less likely to be transported
unnoticed and likely to be translocated in smaller numbers, so the chances of establishing
a new population must therefore be lower than would be the case for rats or mice. That
said, foxes have other attributes that predispose them to commensal success. They are
markedly omnivorous, taking a wide range of small vertebrates and invertebrates in non
Page 9 of 19
Commensal Species
commensal conditions and the full spectrum of human food wastes when living commen
sally. Foxes are behaviorally adaptable and show playful curiosity, making it likely that
they will explore and thus learn to exploit new forms of feeding opportunity. They breed
quite rapidly for a mammal of medium body size, producing four to six young at a time
and breeding for the first time when barely a year old.32
Urban foxes are now well-established throughout Europe and are a source of much dis
cussion and disagreement. There is a misperception that foxes are now predominantly ur
ban, when in the United Kingdom, for example, urban foxes make up only about 15 per
cent of the fox population. It is British people who are mostly urban and therefore urban
foxes who are mostly seen. Unlike rats and mice, it seems that this urban habit is of rela
tively recent origin. If access to edible refuse were all that foxes require, they should
have been common in the insalubrious towns of medieval Britain. However, they were
not, with only occasional records of fox even from places in which substantial excavations
and detailed investigation have given us a rich medieval faunal record.33 Is the urban
habit a recent adaptation by foxes? The last thousand years would seem to indicate this,
but the longer term archaeological record shows foxes to have associated with people in
Europe in the Upper Palaeolithic, 30,000 to 11,500 years ago and in (p. 534) the Middle
East during Natufian times. Prehistoric foxes were as opportunistic as their modern de
scendants, yet they left medieval towns largely alone. One possibility is that they were ex
cluded by competition from other commensal animals, namely, feral cats. Cats certainly
were abundant and widespread in medieval Britain and may have occupied a largely fer
al, commensal niche, successfully excluding foxes. This is a speculative explanation, but it
accounts for the absence of medieval urban foxes despite the presence of a highly suit
able habitat.
One further species that deserves mention is the street pigeon or rock dove (Columba
livia). The appellation “feathered rats,” applied to pigeons since the mid-twentieth centu
ry, reflects both human attitudes to these versatile birds and the success with which they
have exploited our urban environments. Like rats, they have accompanied European set
tlers to the New World and Australia, though probably through human deliberation rather
than as stowaways.34 Historical sources and surviving structures show that the keeping of
“doves” has a deep antiquity, particularly through the Middle East and the Greco-Roman
world.35 That said, it is presumption rather than hard evidence that associates biblical or
classical references to doves with Columba livia. The relationship between people and
kept doves almost defies conventional definition. At one extreme, the birds are caged and
fed and their breeding is controlled, all attributes of what we regard as domestication.
More often, the birds are provided with somewhere convenient to roost and nest and are
left to get on with the business of feeding and breeding. In the absence of human control
of space, feeding, and breeding, they cannot be described as domesticated, yet they are
certainly not wild. One step more and we come to the pigeon populations that inhabit
structures such as office blocks and cathedrals that were not built for their use yet serve
the purpose very well. Along that spectrum of human association, we can confidently at
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Commensal Species
tribute domestication at one end and commensalism at the other but might struggle to
place the boundary between them.
Pigeons are broadly omnivorous, willing to feed in large aggregations where food is abun
dant, and they breed precociously, year-round and with fecundity. They are also quite
sedentary, surprisingly so given the reputation of racing and homing pigeons for flying re
markable distances.36 Free-living rock dove populations tend to favor coastal and mon
tane cliff habitats, and the opportunistic adoption of structural ledges and cavities in
large buildings is clearly a behavioral exaptation. The large flocks of street pigeons seen
today in cities throughout the world are generally thought to derive from escapes and re
leases of pigeons kept for sport and as food. The range of color patterns seen in commen
sal populations indicates that captive-bred birds have made a significant contribution and
would point to the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the time when much
of that population recruitment happened. However, there is evidence that pigeons had
adopted towns and cities at an appreciably earlier date. There were sufficient pigeons in
fourteenth-century London, for example, for windows at St. Pauls Cathedral to have been
broken by people throwing stones to disperse the birds.37 The archaeological record
shows a modest but persistent record of Columba livia in medieval towns in England,
though the bones alone cannot show whether those were commensal or captive birds. The
fact that their remains are found dispersed into urban refuse, rather than (p. 535) concen
trated at particular locations, rather suggests the former. It is possible, therefore, that
there were preexisting commensal street pigeon populations in medieval England and
quite possibly elsewhere in Europe, which were considerably boosted in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries by escapes and releases at a time when pigeon-keeping was par
ticularly common.
Rats, foxes, and pigeons are familiar commensal animals because they are characteristic
of human settlements in so many parts of the world. Other species have adopted the com
mensal niche either temporarily or locally. Hanuman langur monkeys (Semnopithecus en
tellus), for example, have successful commensal populations in the Indian city of Jodhpur.
Here, the monkeys have adapted to living off handouts from their human neighbors, and
this niche buffers their populations against the consequences of climate fluctuations that
might otherwise have serious impacts.38 In the Shimla municipality, in contrast, Hanuman
langurs are present but only rarely feed from human refuse or solicit handouts. The dif
ference between these two populations may lie in the fact that Shimla has a prolific popu
lation of rhesus monkeys Macaca mulatta and Jodphur does not. The Shimla rhesus mon
keys are assertively commensal and probably exclude the langurs from that niche by di
rect competition, possibly an analog for the exclusion of urban foxes by feral cats in me
dieval England.39
Rats and house mice are not the only rodents to have found our settlements to their lik
ing. In parts of North Africa and the Middle East, the spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus has
adapted to an urban, commensal lifestyle while maintaining more substantial free-living
populations across the region. The urban spiny mice of Cairo, for example, could be seen
as a relict population that has adapted as it was overrun by the rapid expansion of that
Page 11 of 19
Commensal Species
city in the last hundred years. However, the urban spiny mice are phenotypically distinct
and show quite a different, and heritable, behavioral repertoire, indicating that the sepa
ration of urban and rural forms may be of some time depth.40 In fact, spiny mice are unex
pectedly abundant at some Natufian sites, showing that this rodent may have been in the
first wave of commensal adopters in the Late Pleistocene, but only intermittently so in
more recent times. The spiny mice remind us not to label entire species by the ecology or
behavior of specific populations. Just occasionally, commensalism may be adopted by a lo
cal population of a species with which that niche is not usually associated. A good exam
ple is a population of Australian swamp rats Rattus lutreolus living at a small zoo at
Healesville, near Melbourne, Australia, in the 1970s.41 Zoos almost inevitably have popu
lations of freeloading animals attracted by the provision of food and space, and
Healesville zoo had well-established populations of ship and common rats, together with a
small number of the local swamp rats. Pest control meant that numbers of the introduced
rats fluctuated appreciably, allowing the swamp rats to increase their numbers to the
point at which they could compete successfully for the commensal niche. Comparison
with free-living swamp rats in the same region showed that they quickly developed differ
ences. The commensal swamp rats bred throughout more of the year, the young grew
more rapidly, the adults were larger, and the rats were more inclined to be active away
from vegetation or other cover. Adoption of the commensal niche changed the selection
pressures on this population of rats, with (p. 536) rapid and marked consequences. The
swamp rats and the urban spiny mice show that commensal populations may quickly be
come distinctive not only behaviorally but also morphologically.
So far, this consideration of commensal animals has examined their adaptation to us,
which is only one side of a complex and probably rather fluid relationship. Human atti
tudes to commensal animals will obviously be highly culture-specific, may well be locally
contingent, and may not be consistent over periods of decades to centuries. The Anglo
phone world commonly groups commensal animals such as rodents as pests or vermin.
The term pest implies some association with disease, either because of the potential
zoonotic disease risk of closely cohabiting with another species or because the animals
themselves are seen as a form of disease, a disorder of the domestic realm. It is a sad fact
that much of the detailed research literature on, for example, street pigeons has its ori
gins in pest control research, seeking to understand the pigeons to reduce or eradicate
them rather than as an object of worthwhile investigation in themselves.42 Pigeons exem
plify the way that attitudes may harden over time. The great flocks of them that inhabited
central London, most particularly around Trafalgar Square, were formerly regarded as
part of the traditional scene, a backdrop against which to take souvenir snapshots. Today
the birds are greatly reduced in number, and notices warn the public not to feed the pi
geons. Tame hawks are brought to the square to harass and discourage the pigeons,
though they are becoming superfluous as increasing numbers of peregrine falcons colo
nize the designer cliffs of city centers. Looking back through press and other records, it is
difficult to see whether an increased understanding of the possible zoonotic disease risk
led to a decreased tolerance of pigeons or whether the disease-risk argument became a
means of post hoc justification. It is true that a number of significant diseases may be
Page 12 of 19
Commensal Species
transmitted from pigeons to people but equally true that such transmission was rare even
when urban pigeon populations were at their height.43 Surveys of attitudes to urban foxes
show quite mixed results, including appreciable public awareness of the possible trans
mission of the parasite Echinococcus multilocularis mixed with a desire not to see the fox
es eradicated.44 That cognitive dissonance can be seen cross-culturally. Asked about ag
gressive rhesus monkeys on their campus, staff and students of Gauhati University in As
sam, India, agreed that something should be done, but very few were in favor of killing off
the monkeys.45
Regarding pigeons, attitudes in London and New York changed over the second half of
the twentieth century, and the acceptance of urban foxes in England has undergone a
similar transition over the same period. A few recent introductions to the urban scene of
fer the opportunity to calibrate the pace of such changes of mind. The rose-ringed para
keet Psittacula krameri gradually became established in a few cities of the United King
dom during the 1980s.46 At first he was welcomed, a rather exotic and handsome flash of
color on the too-often dour English urban scene. As numbers increased, concern about
the noise made by the larger colonies came to be expressed, and it was increasingly as
serted that the parakeets were outcompeting native species for food and nesting space.
On the latter point, there has been only a little systematic research, and that seems
(p. 537) to show negligible impact.47 Nonetheless, despite the near absence of quality evi
dence control measures have been proposed, and the legal protection of these lovely
birds has been downgraded. That arc, from welcome stranger to vermin, has taken barely
30 years.
An intriguing aspect of our relationship with our commensal neighbors is the way that it
has driven small-scale technological changes. Many people derive pleasure from feeding
animals who are not obviously domesticated, and many of us put out food for garden
birds. At its simplest, this involves leaving food scraps unwanted for human consumption
in a place that birds can and will access. Such scraps are likely to be accessible to ro
dents and foxes, however, so a range of suspended feeding devices has been developed.
Over the years, simple suspended nets and cages have diversified into containers for dif
ferent forms of seeds and nuts. Faced with this challenge, some populations of grey squir
rels have adapted their innate foraging behaviors to reach and plunder seed and nut con
tainers. During the summer months, it is possible to watch adult squirrels demonstrating
the necessary techniques to their young and impossible not to view that process as one of
teaching and learning. This cultural adaptation by the squirrels has forced a technologi
cal response by the makers of bird feeders, and the nut and seed containers are now ei
ther suspended from long wires that are supposedly proof against squirrel access or en
cased within a cage that will admit small birds while excluding medium-size rodents. Pre
sumably this arms race will go on, and one wonders what the squirrels will do next. The
point of this rather trivial example is that one aspect of our association with one group of
species (garden birds) has led to a learned behavioral response on the part of another
species (squirrels), which in turn has prompted a behavioral and technological response
from ourselves. This is a form of cultural coevolution, driven predominantly by the trans
mission of learned behavior on all sides. Less charitably, our technological capacity has
Page 13 of 19
Commensal Species
been directed toward discouraging, displacing, and killing commensal animals who have
come to be regarded as vermin. Buildings are fitted with netting and antipigeon arrays of
spikes, intended to deny the birds a secure ledge or cavity, and the quest for a better
mousetrap is a well-worn metaphor. The wood-and-steel snap-trap has served the purpose
for decades, to the point of being traditional in cartoons, and has only quite recently been
challenged by devices made in plastic. There has been much less impetus to modify
mousetraps than there has with bird feeders simply because mice seem not to have
learned how to render the traps ineffective other than by avoidance. And a mouse who
does not avoid a snap-trap does not pass on its experiential knowledge.
Our attitude to commensal animals thus includes devices through which to encourage
them and devices with which to kill them. We supplement our energy-rich refuse with
handouts of food, including nuts and seeds bought expressly for the purpose. We seem to
want to have these animals around us, but on our terms not theirs. If they become too as
sertive or abundant, our welcome may be withdrawn. It is an oddly ambivalent attitude. It
is as if something fundamental to human behavior draws us to associate with animals who
will associate with us, yet we need to remain in control of that relationship and to keep it
within whatever our respective cultural perceptions regard (p. 538) as reasonable bounds.
Hindu temples in India tolerate high numbers of monkeys who forcefully solicit food, but
it is highly unlikely that Anglican churches in England would be so accommodating.
Christianity has its own cognitive dissonance in this regard, torn between the all-embrac
ing biophilia of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas’ teachings that humans have
no duty of charity toward animals because they are inferior beings.48
What is the place of commensal animals in an increasingly artificial and urbanized world?
Some ecologists have described a process of biotic homogenization by which biotic and
habitat diversity on Earth is progressively reduced as a package of synanthropic plants
and animals comes to dominate more and more land area.49 Our commensal neighbors
are likely to be the winners in this process, as they are the animals who will increasingly
oust more diverse endemic faunas. However, that is not an argument for restricting and
controlling commensal populations because it is our own activities that most directly and
detrimentally impact endemic faunas, with the commensal animals opportunistically tak
ing advantage. To argue for maintaining populations of urban foxes and parakeets is not
to argue against conserving “wildlife” but merely for the acceptance that the anthropic
environments we construct for ourselves will be inimical to some species and attractive to
others. We can moderate that homogenization through understanding the processes in
volved and mitigating the impact of our towns and their hinterlands. However, with half
of the human population living in urban environments and little sign of that proportion
doing other than rapidly rising, if most people are to encounter animals other than live
stock and companion animals we will need healthy populations of our commensal neigh
bors. Those encounters are important precisely because the commensal animals are not
under our direct control, unlike livestock and companion animals. Children need to learn
that animals have their own motivation and their own separate lives if they are to develop
the respect and appreciation that will underpin future conservation. Conservation biology
Page 14 of 19
Commensal Species
would be ill served by a generation whose experience of live animals has been the family
Labrador and a few bored sheep at an urban farm.
To sum up, commensal animals are an important class of wildlife precisely because they
are the medium through which the wild integrates with our own built and modified envi
ronments. These are the animals who form the backdrop to our daily lives, and have done
so for millennia, and they are the ones who show how an accommodation between hu
mankind and other species may be achieved. They are also the animals whom we are
most able to observe and study without needing to manage their lives, and that is, or
ought to be, an important source of interest and humility.
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to Professor Linda Kalof for inviting me to write this chapter for the Oxford
Handbook of Animal Studies, of which she is editor.
Notes:
(2.) Douglas H. Boucher, Sam James, and Kathleen H. Keeler, “The Ecology of Mutual
ism,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 13 (1982): 315–347; Christopher Dick
man, “Commensal and Mutualistic Interactions among Terrestrial Vertebrates,” Trends in
Ecology and Evolution 76 (1992): 194–197.
(3.) John Marzluff, Eric Schulenberger, Wilfried Endlicher, et al., eds., Urban Ecology: An
International Perspective on the Interaction between Humans and Nature (New York:
Springer Science+Business Media, 2008).
(5.) T. Chris Smout, “The Alien Species in 20th-Century Britain: Constructing a New Ver
min,” Landscape Research 28, no. 1 (2003): 11–20.
(6.) Tom Cade, Mark Martell, Patrick Redig, et al., “Peregrine Falcons in Urban North
America,” in Raptors in Human Landscapes: Adaptations to Built and Cultivated Environ
ments, ed. David Bird, Daniel Varland, and Juan Jose Negro (New York: Academic Press,
1996), 3–13.
(7.) Neil Rooney and Kevin McCann, “Integrating Food Web Diversity, Structure and Sta
bility,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 27, no. 1 (2012): 40–46; Terry O’Connor, “Human
Refuse as a Major Ecological Factor in Medieval Urban Vertebrate Communities,” in Hu
man Ecodynamics, ed. Geoff Bailey, Ruth Charles, and Nick Winder (Oxford: Oxbow
Books, 2000), 15–20.
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(9.) Jonathan Silvertown, “A New Dawn for Citizen Science,” Trends in Ecology and Evolu
tion 24, no. 9 (2009): 467–471; Jeffrey P. Cohn, “Citizen Science: Can Volunteers Do Real
Research?” BioScience 58, no. 3 (2008): 192–197.
(10.) Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. “Big Garden Birdwatch.” Last modified
September 25, 2013. http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/ (accessed May 31, 2013).
(11.) J. Denis Summers-Smith, “The Decline of the House Sparrow: A Review,” British
Birds 96, no. 9 (2003): 439–446.
(12.) Terry O’Connor, Animals as Neighbors (East Lancing: Michigan State University
Press, 2013).
(14.) Reuven Yeshurun, Guy Bar-Oz. and Mina Weinstein-Evron, “ The Role of Foxes in the
Natufian Economy: A View from Mount Carmel, Israel,” Before Farming 1, no. 3 (2009):
1–15.
(15.) Eitan Tchernov, “Commensal Animals and Human Sedentism in the Middle East,” in
Animals and Archaeology: 3. Early Herders and Their Flocks, International Series 202,
ed. Juliet Clutton-Brock and Caroline Grigson (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports,
1984), 91–115.
(16.) Gail F. Melson and L. Gail Melson, Why the Wild Things Are: Animals in the Lives of
Children (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
(17.) Susan Clayton and Gene Myers, Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Pro
moting Human Care for Nature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
(18.) Will Steffen, Paul J. Crutzen, and John R. McNeill, “The Anthropocene: Are Humans
Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?” AMBIO: Journal of the Human Environ
ment 36 (2007): 614–621.
(19.) Donald K. Grayson, “The Archaeological Record of Human Impact on Animal Popula
tions,” Journal of World Prehistory 15, no. 1 (2001): 1–68; Philip J. Seddon, W. Maartin
Strauss, and John Innes, “Animal Translocations: What Are They and Why Do We Do
Them?” Reintroduction Biology: Integrating Science and Management 9 (2012): 1–31.
(20.) Lise Ruffino and Eric Vidal, “Early Colonization of Mediterranean Islands by Rattus
Rattus: A Review of Zooarcheological Data,” Biological Invasions 12, no. 8 (2010): 2389–
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2394; Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau and Jean-Denis Vigne, “La colonisation de l’Europe par
le rat noir (Rattus rattus),” Revue de Paleobiologie 13, no. 1 (1994): 125–145.
(21.) Philip L. Armitage, “Commensal Rats in the New World, 1492–1992,” Biologist 40
(1993): 174–178; Philip L. Armitage, “Unwelcome Companions: Ancient Rats Reviewed,”
Antiquity 68 (1994): 231–240.
(22.) Ole J. Benedictow, What Disease Was Plague? On the Controversy over the Microbio
logical Identity of Plague Epidemics of the Past (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2010).
(23.) Pat Morris, A Red Data Book for British Mammals, No. 17 (London: Mammal Society,
1993); Kevin Rielly, “The Black Rat,” in Extinctions and Invasions: A Social History of
British Fauna, ed. Terry O’Connor and Naomi Sykes (Oxford: Windgather Press, 2010),
134–145.
(24.) Michael McCormick, “Rats, Communications, and Plague: Toward an Ecological His
tory,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34, no. 1 (2003): 1–25; O’Connor, Animals as
Neighbors, chapter 5.
(25.) L. Ruedas, “Rattus Norvegicus.” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, version
2012.2., Rattus norvegicus in Global invasive Species Database, 2012, http://
www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=159 (accessed May 31, 2013).
(26.) John L. Long, Introduced Mammals of the World: Their History, Distribution and In
fluence (Canberra: CABI, 2003); Mere Roberts, “Origin, Dispersal Routes, and Geograph
ic Distribution of Rattus Exulans, with Special Reference to New Zealand,” Pacific
Science 45, no. 2 (1991): 123–130.
(28.) Thomas Cucchi and Jean-Denis Vigne, “Origin and Diffusion of the House Mouse in
the Mediterranean,” Journal of Human Evolution 21, no. 2 (2006): 95–106.
(29.) Thomas Cucchi, “Uluburun Shipwreck Stowaway House Mouse: Molar Shape Analy
sis and Indirect Clues about the Vessel’s Last Journey,” Journal of Archaeological Science
35 (2008): 2953–2959.
(30.) François Bonhomme, Annie Orth, Thomas Cucchi, et al., 2011, “Genetic Differentia
tion of the House Mouse around the Mediterranean Basin: Matrilineal Footprints of Early
and Late Colonization,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no.
1708 (2011): 1034–1043.
(31.) Ibnu Maryanto, Darrel J. Kitchener, and Siti N. Prijono, “Morphological Analysis of
House Mice, Mus Musculus (Rodentia, Muridae) in Southern and Eastern Indonesia and
Western Australia,” Mammal Study 30, no. 1 (2005): 53–63.
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(32.) Don E. Wilson and Russel A. Mittermeier (eds.), Handbook of the Mammals of the
World. Vol 1 Carnivores. (Barcelona: Lynx Edicions, 2009), 441–442.
(34.) John L. Long, Introduced Birds of the World (Newton Abbott: David and Charles,
1981).
(35.) Ayhan. Bekleyen, “The Dovecotes Of Diyarbakır: The Surviving Examples of a Fading
Tradition,” Journal of Architecture 14, no. 4 (2009): 451–464; Peter Hansell, Dovecotes,
vol. 213 (Colchester: Shire, 2008).
(36.) R. K. Murton, R. J. P. Thearle, and J. Thompson. “Ecological Studies of the Feral Pi
geon Columba livia var. I. Population, Breeding Biology and Methods of Control,” Journal
of Applied Ecology 9, no. 3 (1972): 835–874; R. K. Murton, C. F. B. Coombs, and R. J. P.
Thearle, “Ecological Studies of the Feral Pigeon Columba livia Var. II. Flock Behaviour
and Social Organization,” Journal of Applied Ecology 9, no. 3 (1972): 875–889.
(38.) Tom Waite, Anil K. Chhangani, Lesley G. Campbell, et al., “Sanctuary in the City: Ur
ban Monkeys Buffered against Catastrophic Die-off during ENSO-Related Drought,” Eco
Health 4 (2007): 278–286.
(39.) Anita Chauhan and R. S. Pirta, “Socio-Ecology of Two Species of Non-Human Pri
mates, Rhesus Monkey (Macaca Mulatta) and Hanuman Langur (Semnopithecus Entel
lus), in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh,” Journal of Human Ecology 30 no. 3 (2010): 171–177.
(40.) Marc Novákova, R. Palme, H. Kutalová, et al., “The Effect of Sex, Age and Commen
sal Way of Life on Levels of Fecal Glucocorticoid Metabolites in Spiny Mice (Acomys
Cahirinus),” Physiology and Behaviour 95 (2008): 187–213.
(41.) Richard W. Braithwaite, “The Ecology of Rattus Lutreolus III: The Rise and Fall of a
Commensal Population,” Australian Wildlife Research 7 (1980): 199–215.
(42.) Lester H. Krebs, “Feral Pigeon Control,” Proceedings of the 6th Vertebrate Pest Con
ference, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 1974, http://digitalcommonsuni.edu/vpc6
(accessed May 31, 2013).
(43.) Daniel Haag-Wackernagel, “Parasites from Feral Pigeons as a Health Hazard for Hu
mans,” Annals of Applied Biology 147, no. 2 (2005): 203–210; Daniel Haag-Wackernagel
and Holger Moch, “Health Hazards Posed by Feral Pigeons,” Journal of Infection 48
(2008): 307–313; Daniel Haag-Wackernagel, “Human Diseases Caused by Feral Pigeons,”
Advances in Vertebrate Pest Management 4 (2006): 31–58.
(44.) Andreas König, “Fears, Attitudes and Opinions of Suburban Residents with Regards
to Their Urban Foxes,” European Journal of Wildlife Research 54 (2008): 101–109.
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(45.) Oinam S. Devi and P. K. Saikia, “Human-Monkey Conflict: A Case Study at Gauhati
University Campus, Jalukbari, Kamrup, Assam,” ZOOS’ PRINT 23, no. 2 (2008): 15–18.
(46.) Josephine A. Pithon and Calvin Dytham, “Distribution and Population Development
of Introduced Ring-Necked Parakeets Psittacula Krameri in Britain between 1983 and
1998: Of the Three Subpopulations, Only the One West of London Was Increasing, with
Little Spread,” Bird Study 49, no. 2 (2002): 110–117.
(47.) Diederik Strubbe and Erik Matthysen, “Invasive Ring-Necked Parakeets Psittacula
Krameri in Belgium: Habitat Selection and Impact on Native Birds,” Ecography 30, no. 4
(2007): 578–588.
(48.) Adelma M. Hills, “The Motivational Bases Of Attitudes Toward Animals,” Society and
Animals 1, no. 2 (1993): 111–128.
Terry O'Connor
Page 19 of 19
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Urban Studies
Online Publication Date: Feb 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.20
The study of nonhuman animals in urban ecosystems is a recent but expanding field. This
chapter explores the ways in which human-animal relationships in cities have historically
been framed and argues that a consideration of nonhuman animals is vital to a robust ur
ban theory in the age of ecology. The places of animals within the urban planning and de
sign professions that shape cities are elucidated, along with contemporary developments
in ecology that increasingly inform city planning, design, and management. The chapter
then highlights four global dynamics that promise to radically reshape urban animal
ecologies, and concludes with a call for lively cities characterized by the coexistence of
people and animals.
Keywords: urban ecology, synurbany, architecture, urban design, city planning, human-wildlife conflict, rewilding,
reconciliation ecology, novel ecosystems, zoöpolis
Introduction
SENSATIONAL images of animals in cities seem to increasingly permeate the media
worldwide. Foxes in London, mountain lions in Los Angeles, monkeys in Dehli, wild Boar
in Berlin, sea lions in San Diego: these stories seem uncanny because cities are widely
understood as places made by and for humans—places where nonhuman animals, espe
cially “wild” ones, do not belong.
But cities are lively places, inhabited by many forms of nonhuman life. Indeed, the bound
aries of what may be considered “animal” are contested and culturally bounded. Most of
the scholarly literature on urban animals is biased toward birds and mammals, especially
those species with long historical connections or utilitarian value to humans. Such ani
mals include companion animals; work animals; livestock; diverse wildlife; and commen
sal creatures, such as pigeons, squirrels, and rats, who have long lived together with hu
mans in even the most cosmopolitan environments. Indeed, early urban dwellings and
streets sheltered not only people and companion animals, but also livestock who variously
Page 1 of 32
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
provided milk, meat, traction, fuel, and warmth, as well as waste disposal services. Even
wild animals were largely tolerated and remain so today, although throughout urban his
tory strenuous efforts have also been made to exclude animals via regulation, zoning, and
extermination. Nonetheless, although they have not all been subject to scientific study,
many animal species remain resident in contemporary cities. Cities are also more com
plex places than the conventional distinction between urban and rural, or city and wilder
ness, might suggest. Cities are rarely discretely bounded municipal zones but rather sys
tems nested within larger urban systems, hubs in global networks of spaces and flows,
shaped by the spatial logic of capital accumulation. Just as economic systems increased in
scale and complexity from mercantilism to industrial capitalism and now to global capital
ism, so have contemporary cities. Today’s major cities and conurbations are polycentric
and heterogeneous in terms of urban form, (p. 543) densities, demographics, and econom
ic activity. They are open systems taking on global flows of capital, people, information,
products, and resources, as urban production and consumption of goods and services im
pact territories around the world.
Cities, then, are best conceived as hybrid ecosystems. Which sorts of nonhuman animals,
broadly defined as all nonhuman life forms, survive and thrive in such ecosystems and
how? These questions cut across multiple domains of study, including the social sciences,
philosophy, and the humanities, particularly cultural studies, critical race theory and fem
inism; the built environment fields of architecture, city planning, and landscape architec
ture; sciences such as ecology, comparative psychology, ethology, zoology, and various
other branches of the physical and biosciences; and urban policy, resource management,
and governance. Each field offers a frame for understanding human-animal relations as
they play out in urban places, with specific social and biophysical consequences, and im
plications for governance and the management of people, animals, and places.
Page 2 of 32
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
perature regimes and extreme weather events, human migrations and rising inequalities
on a global scale, and the integration of animal voices in urban governance.
Given their amicable propinquity to humans, companion animals, such as dogs and cats,
are for many the quintessential urban animals, and as such they have received consider
able scholarly attention.6 For example, Griffith and colleagues provide an animal geogra
phy for urban feral cats, while recent work focuses on bilateral agency in shaping the
temporality of cat-human relationships.7 But human relationships with dogs—perhaps the
animal most imbricated in human culture—have been the subject of more in-depth theo
retical, historical, and social analysis than perhaps any other companion species.8 Health
science research has also focused on relationships between companion dogs and human
well-being. In terms of urbanism, empirical studies have investigated the place of dogs
Page 3 of 32
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
and the associated places, practices, processes of everyday life, such as dog parks, ani
mal shelters, and dog walking, and neighborhood dynamics, such as urban crime and sub
urban anomie.9 Recently, there has been an increasing focus on the role of dogs in gentri
fication, and the role of opulent “dog hotels” and other luxury canine care services as mir
rors of social stratification, neoliberal governance, and globalization.10 Despite all this at
tention, a cultural contradiction remains: companion animals are often ill-treated, aban
doned to fend for themselves, and in the United States, (p. 545) 2.7 million dogs and cats
are killed at animal shelters each year, many of whom were relinquished by their
humans.11
Less well studied are working animals who occupy a liminal space between companion
animal and livestock. Animals work in cities (especially in the global south) hauling goods
and people, eating trash, doing police work and military reconnaissance. Historically,
working horses were essential to the making of nineteenth-century cities, while the colo
nization and urbanization of Australia is indebted to the labor of camels.12 Today, horses
continue to serve municipal police forces, and many other species, including dogs, cats,
dolphins, monkeys, and pigeons, have been conscripted by police departments and the
military to serve in various related capacities, while so-called entertainment animals per
form at racetracks, zoos, aquariums, circuses, and in fighting pits in cities across the
world.13
Many service and companion animals and livestock are abandoned or are born into com
munities of abandoned animals. Depending on the cultural context, these animals may be
considered “wild,” “feral,”, “stray,” “street,” or “invasive.” Contemporary ecological re
search on urban stray animals began with Alan Beck’s work on free-ranging dogs in Balti
more, and continues in the contemporary work by Srinivasan, who examined the place-
based ethical frameworks implicit in the categories used to define free-ranging dogs and
legitimate their presence in a shelter or on city streets in India.14 That many such stray or
feral animals were once pets, farm animals, or work animals—dogs, cows, camels—is of
ten overlooked in discourses about ferality and exotic species, about who “belongs” in a
particular ecosystem, and about the rise of “novel” ecosystems.15 Feral or otherwise, “out
of place” animals have often been persecuted owing to fear of disease, danger, or disor
der. Examples include dog extermination episodes in Victorian London; dog confiscation
and killing programs in contemporary Chinese cities; the routine elimination of rats,
mice, and pigeons; and battles against invasive species that threaten native wildlife.
Changing attitudes have ushered in no-kill shelters that collect stray animals for adop
tion, and what have come to be called “compassionate conservation and management”
protocols are challenging the traditional use of poisoning, trapping, and other lethal tac
tics for eliminating these animals.16 But such animals, some scorned as “trash animals,”
still stand in opposition to high-value species or animals who may be seen as iconic, im
bued with spiritual value, or having ecological value as apex predators or keystone
species.17 The extermination of such animals stands in contrast to the protection of more
valued or charismatic species, such as cougars and other large cats in the US West, South
Florida, and South Asia.18 Moreover, even the most charismatic animals can become ur
ban outcasts, as in the case of Bangkok’s wandering elephants and their equally dispos
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sessed young mahouts.19 Similarly, monkeys in rapidly urbanizing South Asian cities, such
as Delhi, are at once sacred and nuisance animals, encountered daily by large numbers of
urban residents.
At the same time, a resurgence of interest in urban agriculture, including backyard ani
mal husbandry, raises questions about livestock in the city and about new forms of
transspecies relationships.22 In cities of the global south, livestock—as milk, eggs, meat,
and other products—are part of a subsistence economy supporting impoverished, food-in
secure migrants to rapidly expanding informal settlements overseen by neoliberal urban
governance regimes.23 At times, such immigrants can also become drawn into complex
urban politics, as in the case of Cairo’s Coptic Christian Zabaleen garbage collectors and
their pigs.24
In the United States and Western Europe demographic and morphological changes in
cities have also ushered livestock back to the city. De-industrialized landscapes present
opportunities for urban agriculture to address food security challenges and supplemental
income.25 In other types of neighborhoods, trends toward gentrification and pro-sumer
lifestyle capitalism that fetishize locality, authenticity, and healthy organic living also
stimulate artisanal food production.26 Urban agriculture increasingly involves animal hus
bandry, including the slaughter of animals, such as chickens and goats. Such practices
have been framed and contested in different contexts. Although backyard animal urban
agriculture in the United States and in parts of Europe can be seen as driven by a desire
or need for self-reliance and resiliency, conflicts may erupt over the practices and institu
tions of immigrant groups.27 In cases such as live markets in Chinatowns, dog eating
among Hmong immigrants in California, or halal traditions among Muslim immigrants in
Europe, non-Western animal practices may be used to racialize or animalize the minority
groups in question.28 As cities in the global north are transformed by globalization, urban
livestock will intersect in new ways with immigration, gentrification, and uneven develop
ment more broadly.29
Kellert’s attitudinal approach, while cultural studies approaches draw on literary texts,
historical archives, and visual materials to investigate human-animal relations in the ur
ban context.30 A range of other work has drawn inspiration from philosophy and various
discourses of rights and ethics, inlcuding environmental ethics, whose focus on the pro
tection of populations or species has historically put ecological ethicists and animal rights
advocates at odds.31 More recently, Foucauldian notions of relational (p. 547) biopower
have shaped ideas about interspecies relations and are also making their way into conser
vation practice, as decisions must be made about when and for whom to act.32 Finally, re
considering our relations with nonhuman animals can also inform how we think about
cities and urbanism.
These complementary posthuman frameworks, some just beginning to reshape urban the
ory, diverge from humanist, rights-based understandings of urban space based on Marxi
an theories of urbanization, production, and collective consumption promulgated by,
among others, David Harvey and Manuel Castells that energized a variety of urban social
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movements in the second half of the twentieth century.41 Such theoretical frameworks
emphasized the role of capital and of urban political elites in shaping urban space and im
plicated urban power and governance structures for poverty, discrimination, and inequali
ty. Encapsulated in Henri Lefebvre’s 1968 call for a “right to the city,” these ideas high
lighted injustice and legitimated the demands of marginalized people for affordable hous
ing, dignified work, and access to public space but were silent on the question of nonhu
man nature.42 If a humanist conception of cities and urban space has become (p. 548) less
useful in an age of ecology, as is discussed in the following section, so too, has a singular
concept of “the city” as human habitat, standing outside the domain of nature. A posthu
man approach to cities and spatial ethics is therefore needed to help navigate our interac
tions with nonhuman others who share all manner of urban spaces and deserve explicit
consideration in urban development, design, and planning decisions.
Buildings may be seen as places for people, but they typically harbor a multitude of
species, and the process of building displaces or kills others. Many buildings also form
hazards, especially for resident and migrating birds.43 And curiously, despite the large
numbers of companion animals in cities, buildings are rarely designed with companion
animals in mind. Beyond the scale of the building, landscape architects influence the ur
ban public realm through parks, gardens, squares and other open spaces that offer habi
tat for wild animals as well as recreational space for companion animals. Specifically, we
focus on the case of US cities in the nineteenth century, in the wake of industrialization,
and how architectural strategies and early ecological planning practices of the leading
landscape architects shaped ideas about nature in the city. Their practices laid the
groundwork and set precedents for the flourishing of nonhuman life in the urban environ
ment, in the process facilitating new forms of interspecies relationships. Finally, late
twentieth- and twenty-first century urban development patterns informed by a more ma
ture, postequilibrium ecological science, advanced green building technologies, and the
urban agricultural movement, all being played out in the context of a neoliberal, global
ized economy. Future trajectories on the frontiers of intensive and extended urbanization
position technologies to open living cells and genomes to the logic of capital, and nonhu
man animals are impacted by contestations over control of the atmosphere and ocean.
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unchecked emissions, polluted waterways, rapid urban development, and (p. 549) land
scapes of resource extraction. As both a reaction to industrialization and a means to pro
mote it, architects, landscape architects, and planners offered modernizing schemes to
improve environmental health for humans, offering benefits for wildlife and other animals
as well.
Urban planning and regulation also entailed the reduction or even elimination of livestock
and other vestiges of country life from the city, which were often used to increase in
comes and food security by low income and often immigrant households. Seen as back
ward and unhygienic, such artisanal animal husbandry was expunged on the grounds of
sanitation, while royal menageries, such as the Tiergarten (animal garden) in Berlin, were
institutionalized as zoos for public entertainment, to enhance imperial prestige, and as
places of scientific study, and new zoos were established to burnish national identities
and promote land development.44 Movements advocating for animal welfare and anti-cru
elty laws for animals living, working, and dying in the industrial city arose in parallel, in
large part due to their central role in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cities. Ani
mal spaces and infrastructures, such as stables, granaries, rendering plants, farriers,
hitching posts, watering troughs, and wide streets, were an integral part of the modern
metropolis.45
On the scale of the landscape, early conservation practices carried out in the context of
unprecedented industrial urbanization negotiated a romantic “land ethic” associated with
Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and others and a more pragmatic “conservation ethic” associat
ed with Gifford Pinchot.47 The manifestation of these negotiations can be seen in the
practice of Frederick Law Olmsted, whose work was formative in the emergence of US
landscape architecture. Like other nineteenth-century planners, such as James Hobrecht
in Berlin and the engineers working for Baron Von Hausmann, Olmsted’s plans and advo
cacy for places such as New York City’s Central Park and Yosemite Valley were directly in
spired by romantic notions of picturesque nature and the Victorian reaction to an emerg
ing urbanized working class, while projects such as the Boston Fenns incorporated proto-
ecological principles that addressed public health in tangible ways by improving water
quality.48 Later, planners affiliated with the City Beautiful movement in the United States,
such as Daniel Burnham in Chicago, and the Garden City movement in the United King
dom, such as Ebenezer Howard, also sought to use landscape and planning to modernize
the city, make it efficient and attractive to development, and cure the physical and social
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ills of industrial urbanization.49 These strategies created (p. 550) access to open spaces for
a newly proletarianized working class, while naturalistic spaces often mitigated pollution
and upgraded habitats for nonhuman animals as well.
In the design and planning fields, ideas from ecology were operationalized through the
evolution of the mapping sciences, which allowed detailed geospatial analysis across
scales and encouraged far-flung greenfield developments, such as The Woodlands, Texas,
to be “designed with nature.” While initially geared toward floodplains, storm water
runoff, native plants, and other factors unrelated to animals per se, Geographic Informa
tion Systems (GIS) approaches have become central to habitat suitability analysis for tar
get species, and the design of metropolitan wildlife corridors and bio-reserves. Within the
design fields, the emergence of landscape urbanism, which combines ideas about poly
centric cities, disturbance ecology, complex coupled human-natural systems theory, and
postmodern ideas of nature as a social construct, argues that landscape was the domi
nant organizing principle of contemporary urbanization.52 One result is the reappearance
of interest in urban agriculture within urban design, for example Andrea Branzi’s 1994
“Agronica” in which agricultural and livestock operations are reinserted into the urban
fabric, blurring the line between urban and rural and zones of consumption and produc
tion.53
tion of the city and the urban sphere.54 This conception is reflected in projects such as
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the Dutch design firm MVRDV’s provocative “pig city” project, in which an entire city is
designed to provide the Netherlands with pork. In a more applied sense, the explosion of
urban agriculture demands a reworking of often centuries-old codes and ordinances in
volving the presence of livestock in the city, as well as new typologies and alternatives to
factory farming, such as the Dutch “agropark.”55 Here, the urban sphere is a system com
prising flows of energy and materials that allow alternative ecologies and that does not
discriminate between human and nonhuman. Other animal-oriented practices resulting
from this metabolic approach include architect Jack Munro’s Blood Bricks made from
slaughterhouse blood harvested for use in building materials—an innovation that inher
ently accepts industrial animal agriculture.56
New design strategies also deploy the lifeways and bodies of nonhuman life forms as tac
tics in design proposals, such as Scape Landscape Architecture’s Oyster-tecture plan for
New York Harbor or the use of goats for wildfire prevention in Northern California, and
carbon-friendly lawnmowers in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Lastly, several
notable architectural competitions, long-standing forums for ideas and development at
the vanguard of design practice, have recently featured nonhumans as a departure point.
Examples include the 2010 Buenos Aires Vertical Zoo Competition, the Israeli Habitat for
Urban Wildlife Competition, the annual Animal Architecture Awards, and the ARC Wildlife
Overpass Competition in Vail, Colorado.
In each of these cases, design thinking and expertise are applied to the concerns and
needs of animals who must cope with large-scale urban transportation infrastructure. The
case of the ARC wildlife overpass also represents the emergence of a novel infrastructur
al typology worth further mention. Wildlife crossings or ecoducts are increasingly de
ployed for diverse sites for a wide range of species, including elephants in sub-Saharan
Africa, panthers in South Florida, the mountain lions crossing Los Angeles freeways, and
numerous species in Banff, Alberta and elsewhere. The crossings are not merely structur
al artifacts but in fact assemblages of technologies, such as camera traps, wireless track
ing systems, fencing, and other landscape features, not to mention various social-cultural
components that go into conceiving and executing projects of such scale. Moreover, al
though many crossings are the work of traffic engineers, they are increasingly sites of en
gagement for architects and designers, such as Zwarts & Jansma Architects in the
Netherlands, home of Natuurbrug Zanderij Crailoo, the world’s largest ecoduct.
Metabolic views of urbanism can at times contrast with conventional green or sustainable
building-design culture, which is focused on carbon reduction alone, because wind tur
bines and energy-efficient plate-glass windows and street lighting pose dangers to nonhu
mans.57 Some notable advances include “bird-friendly design” as advocated in the Ameri
can Bird Conservancy’s best practices manual and in city-specific guidelines, such as
those produced by Chicago, Portland, and Toronto.58 These have resulted in built projects
such as Jeanie Gang’s Aqua Tower high-rise in downtown Chicago, and Herzog and
DeMeuron’s DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Architect (p. 552) and artist Fritz Haeg
has built a practice around “animal estates”; the multispecies adventure club of artist and
designer Natalie Jeremijenko, and the organization of “multispecies design ethnography”
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
studios by Anne Galloway at the University of Victoria, all look at the way in which nonhu
man animals inhabit architectural spaces in the contemporary city. The potential of these
sorts of interventions, including various living roofs and walls is a sort of alternative to
“wilderness conservation,” part of an “urban reconciliation ecology” in which urban space
is modified or appropriated to optimize nonhuman vitality as “species area relationships”
without excluding many human social uses.59
The following section focuses on these trends in urban ecology as they relate to urban an
imals. We focus on three particular elements: the ecology of animals themselves as they
become urbanized through behavioral adaptations, the restoration of urban places and
the implications for animals, and the management approaches that are emerging to ad
dress the presence of increasingly diverse urban wildlife.
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alongside people) and synurbic (species that colonize cities). Similar to “commensal
species,” as discussed by O’Connor in Chapter 28 of this volume, these terms describe the
extent to which specific species are capable of adapting to humans and to urban environ
ments.64 However, although some ecologists have attempted it, clearly differentiating be
tween synanthropy and synurbany is challenging, in part because of the difficulties of
clearly defining what is, and is not, urban.65 Nevertheless, specific synurbanic animals
can be identified, largely via case studies. Explosive urbanization acts as an “ecological
vacuum,” creating novel environments that attract animal species that take up residence
in urban areas. For example, New York and Berlin now have the highest concentration of
peregrine falcons in the world.66
For many of the browsers, such as deer; the predators, such as raccoon, skunks, snakes,
and coyotes; and the variety of bird species who have flourished in urban environments,
synanthropic or synurbanic life often means protection from predation and plentiful food.
However, these animals are subjected to a variety of other stressors that force behavioral
changes.67 Although natural predation may be reduced, companion animals, such as cats
and dogs, may pose a risk to wildlife, and vice versa.68 Other responses to urban stres
sors can take the form of changing diurnal cycles to avoid peak human activity during
daylight hours, especially among mid- and large-sized carnivores.69 These changes may
impact prey availability and therefore diet, as well as mating. Similarly, urban animals’
spatial behaviors may shift when there are ample food supplies in a given locality for for
agers, such as raccoons, or when there is a threat from humans to animals perceived as
dangerous, such as water snakes.70 These spatial changes may increase population densi
ties and shrink range sizes. Similarly, studies show spatial variations in magpie nesting
behavior in response to features in urban environments and perceived threats from hu
mans and other urban animals.71 Landscape fragmentation may impede migration, dis
persal, foraging, hunting, mating, and gene transfer.
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Like aural disturbances, photic disturbances have also been documented for a wide vari
ety of urban animals and ecological communities, including but not limited to sea turtles,
bats, and songbirds.76 Here, anthropogenic disturbances can create ecological or evolu
tionary “traps” as demonstrated by studies of evolutionary dynamics in cardinals living in
urban forests and of biodiversity in other human-dominated landscapes.77 Research on
these issues remains limited, however, and our understanding would benefit from further
research at the intersection of behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology to uncover
the nuances and the relationship between microevolution and behavioral plasticity for dif
ferent species in dynamic urban environments.
It should be noted that other animals who play central roles in urban life—such as live
stock and lab animals—remain mostly outside discussions of urban animal ecology. This
reflects ongoing adherence to urban/rural and wild/domestic binaries which urban animal
research increasingly interrogates. Conservation biologists have, however, turned atten
tion to the social-cultural contexts that create stray or feral companion animals who prey
on native birds and reptiles.78 For example, understanding the intersections between cat-
human relationships and class and social inclusion is an issue for biodiversity conserva
tion in cities, since outdoor cats are such effective predators.79 Besides house cats, a
number of other regional struggles with invasive species also have their origins in aban
doned urban pet animals, notably the now-entrenched Burmese pythons of the Florida
Everglades and the lionfish, originating in an urban Florida aquarium and introduced into
local waters, who is now wreaking havoc across the Caribbean as the first nonnative fish
to become established in the Western Atlantic.80 The dispersion of these pets of Asian ori
gin from the urban conurbation that is South Florida also speaks to the global flows that
define twenty-first century urbanism.
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
agement are also increasingly acknowledged as important in the design and implementa
tion of corridor plans.85
Although many conservation biologists focus on the urban-wildland interface, the subfield
of restoration ecology engages the “gray” spaces within the urban landscape inhabited by
urban animals. Restoration ecology aims to remediate and restore landscapes heavily in
fluenced by people.86 Recent studies consider how habitats can rapidly recover from dam
age as well as how brownfield sites can contribute to urban biodiversity.87 Notably, some
restoration practitioners increasingly acknowledge that restored ecosystems may consist
of entirely novel or “designed” ecologies, engineered not only according to the ability of
various native and nonnative species to persist, but also to human economic and aesthet
ic preferences.88 At the most extreme is the related but more controversial practice of
rewilding. First coined by EarthFirst! founder David Foreman and later appropriated by
Soulé and other institutionally established conservationists, scholars, and practitioners,
the term rewilding can be deployed to various ends.89 In one sense, rewilding can simply
indicate spaces set aside for secondary succession after industrial, agricultural, or other
activities have ceased.90 It can also be understood in a more active sense in line with
restoration ecology, with a focus on wildlife, especially grazers and large predators.91
While the line between restoration ecology and rewilding can seem blurry if not rhetori
cal, whether focused on creating novel future ecologies or restoring a perceived “natural
state,” restoration and rewilding techniques bring wild animals back into urban zones
and contact with people.95 These encounters correspond to aspects of a “non-equilibrium
paradigm” which allows for the inclusion of humans as components of ecosystems studied
by ecologists, “urbanizing” conservation biology.96 As a result, cognitive evolution and
ethological factors become increasingly important, especially (p. 556) in regard to pattern
formation in the social structure and the evolution of cooperation.97 Other studies from
complex systems theory and postequilibrium ecology address the importance of urban
wildlife ecology in broader biodiversity conservation, the impact of urbanization on biodi
versity, and the transmission of disease as a threat to biodiversity.98 In this way, complexi
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ty theory and agent-based modeling hold the potential to bridge the conceptual gap be
tween studies on individual animals and those on entire species by nesting the complex
systems of brains, bodies, and environments.
These factors are compounded by the relatively limited participation of academia and
governmental and non-governmental agencies. This translates to a lack of extensive train
ing in the human dimensions of wildlife management necessary to be effective in negoti
ating relationships between people and wild animals in urban environments. Evidence
shows an increasing focus on human-wildlife conflict, as shown by an analysis of citations
in the Biosis Citation Index, as conservation biologists recognize the importance of ad
dressing the social and cultural dynamics integral to wildlife conservation and of analyz
ing the human-wildlife interface in social-ecological conservation practice.103 This has
manifested itself in various state and local public outreach programs, such as “living with
coyotes” in many US cities, or instructions on how to act around wild boar in some cen
tral European cities. Likewise, these programs may entail “education” for the animals as
well, including hazing, food aversion, pheromones and other methods to promote human
avoidance, while some animals, often those who become too familiarized with humans,
are killed or relocated.
Efforts to urbanize wildlife management address issues of connectivity and island bio
geography, following principles of conservation biology, utilizing a variety of techniques
involving fencing, and over- and underpasses that engage with urban infrastructures and
landscape composition. Zoning modifications have been also deployed as a (p. 557) means
of averting conflict with large predators, as well as to restrict access to sensitive areas,
potentially at specific times, such as during breeding and nesting seasons, in urban parks
and green spaces.104 This sort of zoning can also take the form of activity type, such as
dog leash areas and the use of off-road vehicles.105 Similarly, a variety of animal-oriented
laws and ordinances are increasingly being deployed to address increasingly frequent en
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
In regard to sensory disturbances, Slabbekoorn and Ripmeester note that many of the
noise-reduction measures beneficial to birds and other urban animals are also beneficial
to humans.108 At the level of urban design and planning, providing “noise canyons,” or ar
eas in which loud sound is permitted, may be more effective than attempting to uniformly
lower noise levels across the city. Moreover, in ecologically sensitive areas, both seasonal
and diurnal variations in noise levels could be beneficial for breeding and the dawn cho
rus.109 In terms of light, while so-called turtle-friendly lights have been put on the mar
ket, physical interventions such as embedded lighting in the street surface may be more
effective at reducing the negative biological and ecological impacts of artificial night
lighting than filters or other lighting modifications.110 Similarly, ordinances and human
behavioral modifications may be the most effective solutions. Ordinances that require
dark-sky fixtures to prevent upward light and minimize over-lighting beyond may be
among the most effective solutions. Despite the increasing attention being given to light
pollution, a general shift away from sodium vapor lamps toward energy efficient LEDs
and metal halides will increase the pollution within scotopic and melatonin suppression
bands by a margin of five times the present levels.111
Like the scholarship we have reviewed, most of our discussion has focused either on the
urban past or the contemporary context. Yet the future is unlikely to reflect the past or
the present. Indeed, capitalist globalization, transnational migration, and climate change
have produced the so-called Anthropocene. But within these broad dynamics, cities and
urbanization are major motors of change. Urban activities arguably create a (p. 558)
“planetary” urban system in which animals are buffeted by everything from equatorial
forest disturbance resulting from speculation in carbon markets and poorly designed car
bon off-set programs, to deep-sea drilling, sonar and explosive testing for oil extraction,
high-traffic shipping lanes, and increasingly ambitious efforts at geoengineering.112 At
the same, at the level of bacteria, virus, and cell, animals are the basis both for global dis
ease and biosecurity threats, as well as for the bioengineered good urban life, through
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
products such as “In Vitro Meat,” chairs and houses. All of this conjures up hacked
genomes, garage in-vitro fertilization, and do-it-yourself (DIY) species that could roam
tomorrow’s cites.
What is this sort of future likely to mean for animals in the city? We highlight four major
dynamics, at varying spatial scales, that will radically reshape urban animal ecologies, as
well as urban life more generally. We then close by calling for lively cities and an engage
ment with the ethical considerations for both people and animals that such cities entail.
The first and most powerful force affecting the future of urban animal ecology may be cli
mate change itself, which is widely predicted to shift the geography of habitat that sup
ports various types of wildlife. Changing weather patterns, ambient temperatures and
temperature gradients; rising heat island effects; and changes in soil moisture and hydro
logical conditions may all work to alter the attractiveness of cities for specific terrestrial,
riparian, and coastal ocean species, affecting species diversity and composition. For ex
ample, a variety of birds and, especially, insects (some of them disease vectors) are apt to
alter their migration patterns. Adaptation to these shifts may necessitate changes in hu
man understanding and behavior, and in wildlife management practices. Finally, as wit
nessed with Hurricanes Katrina and Irene, pests, livestock, and other animals are also at
risk from catastrophic events, some of which are associated with climate change.113 For
this reason, the disaster-preparedness website Ready (http://www.ready.gov) has devel
oped guidelines for animal evacuation during natural catastrophes.
Second, intensifying efforts to help cities and urban populations adapt to environmental
change, and to become more resilient in the face of extreme geophysical events, such as
extreme weather, flooding, or earthquakes, are also likely to create more space for ani
mals in the city. Trends in environmental design practice emphasizing green roofs and
walls, bioswales, stream and creek restoration, parks designed to be flood basins, con
structed wetlands, vegetated superdikes for coastal protection, urban agriculture–land
scape design, and planning interventions that become infrastructure in much the same
way as streets, water, or sanitation systems.114 Projects that address degraded environ
ments, such as working waterfronts, often in low-income neighborhoods, can trigger eco
logical or ecogentrification, by which excess capital is first cycled into green infrastruc
ture—such as New York’s High Line or the revitalization of the Los Angeles River—and
then into real estate.115 In addition to spurring gentrification and displacement, such
“green infrastructure” strategies may create habitat and support animal populations, pos
sibly disrupting long-established ecologies and also leading to shifts in interspecies rela
tions.
(p. 559) Third, human migration on a vast scale, stimulated by economic dislocation, deep
ening income inequality, geopolitical conflict, and climate wars, may also dramatically
change both human-animal relations in cities and relations among urban people. Beliefs,
attitudes, and behavior toward urban animals of all types are widely divergent, and such
differences are thrown into high relief as people make transcontinental moves and find
themselves living next door to others whose beliefs are not shared. This may produce cul
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tural tolerance, hybrid practices, new ethics, or escalating conflict over what is wild,
what is a pet, and which animals are good to eat. Ultimately, changing human attitudes,
belief systems, and ethics will be translated into shifts in practices of wildlife manage
ment, pet-keeping and care, and foodways.
Last, the challenges of climate change, urban adaptation, and demographic shifts will
play out in a world in which, increasingly, ethical consideration is extended to animals. It
may thus be crucial to expand the notion of who constitutes the relevant “public” in deci
sions that affect urban animals. The central question is representation: whether—and
how—to include nonhuman animals in the decision-making process. Stengers, Bullen, and
Whitehead and Donaldson and Kymlicka argue for extending citizen relations to nonhu
mans based on the idea that human-animal relations are constitutive, in evolutionary
terms, of humanness itself.116 Drawing from Spivak, expanding the realm of citizenship to
create a political space for nonhuman subalterns involves “a broader understanding of
polis as political community.117 Such approaches echo Latour’s “parliament of things” in
which scientists are expected to speak for the nonhuman, though it is the speaking hu
man public who must keep them accountable, aided perhaps by technology, as inter
species relations become increasingly mediated by broadcast media, Web 2.0, robotics,
and mobile smartphone tracking technology.118 The vision of a multinatural metropolis—
or zoöpolis—and what it means for urban governance, brings us full circle to the twenti
eth-century animal rights movement’s focus on ethics and citizenship, though defined in
posthuman terms.
The challenge of the future, then, is to imagine lively and inclusive cities. Hard choices
will inevitably need to be made, since not all animals are compatible with individual hu
man safety and public health, the presence of some animal species will be valued more
highly than others, and different animal species may compete for the same resources and
spaces in the city. Environmental designers and planners as well as ecologists can play
major roles in minimizing the potential for human-animal and animal-animal conflict, by
demonstrating possibilities for coexistence through design practices that recognize social
difference in attitudes toward animals. Inclusive cities can be designed for resilience and
explicitly built to encourage human-animal awareness and encounter, even as the climate
changes and urban populations of both people and animals shift over time and space.
Such cities will call into question traditional notions of urban citizenship and should spur
us to develop the means to effectively share power with the nonhuman world in the mak
ing of critical physical interventions and natural-resource decisions. Animals should enjoy
rights to the city, and the city, in turn, should, where possible, offer them shelter, suste
nance, and safe passage.
Notes:
(1.) Stephen R. Kellert, The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997).
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
(2.) Jennifer Wolch, “Anima Urbis,” Progress in Human Geography 26, no. 6 (2002): 721–
742.
(3.) Jennifer R. Wolch and Jody Emel, Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in
the Nature-Culture Borderlands (New York: Verso, 1998); Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert,
eds., Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations, (New
York: Psychology Press, 2000); Julie Urbanik, Placing Animals: An Introduction to the Ge
ography of Human-Animal Relations (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).
(4.) Tim Ingold, ed. What Is an Animal? Vol.1 (New York: Psychology Press, 1994.); Neris
sa Russell, “The Wild Side of Animal Domestication,” Society & Animals 10, no. 3 (2002):
285–302.
(5.) Paul Shepard, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 1997).
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tion from the Detroit River,” Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards: A Time
for Discourse (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992); Julie Sze, “Asian American Activism
for Environmental Justice,” Peace Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 149–156.
Page 29 of 32
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
(102.) Jonathan A. Patz, Peter Daszak, Gary M. Tabor, et al., “Unhealthy Landscapes: Poli
cy Recommendations on Land Use Change and Infectious Disease Emergence,” Environ
mental Health Perspectives 112, no. 10 (2004): 1092; Chelsea G. Himsworth, Kirbee L.
Parsons, Claire Jardine, and David M. Patrick, “Rats, Cities, People, and Pathogens: A Sys
tematic Review and Narrative Synthesis of Literature Regarding the Ecology of Rat-Asso
ciated Zoonoses in Urban Centers,” Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases 13, no. 6 (2013):
349–359; M. Nils Peterson, Angela G. Mertig, and Jianguo Liu, “Effects of Zoonotic Dis
ease Attributes on Public Attitudes Towards Wildlife Management,” Journal of Wildlife
Management 70, no. 6 (2006): 1746–1753.
(105.) David N. Cole, “Minimizing Conflict between Recreation and Nature Conservation,”
in Ecology of Greenways: Design and Function of Linear Conservation Areas, ed. David. S.
Smith and Paul Cawood Hellmund (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993),
105–122.
(106.) Mona Seymour, Jason Byrne, Diego Martino, Jennifer Wolch, “Recreationists-
Wildlife Interactions in Urban Parks,” in The Green Visions Plan for 21st Century South
ern California (Los Angeles, CA: University of Southern California, 2006).
(107.) David M. Suckling, Lloyd D. Stringer, Andrea E. A. Stephens, Bill Woods, David G.
Williams, Greg Baker, and Ashraf M. El Sayed, “From Integrated Pest Management to In
tegrated Pest Eradication: Technologies and Future Needs,” Pest Management Science
70, no. 2 (2014): 179–189; Lowell Miller, Brad E. Johns, and Gary J. Killian, “Immunocon
traception of White-Tailed Deer with GnRH Vaccine,” American Journal of Reproductive
Immunology 44, no. 5 (2000): 266–274.
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Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
(110.) Michael Salmon, “Protecting Sea Turtles from Artificial Night Lighting at Florida’s
Oceanic Beaches,” in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting eds. Catherine
Rich and Travis Longcore (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2006): 141–168.
(111.) Fabio Falchi, Pierantonio Cinzano, Christopher D. Elvidge, David M. Keith, and
Abraham Haim, “Limiting the Impact of Light Pollution on Human Health, Environment
and Stellar Visibility,” Journal of Environmental Management 92, no. 10 (2011): 2714–
2722.
(112.) Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid, “Planetary Urbanization,” Urban Constella
tions (Berlin: Jovis, 2012): 10–13.
(113.) Leslie Irvine, Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2009).
(116.) Stengers, Cosmopolitics; Anna Bullen and Mark Whitehead, “Negotiating the Net
works of Space, Time and Substance: A Geographical Perspective on the Sustainable Citi
zen,” Citizenship Studies 9, no. 5 (2005): 499–516; Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka.
Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). See
also Chapter 2 in this volume.
(117.) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dia
logues (New York: Psychology Press, 1990); Matthew Chrulew, “From Zoo to Zoöpolis: Ef
fectively Enacting Eden” (Macquarie University Research Online. 2010) Online: http://
hdl.handle.net/1959.14/118403, Accessed November 14, 2014; Donaldson and Kymlicka,
Zoopolis; Glen Elder, Jennifer Wolch, and Jody Emel, “Race, Place, and the Bounds of Hu
manity,” Society & Animals 6, no. 2 (1998): 183–202.
(118.) Bruno Latour, “From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik.” Making Things Public: Atmos
pheres of Democracy (Karlsruhe: Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Publications
2005): 14–44; Cynthia Chris, Watching Wildlife (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Page 31 of 32
Lively Cities: People, Animals, and Urban Ecosystems
Press, 2006); Etienne Benson, Wired Wilderness: Technologies of Tracking and the Mak
ing of Modern Wildlife (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
Marcus Owens
Jennifer Wolch
Jennifer Wolch, William W. Wurster Dean and Professor of City and Regional Plan
ning, University of California, Berkeley
Page 32 of 32
Animals in Religion
Animals in Religion
Stephen R. L. Clark
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Print Publication Date: Mar 2017 Subject: Political Science, Political Theory, Law and Politics
Online Publication Date: Dec 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.19
Both “animals” and “religion” are contentious concepts, with many possible meanings
and associations. This chapter takes animals to be eukaryotes distinct from protists,
plants and fungi, and “religion” as the attempt to “live a dream.” I describe four principal
ways of dreaming animals: triumphalist humanism (for which only “human” beings are of
any interest); traditional notions of good husbandry (which requires “human” beings to
care for the non-human, within limits set by human interests); notions of metempsychosis
and transformation (where “human” and “non-human” are constantly shifting charac
ters); and awakening to the real presence of others, and so—paradoxically—evacuating
them of merely “religious” meaning.
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ments. Mixing kinds may be as horrid a thought for the most-hardheaded scientist as for
those who live by Leviticus. Rather than offer up another brief and inevitably misleading
summary of distinct beliefs, I shall address a broader range of attitudes.3
To begin at the beginning: what is my topic? “Animals,” according to our modern under
standing, constitute one kingdom of the domain of eukaryotes, with a common ancestor
more recent than those we share with protists, plants or fungi. Eukaryotes, though they
are contrasted with the prokaryotic domains of archaea and bacteria, themselves incorpo
rate and house prokaryotes (as mitochondria or gut bacteria4). Animals are more easily
separated into separate “species” (that is, relatively isolated breeding groups) than plants
or prokaryotes, but even they can exchange genetic information (p. 572) laterally, through
bacterial and viral infection. Some even manage to incorporate plant symbiotes—a vari
ety of sea-slug, Elysia viridis, once it has ingested chloroplasts from algae, no longer
needs to eat.5 Obviously, we human beings are also animals: our species is, comparatively,
homogeneous, having passed through evolutionary bottlenecks only a few millennia ago,
and having lost its many hominid cousins (Homo Neanderthalensis, floresiensis and oth
ers).6 But even modern biologists, accepting neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, will usu
ally distinguish human beings from “animals,” and lump all such non-human eukaryotes
(from woodlice to chimpanzees) in a single Aristotelian taxon, one defined by their com
mon properties rather than their descent: creatures with sensations and desires, capable
of locomotion, but lacking the powers of independent reasoning and judgment that we as
cribe entirely to ourselves (and historically have preferred to ascribe only to adult males).
How and when the ancestors we don’t share with chimpanzees, or with other extinct ho
minids, first acquired these powers of judgment we don’t know: it is commonly conceived
that it was also when they first acquired language—though we have no clear account
even of what that amounts to. Only then (the story goes) could they tell lies, imagine dif
ferent worlds and different futures, and make up gods and demons and then appeal to
their imagined presence for assistance. Strangely, later religious and philosophical disci
pline aims to break us of exactly these new habits: we are not to lie to ourselves or oth
ers, or waste our time imagining what might or will be, or make idols of our desires.
The ancient traditions of devotion and reflection, of worship and enquiry, have
seen themselves as schools. Christianity and Vedantic Hinduism, Judaism and Bud
dhism and Islam are schools…. whose pedagogy has the twofold purpose—howev
er differently conceived and executed in the different traditions—of weaning us
from our idolatry and purifying our desire.7
We should live instead “in the present,” and not give our hearts to fictions. Better, per
haps, to live as “animals” than to boast that we are able to do much “more.” Better, per
haps, to do without ideal types as well as clearly divided species. The Darwinian revela
tion was that our resemblances are owed to common ancestry rather than the presence of
any common archetype (as Richard Owen had suggested), and that species are not “nat
ural kinds.”8 The expression “we” need not only mean “we human beings, of the only ex
tant hominid species”: “we” are all eukaryotes together, all living things together, momen
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tary expressions of an ongoing, branching lineage, the Life of Planet Earth, and what
“our” future may be “we” don’t know.
The other concept in this chapter title is almost as problematic. What do we count as “re
ligion”? Critics often assume that “being religious” is “believing in” a string of proposi
tions read out of one “sacred scripture” or another (usually, about “supernatural” enti
ties), without any “objective evidence” of their “truth.” Continued “belief” in them—or
continued vehement assertion of them—can only be because “believers” are too stupid,
ill-informed, or frightened to understand that we no longer need those hypotheses. In this
context, any study of how “animals” may feature in the creeds of any particular (p. 573)
“religious” group can only be of sociological interest: some people manage still to “wor
ship” cows or beetles; others are “foolishly sentimental” about cats or dogs. Most mod
erns, pretending to despise past dogmas, assume that human beings are sacred, and that
products of neo-Darwinian evolution like ourselves are, improbably, equipped to grasp the
inmost nature of the world. “Darwin’s theory makes the testable prediction that whenev
er we use technology to glimpse reality beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition
should break down.”9 “Humanism” is—the point seems obvious—a literally superstitious
(that is, left over) remnant of older religious sensibilities. If our descendants—or succes
sors—do indeed encounter “rational” entities of quite other descent and sympathies, we
cannot expect them to share those humanistic notions. They may prefer the company, and
value the contribution, of whales, ants, or trees.10
Modern humanists worship Humanity, and mock those who pay respect to other “lesser”
creatures, despite insisting that “religious” sensibilities are alien to “rational,” “modern”
minds. The philosopher Xenophanes observed that “if cows and horses or lions had hands,
or could draw with their hands and make things as men can, horses would have drawn
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horse-like gods, cows cow-like gods.”14 This is not a rebuke merely to those who picture
God or the gods as humans, but to all those who suppose that the principles that govern
the cosmos fit into the human mind. “What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of
the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole uni
verse?”15 This is not, contrary to Hume’s intention, a rebuke to theism but to anthropo
morphic idolatry. The Hebrew prophets were clear that God was utterly unlike any creat
ed thing: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord.”16 Modern intellectuals are more anthropomorphic about (p. 574) the cosmos than
our predecessors were, because they believe it humanly intelligible, without knowing
why.17
Of course, if moderns are challenged on these points, they deny that they have any “reli
gion,” or at least not that religion. Human beings are not, they will say, the chief end and
purpose of the universe: the universe has no end or purpose. Nor can we be confident
that our intuitions, even our careful reasonings and expensive experimental apparatus,
will deliver Truth. But this is disingenuous, and also—as just remarked—to mistake the
nature of “religion.” Durkheim grasped the point more clearly.
The real function of religion is not to make us think, to enrich our knowledge, nor
to add to the conceptions which we owe to science others of another origin and
another character, but rather, it is to make us act, to aid us to live. The believer
who has communicated with his god is not merely a man who sees new truths of
which the unbeliever is ignorant; he is a man who is stronger. He feels within him
more force, either to endure the trials of existence, or to conquer them. It is as
though he were raised above the miseries of the world, because he is raised above
his condition as a mere man; he believes that he is saved from evil, under whatev
er form he may conceive this evil. The first article in every creed is the belief in
salvation by faith.18
God and the gods are more often inspirations than explanations—and modern humanists
invoke very similar imaginings. Sometimes they are explicitly devoted to an imagined fu
ture humanity. Sometimes this grand narrative is only implicit. They are not wrong to fan
tasize, but perhaps it is rash to disregard our present, petty lives, whether they imagine a
wholly indifferent cosmos or one animated by the triumphant intelligences of the very dis
tant future. Could we really strip away all merely “made-up” values and descriptions, or
seek to see things only in that very distant light, without at the same time stripping off
humanity?
Don’t you see that that dreadful dry light shed on things must at last wither up the
moral mysteries as illusions, respect for age, respect for property, and that the
sanctity of life will be a superstition? The men in the street are only organisms,
with their organs more or less displayed.19
The gap between the worlds of “science” and “common sense” is as real, in practice, as
any gap between the harsh reality of the Roman Empire and the “opium dream” of the
Gospel.20 If scientists did not live by the fantasy that they, as human beings, can reach out
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to “the truth,” and that they deserve to be protected or supported in that quest, they
could not ever succeed. Indeed, few of us can easily endure the story that I told before,
that “we” are only transient expressions of a eukaryotic genome and that the universe is
wholly indifferent to the values of “humanity.” Atheistical humanism may need all the
more support precisely because its overt commitment to a strongly atheistical account of
the universe is in tension with its humanistic commitments: to resolve the tension such
humanists need to believe that our descendants or successors will remake the world, and
thereby give it the meaning that it does not have already. They (p. 575) need to believe
that they can discard their merely “animal” nature, and so attain a purer and more disci
plined mentality. Belief of this sort, founded in emotional needs rather than any experi
mental proofs, is not necessarily objectionable.21 There may be many occasions, for exam
ple, in both our personal life and our national life, when we need to believe that there will
be a happy outcome, that it is really possible to live in peace with our neighbors, that jus
tice can be done, that something like “human” or “humane” life will one day triumph.22
We have no proof of these convictions or proposals—or none, at any rate, that we could
obtain without just carrying on “in faith.” Even if there were good reason to believe the
opposite (as there was clearly good reason in 1940, for example, to believe that Hitler
would win the war), it may count as virtue that our forefathers did not. Anyone who is li
able to acute depression can also reasonably be encouraged by therapists as follows:
As best you can, simply trust in your fundamental capacity for learning, growing
and healing as we go along through this process—and engage in the practices as if
your life depended on them, which in many ways, literally and metaphorically, it
surely does.23
The patient has no proof at that point in time that this, or anything else, will work, but her
only hope is to behave as if it will.
Where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which
should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is ‘the lowest kind of im
morality’ into which a thinking being can fall.24
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Animals in Religion
sary” for a greater good, the survival or the pleasure of our own conspecifics or even—
much more narrowly—our fellow citizens). Hurting them may even serve to reinforce a
deep conviction that we as reasoning beings are in control of merely bestial nature: we
despise those whom we injure because we need to believe that they deserve the injury.25
Atheistical humanists prefer to think their creed has developed from some nonre
(p. 576)
ligious (that is, some nontheistic), or at least non-Abrahamic, thought and cite classical
philosophers who were ready to recognize the “humanity” of women, foreigners or slaves
(not quite consistently). Such philosophers were more usually concerned to emphasize
the superior nature of the wise: the wise could be the equal of the imagined gods, far re
moved from the slavish nature of ordinary people. It was rather an Hebraic tradition that
each human individual (male or female, slave or free, Greek or barbarian) was made “in
the image of God,” to be respected as if indeed they were God—as monarchs erected stat
ues in their kingdoms to be a visible presence of authority. So human beings are each, in
dividually, representatives and—as it were—heirs of God: each is sufficient reason for the
whole world to exist, according to the Rabbinic gloss.
A man stamps many coins with one seal, and they are all identical, but the King of
the kings of kings stamped every man with the seal of the first man, and none is
identical with his fellow. Therefore it is the duty of every one to say: For my sake
the world was created.26
Experimental scientists remind objectors of the medical gains to be made from careful
vivisection (and sometimes admit that they would also gain from experiments on “sub-
normal” conspecifics, were it not that “the public wouldn’t stand for it”). Recreational
hunters—a practice that neither Jews nor Muslims can approve—insist on their right to
kill and eat whatever “animals” they please. Vegetarians are rebuked for disdaining what
God has provided, and so (it is supposed) refusing Peter’s Vision: “do not call anything im
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pure that God has made clean.”29 Only humanity is to be respected, under God, and we
should make no more divisions either between human tribes (each with their own cus
toms and taboos) or between different sorts of “animal.” That all such animals are
“clean,” and that all human tribes are equal, seems a liberating revelation: we are no
(p. 577) longer to think of any “animals” as “vermin,” nor any human animal as someone
who is not our neighbor. The humanistic interpretation is less happy: if there are no bars
on our eating anything, and purity rules are all relaxed, such believers are free to do any
thing they please to the creatures God put in our hands, and are being “ungrateful” if
they don’t accept the gift.
One further feature of the tradition that still influences those who would claim to have
abandoned older ways is the long experience of sacrifice. Religion requires us to surren
der what is precious to us, whether our livestock or our lives.30 European explorers,
themselves acquainted with those historical demands, were confronted—in Aztec civiliza
tion—by a horrid parody, as they saw it, of their own beliefs. Human sacrifice was re
quired to keep the sun alive, and wars engineered to ensure a steady supply of captives.31
European civilization had at least abandoned human sacrifice, allowing us to buy our free
dom with the blood of cattle. Others, in both European and Aztec practice, were to pay
the price in blood, whether to appease the gods or keep the gods alive. It is notable that
the same verb, “sacrifice,” is still often used to describe what we do to “animals” in our
laboratories: there, too, others pay the price of an imagined future, free (it is supposed) of
disease or disability and maybe even death. In a way, this could be considered a good
sign: if “animals” were really felt to be no more than toys or tools, it would be easier to
dispose of them. The very need to dignify their ends is an indication that we are still con
scious of their own lives and being, however absurdly we may—like the Aztecs—pretend
that our victims are or would be willing.
In Islam, man is God’s viceregent on Earth, and he has custodianship and rights
over other creatures by virtue of this viceregency and not simply as a result of be
ing a purely earthly creature more clever and cunning than others. Renaissance
humanism gave birth to a man who was no longer bound to a Divine Order or sa
cred hierarchy and who saw no limit upon his right to destroy nature.32
Once upon a time, the human tribe was one of many. But “on that day on which
(p. 578)
Adam went forth from the Garden…. was closed the mouth of all beasts, and of cattle, and
of birds, and of whatever walks, and of whatever moves, so that they could no longer
speak: for they had all spoken one with another with one lip and with one tongue.”33
Their mouths were closed, or else our ears. The process of our estrangement may have
been slower than the Hebrew story suggests: the memory of Eden may be of a time be
fore the Flood, the Ice or the Eruption. Perhaps it was the Neolithic Agricultural Revolu
tion that brought class hatred, slavery, and war into the world. Once upon a time, not all
that long ago, hunter-gatherers acknowledged that there were other creatures in the
world with as much “right” to the fruits of the earth. When we began gardening in
earnest, rabbits, deer, insects, and birds became our enemies or our slaves, not just our
occasional rivals. At the same time, moralists drew lessons from the habits of “animals,”
even if they also denied that the animals they admired themselves knew what they were
doing. Even the Hellenes thought some animals, at least, were sacred to one divinity or
another. Even the Hebrews acknowledged that we had duties to the creatures in our ser
vice.
From the very first chapter of Genesis it is affirmed that Being itself is good. “God could
not have created a thing had he hated it, as the Wisdom of Solomon says (11.24f) and the
mere fact that he keeps it in being is the proof that he loves it.”34 After the flood, God
makes a covenant with all the living: there shall never again be a flood to destroy all liv
ing creatures.35 Granted that things exist “for their own sake” because God wishes those
things to be, then they aren’t simply “for us.” “You bring darkness on, night falls, all the
forest animals come out: savage lions roaring for their prey, claiming their food from
God.”36 The Noahic covenant permits us to make use of other creatures, in a ruined
world, but not to use their blood, which is their life.37 The Mosaic law lays down further
explicit principles: we may not, for example, muzzle the oxen that tread out the corn;38 or
take mother and young from any nest;39 or take a calf, lamb, or kid from its mother till
seven days after its birth;40 or boil a kid in its own mother’s milk;41 or leave a beast
trapped in a well on the pretext that today is holy;42 or yoke ox and ass together;43 or
plough up all the fields, in every year, and so deprive the wild things of their livelihood.44
Prophets emphasized that violation of the covenant would lead to disaster.45
When Babylon has fallen, “there no Arab shall pitch his tent, no shepherds fold their
flocks. There marmots shall have their lairs, and porcupine shall overrun her houses;
there desert owls shall dwell, and there he-goats shall gambol.”46 “The whole world has
rest and is at peace; it breaks into cries of joy. The pines themselves and the cedars of
Lebanon exult over you: since you have been laid low, they say, no man comes up to fell
us.”47 The land shall have the Sabbaths we denied it.48
The natural historian of a future age may be able to point to the particular follies
that brought ruin—chopping down the tropical rain forests, meditating nuclear
war, introducing hybrid monocultures, spreading poisons, financing grain-moun
tains, and rearing cattle in conditions that clearly breach the spirit of the com
mandment (p. 579) not to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn (Deuteronomy
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25.4). The historian whose eyes are opened to the acts of God will have no doubt
we brought our ruin on ourselves, that it is God’s answer to the arrogant.49
These were the words of the Lord to me: Prophesy, man, against the shepherds of
Israel; prophesy and say to them, You shepherds, these are the words of the Lord
God: How I hate the shepherds of Israel who care only for themselves! Should not
the shepherd care for the sheep? You consume the milk, wear the wool, and
slaughter the fat beasts, but you don’t feed the sheep. You have not encouraged
the weary, tended the sick, bandaged the hurt, recovered the straggler, or
searched for the lost; and even the strong you have driven with ruthless severity.
…. I will dismiss those shepherds: they shall care only for themselves no longer; I
will rescue my sheep from their jaws, and they shall feed on them no longer.50
Ezekiel, or the Lord, here takes it for granted that true shepherds care for sheep. “A
righteous man cares for his beast, but a wicked man is cruel at heart.”51 Literally, of
course, shepherds care for sheep so that they may profit from them in the end (as Plato’s
Thrasymachus reminds us),52 but perhaps this was not so in the beginning, and need not
be wholly so even now.
For any man who is just and good loves the brute creatures which serve him, and
he takes care of them so that they have food and rest and the other things they
need. He does not do this only for his own good but out of a principle of true jus
tice; and if he is so cruel toward them that he requires work from them and never
theless does not provide the necessary food, then he has surely broken the law
which God inscribed in his heart. And if he kills any of his beasts only to satisfy his
own pleasure, then he acts unjustly, and the same measure will be measured out
to him.53
But here, too, there can be delays and obfuscations. We should care for the weak and
helpless, “champion the widow, defend the cause of the fatherless, give to the poor, pro
tect the orphan, clothe the naked.”54 In the world to come, there will be no marriages, no
temples, and no courts of law. There, we shall call no man “father.” There, we shall be
naked and unashamed. But it does not follow that we can live by exactly those laws here
and now. Vegetarians, according to Karl Barth,55 are trying, like conscientious nudists or
antinomian anarchists, to anticipate the Kingdom. So even those who adopt some form of
“stewardship” as their model are usually content to speak as if they care, but not to make
more than minor changes in their ways. As Orwell commented: “We all live by robbing
Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are ‘enlightened’ all maintain that those coolies ought
to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our ‘enlightenment,’ demands that
the robbery shall continue”56—so we are satisfied with saying that we wish to stop and, at
best, slightly improving the coolies’—or the animals’—“welfare.”
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You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead,
whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever
wants to be first must be slave of all.57
We are all adept both in ignoring this suggestion and in turning it round to license much
the same oppressions as before: because we are, in imagination, acting for the others’
good we somehow deserve their gratitude when that imagined good disguises the real
hardships we impose on them. Slave-dealers imagine that they are “civilizing” their cap
tives. Those who use and abuse “animals” believe that their victims prosper. The fantasy
defeats our perception of the complete reality. By contrast, the “Brethren of Purity,” a
tenth-century Islamic school, wrote clearly and compellingly of the case that “animals”
had against humankind, for treating them, absurdly as well as unjustly, as rebellious
slaves.
Another fantasy is often given greater credit for supporting a real care for animals. The
story is told of Pythagoras that he rebuked a man who was beating a dog, saying “That’s a
friend of mine—I knew him by his voice.”58 The story is told to illustrate, maybe to mock,
Pythagorean belief in metempsychosis, that souls migrate into new bodies after death. It
is a widespread belief, though not every believer thinks that their soul might end up in an
animal. There is a simpler interpretation of the remark, more readily accessible to mod
ern sensibilities: Pythagoras acknowledged the dog’s howling as complaint, and so as a
communication that placed an obligation on those who heard it. Animals can—despite as
sertions to the dogmatic contrary—be our friends in their own right: consider Odysseus’s
old dog, who survives just long enough to recognize his master.59
But take the Pythagorean story at its surface value: Pythagoreans and Platonists in the
Mediterranean world, and Hindus and Buddhists in the Indian, supposed—not quite con
sistently—that our souls might move from human to non-human, as an effect of actions in
this life. Buddhists emphasize how rare a human life would be: as if a turtle swimming in
the Ocean should chance to put his head up through a yoke floating on the surface.60 So
also, according to Herodotus, the Egyptians reckoned that souls could be born human on
ly once in three thousand years (aka “a very long time”).61 These theories, of course, de
pend on a metaphysical claim, that each of us is essentially a bare subject, (p. 581) clothed
in whatever bodily being is appropriate. “I have been a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird,
and a dumb fish in the sea,” Empedocles declared.62 If I am instead essentially this partic
ular corporeal person then there is no chance of my ever being anyone else—and it may
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be correspondingly difficult to establish the empathetic concern that is the root of much
ethical, or even social, behavior. If it is impossible that I (that is, Stephen) will ever be or
ever have been, say, Hecuba, or born Japanese, let alone Empedocles’s bush, what can it
mean to imagine myself into their predicaments? “Treat others as you would wish to be
treated if you were they”—but apparently that is as absurd as demanding that I bilocate
or “travel back in time.” I may think I can imagine such a thing, but must acknowledge
that the idea is incoherent. Altruistic concern, in brief, is an attempt to live a dream—as I
have suggested all “religion” is (including atheistical humanism)—and has the same ad
vantages and problems.
But the strictly metaphysical option of conceiving ourselves as “souls,” rather than only
living bodies, is still open. If that is our reality, then any of us may be subject to the same
treatment as non-human animals now receive at human hands, and there is at least some
reason to establish a robust tradition to protect our future selves. Unfortunately, there
may also be reason not to: if our souls pass through different lives, as determined by past
actions, then perhaps the victims of oppression really “deserve” their fate. Our sufferings
now are often, though not always, just retribution for past crimes.
Suppose a master foundryman is casting his metal and the metal leaps up and
says, “I must be made into the best sword.” The master foundryman would cer
tainly (p. 582) consider the metal as evil. And if simply because I possess a body by
chance, I were to say “Nothing but a man! Nothing but a man!” the Creator would
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certainly regard me as evil. If I regard the universe as a great furnace and cre
ation as a master foundryman, why should anywhere I go not be all right?66
Every supposedly “individual,” “separate” organism is only one fragment of the whole, be
ing beaten and re-beaten into shape. There are no permanent or significant boundary
lines in the Heracleitean fire of Nature: “million-fuelèd, nature’s bonfire burns on.”67
Hopkins recognized that human life might also seem to be swallowed in the fire, but had
hopes that “manshape, that shone sheer off, disseveral, a star” might one day be resur
rected as immortal diamond. That hope, on the Daoist inflection, is unreal, but may still
serve as a vision for us here and now, if we cannot bear the overt implication, that we as
“individuals” are only silly putty. Anything can be transformed into anything else, and one
day will be: “imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the
wind away.”68 It is of course much easier to conceive and act on this suspicion when deal
ing with merely “animal” lives and purposes—our very own lives and purposes, like
Hamlet’s, resist deconstruction.
From which it follows that those imaginative traditions that emphasize the possibility of
metempsychosis, and of our own deep unity with all other living things, may not, in prac
tice, be as thoughtful of all those other lives as some have wished. Lacking any firm sense
of our own identity as individual and responsible agents, and lacking any sense of what
might be lost in the radical transformation of other creatures, it may be easier simply to
“go with the flow,” accepting the chances of this mortal life, on behalf of our victims, as
what Nature now requires. On the other hand, if we here and now can stand even a little
aside from nature’s bonfire, so as to wonder whether it need burn so harshly, then we
need not simply acquiesce. The chance of being born “human” is what creates the possi
bility of not doing all and only what is generally done: we may be momentarily, at least,
released from “nature” so as to be concerned for others still caught up in nature’s fire. In
Buddhist tradition the enlightened Bodhisattva may refuse the final extinction of selfhood
and desire, until each individual entity, even every blade of grass, is also freed. “Beings
are numberless, I vow to save them. Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dhar
ma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha’s way is unsurpassable, I vow to be
come it.”69
Waking Up
There is a fourth mode in the religious consideration of the non-human, alongside tri
umphalism, stewardship, and metempsychosis: namely, to acknowledge other creatures
as nations like ourselves,70 fellow voyagers in the odyssey of evolution.71 So, Henry Be
ston:
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Re
mote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization
(p. 583) surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby
a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their
incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves.
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And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world
older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with
the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we
shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other
nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the
splendour and travail of the earth.72
This is not to say that we are all independent nations. On the contrary, we are all caught
up together in that “splendour and travail.” Hopkins’s hope for resurrection emphasized
the distinct identity of each individual human—but as I remarked before, each bodily
being, including ours, is composed of many million symbiotes, internal and external.
There can be no human body without its cells, its mitochondria, its gut bacteria; nor
would our bodies long survive without the ambient air, water, and earth constructed and
composed by other living creatures over many million years. Even if the Christian hope is
that we be raised as “spiritual” bodies, we cannot easily conceive such entities as closed
off from the world. God’s oracle to Isaiah: “the wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies
down with the kid, calf and lion cub feed together with a little boy to lead them. The cow
and the bear make friends, their young lie down together. The lion eats straw like the ox.
The infant plays over the cobra’s hole; into the viper’s lair the young child puts his hand.
They do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain, for the country is filled with the
knowledge of Yahweh as the waters swell the sea.”73
So what is the effect of this belief that “from the beginning till now the entire creation….
has been groaning in one great act of giving birth”?74 And what is waiting to be born?
Consider again the other “religious” modes available to us. Triumphalists will see all oth
er animals, all other things, in the light of their own purposes, and so will treat them—
practically and symbolically—as artefacts, having no life of their own. Pigs, according to
Chrysippus, should be reckoned locomotive meals, with souls instead of salt to keep them
fresh,75 and we have done our best to make that story true.
But the reality is that pigs, turkeys, and the rest are not artefacts. Nothing is “just a pig”;
even of a fish it is blasphemy to say it is only a fish, or of a flower that it is “only a growth
like any other.”77 Even “stewards” of the world see only what they wish in other creatures
—unconscious images of human virtues such as loyalty or courage, dependent for their
welfare on human care and control, and ready to serve our needs. Even those who see us
all caught up in the cycle may easily see destiny in the lives that we oppress. Maybe we
should attend to the seemingly “irreligious” message of the later (p. 584) prophets: maybe
all the meanings we read into the lives of others, all the spirits we imagine at work there,
all the morals that seem to justify or at least excuse our actions, should be abandoned. We
can begin to treat even other human beings better when we acknowledge that they are
not identical with the roles and meanings we impute to them: the dangerous outsider, loy
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al spouse, even the charming child are better seen as themselves, without such attributed
meanings. So also other animals, plants, and landscapes: it may seem right to honor these
as symbols of some greater beauty—that at least is better, for us and them, than to de
spise them as vermin, weeds, or wasteland. But the better liberation is to acknowledge
only that they are themselves. Modern environmentalists have blamed the Abrahamic tra
dition for evacuating “meaning” from the land and landscape, and so—it is supposed (not
quite unjustly)—making them available for whatever use we please. But it is not obvious
that any actual animals ever benefited from the delusion that they were incarnate deities,
any more than any actual human being is well served by being considered a Hero, a Good
Wife, a Sage. A genuinely “personal” attachment is only possible when we recognize that
heroes, wives, and sages have their own names and destinies, apart from ours, and apart
from any fantasy we compose about them.
True piety may require us to give up “religion.” “I am sick of holocausts of rams and the
fat of calves. The blood of bulls and goats revolts me.”78 It is this which gives much moral
force to atheistical attacks upon “religion”—that the gods we have often worshipped and
whose imagined words have given us the excuse we wanted to act out fantasies of re
venge, are indeed unreal. Merely saying this, however, can never be enough: the fan
tasies return, as they do in overtly atheistical imaginings of human rights and destinies.
Turning aside from the mechanized, anthropocentric world to the world promised by the
prophets (even if we cannot get there by ourselves, or swiftly) is an awakening.
Weil here draws too rigid, too Cartesian a distinction between thinking persons and mat
ter: there are innumerable grades of being, tradition tells us, “below” and “above” (p. 585)
the thinking person. “The moral consequence of faith in God,” so Niebuhr tells us, “is the
universal love of all being in Him…. This is [faith’s] requirement: that all beings, not only
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our friends, but also our enemies, not only men but also animals and the inanimate, be
met with reverence, for all are friends in the friendship of the one to whom we are recon
ciled in faith.”80
I have allowed that “being religious” is trying to “live the dream,” acting out and reinforc
ing the imagination of a world where all is done for the best. But it is also possible to turn
this doctrine round: true piety—as Lucretius defined it, “the power to contemplate the
universe with a quiet mind”81—is an answer to idolatry, a rejection of blood sacrifice, and
is brought to life in encountering some real Other. The dog or the bird looks back at us,
and we are jolted awake from the delirium in which we mostly live.82 They are real indi
viduals with their own dreaming and their own desires. The real world is not the world we
imagine to ourselves, the one in which we are the most significant, the most intelligent,
the most deserving. Just occasionally we may wake up to realize our consanguinity, our
common reliance upon God and Nature.
Further Reading
Clark, Stephen R. L. Animals and Their Moral Standing. London: Routledge, 1997.
Goodman, Lenn E., and Richard McGregor, eds. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The
Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn: An Arabic Critical Edition
and English Translation of Epistle 22. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Kemmerer, Lisa. Animals and World Religions, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Midgley, Mary. The Essential Mary Midgley. Edited by David Midgley. London: Routledge,
2005.
Perlo, Katherine Wills. Kinship and Killing: The Animal in World Religions. New York: Co
lumbia University Press, 2009.
Preece, Rod. Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb: A Chronicle of Sensibility to Animals.
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002.
Waldau, Paul, and Kimberley Patton. eds. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion,
Science and Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. (p. 590)
Notes:
(1.) See, for example, Paul Waldau, “Religion and Animals,” in In Defense of Animals: the
Second Wave, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 69–83.
(2.) See, for a better example, Paul Waldau, “Religion and Other Animals,” in Teaching the
Animal: Human-Animal Studies across the Disciplines, ed. Margo deMello (New York:
Lantern Books, 2010), chap. 6.
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(3.) This essay is one of several in which I have recently explored aspects of our troubled
relationship with other creatures and with the divine. See “Animals in Classical and Late
Antique Philosophy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp
and R. G. Frey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 35–60; “The Ethics of Taxono
my: A Neo-Aristotelian Synthesis,” in Animal Ethics: Past and Present Perspectives, ed.
Evangelos D. Protopapadakis (Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2012), 38–58; “Animals,” in Routledge
Companion to Theism, ed. Charles Taliaferro, Victoria S. Harrison, and Steward Goetz
(London: Routledge, 2012), 528–540; “Does ‘Made in the Image of God’ Mean Humans
Are More Special Than Animals?” in A Faith Embracing All Creatures, ed. Tripp York and
Andy Alexis-Baker (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012), 138–149; “Ask Now the Beasts
and They Shall Teach Thee,” in Animals as Religious Subjects, ed. Celia Deane-Drum
mond, David L. Clough, and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 15–34;
“God, Reason and Extraterrestrials,” in God, Mind and Knowledge, ed. Andrew Moore
(London: Ashgate, 2014), 171–186.
(4.) See Theodor Rosebury, Life on Man (London: HarperCollins, 1972); Roger M. Knut
son, Fearsome Fauna: A Field Guide to the Creatures That Live in You (Basingstoke, UK:
W. H. Freeman, 1999).
(5.) See Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of
Species (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 13.
(6.) See G. J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak, Esteban Sarmiento, et al., The Last Human: A Guide to
Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
(7.) Nicholas Lash, The Beginning and the End of “Religion” (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 1996), 21. See also Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, ed.
Julius Guttman, trans. Chaim Rabin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1190/1995), bk. 3, chap.
29, p. 178: “The first purpose of the whole law is to remove idolatry and to wipe out its
traces and all that belongs to it, even in memory.”
(8.) See Dov Ospovat, The Development of Darwin’s Theory: Natural History, Natural The
ology, and Natural Selection, 1838-1859 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981),
146–169. See my “Is Humanity a Natural Kind?” in What Is an Animal? ed. Tim Ingold
(London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 17–34; also The Political Animal: Biology, Ethics and Poli
tics (London: Routledge, 1999), 40–58.
(9.) Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Real
ity (London: Allen Lane, 2014), 5, 363. Oddly, Tegmark apparently believes that it is in
deed true that our “evolved intuition” must break down, but he exempts mathematical
reasoning about the ultimate nature of things from the breakdown, despite its obvious,
and unchecked, dependence upon “intuition.”
(10.) See my “God, Reason and Extraterrestrials,” in God, Mind and Knowledge, ed. An
drew Moore (London: Ashgate, 2014), 171–186.
(13.) Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, Animals, Gods and Humans: Changing Attitudes to Animals in
Greek, Roman and Early Christian Ideas (London: Routledge, 2006), 98, after Plutarch,
On Isis and Osiris 379E, in Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 5, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (London:
Heinemann, 1936), 165.
(14.) Xenophanes, 21B15DK, in The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, ed.
Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 27.
(15.) David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. A. W. Colver and J. V. Price
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1777/1976), 168.
(17.) See Eugen Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural
Sciences,” Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960): 1–14.
(18.) Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: Allen & Unwin,
1915), 416–417.
(19.) G. K. Chesterton, The Poet and the Lunatics (London: Darwen Finlayson,
1929/1962), 70.
(20.) “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” See Karl Marx, introduction
to The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, ed. Joseph O’ Malley (Cambridge: Cam
bridge University Press, 1843–1844/1970).
(21.) See my Understanding Faith: Religious Belief and Its Place in Society (Basingstoke,
UK: Imprint Academic, 2009).
(22.) See Freeman J. Dyson, “Time without End: Physics and Biology in an Open Uni
verse,” in Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson (Providence, RI: American Mathematical So
ciety, 1979/1996), 529–542.
(23.) Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, et al., The Mindful Way through Depres
sion: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (New York: Guildford, 2007), 8.
(24.) William James, The Will to Believe (New York: Longmans, Green, 1919), 25. James is
rebutting W. K. Clifford’s unrealistic claim in Lectures and Essays, vol. 2, ed. L. Stephen
and F. Pollock (London: Macmillan, 1901), 163–166.
(25.) Compare Luc Ferry, “Neither Man nor Stone,” in Animal Philosophy: Ethics and
Identity, ed. Peter Atterton and Matthew Calerco (London: Continuum, 2004), 147–156.
See also Chapter 7 in this volume.
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(26.) Mishnah: Sanhedrin 4.5, in The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, by Ephraim E.
Urbach, trans. Israel Abrahams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 217;
see also Matthew 22:21.
(27.) Humphrey Primatt, The Duty of Humanity to Inferior Creatures, 2nd ed., ed. A.
Broome (Fontwell: Centaur Press, 1831/1990), 22.
(30.) See René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
(31.) See B. C. Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1979).
(32.) S. H. Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996), 179; The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. William C. Chittick (Bloomington, IN:
World Wisdom, 2007), 151.
(34.) E. Cardenal, Love, trans. D. Livingstone (London: Search Press, 1974), 43.
(41.) Deuteronomy 14.21; Philo of Alexandria, Works, trans. F. H. Colson, vol. 8 (Cam
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 250–251 (De Virtutibus 142–144): “The per
son who boils the flesh of lambs or kids or any other young animal in their mother’s milk,
shows himself cruelly brutal in character and gelded of compassion.”
(49.) Stephen R. L. Clark, Civil Peace and Sacred Order (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989),
150.
(53.) Anne Conway, Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, ed. A. P. Cour
dert and T. Corse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1690/1996), 35.
(55.) Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III, pt.4, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edin
burgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), 350–2.
(56.) George Orwell, quoted in Wendell Berry, What Are People For? (London: Rider
Books, 1990), 201.
(59.) Odyssey 17:294-327. See Gary Steiner, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The
Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (Pittsburgh, PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 42; see also my “Can Animals Be Our Friends?” Philosophy
Now 67 (May/June 2008): 13–16.
(60.) Majjhima Nikaya (129 Balapandita Sutta). See Kalu Rinpoche and M. Montenegro,
Luminous Mind: Fundamentals of Spiritual Practice (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publica
tions, 1997), 198.
(64.) See Rupert Isaacson, The Horse Boy: A Father’s Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son
(London: Penguin, 2009).
(65.) One further oddity of the modern atheistical and would-be scientific consensus is
how closely it mirrors ancient myths: “Love” and “Strife” now feature in cosmological the
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Animals in Religion
ory as “dark matter” and “dark energy,” and the universe emerges, as it did for the Egyp
tians, from Nothing, as the primeval, swiftly unfolding, Atum.
(66.) Chuang Tzu: “Mystical Way of Chuang Tzu” in Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy,
ed. and trans. Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 197-8.
(67.) Gerard Manley Hopkins, “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of
the Resurrection, ” in Poems, ed. Robert Bridges (London: Humphrey Milford, 1918), n.
48.
(69.) One version of the “Bodhisattva’s Vow,” as represented in the “Greater Vehicle” of
the Buddhist tradition. See Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, ed.
Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), 443.
(70.) Koran 6:38; see also 11:6; see Al-Hafiz B. A. Masri, Animals in Islam (Corsham:
Athene Trust, 1989). Mainstream Muslim opinion on the topic mostly belongs to the stew
ardship or vice regency model, but there are some signs of this more radical view.
(71.) Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 109.
(72.) Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
(New York: Owl Books, 1928/2003), 25.
(76.) P. Sherrard, The Eclipse of Man and Nature (West Stockbridge, MA: Lindisfarne
Press, 1987), 71–72.
(77.) Chesterton, Poet, 54, 58; see also C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (London: Bles,
1943), 12, speaking of “man’s prehistoric piety to ‘our brother the ox,’” and the way in
which bad philosophy, masquerading as literary criticism, damaged humane sensibility.
(79.) Simone Weil, Notebooks, vol. 1, trans. A. Wills (London: Routledge, and Kegan Paul,
1956), 115.
(80.) H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (New York: Harper &
Row, 1960), 126.
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(81.) Lucretius On the Nature of Things 5.1194–1203: see Mary Midgley, Science and Po
etry, (London: Routledge, 2000), 32.
(82.) Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.17.1; see my “Moments of Truth: the Marginal and
the Real,” European Legacy 17, no.6 (2012): 769–778.
Stephen R. L. Clark
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Index
Index
The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Edited by Linda Kalof
Page 1 of 53
Index
Page 2 of 53
Index
Ammonites, 475
Analogism, 467, 468
Anchoring argument of beliefs, 327
The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East (Uerpmann), 485
Anderson, Kay, 279–280
Anderson, Virginia, 244
Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), 87–88
Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC), 11, 359, 360, 361
Animal divination, 15, 456, 465
Animal-industrial complex (AI-C), 201
The Animal in Ottoman Europe (Mikhail), 262
Animality
deconstruction of, 156, 161
diversification of, 160–161
human rejection of, 5, 9, 147–148
ontology of, 155
typologies, 156
Animal law
academic courses on, 171–172
human exceptionalism challenged by, 179
influences on, 185
on research, 358–361
trends within, 182–185
Animal Law (Frasch et al.), 171, 173
Animal Liberation (Singer), 25, 30, 104, 171, 371
Animal Machines: The New Factor Farming Industry (Harrison), 282, 370–371
Animal protectionism, 40
Animal proverbs, 457, 458–459
Animal research, 345–363. See also Animal studies; Scientific animal objects
abolitionist paradigm on, 346
agency of subjects, 12–13
benefits of, 351–352
categories of, 350–351
on commensal species, 527–528
cost-benefit analysis of, 10–11, 12, 356, 389–390
defenses of, 351–356
in ecological science, 17, 493, 494, 496–497
ethics in, 11
ethnographic, 305, 547
failure to provide proper care in, 356–358
historical perceptions of, 345–346
housing and husbandry considerations in, 349, 357, 358, 384
hypothetical-deductive, 305
inductive, 305
laws and regulations on, 11, 358–361
long-term ecological projects, 552
moral critiques of, 348–350
objectification in, 10
Page 3 of 53
Index
Page 4 of 53
Index
Page 5 of 53
Index
Page 6 of 53
Index
Archaeozoology, 475–488
cattle studies in, 481–484
defined, 17, 476
dog studies in, 17, 479–481
domesticated animals and, 17, 478–481
ethology and, 17, 485
history of, 475–476
on human-animal settlement patterns, 17, 482–483, 484–485
as multidisciplinary science, 476, 477, 484
Neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland and, 477–479, 481–482
pig studies in, 17, 478–479
scientific components of, 17, 476–477, 481, 482
Arctic melting, 192
ARC Wildlife Overpass Competition, 20, 551
Argument analysis, 13–14, 414–422, 423
Aristotle
on animals as subjects of inquiry, 489–490
on chain of being, 161, 490, 497
on citizenship, 52, 57
classifications of nature by, 241, 489–490, 491
on eternal nature of species, 497
on humans as political animals, 44, 45
on linguistic agency as precondition for political status, 45, 49, 51–52
on slaves, 194
Arluke, Arnold, 4–5, 99, 105, 113, 289, 290, 384, 385
Artistic use of animals, 433–455
abuse and degradation in, 15, 433, 446, 447–448
censorship of, 15, 440–442, 443–444, 451
criticism of, 450
dead animals, 15, 434–436
dehumanization of art as influence on, 444–446, 449, 451
(p. 595) ethics of, 15, 439–442, 451, 452
Page 7 of 53
Index
Page 8 of 53
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Page 9 of 53
Index
Page 10 of 53
Index
Page 11 of 53
Index
Page 12 of 53
Index
overview, 227
pointing and referencing, 231
reflexive thought and, 7, 227, 231, 237
self-awareness and, 7, 37, 231–232
self-recognition and, 231, 233–234
social complexity and networking, 236–237
(p. 598) Chain of being, 161, 490, 497
Page 13 of 53
Index
Page 14 of 53
Index
Page 15 of 53
Index
Page 16 of 53
Index
Page 17 of 53
Index
Page 18 of 53
Index
Page 19 of 53
Index
Page 20 of 53
Index
defined, 332
embodied, 277n70
feminist care theory on, 213
in historical animal studies, 268, 269–270
making/tracking confusion and, 334–335
mind-reading abilities and, 332, 333, 341n25, 341n29
minimal moral, 333, 335, 336
misplaced or misguided, 334
reflexive thought and, 332–338
of stockpeople for livestock, 285, 289
theory of mind and, 332
The Empathy Exams (Jamison), 332
Empedocles, 581
Encephalization quotient (EQ), 228
Endangered Species Act of 1973, 412, 416, 426n27, 427n42, 494, 498
Enframing, 202
English, Peter, 285
Enkidu (mythic figure), 141–142
Enlightenment, 82, 220, 242, 461
Environmental concerns
Arctic melting, 192
climate. See Climate change
greenhouse gases, 192, 198
habitats. See Habitat destruction
pollution, 4, 90, 556
Epistemic cultures, 380
Epoques de la nature (Leclerc), 492
EQ (encephalization quotient), 228
Equal consideration principle, 28, 29, 31, 33
Equines. See Horses
Ethical arguments, 7, 10–11, 369, 412, 414–415, 434
Ethical veganism, 364
Ethical vegetarianism, 364, 369–370
Ethics
animal rights. See Animal rights
in animal welfare science, 372
anthropocentrism in, 159
applied, 412
of artistic use of animals, 15, 439–442, 451, 452
(p. 603) Continental European. See Continental European ethics
Page 21 of 53
Index
Page 22 of 53
Index
Feedlots, 5, 368
Felines. See Cats
Females. See Women
Feminism
cultural feminism, 219
ecofeminism, 49, 196, 213
as source of critical animal studies, 196
Feminist care theory
epistemology and, 214
ethics and, 208, 210, 219
on interspecies dialogue, 6, 208, 210–211, 214–215, 219
origins of, 210, 219
political nature of, 219
Fielding, William, 119, 125
Finch, Anne, 209
First Amendment, 201
Fish
as companion animals, 81, 82
ecological study of, 18, 496–497
in food animal production, 190, 197, 366
in mutualistic relationships, 84
Page 23 of 53
Index
Page 24 of 53
Index
Foxes
as commensal species, 19, 529, 533–534, 535, 536
in folklore, 16, 457, 458–459, 460
human relationships with, 81
hunting of, 276n46
France
militarization of horses in, 245, 255n37
river-rescue-dog program in, 251–252
roaming dogs in, 240
Francione, Gary L., 2, 9, 25, 281–282, 283
Francis of Assisi (saint), 218, 538
Frankfurt School, 194–195
Franklin, Adrian, 293
Franklin, Sarah, 365
(p. 605) Fraser, David, 285, 373
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agency of, 8
animal shelters for, 100
categorizations influencing perceptions of, 286, 293
contradictory status of, 9, 287, 290, 294
factors influencing relationships with, 299n82
genetic engineering of, 6, 201–202
history of control regulations for, 99–100
human relationships with, 282–283, 292, 545–546
objectification of, 279
sentience of, 9, 283, 287, 294
stockpeople’s perceptions of, 285, 286–290
in urban ecosystems, 100–101, 545–546, 549
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Singer, Peter, 25, 30, 31–33, 37, 48, 104, 171, 194, 370, 371
The Singular Beast (Farbe-Vassus), 463
Sister Species (Kemmerer), 196
Sixth Great Extinction, 191, 497
Skabelund, Aaron, 262
Slabbekoorn, Hans, 557
Slaughterhouse (Eisnitz), 199
Slaughterhouses
blame shifting to, 145
concealment of, 5, 145
health concerns in, 199
selection of locations for, 198
stockpeople’s perceptions of, 291, 292
working conditions in, 6, 199–200
Slaves
Aristotle on, 194
legal status change of, 69–70
personhood of, 70
utilitarian views of, 28–29, 41n19
Slobodchikoff, Con, 213
Smith, Adam, 217
Smith, David, 235
Smuts, Barbara, 213–214, 219
Snæbjörnsdóttir, Bryndis, 435
Social buffering, 89
Social Darwinism, 460
Social justice. See Justice
Social parasitism hypothesis, 84
Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCAs), 30, 102, 103, 104
Socratic method, 172
Somatology, 160
Soulé, Michael, 498, 555
Sovereignty
capacity requirements for, 58
of indigenous peoples, 54–55
of nation-states, 50
of wild animals, 54, 55, 57, 58
Spaying, 104, 105
SPCAs. See Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals
Species apartheid, 47–48, 50
Speciesism, 37, 195, 210, 211
Spectacles. See Aquariums; Circuses; Zoos
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Synurbany, 553–554
Systema naturae (Linnaeus), 491
Sztybel, S., 340n5
Tail-docking, 368
Taiwan, dog-keeping practices in, 116
Taming, 310, 318n36
Tansley, Arthur, 493
Tanzania, roaming dogs in, 121
Tapper, Richard, 306
Taxidermy, 15, 434–436, 491
Taylor, Nick, 305–306
Taylor, Paul, 215
Technologies of enchantment, 522n15
Tetrick, Joshua, 304
Thailand
companion animals in, 81
outcast elephants in, 545
transition from foraging to farming in, 140
Theogony (Hesiod), 458
Theory of mind, 7, 332
Therapeutic uses of animals, 83, 87–88
Theriophobia, 140
Thiaucourt memorial, 245, 246, 246f, 247
Thing Theory, 262
Thinking Animals (Shepard), 135
Thomas, Keith, 136, 147, 148, 260
Thomas, William I., 287
Thomas Aquinas, 27, 538
Thompson, Paul B., 12, 364
Thought. See Cognition; Reflexive thought
3P model, 52
Tigers, human interactions with, 265, 266
Topsell, Edward, 490
Torture, defined, 76. See also Abuse
Totemism, 5, 140–141, 467, 468
Tourism. See Animal tourism
Tourist gaze, 520n3
Touristic awe, 517, 523n29
Tracking confusion. See Making/tracking confusion
Tracking devices, 276n45, 494–495, 496–497
Traditional free contact system, 405
Training. See Education and training
Transcendental phenomenology, 154
Trans-human morality, 159
Transitive consciousness, 322, 323
Triumphalist humanism, 20, 21, 573–577, 583
Trophy animals, 11
Tropical deforestation, 192, 197
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Trust laws, 72
Trypanosomiasis, 484
Turkey, companion animals in, 81
Twine, Richard, 201
Uerpmann, Hans-Peter, 485
Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (Harris), 460
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), 510
Ungulate populations, 13, 414, 415–418, 425n17
Unions, 199–200
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, 200
United Kingdom
animal research protections in, 358, 361
Big Garden Birdwatch in, 19, 528
commensal species in, 528, 533
food animal production in, 282, 370–371
foot and mouth disease outbreak in, 291
militarization of horses in, 255n37
scientist perceptions of superiority in, 385
zoos in, 401–402
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 54
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 510
United Nations Environment Program, 199, 498
Urban animal ecology, 20, 543, 552
Urban ecosystems, 542–570. See also Commensal animals
agriculture in, 550–551
built environment of, 543, 548, 549–550
challenges for, 543
climate change, impact on, 558
companion animals in, 101, 117–118, 544–545, 550
contemporary, 550–552
design and planning of, 20, 548, 549–552
ethics in, 20, 549
(p. 619) future of, 557–559
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Xenotransplantation, 390
(p. 621) Yellowstone National Park, 18, 267, 494–495, 499
York Retreat, 83
Yvonand IV site, 478
Zahavi, Amotz, 277n69
Zammit-Lucia, Joe, 15, 433
Zeuner, Frederick, 280
Zimmerman, Richard, 406
Zimov, Sergey, 499, 501
Zipes, Jack, 461
Žižek, Slavoj, 444, 448
Zoellick, Robert, 199
Zoning modifications, 556–557
Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (Braverman), 401, 403
Zoological Society of London, 401
Zoonotic diseases
bovine spongiform encephalopathy, 283
from commensal species, 536
E. Coli, 199, 283
equine influenza, 244–245
foot and mouth disease, 291
hydatid disease, 123
rabies. See Rabies
Salmonella, 199, 283
transmission of, 3, 90
trypanosomiasis, 484
in urban ecosystems, 556
Zoöpolis, 547, 559
Zoos, 397–410
anthropocentrism in, 403, 406
captivity and coercion in, 175, 405, 407
commensal species in, 535–536
Detroit Zoo animal welfare and rescue, 11
ecological education from, 397, 403–404
exploitation of animals in, 13, 403
funding for, 399
history and evolution of, 401–402
human displays in, 402–403
literature review, 398
negative perceptions of, 397–398
objectification of animals in, 11, 13
positive perceptions of, 397
selection of species for, 403
spatial arrangement of, 408n9
stereotypy behaviors in, 375, 404, 405
subaltern nature of inhabitants, 400
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