Animals, Ethics, and Language: The Philosophy of Meaningful Communication in the Lives of Animals 3031320794, 9783031320798

Citation preview

THE PALGRAVE MACMILLAN ANIMAL ETHICS SERIES

Animals, Ethics, and Language The Philosophy of Meaningful Communication in the Lives of Animals Rebekah Humphreys

The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series Series Editors

Andrew Linzey Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Oxford, UK Clair Linzey Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Oxford, UK

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the ethics of our treatment of animals. Philosophers have led the way, and now a range of other scholars have followed from historians to social scientists. From being a marginal issue, animals have become an emerging issue in ethics and in multidisciplinary inquiry. This series will explore the challenges that Animal Ethics poses, both conceptually and practically, to traditional understandings of human-animal relations. Specifically, the Series will: • provide a range of key introductory and advanced texts that map out ethical positions on animals; • publish pioneering work written by new, as well as accomplished, scholars; • produce texts from a variety of disciplines that are multidisciplinary in character or have multidisciplinary relevance. For further information or to submit a proposal for consideration, please contact Amy Invernizzi, [email protected].

Rebekah Humphreys

Animals, Ethics, and Language The Philosophy of Meaningful Communication in the Lives of Animals

Rebekah Humphreys Humanities and Social Sciences University of Wales Trinity Saint David Lampeter, UK

ISSN 2634-6672     ISSN 2634-6680 (electronic) The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ISBN 978-3-031-32079-8    ISBN 978-3-031-32080-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4 © The Editor(s)(if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: anniepaddington/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Series Editors’ Preface

This is a new book series for a new field of inquiry: Animal Ethics. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the ethics of our treatment of animals. Philosophers have led the way, and now a range of other scholars have followed from historians to social scientists. From being a marginal issue, animals have become an emerging issue in ethics and in multidisciplinary inquiry. In addition, a rethink of the status of animals has been fuelled by a range of scientific investigations which have revealed the complexity of animal sentiency, cognition, and awareness. The ethical implications of this new knowledge have yet to be properly evaluated, but it is becoming clear that the old view that animals are mere things, tools, machines, or commodities cannot be sustained ethically. But it is not only philosophy and science that are putting animals on the agenda. Increasingly, in Europe and the United States, animals are becoming a political issue as political parties vie for the ‘green’ and ‘animal’ vote. In turn, political scientists are beginning to look again at the history of political thought in relation to animals, and historians are beginning to revisit the political history of animal protection. As animals grow as an issue of importance, so there have been more collaborative academic ventures leading to conference volumes, special journal issues, indeed new academic animal journals as well. Moreover, we have witnessed the growth of academic courses, as well as university posts, in Animal Ethics, Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, Animal Law, Animals and Philosophy, Human-Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies, Animals v

vi 

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

and Society, Animals in Literature, and Animals and Religion—tangible signs that a new academic discipline is emerging. ‘Animal Ethics’ is the new term for the academic exploration of the moral status of the nonhuman—an exploration that explicitly involves a focus on what we owe animals morally, and which also helps us to understand the influences—social, legal, cultural, religious, and political—that legitimate animal abuse. This series explores the challenges that Animal Ethics poses, both conceptually and practically, to traditional understandings of human-animal relations. The series is needed for three reasons: (1) to provide the texts that will service the new university courses on animals; (2) to support the increasing number of students studying and academics researching in animal-­ related fields; and (3) because there is currently no book series that is a focus for multidisciplinary research in the field. Specifically, the series will • provide a range of key introductory and advanced texts that map out ethical positions on animals; • publish pioneering work written by new, as well as accomplished, scholars; and • produce texts from a variety of disciplines that are multidisciplinary in character or have multidisciplinary relevance. The new Palgrave Macmillan Series on Animal Ethics is the result of a unique partnership between Palgrave Macmillan and the Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. The series is an integral part of the mission of the Centre to put animals on the intellectual agenda by facilitating academic research and publication. The series is also a natural complement to one of the Centre’s other major projects, the Journal of Animal Ethics. The Centre is an independent ‘think tank’ for the advancement of progressive thought about animals and is the first Centre of its kind in the world. It aims to demonstrate rigorous intellectual enquiry and the highest standards of scholarship. It strives to be a world-class centre of academic excellence in its field. We invite academics to visit the Centre’s website www.oxfordanimalethics.com and to contact us with new book proposals for the series. Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey General Editors

Contents

1 Introduction:  Anthropomorphism and Animal Ethics  1 References   3 2 Anthropomorphous  Animals and Philosophy  5 Introduction to Anthropomorphism   5 Mechanomorphism and Science   9 The Sceptical Stance, Neo-Cartesianism, and Animal Cognition  12 Instinct and Consciousness: HOT and First-Order Theories  15 References  20 3 Moral  Standing and Human Exceptionalism 25 Anthropomorphism as Philosophical Sin  25 Anthropo-denial: Maintaining the Moral Paradigm  27 Intersectionality and Objectification  34 References  40 4 Critical Anthropomorphism 45 Darwin on Attribution via Expression  45 Montaigne and Hume: Unapologetic ‘Offenders’  48 Embodiment and Phenomenological Consciousness  53 Re-evaluating Anthropomorphism  59 References  61

vii

viii 

Contents

5 Language  and ‘Moral Anthropomorphism’ 65 Unjustified Attributions  65 Animal Sign-Language Studies  84 Problems with Animal Communication Studies  87 Self-Recognition  91 Images: References  96 References  98 6 Going  Home: Returning from Posthumanism via a Defence of Identity as Continuity103 Animal Liberation, Anthropomorphism, and Anthropocentrism 103 Identity—or Continuity—Theorists? Mistaking ‘Anthropo-­ identity’ with ‘Anthropo-insistence’ 121 Difference and Posthumanism 128 Ethics in Practice 132 References 135 7 The  Application of Key Concepts141 Animal Consciousness: A Problem Concerning Description and Language 141 Redefining Language: Bodily Behaviours as Syntactical 148 Language: The Last Bastion of Human Exceptionalism? 151 Conclusions 158 References 165 Bibliography169 Index189

List of Images

Image 5.1 Ham. (Title: “Chimpanzee ‘Ham’, the live test subject for Mercury-­Redstone 2 test flight’ by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center) 67 Image 5.2 Jumping for joy. (Title: ‘Footloose’ by Porsupah) 69 Image 5.3 Happy or nervous? (Title: Kids have fun at petting zoos but it means that many small animals are groped by inexperienced hands all day; Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media n.d.) 72 Image 5.4 Terror. (Title: Rabbits next in line for Slaughter; Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media) 73 Image 5.5 Scared or nervous? (Title: ‘A scared white rabbit with black blotches on hay.’ Contributor: Adam Ján Figel ̌/Alamy Stock Photo)74 Image 5.6 Relaxed. (a) Title: ‘Relaxed Rabbit’ by Mike’s Birds; (b) Title: Feral domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) lying on its side whilst sleeping, Okunojima Island, also known as Rabbit Island, Hiroshima, Japan. Contributor: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo; (c) Title: ‘Bunny Sleep Dancing to Thriller’ by Yiie; (d) Title: ‘Relaxed’ by i.R.P.i. 75 Image 5.7 Giant Panda. (Author: Chi King) 76 Image 5.8 A deep-sea blobfish. (Author: NOAA/MBARI) 77 Image 5.9 A dead blobfish. (Title: ‘Eulogy for a Blobfish, New York, NY’ by Grufnik) 78

ix

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Anthropomorphism and Animal Ethics

On one level this book maps the central debates surrounding anthropomorphism in relation to our descriptions of animals, their lifeworlds, animal mentality, and meaningful communication in the nonhuman world (see Chaps. 2, 3, and 4). These debates have been, in the history of ideas, mostly associated with philosophers and thinkers such as Hume, Montaigne, and Darwin, but can be traced back to the work of pre-­ Socratic philosophers (see Chap. 4). Today, cognitive ethologists (such as Frans de Waal, Marc Bekoff, and Gordon Burghardt) are well-known for giving special attention to the concept of anthropomorphism and have developed specialist terminology to precisely conceptualise and describe the moral maze of pertinent ethical issues that are intimately connected to the debates. The work of such cognitive ethologists is often linked with the arguments of ‘animal liberationist’ philosophers whose work was brought to the forefront of philosophy in the 1970s with the publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation ([1975] 1995) and his arguments against speciesism therein; it is associated as such for the very reason that it utilises these philosophers’ debates by applying them to an empirical-­ based study of animal life, animal mentality, and animal communication (see Chap. 5). With an ever-growing body of research on the links between different oppressions, never have the debates in Critical Animal Studies

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_1

1

2 

R. HUMPHREYS

surrounding intersectionality in relation to animal ethics been more important (see Chap. 3). In particular, the arguments related to anthropomorphic attributes of mentality to other than human animals provide fruitful ground for reassessing human-animal relations, and even offer solutions to the animal issue or the animal problem, that issue being one that involves the meat paradox (the widespread acceptance of modern-day, commercial practices that cause appalling suffering to animals, despite the majority of people being opposed to such suffering) and the problem of our treatment of other than human ‘minded’ creatures as if they do not have minds (Chap. 2). However, in the past decade there has been what can be described as a theoretical shift in the discussions: a shift towards Critical Animal Studies as an interdisciplinary field that can provide a new framework for thinking about animals. Most notably, Matthew Calarco’s Thinking Through Animals: Identity, Difference and Indistinction (2015) outlines the categorisation of philosophers of animal ethics according to their different camps and critically evaluates the myriad of animal ethics positions from which to choose in relation to developing a stance on animal-human relations, including that of ‘indistinction’ exemplified in other texts by a posthumanist turn in animal ethics; a turn which calls for a move beyond anthropomorphism (and its supposed contribution to the Western world’s human chauvinistic ethic or anthropocentrism) and for a dissolution of the binary relations that the posthumanist supposes are maintained, in part, by ‘mainstream’, traditional approaches to animal ethics, such as those of, for example, Singer, Tom Regan, and Bernard Rollin (see Chap. 6). However, this turn is not without its problems. Centrally, via a mapping of the arguments related to the above, several key issues arise that lead the author to argue that the turn in animal ethics from issues concerning equality and speciesism to posthumanist indistinction and its rejection of anthropomorphous animals saws off the branch it is sitting on. Sadly, posthumanism cannot come near to offering a strategic response to the institutionalised oppression of animals, nor to Critical Animal Studies’ plausible concern with intersectionality (intersectionality referring to the linkage between all oppressions). A move beyond posthumanism is therefore needed if we are to provide genuine solutions to the animal issue (an issue that must be understood through the meat paradox: despite the majority of people being opposed to the ways in which animals are made to endure

1  INTRODUCTION: ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND ANIMAL ETHICS 

3

appalling suffering in modern-day practices, the very fact that these practices tend to be accepted as the norm somehow establishes them as defensible and, in turn, our treatment of animals as justifiable). The above move involves a retracing of our steps—‘a going home’, so to speak—to the key ethical principles of equal consideration of interests, rights, and justice that fundamentally underpin much of the work of animal liberationists, or (what have come to be called in the field of Critical Animal Studies) ‘identity theorists’ (see Chap. 6), but whose work tends to be critiqued in the debates as anthropocentric (an anthropocentrism that is thought to be related to its acceptance of a form of anthropomorphism, though the author will argue otherwise). This is discussed partly via a conceptual analysis of what the author calls ‘moral anthropomorphism’ in relation to anthropomorphous attributions to animals, and of notions such as ‘anthropo-denial’ (de Waal, 2017, pp. 25 and 319) and ‘anthropo-insistence’ (Varsava, 2014, p. 524). Today, a central issue in the light of the history of philosophical ideas and most recent Critical Animal Studies debates surrounding anthropomorphism is a problem concerning the description of animal mentality, cognition, and communication, not—as is often mistakenly thought—primarily a problem concerning our ontological understanding of animals. If so, then it can be rectified via a revaluation of the language we use to talk about the lived experiences of animals together with a resurrection of a focus on the principle of equality as a solution to issues concerning intersectionality and justice (see Chap. 7).

References Calarco, Matthew, Thinking Through Animals: Identity, Difference, Indistinction (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015). de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation [1975], second edition with a new preface by the author (London; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; and Bergvlei, South Africa: Pimlico, 1995). Varsava, Nina, ‘The Problem of Anthropomorphous Animals: Toward a Posthumanist Ethics’, Society and Animals, 22 (5), 2014, 520–536.

CHAPTER 2

Anthropomorphous Animals and Philosophy

Introduction to Anthropomorphism It is often thought that the problem of knowledge of animal minds or animal consciousness—what Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff (1997) refer to as ‘the other species of mind problem’—is a more intractable problem for the philosopher than that of the knowledge of other human minds because animals cannot tell us through speech about their experiences. Of course, from the very fact that nonhumans cannot do this, it does not follow that they cannot have experiences, nor that they cannot, in ways other than linguistic ones, inform us of their experiences. That said, many studies have attempted to train some nonhuman beings to communicate linguistically over the years. However, these attempts, despite being highly informative, are not without their problems, including the fact that such studies are limited in their ability to provide a picture of a phenomenological world that is truly representative of the lived experiences of nonhumans and of their amazing capacities (some of which are different from—and some of which are like—the abilities of human beings). The suggestion that we can apply concepts denoting mental states to nonhumans often raises issues concerning the practice of anthropomorphism; this is the practice of attributing human-like mental states to nonhumans or of applying to nonhuman beings terms denoting human

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_2

5

6 

R. HUMPHREYS

(and often what are thought to be exclusively human) phenomenal states. This definition is similar to that of Pamela Asquith: ‘the ascription of human mental experiences to animals’ (1984, p. 138), as well as of Frans de Waal: ‘The (mis)attribution of humanlike characteristics and experiences to other species’ (2017, p. 319). In the history of ideas, there has tended to be a split between those philosophers and scientists who argue that we have every reason to endorse the practice of using anthropomorphism when referring to and describing animal mentality and those who deny that this practice is justifiable. For the latter, the deniers, their charge that the former camp employs anthropomorphic language is levelled as an accusation, a philosophical charge or criticism; in this sense, it is implicitly taken as unjustified by deniers. The term ‘anthropomorphism’ derives from the Greek; ‘ἄνθρωπος’, transliterated as ‘ánthrōpos’, meaning ‘human being’; and ‘μορφή’, transliterated as ‘morphḗ’, meaning ‘form, shape’. Even as far back as some of the earliest thinkers we see criticisms of the use of anthropomorphic language, most notably in the fragments of Xenophanes who ridicules the poets for attributing human thought to deities, claiming that such anthropomorphism is nothing more than a projection of our characteristics onto the divine. In bringing this argument to its logical conclusion, he asserts the proposition that if the gods were truly human-like in thought and form, then horses would have gods in the forms of horses, and cows in the forms of cows. But if cattle and horses or lions had hands or were able to draw with their hands and do the works that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves. (Xenophanes 1983, Fr.15, Clement, Strom., V, 109, 3; in Kirk et al. 1983, pp. 168–69)

Xenophanes’s thought-experiment is ultimately a reaction against Homeric anthropomorphic polytheism, a reaction by which he arrives at the concept of one god—a god conceived as a negation of Homeric divinities that were similar to humans in both physical form and motive. For Xenophanes, anthropomorphism may be defined as something such as the attribution of human features to supposed deities, rather than—as we tend to understand the term today—as the attribution of such features to nonhuman things of this world (for more on the etymology of the term ‘anthropomorphism’, see Tyler 2003, pp.  268–81). In either

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

7

form, such morphism is denounced as being wholly subjective and thus lacking truth. Perhaps Xenophanes would have directed a similar criticism against the Christian depiction of human beings as created in the image of God, a depiction based perhaps most obviously on verses 26–27 of Genesis, Chapter I, in which it is said that ‘God created human beings, making them to be like himself ’ (Good News Bible 1976, 1:27). Whether this is to be read literally or figuratively is highly debatable. However, it does point to the supposed specialness of humankind that (rightly or wrongly) we find in many theological doctrines, not just in Christianity but also in Judaism, for example, and in some sects of Islam. Consider the philosophy of mind of St. Augustine, one of Christianity's greatest classical philosophers: No one doubts that, as the inner man is endued with understanding, so it the outer with bodily sense. Let us try, then, if we can, to discern in this outer man also, some trace however slight, of the Trinity, not that itself also is in the same manner the image of God. For the opinion of the apostle is evidence, which declares the inner man to be renewed in the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him. (St. Augustine n.d., On the Trinity, Bk XI, Chapter 1)

Augustine depicts human beings—or, more specifically, human minds, what he calls the ‘the inner man’—as an image of God. Perhaps less common by the time of Augustine but not uncommon in the ancient world was zoomorphism, which in many ways is the opposite of anthropomorphism. Zoomorphism is a term derived from the Greek ‘zōon’—‘ζωον’, meaning ‘animals’, and (again) ‘morphe’, meaning ‘form’ or ‘shape’. Gods were conceived not only as human-like but also as having nonhuman, physical features, or semi-animal and semi-human form. Today, ‘zoomorphism’ is used to refer to the view that ascribes (what are thought to be) nonhuman-like/animal-like qualities to human beings, whilst its opposite term—and more commonly used—‘anthropomorphism’ may be defined as noted earlier: as the ‘ascription of human mental experiences to animals’ (Asquith 1984, p. 138) or/and ‘The (mis)attribution of humanlike characteristics and experiences to other species’ (de Waal 2017, p. 319). The claim of misattribution is significant here because, since the early modern period, anthropomorphism has most commonly been taken to mean the misattribution of what are thought to be exclusively human mental states and experiences to nonhuman beings.

8 

R. HUMPHREYS

Indeed, the accusation of anthropomorphism with respect to nonhuman creatures who are not, as in the ancient world, deemed gods may be thought to have its roots in Cartesian dualism. Descartes had a thoroughly mechanistic view of the universe and believed that the world and its phenomena could be explained through mechanistic principles. Indeed, his view of the body was entirely reductivistic; he believed the physical body to be like a machine and, as such, bodily functions could be explained in mechanistic terms. Since, for Descartes, animals were purely physical beings, their behaviour could be reduced to mechanistic, instinctual movements. Although humans and animals both had physical bodies, the human body could be informed by rational thought. So, while the functions of the human body could be explained in purely mechanistic terms, human behaviour itself, being informed by the mind, could be described using concepts that refer to mental states, such as fear, hope, and belief. Unlike animals, humans (Descartes argued) can communicate their thoughts through language by arranging ‘different words together and forming of them a statement’ ([1637] 1997, Part 5, p.  108). That is, humans can express propositions, such as ‘I believe that p’ or ‘He fears that p’ (where p is the proposition). It was not only Descartes’s rationalistic methodology that inspired a dichotomous view of humans and nonhumans. Francis Bacon, a leader of the empirical scientific method, claimed in his New Organum, Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of more. (Bacon [1620] 2019, Bk. I, Sec. I, p. 2)

We cannot, according to Bacon, claim to have knowledge of that which goes beyond empirical observation. Bacon, writing against Aristotle’s naturalistic teleological philosophy (that everything in nature behaves as it does to fulfil some end or aim), believed that ‘movement’ towards ends is a specifically human activity, and any attribution of such activity in nature only misrepresents the nonhuman world as human-like. Indeed, Bacon regarded Aristotelian teleology itself as a form of anthropomorphism (although he did not use the term itself): [W]hile aiming at further progress, it [human understanding] falls back to what is actually less advanced, namely, final causes; for they are clearly more

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

9

allied to man’s own nature, than the system of the universe, and from this source they have wonderfully corrupted philosophy. (Ibid., Bk. 1, Sec. XLVIII, p. 10)

For Bacon, then, our understanding of the world tends to be based on causes related to human beings rather than causes related to the system of the universe, and it is this tendency to view the natural world as we view ourselves that has ‘corrupted philosophy’. Both Bacon and Descartes were highly influential thinkers in relation to scientific method, particularly Descartes whose rationalistic approach to philosophy and scientific practice established strong roots in the seventeenth century, even with the onset of empiricism. As a result, they have left an enduring legacy that continues to permeate philosophical thought and scientific practice even to the present day.

Mechanomorphism and Science After Descartes, science began to reject common sense and started to develop its own common sense applicable only within its own practice. Many things helped develop what Bernard Rollin calls the ‘common-sense of science’ (1998, Ch.1): the idea of science as pure, rational, objective enquiry and of the scientist as an all-seeing, all-knowing individual with special access to the world; the position of the thinker as an isolated, rational being looking in on the world from the outside; the belief that we can only access truth through reasoned thought; and the belief that the emotions, the imagination, and the senses cannot be trusted to give access to knowledge. Sadly, to this day, emotions, such as empathy, are thought to skew scientific evidence and are often seen as somehow distinct from rational thought. I say ‘sadly’ because empathy—as well as other powerful emotional responses such as disgust, anger, and so on—can act as a moral compass, informing our understanding of the suffering of other creatures, and can play a vital role in terms of alerting us to actions our attitude to which should be one of moral doubt (see Cojocaru and von Gall 2019, pp. 289–304). Nevertheless, scientists who express empathy towards the animals in their charge are at risk of being accused not just of being overly sentimental but of the crime of anthropomorphism (an accusation that suggests a lack of objectivity with respect to the judgments of those committing such an ‘offence’) (Ibid., p. 294). Physiologist J. S. Kennedy’s claims are a case

10 

R. HUMPHREYS

in point. He warns of the dangers of anthropomorphism, presenting the scientist’s unwitting lapses into anthropomorphism as something she must ‘struggle’ to overcome (1992, p. 4), lest she be led to error: ‘If the study of animal behaviour is to mature as a science, the process of liberation from the delusions of anthropomorphism must go on’ (Ibid., p. 5). For Kennedy, ethology has become infected with anthropomorphic assumptions about nonhuman creatures, and such assumptions should be avoided by employing mechanistic language that side-steps attributes of intentionality. Anthropomorphic attributions are merely metaphors, unhelpful ones at that. His work The New Anthropomorphism (1992) is essentially a rejection of anthropomorphism in ethology, a rejection that is based on underlying human exceptionalism that he grounds in the evolutionary discontinuity between humans and nonhumans due to saltations (implying a large discontinuous jump)1 in relation to the intentionality or phenomenological aspect of human consciousness (Ibid., pp. 15–17). However, as Michael T. Ghiselin claims of saltations offered as an alternative to Darwinism: [M]utation would qualify as a ‘saltation’ only in the sense that it forms a discontinuous step: it is not inevitably a saltation in the sense of a big change. We now know that the small-scale variability is indeed the basis of change. Mutation is its ultimate source, but most of it in any given individual has been produced by genetic recombination. … [Darwin] saw no qualitative difference between the two kinds of variation—large or small, they could all be interpreted as modifications of developmental mechanisms. He had what seemed to him good evidence, namely, a continuous series, that the differences are a matter of degree. Insofar as Darwin inferred that the more common forms of variability are the ones more likely to produce evolutionary change, we need see no more than a shift in emphasis here. (Ghiselin 1973, p. 158)

Indeed, saltation is not necessarily a large evolutionary change, but is better seen as something with the potential to cause single-step speciation 1  ‘In biology, saltation (from Latin, ‘saltus’, ‘leap’) is a sudden change from one generation to the next, that is large, or very large, in comparison with the usual variation of an organism. The term is used for occasionally hypothesized, nongradual changes (especially single-step speciation) that are atypical of, or violate, standard concepts involved in neo-Darwinian evolution’ (Academic 2000–2022).

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

11

from one generation to the next. Besides, to support the discontinuity that Kennedy asserts, there would have to be a multimutational leap, and recent research indicates that there is a very low probability of such leaps and that ‘the contribution of such leap [to the evolutionary process] is minor at best’ (Katsnelson et al. 2019, p. 1). As such, we should reject Kennedy’s suggestion that humans are somehow unique in terms of intentionality, the springboard for his rejection of anthropomorphic language. Peter H.  Klopfer presents Kennedy’s view as follows: ‘Human consciousness … was favored when it appeared in humans because it allowed for the monitoring of communications and emotions, both linked to language and unique to Homo sapiens. Our readiness to anthropomorphize is not the result of a dispassionate study of the evidence but rather an inborn trait, the consequence of selection of genes promoting empathy’ (2005, p.  204). Certainly, Kennedy believed that anthropomorphism is part of our make-up, culturally (‘from earliest childhood’), and biologically (‘perhaps because it … [proves] to be useful for predicting and controlling the behaviour of animals’) (1992, p. 5). However, for Kennedy, this does not make its usage less prone to error, particularly when it assumes that animal behaviour is purposive or intentional: ‘To assume that an animal is trying to do something is unwarranted anthropomorphism, although empathy makes the idea terribly hard to resist’ (Ibid., p.  87). However, Kennedy is far too quick to reject claims made on the basis of empathy as mere assumptions, not least because he himself accepts that empathy has evolutionary value, and suffice it to say that if it is an inborn trait, it is hard to see how it could be altogether avoided in science in any case. Besides, Kennedy’s argument merely replaces one morphism with another—that other being mechanomorphism,2 although Kennedy professes that he wishes to avoid the extreme mechanomorphism of earlier radical behaviourists such as Skinner and Watson. Kennedy suggests that, although these scientists have freed us from the ‘disease’ (Ibid., p. 167) of anthropomorphism, they have underestimated the complexity of mechanistic processes (Ibid., pp. 2–3). Moreover, Kennedy’s approach itself reveals some of his underlying assumptions about animals; assumptions which Kennedy is keen to avoid 2  The ascription of qualities of machines to the behaviour of a nonmechanical thing (such as a human or nonhuman animal) in such a way as to deem that behaviour as fully explicable in mechanistic terms.

12 

R. HUMPHREYS

and one of the reasons for his rejection of anthropomorphic language. These assumptions are about animals and their behaviour being best explained by avoiding everyday language (particularly that which assumes intentionality or phenomenal consciousness), and instead by adopting a highly technical language that does not ‘make the conscious or unconscious assumption that animals have minds’ (Ibid., p. 167). But Kennedy is not alone in his mechanomorphism. It is seen in the language many scientists use to describe animal behaviour; for example, pain in an animal is often described in terms of responses to stimuli. The effects on animals have been far from benign. Studies of animal behaviour continue to apply mechanistic reductivist methods of enquiry to the detriment of animals. Animal behaviour certainly indicates that animals have feelings, emotions, intentions, beliefs, rationality, and so forth, but describing animal behaviour in mechanistic terms has had the effect of reducing all animal mental states to mere behaviour and all animal behaviour to physical processes. While ordinary common sense suggests that many animals are conscious beings to which we can apply concepts denoting mental states, crude behaviourism denies consciousness to animals through its mechanistic explanations of behaviour.

The Sceptical Stance, Neo-Cartesianism, and Animal Cognition Kennedy’s position with regard to anthropomorphism has all the traits of the assumption that the ‘other species of mind’ problem is more intractable than the problem of other human minds. This assumption seems to be largely based on the belief that we can only know for certain that humans have mental states, and we can never know if animals have them, and that we, therefore, should not apply concepts denoting mental states to animals. Furthermore, since psychological phenomena, such as intention and memory, may be seen as exclusively human and the corresponding terms as applicable to humans only, the use of such concepts with reference to animals is often believed to be anthropomorphic. We would do well here to briefly state the sceptic’s argument and its application to animals. From the fact that one knows what one thinks, one can infer what other humans think. We cannot infer that others think from their behaviour alone. It is from one’s knowledge of oneself as a thinking being whose thoughts affect one’s actions that one can infer similar

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

13

processes in other humans. Moreover, the public nature of language makes it possible for humans to confirm their behaviour as being informed by mental states. However, we cannot do this for animals (i.e., according to the sceptic). In other words, there is no possibility for the justified inference of mental states to other than human beings (Descartes [1641] (1997), Second Meditation, pp. 145–46). In line with such claims, using words other than mechanistic ones to describe animal behaviour, it is argued, is unjustifiably anthropomorphic and merely metaphorical (Kennedy 1992, pp.  53, 93, and 159; and Watanabe 2007, pp.  200–201), rather than pointing to any ontological truth about animals. Thus, the belief is that we should be wary of committing the pathetic fallacy of describing animal behaviour in terms that we ordinarily use to describe human behaviour. To do this is to attribute to animals those characteristics that can only be attributed to humans. The assumption is then that understanding animal behaviour requires an objectivity that avoids anthropomorphic language and thus avoids the assumption that animals have mental states. Indeed, the very reason why some scientists reject anthropomorphism is that they believe that animals do not have similar feelings or mental states to humans and, therefore, they use highly technical language to explain animal behaviour rather than anthropomorphic language. Thus, such scientists all but suggest that there is a discontinuity between humans and animals. Other scientists may merely believe that anthropomorphic language does not give an objective view of animals; in this case it may be thought that concepts that denote mental states are somehow not applicable to animals and misrepresent animal mentality. There are, of course, good reasons to be wary of some use of anthropomorphic language, highlighted no better than in the case of Clever Hans, the horse, who—it was initially claimed—was capable of mathematical calculation. In the early twentieth century, Hans’s trainer attempted to demonstrate this capability when he performed an experiment in front of an audience. Hans gave the right answers to mathematical calculations by tapping the ground with his hoof the correct number of times. Hans’s abilities were promptly researched by a team of experts, including a psychologist by the name of Oscar Pfungst. It was found that Hans could detect subtle cues in the audience’s body language, expressions, and feelings, which enabled him to ‘read’ not just his trainer but also the audience in such a way that he sensed when they wanted him to stop tapping. This led to Hans getting the right answers.

14 

R. HUMPHREYS

This case has led behaviourists to be sceptical about talking about animals using terms denoting mental states that we readily apply to humans. Indeed, what has become known as the Clever Hans Effect—the cueing and observing effect or the experimentee sensing what the experimenter wants them to do—is well known in science as something that should be avoided at all costs, lest one’s results become skewed by bias. A certain degree of distancing (physical and emotional) between experimenter and experimentee, or in the case of Hans, between trainer and animal trainee, is supposedly required if one is to achieve objective results. The concluding paragraph of the enquiry into Hans’s abilities claims as follows: [A]side from the specific results obtained, what is the scientific and philosophic import of the whole affair?—For one thing the revolution in our conception of the animal mind, which had been hoped for by some, and feared by others, has not taken place. But a conclusion of an opposite character is justified. If such unexampled patience and high pedagogical excellence as was daily brought to bear by Mr von Osten during the course of four long years could not bring to light the slightest trace of conceptual thinking, then the old assertion of the philosophers that the lower forms are incapable of such thinking, finds corroboration in the results of these experiments in so far as the animal scale up to and included the ungulates [hoofed mammals] is concerned. For this reason the tremendous effort put forth by Mr von Osten, is not, in spite of the self-deception under which he labors, lost to science. If anyone has the courage to try the experiment with the dog or the ape, the insight which we have now gained will enable him to beware of one source of error which hitherto has not been noticed. (Stumpf 1911: see Pfungst 1911, p. 264)

The enquiry into Hans’s abilities concluded that Hans did not have the capacities for arithmetic that his trainer supposed him to have—a capacity that could then be reserved strictly for the human domain. However, it is a sad testament to the influence of Cartesian scepticism about other species of mind that Hans’s amazing abilities to read the situation around him and interpret the behaviour of human beings, even subtle ones, seem to have taken a back seat to the claim that Hans could certainly not use arithmetic and (relatedly) to the psychologist’s concern about the unjustifiable use of anthropomorphic language (see Tyler 2003, p. 271).

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

15

Instinct and Consciousness: HOT and First-Order Theories Contributing to the assumption that we should not apply mental concepts (such as intention and belief) to animals is the idea that humans are conscious beings while animals are purely instinctive. But even if we accept the Cartesian belief that animals are purely instinctive beings lacking any type of thought and humans are rational, thinking beings whose behaviour is informed by thought, it does not follow that the instinctive actions and behaviours of animals are simple processes while the conscious actions and behaviours of humans are more complex processes. One interesting point here is that with regard to those human behaviours we take to be innate, we see such behaviours as extraordinary and complex, while with regard to those animal behaviours we take to be innate, we see those behaviours as simple stimulus responses of the body. Thus, we reveal a bias in our beliefs about humans and animals. That a human being has the propensity to be good at something, or has been particularly good at something since birth, is seen as a ‘natural gift’, a skill, or a genetic endowment that is to be admired. An animal's propensity to be good at something is seen as it being purely instinctive and thus believed to be lacking skill. While there is growing evidence to show that much animal behaviour is learned as well as instinctive, there is still a tendency to see such learned behaviour as being derived from innate processes and to see animal behaviour generally, both learned and innate, as less complex than any human behaviour. This belief then that animals are purely instinctive beings has given force to the accusation of anthropomorphism. However, even if we accept that animals are instinctive, it does not follow that they do not have phenomenal consciousness or even conceptual thought. Indeed, there is a wealth of information and evidence showing that animals are much more complex than Cartesians would have us believe. That said, while most people do not deny that animals are conscious, there are some philosophers who hold a theory of consciousness that could imply that many animals are excluded from being capable of conscious experiences or phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenally conscious experiences are those which, to use Thomas Nagel’s phrasing, there is ‘something it is like’ to have those experiences (1974); there is a ‘subjective feel’ to those experiences. Higher-order theories of mind tend,

16 

R. HUMPHREYS

whether intentionally or not, to exclude animals from this subjective aspect of experience. Essentially, ‘higher-order theories of consciousness try to explain the difference between unconscious and conscious mental states in terms of a relation obtaining between the conscious state in question and a higher-­ order representation of some sort (either a higher-order perception of that state, or a higher-order thought about it)’ (Carruthers and Gennaro 2020). These theories have many variants, and it is beyond the scope of this book to delve too deeply into these. (For further reading here, see Robert Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds, 2009, especially pp.  280–81 for definitional clarity; see also Carruthers 2000, Chapters 7–9.) For our purposes, however, we need to know the difference between higher-order theories generally and first-order ones (for whether we hold one or the other of these types will have serious implications for what we can claim of animals’ lived experiences, and thus, ultimately, what treatment of animals is permissible and what treatment of animals is unacceptable). Accordingly, for the higher-order theorist, ‘A phenomenally conscious mental state is a mental state (of a certain sort …) that either is, or is disposed to be, the object of a higher-order representation of a certain sort’ (Carruthers and Gennaro 2020). The higher-order representation involved here is a higher-order awareness of the mental state in question; a higher-­ order awareness that is either perception-like (see Lycan 1996; and Armstrong 1981) or involves a form of thought (see Rosenthal 1986, 1997; Carruthers 2000). Peter Carruthers presents a higher-order thought theory of consciousness, in which he claims that a mental state is phenomenally conscious for a subject if it is available to be thought about directly by that subject (Carruthers and Gennaro 2020; see also Carruthers 2000, especially pp. 325–29; and Carruthers 2005). The word ‘available’ here points to Carruthers’s account as a dispositional account according to which the higher-order thought related to the phenomenally conscious state of the subject need only be disposed to occur. Thus, this account does not require the actual occurrence of the higher-order thought—the actual ‘being thought about’ (see Allen and Trestman 2020, p. 31; they cite Carruthers 1998a, 1998b, 2000). Accordingly, as Browne notes of higher-order theories, ‘For a mental state to have phenomenal properties just is for that state to be the object of a suitable higher-order thought. Mental states that are not thought

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

17

about have no phenomenal qualities’ (Browne 1999, p. 2). Such qualities, on higher-order accounts, ‘come about’ or occur through a process of higher-order thinking or from second-order thoughts (such as beliefs about beliefs, thoughts about thoughts, beliefs about our own mental states, and so on). At this point one may be wondering whether, on such accounts, what distinguishes the ‘level’ of thought required for phenomenal consciousness from phenomenal consciousness itself is self-consciousness or self-­ conscious thought. If so, then one would be right: ‘a conscious mental state is one of which the agent is aware … and so to this extent it at least involves self-consciousness’ (Carruthers 1996, p.  149). This then stipulates the criterion that any creature must fulfil if it is to have higher-order thought; it must not just possess consciousness as we standardly think of it but self-consciousness (here, consciousness and self-consciousness become slippery terms, indeed). This is what is required for an awareness of first-order thoughts; an awareness of the relevant kind—that is, of the kind that enables phenomenal consciousness. Such higher-order theories, of course, entail that where certain animals are denied phenomenal consciousness on the basis that they do not possess higher-order thought, certain human beings too are denied such consciousness on the same basis. Admittedly, this is something that Carruthers consistently accepts, claiming that nearly all nonhuman animals (with the possible exception of chimpanzees), as well as some humans, lack conscious awareness (Carruthers 1998a, p. 4; 1998b, p. 216; 2000, see, e.g., p. 193; see also Allen and Trestman 2020, p. 32). Of course, many people who have lived with animals will be astounded at such claims. As Carruthers says of a general objection against higher-­ order theories, ‘when combined with plausible empirical claims about the mental abilities of non-human animals, [these theories] will conflict with our common-sense intuition that such animals enjoy phenomenally conscious experiences’ (Carruthers and Gennaro 2020; they cite Jamieson and Bekoff 1992; Dretske 1995; Tye 1995; Seager 2004). However, even if we accept a higher-order theory of mind, it is not clear that most animals need to be excluded from being subjects of experience because many animals have complex intellectual and perceptual resources available to them. But, in any case, it is far from obvious that higher-order thoughts are necessary for phenomenal consciousness. That, for example, second-order thoughts are needed for consciousness becomes less plausible the more we look at our own behaviour and conscious experiences. The

18 

R. HUMPHREYS

meta-cognition demanded by such theories would not be possible unless we were already conscious of our own experiences. How could one have a second-order thought about one’s beliefs unless one was already conscious of the belief in questions? Denials that certain animals have second-order beliefs or that they reflect on their beliefs do not mean that they do not have any beliefs. A creature could well have beliefs without those beliefs being second-order ones. Certainly, these are strong objections against higher-order thought theories of phenomenal consciousness that exclude animals, and along with the well-documented ethological evidence regarding the cognitive capacities of animals, they become all the stronger. Overall, to deny animals consciousness on the basis that they cannot reflect on their thoughts is to demand standards (for ascribing consciousness to animals) that are too high; standards that we do not even apply to humans. Thankfully, there are theories that are less exclusive. First-order theories of consciousness ascribe consciousness to animals and humans that we intuitively believe to possess conscious perceptual states (whether or not they possess higher-order awareness): ‘According to FOR theories [first-order theories], a mental state (e.g., a state of perception) is conscious in virtue of it making the subject aware of items or facts in the environment, not in virtue of the subject being higher-order aware of his having the mental state’ (Lurz 2009, p. 280, see further p. 9). In contrast, ‘Unconscious mental states … are mental states that fail to make one conscious of things or facts in the environment—although, they may have various effects on one’s behavior’ (Lurz n.d., accessed 22 July 2022). Similar to higher-order theories, first-order accounts of consciousness can be dispositional in that conscious mental states in question make one aware of the external world by being disposed to have an effect on behaviour or on one’s beliefs; they need not necessarily actually cause (as in actualist accounts) but rather are ‘poised’ to cause an effect on one’s beliefs (Lurz 2009, p. 9; for more on first-order theories and their variants, see Lurz 2000; Tye 1995; Dretske 1995; and Kirk 1994). Perceptual states and bodily sensations can be conscious in this sense, or they may not be conscious because they may not cause or be poised to cause an effect on the subject’s beliefs about the external environment. Accordingly, many nonhuman creatures have conscious experiences on this view, ‘from fish to bees to chimpanzees’ (Lurz 2009, p.  9), which provides good reasons for explaining our strong intuitive convictions about the phenomenal lives of many animals; that there it is something it is like to be, for example, a bat or a dog or a rat. Carruthers, however, would argue against this, claiming that we do not have any such reasons;

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

19

that since there is no higher-order thought process involved in animals’ perceptual and intellectual resources, there is nothing that entitles us to attribute to them phenomenal states. However, as Lurz plausibly claims, this is surely wrong. It is known that the brains and nervous systems of many animals are very similar in structure and function to those of adult humans; and since the structure and function of human brains and nervous systems support phenomenal states, it is plausible to suppose that the brains and nervous system of some animals support phenomenal states too. Moreover, many animals behave in ways that entitle us to attribute conscious states as opposed to non-­conscious states to them. … Much of animal behaviour is purposeful and intelligent, and it is appropriately modified in the light of perceived changes in the environment. Phenomenal states generally cause purposeful and intelligent behavior whereas nonphenomenal states do not. Since many animals engage in purposeful and intelligent behaviours upon experiencing an object in the world, we have some reason to believe that their experiences are phenomenal as opposed to nonphenomenal. (2000, p. 6)

To conclude this chapter, we have seen that the suggestion that we can apply certain concepts to animals often raises the accusation of anthropomorphism. This accusation may be thought to have its roots in Cartesian dualism, which made the ontological distinction between the body and mind or soul. The body is essentially physical or material, whereas the mind or soul is essentially immaterial. Descartes’s Discourse on the Method ([1637] 1997) reveals his belief that the mind is the seat of reason and that reason is necessary for language. For Descartes, humans are the sole earthly possessors of mind and, as such, only they can think rationally and acquire language. Animals, on the other hand, are seen to be purely physical and instinctual beings. Descartes’s views suggest a belief in human beings as having a distinct place in the universe. Only they could obtain knowledge of the world since only they could have access to the real work through their reasoning capacities. This rationalistic approach to philosophy and scientific practice established strong roots in the seventeenth century, even with the onset of empiricism. As a result, it continues to permeate much philosophical thought and scientific practice even to the present day, while the belief that animals are purely instinctive beings, incapable of phenomenal experiences, has given force to the accusation of anthropomorphism. This is seen

20 

R. HUMPHREYS

most notably in the philosophy of animal minds, which is often concerned with the nature and justification of the practice of anthropomorphism; a concern also articulated within science (see Mitchell et al. 1997; Jamieson 1998; Datson and Mitman 2005). However, despite the aforementioned sceptical view, the overwhelming evidence of animal mentality and communication is generally not denied by people. Indeed, many people accept animals as sentient beings capable of having, at the very least, aversive phenomenological states and some enjoyable ones as well. In addition, although people may not agree as to the extent of the mentality of, say, chickens or dogs, there is general agreement that, at least, all birds and mammals are phenomenally conscious creatures, even though they are not usually treated as such in global commercial practices, such as factory farming and animal experimentation. In addition, despite such practices being maintained to a large extent by consumer-­led choices, an acceptance of animal consciousness may be found not just among lay persons; ethologists (including Frans de Waal (2017), Marc Bekoff (2007), and Donald R.  Griffin (2001)) continue to highlight the similarities between humans and animals and are (rightly) not apologetic of using supposedly anthropomorphic language to do so, despite such usage being a philosophical and scientific taboo (as we shall see in following chapters).

References Academic: 2000–2022, en-­academic.com, ‘Saltation (biology)’, in Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, accessed at https://en-­academic.com/dic.nsf/ enwiki/2000978. Accessed on 21 July 2022. Allen, Colin, and Marc Bekoff,  Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (Massachusetts, US: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997). Allen, Colin and Michael Trestman, ‘Animal Consciousness’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/consciousness-­animal/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. Armstrong, D.M., ‘What is Consciousness?’, in his The Nature of Mind and Other Essays (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 1–15. Asquith, Pamela J., ‘The Inevitability and Utility of Anthropomorphism in Description of Primate Behavior’, in Rom Harré, and Vernon Reynolds (eds.), The Meaning of Primate Signals (Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 138–76. Bacon, Francis, Novuum Organum: New Instrument [1620] (Dumfries and Galloway, UK: Anodos Books, 2019).

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

21

Bekoff, Marc, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Foreword by Jane Goodall (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007). Browne, Derek, ‘Carruthers on the Deficits of Animals’, Psyche, 5 (23), 1999, http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v5/psyche-­5-­23-­browne.html, 1–8. Accessed on 2 August 2022. Carruthers, Peter, Consciousness: Essays from a Higher-Order Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). ——— Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). ——— ‘Animal Subjectivity’, Psyche, 4 (3), 1998a, 1–8. http://psyche.cs.monash. auk/v4/psyche-­4-­03-­carruthers.html. Accessed on 2 August 2022. ——— ‘Natural Theories of Consciousness’, European Journal of Philosophy, 6 (2), 1998b, 203–222. ——— Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Carruthers, Peter and Rocco Gennaro, ‘Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Accessed at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/ consciousness-­higher. Accessed on 2 August 2022. Cojocaru, Mara-Daria and Philipp von Gall, ‘Beyond Plausibility Checks: A Case for Moral Doubt in Review Processes of Animal Experimentation’, in Kathrin Hermann and Kimberley Jane (eds.), Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, Vol. 22 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), pp. 289–304. Datson, Lorraine and Gregg Mitman (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Descartes, Meditations [1641], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S. Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997). ———, Meditations Discourse on the Method [1637], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S.  Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-­ Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997). de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). Dretske, F., Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). Ghiselin, Michael T., Review: ‘Mr Darwin’s Critics, Old and New’, Journal of the History of Biology, 6 (1), Spring 1973, 155–165. Review of Peter J. Vorzimmer, Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy, the ‘Origin of Species’ and Its Critics 1859–1882 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970). Good News Bible (Swindon, UK: The Bible Societies, Collins/Fontana, 1976).

22 

R. HUMPHREYS

Griffin, Donald R., Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Jamieson, Dale, ‘Science, Knowledge, and Animal Minds’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 98, 1998, 79–102. Jamieson, D., and M. Bekoff, ‘Carruthers on Nonconscious Experience’, Analysis, 52 (1), 1992, 23–28. Katsnelson, Mikhail I., Yuro I. Wolf and Eugene V. Koonin, ‘On the Feasibility of Saltational Evolution’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (42), 2019, 1–8. Accessed at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336163050_On_the_feasibility_of_saltational_evolution. Accessed on 21 July 2022. Kennedy, J.  S., The New Anthropomorphism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). See further Diels-Kranz, B15: H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th to 7th editions, Berlin 1934–54, edited by W. Kranz. Kirk, R., Raw Feeling (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). Klopfer, Peter H., ‘Animal Cognition and the New Anthropomorphism’, International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 18 (3), 2005, 202–206. Lurz, Robert, ‘Animal Minds’, n.d., The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/. Accessed on 22 July 2022. ——— (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009). ——— ‘A Defence of First-order Representationalist Theories of Mental-State Consciousness’, PSYCHE, 6(1), February 2000, 1–11, accessed at http:// psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v6/psyche-­6-­01-­lurz.html. Accessed on 22 July 2022. Lycan, W.G., Consciousness and Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). Mitchell, Robert W., Nicolas S.  Thompson and H.  Lyn Miles, ‘Taking Anthropomorphism Seriously’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicolas S.  Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (Albany, US: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 3–11. Nagel, Thomas,’ What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’, The Philosophical Review, 83 (4), October 1974, 435–450. Pfungst, Oskar, Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology, Original Text, Carl L.  Rahn (trans.) (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Accessed at www.gutenberg.org. Accessed on 20 April 2020. Rollin, Bernard, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science, expanded edition (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1998).

2  ANTHROPOMORPHOUS ANIMALS AND PHILOSOPHY 

23

Rosenthal, D., ‘A Theory of Consciousness’, in N.  Block, O.  Flanagan and G. Güzeldere (eds.), The Nature of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 729–753. ——— ‘Two Concepts of Consciousness’, Philosophical Studies, 49 (3), 1986, 329–359. Saint Augustine, n.d. On the Trinity, translated by Arthur West Haddan, accessed at http://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/trinity/1101.html. Accessed on 18 August 2021. Seager, W., ‘A Cold Look at HOT Theory,’ in Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-­ Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology, Advances in Consciousness Research 56 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004), pp. 255–276. Stumpf, Carl, ‘Supplement IV: The report of December 9th, 1904’, in Pfungst, Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology, Original Text, Carl L.  Rahn (trans.) (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Accessed at www.gutenberg.org. Accessed on 20 April 2020. Tye, M., Ten Problems of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). Tyler, Tom, ‘If Horses Had Hands…’, Society and Animals, 11 (3), 2003, 267–281. Watanabe, Shigeru, ‘How Animal Psychology Contributes to Animal Welfare’, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 106 (4), 2007, 193–202. Xenophanes (fragment): Fr.15, Clement, Stromateis, V, 109, 3; in G.S.  Kirk, J.E.  Raven and M.  Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). See further Diels-Kranz, B15: H.  Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th to 7th editions, Berlin 1934–54, edited by W. Kranz.

CHAPTER 3

Moral Standing and Human Exceptionalism

Anthropomorphism as Philosophical Sin Just as the Cartesian view of animals is out-of-date, commercial global practices that treat sentient animals as unfeeling machines and that could be seen to be based on this view in part or have some their roots in this view are archaic and morally backward-looking. It is worth noting that factory farming, by its very nature, treats animals as machines. Fortunately, discussions surrounding animal mentality and anthropomorphism are not only subject to a Cartesian legacy; they are also heir to Darwinism. As Frans de Waal explains, [A]nthropomorphism is not always as problematic as people think. To rail against it for the sake of scientific objectivity often hides a pre-Darwinism mindset, one uncomfortable with the notion of humans as animals. … Unjustified linguistic barriers fragment the unity with which nature presents us. Apes and humans did not have enough time to independently evolve strikingly similar behaviours, such as lip contact in greeting or noisy breathing in response to tickling. Our terminology should honor the obvious evolutionary connections. On the other hand, anthropomorphism would be a rather empty exercise if all it did was paste human labels onto animal behavior. … Thus, saying that animals ‘plan’ for the future or ‘reconcile’ after fights is more than anthropomorphic language; these terms propose ‘testable ideas’. (2017, p. 26) © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_3

25

26 

R. HUMPHREYS

For de Waal, then, a speciesist bias may often be found underlying an outright rejection of anthropomorphism; a rejection that he terms ‘anthropodenial’ (Ibid., p. 25)—‘[t]he a priori denial of humanlike characteristics in other animals or animallike characteristics in humans’ (Ibid., p. 319). This practice maintains the human exceptionalism and vested interests that are threatened by many ethologists’ insistence that nonhumans can have phenomenal states as well as complex mental capacities. It is to such exceptionalism that we now turn. Descartes’s ontology implied a strict discontinuity between animals and humans. This alleged chasm continues to lend credence to anthropomorphism as a reprehensible and philosophical crime that supposedly unjustifiably attributes to animals mental states that are exclusively human or that—due to the problem of other species of mind (Bekoff and Allen 1997, p. 53)—can only be attributed to humans. I will not relay the problem of animal minds again here, nor outline the evidence that shows that differences in capacities and characteristics are a matter of degree rather than kind, notwithstanding perhaps the ability to blush, which, as Darwin notes, appears to be ‘the most human of all expressions. … [I]t would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush’ (Darwin 1899, chapter XIII). I say, ‘perhaps’ for observation of such an ability in other species would be very difficult, even in our closest relatives. (Discussion of Darwin’s work will be reserved for Chap. 4.) Suffice it to say that, because human capacities are not unique, and because there is continuity between humans and other species, rejecting all forms of anthropomorphism is not necessary to avoid the philosophical sin of unjustifiable ascriptions of mental states to animals. Indeed, critical anthropomorphism works not only in everyday life but also in ethology as an approach to providing descriptions of the mentality of animals that can be understood, readily; descriptions that are at least representative of their lives and that avoid mechanomorphism. Critical anthropomorphism (see Chap. 4) deems human intuitions, feelings, perceptions, knowledge of an animal’s natural history, and careful behaviour descriptions as useful in providing us with an understanding of other than human animals (see Burghardt 1991, p. 73; and de Waal 2017, pp. 26 and 320). As Eileen Crist elucidates, in practice, it involves close observation—and a lot of patience—and rather than starting from a sceptical stance about animal minds, starts from the premise that an

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

27

understanding of their experiences and characteristics is achievable, albeit not always unambiguous (Crist 1999, p. 51). It makes sense to use this as a starting point for understanding animals partly because we certainly are like other animals (but also because, as we shall see in Chap. 4, we can often immediately and directly recognize the emotions and feelings of others—including animals other than humans— in their facial and bodily expressions). Since this is true, words denoting mental states will have application in the animal case, as in the human case. This starting point is relevant, of course, because it opens the very possibility of knowledge of other species of mind, rather than shutting it down from the very start. In relation to expressions, as Kathleen Lennon in her article ‘Natural Expressions’ claims, ‘while expressions across different bodies may not be initially transparent to each other, it is certainly possible for them to be mutually grasped and understood, in particular, but not exclusively, for people living in close proximity’ (Lennon n.d., unpublished text, p. 6). In addition, we can plausibly claim that this is also true of the expressions of different bodies across different species. Furthermore, if animals are patiently and closely observed in their own environments, where they are allowed to exercise capacities natural to their own kind, then their ‘mindedness’ can be seen as embodied in their expressions, movements, and behaviours (overt and subtle).

Anthropo-denial: Maintaining the Moral Paradigm An outright rejection of anthropomorphism is a form of what de Waal calls ‘anthropo-denial’—an ‘a priori denial [rather than a priori acceptance] of humanlike characteristics in other animals or animallike characteristics in humans’; a denial that maintains the partisan binary relations that serve our own interests (de Waal 2017, p. 319). Thus, there are serious ethical issues related to the idea that anthropomorphic language is tainted with bias and avoids the objectivity that the philosopher (or at least many philosophers) and the scientist strive for. The idea of science as a special sphere where miracles are made is relevant to the discussion here. Science is often viewed as a special sort of field, with a different status from other fields of work, and as somehow therefore separated from certain moral values. Indeed, the laboratory is often seen as a place where great knowledge is attained at the expense of animals and therefore may be somehow seen as a place immune from certain evaluations, including moral ones (Humphreys 2022, pp. 229–50).

28 

R. HUMPHREYS

Such a conception of science allows for extreme compartmentalization of the moral from the professional sphere to achieve the objectivity of the supposed value-neutral scientist, making judgements from a view from nowhere (for a discussion of the standpoint of objectivity, see Nagel 1986, pp. 3–12). This is most often apparent within the practice of animal experimentation, in which the practicalities of the profession are often seen as separate from moral judgements with respect to animals. Alasdair MacIntyre talks of a mild sort of compartmentalization of mind in which a person’s ‘varied attitudes’ are linked to their different social roles (2006, p. 196). However, he claims that compartmentalization can go beyond this: a more extreme compartmentalization, which operates at the level of social structure, is one in which the norms and values of distinct spheres of social activity become insulated from others to the extent that they are immune from evaluation from ‘some external point of view’ (Ibid., p. 199) and in which decision-making procedures are ‘generally insulated from criticism from any external standpoint’ (Ibid., p. 183). It is not surprising then that MacIntyre believes that such compartmentalization can influence moral agency (Ibid., pp.  197–201), for if such compartmentalized practices are somehow insulated from certain conflicts of judgement and moral criticisms from outside sources, then there would appear to be little scope for persons within such practices to challenge the established values of their professions. As MacIntyre says, compartmentalization ‘effectively suppresses’ certain types of conflicts (Ibid., p. 199). This results, he believes, in a certain division of mind or division of the self. He argues that ‘the divided self of a compartmentalised social order, in order not to have to confront incompatible attitudes … has to develop habits of mind that enable it not to attend to what it would have to recognise as its own incoherences’ (Ibid., p. 201). This habit of mind of extreme compartmentalization is something that we find in the practice of animal experimentation; a habit that allows one to see experimental animals as one would not usually see them in everyday life, outside the practice of animal experimentation. This certainly seems to be the case when we consider current law, for example. Current legislation clearly illustrates that the practicalities of what is required to get on with one’s job are seen as immune from moral concerns about animals, even though the legislation is in place to protect animals (revealing a tension in relation to attitudes towards animals that may be explained by reference to a sort of compartmentalization);

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

29

animals’ significant interests can be overridden when these conflict with the objectives of the experiments. For example, Article 4 of the European Union’s 2010 Directive On the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes stipulates that ‘Member States shall ensure that the number of animals used in projects is reduced to a minimum without compromising the objectives of the project’ (EU Directive 2010, Article 4.2, Principle of replacement, reduction and refinement, italics added). The directive also states that ‘analgesia or another appropriate method is used to ensure that pain, suffering and distress are kept to a minimum’ unless analgesia or another pain-relieving method is ‘incompatible with the purpose of the procedure’ (Ibid., Article 14:1, Anaesthesia, emphasis added). Therefore, admittedly, at first glance of the European Directive, it appears as though there are tight restrictions on what can be done to animals, and certainly, the European Union has some of the world’s strictest conditions imposed on scientists’ use of animals in laboratories. On closer inspection, however, many of the restrictions can be removed if they are incompatible with scientific objectives; thus, there are few restrictions at all. Welfare needs, then, can be sacrificed for practicality, despite such significant and important legislation. That the causing of suffering can be viewed as the mere practicality of experimentation, instead of a moral concern, shows a ruthless attitude that perhaps would not be possible if extreme compartmentalization were not inherent to the practice. Experimental animals are treated as merely a practical means to an end, and in general, the public’s perception of experimental animals is of beings that are sacrificed for major human interests; experimental animals’ interests are perceived as irrelevant and largely insignificant in the light of important human ones. This view of animals used in laboratories is supported by most media portrayals of animal research (Linzey et  al. 2015, p.  44); indeed, while animal research tends to be presented as ‘necessary’ for the good of humanity, the good of the animals is portrayed as trivial and unimportant or even ignored, with concerns about animals being misrepresented and animal activists being portrayed as extremists. Viewed in this light, moral feelings with respect to experimental animals may also be somehow regarded as irrelevant. Indeed, those who express moral feelings towards such animals are often accused of sentimentality, a misplaced accusation considering the important role that feelings of compassion and empathy play in our moral lives, but nevertheless, an accusation that suggests that

30 

R. HUMPHREYS

moral feelings here are indeed considered inappropriate. (See Aaltola 2015, pp.  201–18 for a further discussion of sentimentality and animal ethics.) Furthermore, the language used in relation to animal research very much distorts the truth of the practice. For example, pain tends to be described in terms of responses to stimuli, while distress tends to be depicted as a stress response. Living sentient beings are linguistically transformed into ‘research animals’, ‘systems’, and ‘models’ (Charles River Laboratories 2014a, in Linzey et al. 2015, p. 45). One company offers a ‘Retinal Degeneration and Neuroprotection Model’, explaining ‘We now offer a blue light exposure model that induces retinal damage and cell death’ (Charles River Laboratories 2014b, in Linzey et al. 2015, p. 45). In other words, the company offers a way of blinding captive sentient nonhumans (Linzey et  al. 2015, p.  45) for the purposes of scientific tests or research. As Linzey et al. emphasize, the language used by laboratory workers not only distances such workers from the flesh and blood animal but also from individual responsibility: Traditional scientific language is written as agentless, so nobody commits any violent act in lab testing. Electrodes are inserted, formalin is injected, arteries are tied off … all in the passive voice. … Animals are not blinded by anyone, but an ocular end point is reached. … This results in a … sanitised version of what has taken place. The struggling, cries, bleeding, repetitive behaviours, moans, agitation, anxiety, pain, fear, depression, and vomiting … may be deemed of no relevance to the researcher and thus be linguistically expunged from reality. (Linzey et al. 2015, p. 45)

Indeed, language not only reinforces the (largely) unchallenged norms and assumptions about our use of animals in research but can distort the moral compass of relevant workers to such an extent that they may act in ways that would (usually, outside the experimental context) go against their ethical beliefs. Indeed, Cora Diamond states: [A]nimal experimentation can make experimenters callous by encouraging a compartmentalization of mind in which the experimenter can simply get on with the job. Once you have accepted this sort of compartmentalization, you simply do not look at the treatment of animals in science as you otherwise might. … Our powers of imagination and judgment are not brought to

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

31

bear on the case; and this (it is suggested) is a form of callousness. We do without fully thinking what we do. (1991, p. 355)

What is done to the animals is rarely analysed because it is just part of the job. Of course, experimental animals are used merely as a means to an end (whether or not that end is a significant one) and are frequently treated as if they are mere objects. Treated as such, it becomes easier for people to see them as such. Viewed in this light, moral feelings would seem to be rather inappropriate. However, even accepting that scientific research on animals can enable us to achieve some significant ends (as can scientific research on humans), it does not follow that it is only these beneficial ends that should be given serious consideration in the pursuit of knowledge. It may help to remember that there was a time when humans were made to suffer and even killed in the name of science. The Nazis conducted atrocious scientific experiments on humans in World War II. I mention such atrocities not just as an example of the idea of science as a special activity, exempt from certain moral considerations, but to illustrate that the humans in the experiments were not seen as they should have been seen. They were not seen as fully human. In the pursuit of knowledge these humans were reduced to objects with no real or concrete life of their own. Their lives were denied and taken away from them: When you take an idea or a concept and turn it into an abstraction, that opens the way to take human beings and turn them, also, into abstractions. … I once read a dissertation … by a psychiatrist who maintains that the sense of morality was not impaired in these killers. They knew the difference between good and evil. Their sense of reality was impaired. Human beings were not human beings in their eyes. They were abstractions. (Wiesel 1992, p. xi)

Animals, like these humans, are turned into abstractions of their true selves in an attempt to achieve results from experiments and through the practice of mechanomorphism, which is used to avoid bias. What the animals are in reality as sentient animals with their own lived experience is separated from what they are in the experiments, as objects to be used as a means to an end. In this sense, mechanomorphic language—as a form of anthropo-­ denial; an a priori denial of human-like characteristics in other animals (de

32 

R. HUMPHREYS

Waal 2017, p. 318)—acts as a veil over the reality of the lives of animals in laboratories, serving to justify and even exonerate the brutalities inflicted upon such animals. Distorted conceptions of animals in relation to other businesses, particularly meat production, are common (see Dunn 2017, p.  149; and Watson and Humphreys 2019, pp. 122–26). Indeed, the language we use to talk about animals in the meat industry objectifies them to the point where they are unrecognizable in terms of the animals themselves and their life experiences. Similarly to the animal testing industry, animals are regarded as stock, much like machinery in a factory with the goal of producing as many animals and as much meat, eggs and other animal products as possible in the least amount of time. They are treated as commodities that are forced, pulled, pushed, and manipulated via conveyor belts, pulleys, hooks, mechanical bolts, saws, and monorails. Using the pronoun ‘it’, they are referred to as inanimate objects. We buy ‘meat’ not dead animals, and we eat ‘lamb chops’, ‘beef steaks’, ‘pork chops’, not the dead parts of once-living individual sheep, cows, and pigs. The living subject, as well as his or her slaughter, blood, and suffering, is missing from our view, from our consciousness, and thus from our considerations. As Dinesh Wadiwel claims, ‘The image that one finds on some butcher shop signs, or the side of refrigerated trucks, featuring a smiling cartoonised cow or pig slicing at their own bodies with a knife, attests to the causal way in which everyday violence is discursively hidden from view’ (2015, p. 57). Similarly, Kirsty Dunn (in relation to an analysis of Michael Faber’s Under the Skin (2000)) discusses how language can camouflage not only sexual violence against women but also against animals, ‘hiding in plain sight’ (2017, p. 152) the severe suffering inflicted upon animals used in the meat industry (Ibid., p. 158). The once living being, at the end of the production process, becomes so fragmented in a literal sense that we fail to see the truth behind every piece of animal flesh. Sadly, the usual ways in which animals used in commercial practices are talked about and referred to have the effect of reducing those animals to mere objects whose purpose is to be routinely objectified, fragmented, and consumed for human benefits. At the same time, the animals themselves, as subjects with their own lived experiences, are made absent and invisible through language, which reinforces the idea of commercially used animals as objects to be viewed and consumed and as beings that lack agency and individuality.

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

33

This portrayal of animals allows for a certain sort of distancing, particularly of a moral kind. The results are catastrophic for animals themselves in terms of their welfare and interests, with their objectification becoming ‘the norm’. Ironically, in striving for objectivity in terms of what we attribute to animals and how we talk about them, an outright avoidance of anthropomorphism—via, for example, mechanomorphic language—has led to talking about animals using language that objectifies them unjustifiably and thus is linked to prejudice and bias against animals (rather than objectivity). It is noteworthy here to remind ourselves of anthropomorphism’s opposite—that is, zoomorphism; the view that ascribes (what are thought to be) nonhuman-like or animal-like qualities to human beings. Examples of its use include derogatory name-calling of particular groups of people, which dehumanizes them, portraying them as less than human. Calling Jewish people ‘rats’ is just one example; as is calling women, for example, ‘tasty chicks’, ‘bitches’, ‘dragon ladies’, and ‘stupid cows’ (for an eye-­ opening account of the link between the oppression of women and nonhumans in relation to our language use, see Adams 2015 and 2020). Of course, these derogatory, zoomorphic representations of humans should be distinguished from nonderogatory, zoomorphic representations that express the animality of human beings, as creatures that have much in common with other animals. As Greg Garrard claims, ‘the crude zoomorphism of racial slurs should be confronted with the complex, non-­pejorative zoomorphism of scientific and other understandings of human animality’ (2012, p. 209). Therefore, while some uses of zoomorphic descriptions can be racist, sexist, or generally unjustifiable for other reasons, other descriptions can serve to acknowledge the similarities between humans and other animals, as some anthropomorphic descriptions of animals can point to such similarities (more will be said on the latter in the next chapter). We see enlightening zoomorphic descriptions most obviously in literature, but zoomorphism was prevalent in Egyptian mythological thought. For example, the goddess Isis took on many roles, according to which she was depicted as a sow, a scorpion, and other times as a woman with the wings of a kite. Another example is that of Hathor, a goddess presented in the shape of a woman with cow horns or depicted as having the form of a cow. Thus, in stark contrast to the human exceptionalism of theological history, we see the animal form in the ancient world of Egypt having religious significance. Not only that but gods and goddesses were depicted in

34 

R. HUMPHREYS

forms that very much blurred the distinction we oft draw between the notions of anthropomorphism and zoomorphism, posing the question of whether such deities should be considered as humans taking nonhuman form or nonhumans taking human form. Moreover, in the world of ancient Greece, zoomorphic depictions abound, with modern definitions of the terms ‘zoomorphism’ and ‘anthropomorphism’ being found as ‘aspects of theriomorphism’; the latter can be defined as ‘the ‘ascription of animal characteristics to human figures’ (Carter 2019, p. 21). (Caroline Carter provides a highly informative list of relevant modern terms and their definitions, including: ‘Mixanthropism: describing a being which has composite form containing both human and non-human parts’; ‘Therioanthropism: describing deities that have human and animal form’; and ‘Zoocephalic—having an animal head and anthropomorphic body and limb’ (Ibid., p. 21).) The forms of a horse, a goat, a ram and goat, a bull, and a snake are all ascribed to mythological deities, including Cheiron, Pan, Acheloos, and Krekrops, respectively (Ibid., p. 23). However, such depictions are not limited to the ancient world—modern literature makes use of the bodies of other than human animals, particularly the way they move, morphing them with the human form. Furthermore, zoomorphic portrayals of animals in film are commonplace and are used by film scholars to shed light on human-animal relationships and interactions, hierarchal structures that continue to maintain ideologies about animals and their lives, and as a method of critique with regard to society’s treatment of animals (see further Parr 2015).

Intersectionality and Objectification While animal advocates are often concerned about our use of language in relation to how we speak about nonhuman animals, particularly those animals that are systematically and routinely exploited by humans, feminists are also often concerned about how language serves to reinforce the objectification of women in a dominant patriarchal culture. This is not surprising because, as Lisa Kemmerer notes, the oppressions of women and nonhuman animals (as well as the oppressions of other beings) are linked ‘by common ideologies, by institutional forces, and by socialisation that makes oppressions normative and invisible’ (2011, p. 11; see further Adams 2015 and 2020; and Watson and Humphreys 2019). The claim that oppressions are linked or intersect (including sexism, speciesism, and racism) is much discussed through the discourse of

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

35

intersectionality. Intersectionality was first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 to refer to the way in which race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics intersect. Oxford Reference Dictionary defines intersectionality as follows: The theory that various forms of discrimination centred on race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, and other forms of identity, do not work independently but interact to produce particularized forms of social oppression. As such, oppression is the result of intersecting forms of exclusionary practices. It is thus suggested that the study of identity-based discrimination needs to identify and take account of these intersectionalities. (2022)

That various forms of prejudice of certain groups interact or are interconnected by commonalities (particularly objectification) is a claim that continues to receive much attention, particularly in critical animal studies as an interdisciplinary field arising out of the logical need for animal ethicists, ethologists, veterinarians, lobbyists, and advocates working for animal charities to bring together their expertise to study and investigate issues in animal ethics. The idea that there may be at least analogies or parallels, if not links, between certain forms of discrimination can be seen in Peter Singer’s argument against speciesism, an argument based on an analogy with racism and sexism. Just as sexism and racism are prejudices that favour one’s own sex and race over another’s sex and race, speciesism is a prejudice that favours one’s own species over and above another species (Singer 1995a, p. 9). As Singer claims, the principle of equal consideration of interests, as a principle that we commonly consider to be applicable to human beings (although it is not always applied appropriately or applied at all, as in particular cases of racism and sexism or with regard to institutionalized forms), is not a principle that describes an ‘actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings’ (Singer 1995a, p. 5). The fact is that everyone is different, and we all have different physical and mental characteristics, despite species-specific traits. However, factual differences (including differences in skin colour, age, physical strength, mental ability, gender, and so forth) do not entitle us to disregard a being’s interests. These differences are all morally irrelevant with regard to our treatment of humans. The same is true of species membership; that a creature belongs to another species, with different species-specific traits to our own species, does not entitle us to disregard its interests.

36 

R. HUMPHREYS

This does not imply that we should treat all beings the same. Indeed, treating humans equally rather than as equals results in inegalitarian treatment. This is also true of how we treat creatures of different species, such as humans on the one hand and dogs on the other. Humans and dogs will require different treatment according to their species-specific characteristics. More particularly, individuals of the same species will also require different treatments based on their individual interests. Importantly it is the possession of interests of a morally relevant kind—and for Singer, the capacity to suffer is necessary for such possession—that entitles a being to equal consideration of his/her interests under the principle of equality. This is because the principle applies to all and only creatures with interests. Indeed, its applicability to animals simply amounts to a proper understanding of that principle (1995b, p. 56). An improper application to animals or humans, or a refusal to apply it or a denial of its applicability due to ignorance of otherwise, is what results in some of the worse injustices we see against animals and humans (see further, Attfield and Humphreys 2016, pp. 1–11, 2017, pp. 44–77). Moreover, there are aspects of the injustices we inflict on animals today that have their counterparts in human history, most notably the holocaust and the Nazis’ treatment of certain groups of people as subhuman. Along with Nocella et al., it should be pointed out here that such ‘analogies are not invalid but must be used carefully’ (2014, p. xx). Possible objections arise that such analogies are offensive because they undervalue human life in comparing it to animal life. Such an objection is not without its problems, for no such comparison needs to be made to recognize the validity of the analogies, nor do such comparisons need to be based on a claim that the lives of humans (all other things being equal) are of equal value to the lives of, say, chickens. Indeed, as John Sanbonmatsu claims, the analogies are not only numerous but multifaceted—‘semiotic, ideological, psychological, historical, cultural, technical, and so forth’ (2011, p. 11). They are not shied away from by established thinkers, including Jacques Derrida (2008, see pp. 25–26 and 104–105) and Isaac Bashevis Singer. The latter makes many unapologetic comparisons between the systemic cruelty inflicted on animals and the treatment of humans during the holocaust, writing, for example, in ‘The Letter Writer’ that ‘for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka’ (2004, p. 750) and in Enemies: A Love Story, ‘in their behaviour towards creatures, all men were Nazis’ (1977, p. 202). Of the former, Derrida, Matthew Calarco elucidates (in his insightful Zoographies (2008) [1972]) Derrida’s aim ‘at undercutting’ humanistic

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

37

ideological and hierarchical thought that too readily dismisses such analogies as offensive or scandalous purely because of a comparison of value across species (Calarco 2008, p.  111); in this case, the value of human lives, on the one hand, and nonhumans lives on the other. Derrida’s position …—that one should neither abuse nor considered explained away the figure of genocide when extended to animals—is … well considered. Comparisons of human and animal suffering can sometimes be abused when they are employed in a facile, thoughtless, and offensive manner. But, at the same time, not all such comparisons should be dismissed a priori on the grounds that human suffering is always and everywhere more important and of more value than animal suffering. The very difficult task for thought here is to bear the burden of thinking through both kinds of suffering in their respective singularity and to notice relevant similarities and parallel logics at work where they exist. To do so requires abandoning, or at least inhabiting in a hypercritical manner, the hierarchical humanist metaphysics that we have inherited from the ontotheological tradition, for it is this tradition that blocks the possibility of thinking about animals in a nonor other-than-anthropocentric manner. (Ibid., p. 112)

We see here, in Calarco’s analysis, an indication of how one might move beyond the response that such analogies are scandalous by attempting to shed our humanist metaphysics in order to notice the enormity of animal suffering that we know to be happening now, on a global, systemic, industrialized scale; a suffering that is caused to animals by our keeping them in conditions ‘that previous generations would have judged monstrous, outside of every supposed norm of a life proper to animals’ (Derrida 2008, p. 26). For further discussion of comparisons between the industrialized treatment of animals in the factory farming industry and the Holocaust, see Charles Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (2021 [2002]) The validity of relevant analogies between subjugations of different groups of beings—including between racism, sexism, and speciesism, for example—does, of course, only get us so far in answering the difficult question as to whether oppressions truly intersect. Indeed, the question could be asked: does the term ‘intersectionality’, when taken to mean oppressions themselves as intersecting phenomena, attempt to make connections that do not work? Is this usage of the term merely metaphorical, illuminating something interesting about all oppressions, rather than an actual or theoretical intersection? There are problems with the very idea of

38 

R. HUMPHREYS

intersectionality, for there are, of course, limits to comparisons, and it could be argued that the application of ‘intersectionality’ to explain linkage(s) between different oppressions is perhaps a misappropriation and misunderstanding of the original meaning of the term, which is supposed to illuminate an experience or experiences which an individual of an oppressed group has of different kinds of oppressions within their own particular environment; a black woman, for example, will have experienced sexism and racism in particular ways in relation to, for example, where she lives, the culture in which she is embedded, her class, and so forth. Perhaps the key to tackling the various kinds of oppression lies in thinking about what they all have at their core, and the concept of objectification appears to shed light on this. Insofar as those beings who are oppressed are viewed as objects and consumables, their exploitation is considered permissible. Objectification reduces that which is oppressed from a living being to something to be used at (humanity’s) will. Indeed, objectification may be seen as a key feature of all oppressions and links them in this sense. In addition to our exploitative use of other than human creatures being related to human exceptionalism, Aph Ko argues that such exploitation is an extension of white supremacy. She draws attention to racism as a zoological phenomenon, instantiated in white supremacist notions of animality (2019). The animal/nonhuman is seen as the consumable, disposable other, but one could be Homo sapiens and still be thought of as an animal. As she says, ‘White supremacy is a brutal and variegated system that has literally and figuratively consumed the bodies and essences of those they see as “animal”’ (Ibid., p. 124). With regard to the literal here, there are, horrifically, aspects of black history involving the actual consumption of black people’s bodies by white people (Ibid., pp. 53–55). However, the conceptualization of the other as an animal happens before the physical violence, and this, Ko believes, is as true in the case of racism as it is in the case of animal discrimination: ‘You must be thought of as an inferior subject before your body is used, abused, manipulated, and consumed. This is evident in nonhuman animal oppression. Before animals are stuffed into zoos or turned into taxidermied pieces to be mounted on walls, they are conceptually conceived of as bodies designed for compulsory elimination’ (Ibid., p. 53). Our colonial heritage has rendered our understanding of animality Eurocentric, with any individual who deviates from the supposed ideal of white Homo sapiens as less than human; subhuman, in association with

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

39

the animal. In relation to critical animal studies, Ko believes that race relations matter very much because black studies can provide a framework for looking at animal oppression (Ibid., p.  124). For Ko, animal liberation involves our own liberation from the conceptual tools of white supremacy and freeing ourselves from this partly means understanding the legacy of the human/animal divide and how this has been used to oppress black people as well as oppress animals, both of whom are viewed by the dominant class as being on the wrong side of the human /animal divide. Rather than resisting this determination of who is human and who is animal—a resistance that, as we might expect, ‘relies on stepping on the animal’ in order to reclaim one’s humanity (Ko 2019, p. 105)—racial empowerment can involve attempts to close this divide somewhat by ‘reclamation of animality in our efforts to dismantle the system’ (Ko 2019, p. 105; Ko cites Ko and Ko 2017, p. 63). Such attempts are what Ko terms ‘afro-­zoological resistance’ (2019, p. 106). As such, challenging white ideology (which is, e.g., anti-black and anti-animal) can involve retreating from the divide that serves to maintain an essential part of Eurocentric ideology and its associated power structures: [W]hite exceptionalism and human exceptionalism are, in many ways, themselves mutually supporting. After all, despite their crucial differences, both take for granted and depend on animal exploitation, and violence against animals is constant and pervasive in these related ideologies. (Johnson 2018, pp. 25–26)

Relatedly, for Lingren Johnson (whose work Ko draws on), such Black resistance efforts, rather than focusing on moving away from animality, attempt to undermine the idea of the animal as ‘other’ and its associated dualistic binary (human/animal), which serves to contribute to and maintain the widespread, entrenched oppression of animals and racial subjugation (Johnson 2018, chapter 1). Johnson emphasizes institutionalized exploitation of and violence against animals as key to understanding the link between oppressions based on race and species (Ibid., p. 26). Racism and speciesism (and, we might add, sexism) are ideological, and thus far as such ideologies are maintained through power relations and capitalist structures that are white supremacist, patriarchal, and anthropocentric, they are also structural on a global scale, resulting in injustices committed against one group by another.

40 

R. HUMPHREYS

Of course, we are all in significant ways entangled in such relations and structures, whether willingly, reluctantly, or unknowingly, and our consumer choices often link us (at least indirectly) to some oppressions, as does an uncritical acceptance of certain norms and anthropocentric values. Indeed, all these things are part of what maintains the status quo (out of which such oppressions arise or upon which they are based). This is, of course, to the detriment of certain minority groups of humans and nearly all nonhumans (certainly all animals used in global commercial practices such as factory farming and animal experimentation, a figure that is in the billions). In relation to speciesism, this is an oppression that is so entrenched in our society that it is incredibly difficult not to be implicated in its practice. However, such an implication also serves to maintain paradigms; unjustifiable moral paradigms, at that, based on, for example, certain assumptions, beliefs, and misconceptions about certain humans or certain animals (or even all nonhuman beings). This points to the ‘multidimensional’ nature of oppression (see further, Ko 2019, ch. 3). In relation to animals, stereotypical views, implicit biases and prejudices, and beliefs about animals as having an inferior moral status all bolster certain ideological frameworks (that support not just speciesist practices but racist and sexist ones too). This circularly (and structurally) thereby reaffirms our exploitative treatment towards certain groups of animals (particularly farm animals and those used in experiments) as somehow justifiable for the very reason that it conforms to certain social norms and values regarding individuals who are not members of the species Homo sapiens. As we have seen, some thinkers associate this conformity with humanistic hierarchies in general, but also with entrenched traditional value hierarchies (human/animal; man/woman; male/female; and white/black) that serve to protect the interests of particular groups of humans who have in fact always been considered to be members of the species Homo sapiens.

References Aaltola, Elisa, ‘The Rise of Sentimentalism and Animal Philosophy’, in Elisa Aaltola and John Hadley (eds.), Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy (London and New  York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2015), pp. 201–218. Adams, Carol J., The Pornography of Meat, New and Updated Edition (London, New York, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2020).

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

41

———. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, 25th Anniversary Edition (London, New  York, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015). Attfield, Robin and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘Justice and Non-Human Beings, Part II’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 8 (1), 2017, 44–77. ———, ‘Justice and Non-Human Beings, Part I’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 7 (3), 2016, 1–11. Bekoff, Marc and Colin Allen, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (Massachusetts, US: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997). Burghardt, Gordon, ‘Cognitive Ethology and Critical Anthropomorphism: A Snake with Two Heads and Hognose Snakes that Play Dead’, in Carolyn A.  Ristau (ed.), Cognitive Ethology: The minds of Other Animals, Essays in Honour of Donald R Griffin (Hillsdale, New Jersey, and Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991), pp. 53–90. Calarco, Matthew, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Charles River Laboratories, Basic Research [Online], 2014a. Available at http:// www.criver.com/products-­services/basic-­research [accessed on 23 June 2014], cited by Linzey, Andrew et al., Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). ——— Ocular Toxicology [Online], 2014b. Available at http://www.criver.com/ products-­services/safety-­assessments/toxicology/ocular-­toxicology [accessed on 23 June 2014], cited by Linzey, Andrew et al., Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey, and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). Carter, Caroline, ‘Theriomorphic Forms: Analyzing Terrestrial Animal-Human Hybrids in Ancient Greek Culture and Religion’, 2019, MA thesis, The University of Arizona: University Libraries, UA Campus Repository. Accessed at https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/633185/azu_ etd_17201_sip1_m.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed on 29 July 2022. Crenshaw, Kimberle, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Issue 1, Article 8, Volume 1989, 139–167. Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/ uclf/vol1989/iss1/8. Accessed on 19 July 2022. Crist, Eileen, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999).

42 

R. HUMPHREYS

Darwin, Charles, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, with photographic and other illustrations (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899 [1872]), accessed at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1227/1227-­h/1227-­ h.htm. Accessed on 26 July 2022. de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am, edited by Marie-Louise Mallet, translated by David Will (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008). Diamond, Cora, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts; and London, England: A Bradford Book, MIT Press, 1991). Dunn, Kirsty, “Do You Know Where the Light Is?’: Factory Farming and Industrial Slaughter in Michel Faber’s Under the Skin’, in Annie Potts (ed.), Meat Culture (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017), pp. 149–162. Garrard, Greg, Ecocriticism, second edition (London and New  York: Routledge, 2012). Humphreys, Rebekah, ‘Moral Feelings, Compartmentalization and Desensitization in the Practice of Animals Experimentation’, in Natalie Thomas (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 229–250. Kemmerer, Lisa, ‘Introduction’, in Lisa Kemmerer (ed.), Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice, foreword by Carol. J.  Adams (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2011), pp. 1–44. Ko, Aph, Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (Brooklyn, New York: Lantern Books, 2019). Ko, Aph and Syl Ko, Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters (New York: Lantern Books, 2017). Lennon, Kathleen, n.d. ‘Natural Expressions’, unpublished paper, 28 pages [pp. 1–28]. Johnson, Lindgren. Race Matters, Animal Matters: Fugitive Humanism and African America, 1840–1930, Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture: Series (London and New York: Routledge, 2018). Linzey, Andrew et al., Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). MacIntyre, Alasdair, Ethics and Politics, Selected Essays, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). Nocella II, Antony J., John Sorenson, Kim Socha and Atsuko Matsuoka, ‘The Emergence of Critical Animal Studies: The Rise of Intersectional Animal

3  MORAL STANDING AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM 

43

Liberation’, in Nocella II, Antony J., John Sorenson, Kim Socha and Atsuko Matsuoka (eds.), Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation, Counterpoints Series: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education, Vol. 448, General Editor: Shirley R.  Steinberg (New York; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Bern; Frankfurt; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. ix–xxxvi. Oxford Reference, ‘Intersectionality’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), online at https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/97801 99599868.001.0001/acref-­9780199599868-­e-­975. Accessed on 29 July 2022. Parr, Aaron, 2015. ‘Mapping Contemporary Cinema: Short Guide to Zoomorphism’, online at http://www.mcc.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/?p=1528 [Accessed: 19 July 2022]. Patterson, Charles, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (Brooklyn, NY: Lantern Publishing and Media, 2021 [2002]). Sanbonmatsu, John, ‘Introduction’, in John Sanbonmatsu (ed.), Critical Theory and Animal Liberation, Nature’s Meaning Series, Series Editor: Roger S.  Gottlieb (Lanham; Boulder; New  York; Toronto; and Plymouth, UK; Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2011), pp. 1–32. Singer, Isaac Bashevis, ‘The Letter Writer’ in his Collected Stories: Gimpel the Fool to the Letter Writer (New York, NY: The Library of America, 2004), pp. 724–755. ——— Enemies: A Love Story (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977). Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation, second edition with a new preface by the author (London; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; and Bergvlei, South Africa: Pimlico, 1995a). ——— Practical Ethics, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995b). Wadiwel, Dinesh Joseph, The War Against Animals (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). Watson, Kate and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘The Killing Floor and Crime Narratives: Marking Women and Nonhuman Animals’, in Kate Watson and Katharine Cox (eds.), Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Marking and Remarking (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2019), pp. 113–129. Wiesel, Elie, ‘Foreword’, in George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin (eds.), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. vii–ix.

CHAPTER 4

Critical Anthropomorphism

Darwin on Attribution via Expression The idea of the use of anthropomorphic language as a ‘sin’ is part of a wider conception of animals and their minds (a conception that effectively, even if not intentionally, preserves the moral paradigm of anthropocentrism). Chapters 2 and 3 have emphasized that scepticism about animal minds, neo-Cartesianism, and maintenance of the status quo are all part of the bigger picture regarding beliefs surrounding the concept of anthropomorphism and its practice in society. In striving for objectivity, through the mechanomorphic approach, the natural sciences introduce a new bias. In effect, the natural sciences constitute the world based on presuppositions that it assumes are value-neutral and transparent, but that (in relation to some of these presuppositions with regard to animals) distort ‘reality’. In spite of this, belief in evolutionary theory does not seem to have allayed fears regarding the attribution of human-like characteristics to animals, and this is true even for many of those who accept that there is no evolutionary ‘gap’ between all nonhuman animals on the one hand and all humans on the other. This is reflected in philosophical discourse today (particularly in relation to issues in the philosophy of mind, where those issues concern animal consciousness). Therefore, this chapter calls

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_4

45

46 

R. HUMPHREYS

for a discussion of the tensions between current conceptions of anthropomorphic practice as problematic and what we know and can come to know about animals through evolutionary theory, natural history, bodily behaviour, and close observation. In terms of the ascription of mental phenomena and emotions, Charles Darwin readily made use of our shared recognition of certain behaviours and bodily expressions, the interpretation of which is sometimes intuitive, as indicated in his The Expressions of the Emotions of Man and Animals (1899 [1872]): We may actually behold the expression changing in an unmistakable manner in a man or animal, and yet be quite unable, as I know from experience, to analyse the nature of the change. In the two photographs given by Duchenne of the same old man …, almost every one recognized that the one represented a true, and the other a false smile; but I have found it very difficult to decide in what the whole amount of difference consists. It has often struck me as a curious fact that so many shades of expression are instantly recognized without any process on our part. … So it is with many other expressions, of which I have had practical experience in the trouble requisite in instructing others what points to observe. If, then, great ignorance of details does not prevent our recognizing with certainty and promptitude various expressions, I do not see how this ignorance can be advanced as an argument that our knowledge though vague and general, is not innate. (Darwin 1899, Chap. XIV, p. 171)

For Darwin, the emotions of animals and humans are ‘incarnate’ (see Crist 1999, p. 28) and, as such, can often be seen in their bodily or facial expression, despite our lack of understanding of why this is so. With respect to the example above of being able to distinguish between a real smile and a fake smile, Darwin here refers to the work of G.B. Duchenne (see Duchenne 1990 [1862]), a French anatomist who observed that smiles expressing enjoyment involve changes to the muscles around the eye that cause particular facial changes that do not occur with other types of a smile (the Duchenne marker—the contraction of the muscles around the eye causing a particular appearance—is often used to determine whether a smile is an ‘enjoyment’ one). Such an observation is far from fool proof, of course, and intentional smiles of other types may look the same, even if they are subtly different. In addition, there is a cultural aspect to smiles, with differences between different cultures.

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

47

Nevertheless, often subtle (and not so subtle, of course) changes are detectable with regard to facial expressions, including smiles, and we can see this most clearly when observing the expressions of individuals— whether nonhuman or human—who we know well. This is not to say that we cannot observe such subtleties in humans or animals who we do not know or know well, but reliable detection of the correct emotion is not as easy in such cases. This is particularly true when we consider animals whose expressions and anatomies are very dissimilar to our own and very different from those of other than human animals with who we are familiar (see images in Chap. 5). Here, detection not only of emotion, but also of pain becomes trickier, and from an ethical point of view, we must strive harder to know what that animal is feeling in order to ensure that we treat it right and in accordance with its own interests. This is not to say that it is not possible to observe bodily expressions of emotions or feelings in such cases, for it does become easier the more knowledge we have of the creature concerned; knowledge of, for example, its species-specific capacities, as well as its traits as an individual of that species. Consider here the behaviour of prey animals. Chickens and rabbits will usually avoid behaving as if in pain when they are in pain—or, more accurately, do not explicitly display those behaviours that we usually take to indicate pain in our own species. (I say ‘usually’ here for this is contingent upon the extent of the pain, the environment, and so forth). This is a survival mechanism of their species. However, to one who knows these species, pain can be detected in subtle bodily cues and behaviours (again, see images in Chap. 5). For one who does not know, pain could be learned to be ‘seen’ or recognized. The same goes for recognizing expressions evincing other bodily feelings, such as emotions (aversive and pleasurable ones included, such as anxiety and joy, respectively), as well as cognate states, such as beliefs. Eileen Crist well elucidates this point, including its rejection of the sceptical stance; in Rylean phrasing, one may say that emotions and feelings are not some inner workings of the mind: The divergence between Darwin’s understanding and skeptical reasoning is striking. The power of mental language to assemble what is perceived—the moment or in memory—is lost to the skeptical perspective, for the latter begins with the premise that mind is unobservable. In Darwin’s analyses … mental concepts condense constellations of (subtle or vivid) expressions—of face, eyes, body, and movement. Emotion is incarnate for Darwin. His work

48 

R. HUMPHREYS

on emotions can be read as a philosophical treatise on the availability of mind, a detailed document of the ‘face’ of emotion throughout the animal kingdom. (Ibid., p. 28)

Furthermore, terminology or concepts denoting perceived mental states have the function of being able to describe what another being is feeling or thinking and work just as well in the human case as in the nonhuman case. Certainly, Darwin is well known for using everyday language to describe animal mentality and may be seen to have employed a form of ‘critical anthropomorphism’ (Burghardt 1991, pp. 53–90), ascriptions of mentality based on shared recognition but also informed by empirical knowledge. Gordon Burghardt also includes feelings, perceptions, evolutionary knowledge, and careful behaviour descriptions as useful in providing relevant information on the animal(s) in question (Ibid., p.  73; see further Burghardt 2007, pp.  136–38). de Waal, on his part, provides a shorthand definition of Burghardt’s critical anthropomorphism as involving the use of ‘human intuition and knowledge of an animal’s natural history to formulate research questions’ (de Waal 2017, p. 26), defining it (in his helpful glossary) as ‘The use of human intuitions about a species to generate objectively testable ideas’ (Ibid., p. 320).

Montaigne and Hume: Unapologetic ‘Offenders’ It should be stated clearly here that in putting some emphasis on immediate knowledge, this is not to say that, for Darwin, only noninferential knowledge informs us of the mental states of other animals. One of the methods of reasoning by which Darwin appeared to be influenced includes what Hayley Clatterbuck terms the principle of ‘ethological inference’ (Clatterbuck 2016, p. 4), as presented by Hume in his Treatise: ‘When any hypothesis … is advanced to explain a mental operation, which is common to men and beasts, we must apply the same hypothesis to both’ (Hume 2017 [1739], Bk.1, Part 3, Sec. 16, p. 91). But, Humean though Darwin’s philosophy of mind is, Clatterbuck argues that contrary to Hume, Darwin appeared at times to refute the idea that one can derive a like cause from similar effects, as indicated in the following passage by Darwin in his The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex [1871]: ‘We may easily underrate the mental powers of the higher animals … when we compare their actions … with exactly similar

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

49

actions instinctively performed by the lower animals’ (Darwin 2004, p. 89; cited by Clatterbuck 2016, p. 4, emphasis Clatterbuck’s). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to outline all the ways in which Darwin’s work is indebted to Hume (for Darwin’s Humean philosophy of animal cognition and ethology, see further Clatterbuck 2016, pp. 1–14). Suffice it to say that Hume did not try to purge his work of anthropomorphic language, believing as he did (refreshingly for the era) that ‘beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men’ (Hume 2017 [1739], Bk.1, Part 3, Sec. 16., p. 9, emphasis Hume’s): ‘a dog shuns strangers and caresses his master’; ‘a bird … chooses with … care and precision the place and materials of her nest’; and ‘From the tone of voice the dog infers his master’s anger and foresees his own punishment. From a certain sensation affecting his smell he judges that his prey is not far away’ (Ibid., p. 92). Such language use is clearly deemed appropriate by Hume and certainly has explanatory power in relation to nonhuman action and behaviour: The inference he [the dog] draws from the present impression is built on experience, and on his observation of the conjunction of objects in past instances. As you vary this experience, he varies his reasoning. Make a beating follow on one sign or motion for some time, and afterwards on another; and he will successively draw different conclusions in line with his most recent experience. (Ibid., p. 92)

For Hume, animals draw conclusions based on inductive inferences in the same way as humans via observations of a constant conjunction of what we take to be causes and their effects; an observation that makes use of our imagination and our natural, habitual inclination to expect certain events of a kind to follow from events of a certain another kind when we have observed this in the past. Hume’s views with regard to the nature of understanding with respect to the relation between cause and effect apply equally to the nonhuman animal kingdom as they do to the human-animal one, and he is explicit about this application (Ibid., pp. 91–92). (This is not to say that Hume’s constant conjunction theory of causation is correct but that he applies his arguments across species.) Montaigne’s thoughts about animals are enlightening here. Like his successor Hume, he did not succumb to the philosophical accusation of anthropomorphism, unapologetically claiming that all animals can grieve, are angered, and are capable of love (Montaigne 1993 [1580]). (For further discussion on animals and love, see Milligan 2014 and 2017, who

50 

R. HUMPHREYS

claims that desires are interconnected to both love and grief, with animals’ capacity to grieve presupposing their capacity to love). In his An Apology for Raymond Seybond (1993 [1580]), Montaigne is deeply critical of humankind’s tendency to consider itself as created in God’s image and thus as somehow divinely separated from the natural world and all that is nonhuman. He fervently expresses his rejection of the rationalistic approach to Christianity, elucidating the limits to reason and logic inherent in rationalistic endeavours, whether those endeavours be ones concerning religion, human beings’ place in the universe, or the natural world. Montaigne presents a passionate defence of a natural kinship between humans and other animals, criticizing human beings’ presumptive and naïve denial of anything like intelligence or rationality in a species other than itself (Ibid., pp. 16–36). In describing the complexity of the mental lives of other than human animals, like Hume he draws attention to the similarities between the behaviours of humans and other animals. Questioningly exclaiming, ‘what aspects of our human competence cannot be found in the activities of animals?’ (Ibid., p. 19), he provides an answer by way of examples of the complex behaviour of animals: Take the swallows, when spring returns; we can see them ferreting through all the corners of our houses; from a thousand places they select one, finding it the most suitable place to make their nests: is that done without judgment or discernment? And when they are making their nests … can birds use a square rather than a circle, an obtuse angle rather than a right angle, without knowing their properties or their effects? Do they bring water and then clay without realizing that hardness can be softened by dampening? They cover the floors of their palaces with moss or down; do they do so without foreseeing that the tender limbs of their little ones will lie more softly there and be more comfortable? Do they protect themselves from the stormy winds and plant their dwellings to the eastward, without recognizing the varying qualities of those winds and considering that one is more healthy [sic.] for them than another? (Ibid., pp. 19–20)

Swallows use ‘judgment’ or ‘discernment’ to choose a nesting site; when building the nest, they ‘realize’ how to make clay softer; they ‘foresee’ that which will be more comfortable for their young; and they ‘recognize’ and ‘consider’ the different qualities of winds. Further, many animals also have ‘artistic skills’ which we attempt to imitate, but poorly, all the time arrogantly exclaiming our superiority over other creatures (Ibid.,

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

51

p. 20). The spider’s web, the swallow’s nest, the nightingale’s song are all examples of such skill (Ibid., p. 30). However, just as there are individual differences between the skills of human beings, there are also intraspecies differences amongst creatures of nonhuman species, for ‘Even nightingales born free do not all sing one and the same song: each one sings according to its capacity to learn’ (Ibid., p. 30). In addition to this, intraspecies differences can be more acute than interspecies differences, as Montaigne points out via examples of elephant behaviour, which, on this point, leads him to conclude that so many of their [elephants’] actions bring elephants close to human capacities that if I wanted to relate in detail everything that experience has shown us about them, I would easily win one of my regular arguments: that there is a greater difference between one man and another than between some men and some beasts. (Ibid., p. 31)

There are indeed sometimes greater differences between the capacities and skills of certain humans than there are between those of some humans and some animals, and this is something that many philosophers, Peter Singer included, would draw our attention to some four and a half centuries later in what has become known as the argument from marginal cases (see Singer 1995, Ch. 1; see further Humphreys 2008, pp. 28–38). Nonhuman creatures certainly, for Montaigne, possess reasoning skills that humankind has fervently denied them in claiming credit for such skills solely for ourselves; ‘Our empty arrogance makes us prefer to owe our adequacies to our selves rather than to the bounty of Nature; we prefer to lavish the natural goods on other animals, giving them up so as to flatter and honour ourselves with acquired properties’ (Montaigne 1993 [1580], p. 25). We consider only ourselves to be learned creatures and consider all other animals to be purely instinctive beings that lack a rational faculty. However, humans, contrary to what the history of philosophy often narrates, are not the only rational animals in the universe. By the same token, humankind is not a purely rational species devoid of instincts or natural drives. As Montaigne emphatically questions, ‘Why should we think that they [nonhuman animals] have inner natural instincts different from anything we experience in ourselves?’ (Ibid., p. 25). These arguments fit neatly with contemporary work in phenomenology and embodiment. This is to be expected to a certain extent; for epistemologically speaking, there is a fundamental similarity between the

52 

R. HUMPHREYS

underlying theory of perception of the ethologists and philosophers discussed earlier and that of many phenomenologists. Indeed, there is a direct realism underlying both fields of enquiry, that is, critical anthropomorphism and phenomenology—direct realism being a theory of perception that takes our perceptual responses at face value, but also a view of action and emotion that is noninferential in terms of its knowledge claims: that is, knowledge of other minds can be direct, immediate, and open to interpretation. As John McDowell claims in relation to a realist stance of this type, ‘one can literally perceive, in another’s facial expression or his behaviour, that he is in pain, and not just infer that he is in pain from what one perceives’ (McDowell 1980, p. 136). The form of direct realism at work here in relation to critical anthropomorphism is specifically a critical realism that ‘holds that whereas “we do not have the right to identify any of the qualities of objects as they are directly experienced by us with the properties of objects as they exist in the physical world independently of us, … some may more accurately mirror physical properties than do others”’ (Mandelbaum 1964, p. 221; quoted by Burghardt 1991, p. 74). Burghardt stresses the importance of scientific data (as well as evolutionary factors) in informing us of the world—and in particular ‘of the reality and importance of animal mental processes’—but also of ensuring ‘continuity between the sciences and common sense’ (Burghardt 1991, p. 74). This type of approach is common among naturalists who, like Darwin, plausibly proceed from a stance that maintains that with careful observation over time it is possible to come to understand animals’ behaviour while accepting that such an understanding is not always unambiguous (Crist 1999, p. 51). There are obvious and strong links here to twentieth-century work in phenomenology, as exemplified by the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for whom the mind is embodied in such a way that bodily expressions can reveal themselves to us, as well as contemporary phenomenologists such as David Cockburn (1985 and 2009) and Kathleen Lennon (2011 and 2017). Despite this, the topic of critical anthropomorphism with respect to animal ethics does not always readily draw on phenomenology. To some extent, this is to be expected given that phenomenology deals with human intentionality; intentionality here refers to the directness of consciousness, its ‘aboutness’, or ‘of-ness’ in the sense that consciousness is deemed to be about something or other or is always of something or other. For phenomenologists, concerned as they are with issues of human experience, this intentionality aspect is more often than not discussed in relation to human

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

53

beings. However, it can also be applied aptly to a discussion of animal consciousness, particularly with respect to critical anthropomorphism, for appropriate ascriptions of phenomenal states to animals are often employed because of what we can see in an animal’s bodily expressions, facial ones included. Before we discuss this further, we would do well to say a little about phenomenology in a general sense.

Embodiment and Phenomenological Consciousness Phenomenology is a sub-branch of philosophy of mind or (perhaps more commonly) part and parcel of existentialism (a style of philosophy that begins from humans’ position in the world in order to analyse or describe aspects of human existence), so much so that all existentialists may be called ‘phenomenologists’ (though there are many phenomenologists who are not existentialists). Generally taken as the study of the way phenomena appear to the human observer, phenomenology attempts to interpret or describe our experiences directly, independent of causal explanations or genealogy. As such, it is concerned with how our perceptual experiences are structured in our awareness. (Such a study offers the existentialist the kind of approach she needs to explore those tricky aspects of our human existence and experience that are often difficult to define or explain, such as the nausea we feel when confronted with the enormity of the universe, or the daunting consideration of what constitutes a meaningful existence for us, as individual subjects in the world.) This starting point of enquiry is very different from empiricism, which is a theory of knowledge that considers all genuine knowledge to be grounded in experience. The method of empiricism as a theory of knowledge is to achieve an objective standpoint with regard to knowledge while considering the subject as an entity standing in causal relations to external things. The phenomenological method of enquiry, however, is quite different from this in that it is subjective, starting as it does from the experience of the subject (from their experience of phenomena)—that is, from the world as it is perceived and experienced. Both methods seek to understand the world and our experience of it, but from very different standpoints. Therefore, while one is concerned with achieving knowledge, the other is concerned with our perceptual grasp of the world and how that informs our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world and our conscious experiences.

54 

R. HUMPHREYS

This focus of phenomenology makes it particularly apt for philosophizing about the role of the body in terms of our understanding of the world, because the body is, of course, the receptacle through which we have any experiences at all. Without the physical body, there is no conscious experience from which to begin any kind of enquiry. Given the obviousness of this fact, it is perhaps quite surprising that the body has received less attention in philosophy and the history of ideas in general than the mind or soul. Throughout the history of ideas through contemporary philosophy, we see an acute focus on the mind as informing our understanding of the world, rather than the body as taking centre stage in such understanding. This stems from a tradition in Western thought that conceptualizes human beings as being primarily defined by an immaterial mind or soul (what Gilbert Ryle scathingly characterized as ‘the ghost in the machine’) (Ryle 1980 [1949], p. 17), which is possessed of reason and expressed via speech or language. This mind is merely housed by a material body (or brain) that is distinct from it (what Ryle terms the Cartesian ‘myth’ (Ibid., p. 9) and the ‘official theory’ (Ibid., pp. 13–14)). Importantly, according to such a picture of mind, speech acts give humans a unique capacity for complex thought and meaning, thereby distinguishing us and setting us apart from other species. This has not been without consequence for nonhumans, despite such a distinct separation of capacities between all humans (on the one hand) and all other animals (on the other) being inaccurate. Human language is certainly a medium for thought, but to assume that human language is unique and/or that it is the only medium for thought is, as zoological and evolutionary research shows, untenable (see Peter Godfrey-Smith’s fascinating book, Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life, 2016, which brings together philosophy and science; see also Philip Lieberman’s important contributions to the topic of the evolution of language (2006). Lieberman, an evolutionary  biologist,  claims that ‘linguists, who have treated syntax as though it were the central feature of human language, have failed to take account of some of the basic principles of evolutionary biology’ (Ibid., p. 1)). That said, as Louise Westling notes, ‘most scientists remain dualists operating from assumptions that place humans above or outside the biological community that is the object of their empirical investigation’ (2014, p. 2). Such a dualistic conceptualization was most notably developed by Descartes from his famous conclusion, cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

55

I am) (see his Meditations 1997 [1641], Meditation 1, 2, and 6; see also his Discourse on the Method [1637], Part 4); this is the one piece of knowledge that he knows beyond all doubt, at the heart of which is the self-­ conscious rational individual, isolated and disembodied from its physical environment. Indeed, Descartes arrived at the Cogito through the consciousness of his own doubt—through his very own self-consciousness— and as such, thought and knowledge are made dependent on self-consciousness rather than on material or social conditions. This makes Descartes’s theory individualistic and subjectivistic with regard to the self. Although he was concerned with acquiring knowledge in an objective sense, it is the subjective self that is at the centre of his epistemology; a self that is conceptualized through methodological doubt, a highly intellectualized method of enquiry. In addition, the problem of consciousness in the philosophy of mind of the twentieth century is concerned not with ‘the easy problems of consciousness’, such as the control of behaviour, the difference between wakefulness and sleep, or the ability to categorize and react to external stimuli, but with what Chalmers calls ‘the hard problem’ (Chalmers 1995, pp. 200–19). The latter is the problem of experience: how it is that physicalness gives rise to phenomenal consciousness at all, or how it is that there is something it is like to be a subject of experience (Nagel 1974, pp.  435–50), and why and how phenomenal consciousness arises at all from a physical basis. These questions, too, are also, at least partly, heir to a legacy of dualistic metaphysics of mind that sets (human) consciousness apart from its evolutionary biological context. Returning to the role of the body in informing our understanding of the world, Merleau-Ponty thought that philosophy had traditionally underestimated this role in its focus on a supposedly transcendent mind, while the objectivism of the sciences overestimated the detached standpoint with respect to our understanding of the relation between consciousness and the external world (Merleau-Ponty 2002 [1945], see, e.g., pp. 108 and 230). We have seen that animals often get the raw end of the deal with regard to the objectivism of the traditional sciences, not least with its mechanomorphic ascriptions of the experiences of animals, which—with respect to animals used in experiments, for example—allow for their experiences to be presented in a way that avoids all talk of what is truly at stake for the animals themselves, rendering their suffering less visible and allowing for a detachment from the animals and a minimizing of such suffering. However,

56 

R. HUMPHREYS

they also bear the brunt of Cartesian subjectivism, which deemed them to be purely mechanical things, as well as of neo-Cartesian higher-order theories of consciousness, which exclude them from being able to enjoy phenomenally conscious experiences. Merleau-Ponty sought to reconcile or ‘find a new unity between the objectivism of the traditional sciences and the subjectivism which is characteristic of a philosophy centred too narrowly in the Cartesian tradition’ (Spiegelberg 1965, p.  527). As Merleau-Ponty states in The Primacy of Perception, ‘The conflict between systematic philosophy and the advancing knowledge of science must cease’ (Merleau-Ponty 1964, p. 44). For him, this unity is to be found in an account of the bodily nature of perception, which he saw as ‘the common ground’ for philosophy and science (Spiegelberg 1965, p.  527). Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the ‘world as perceived or experienced, with all its subjective and objective features’ (Ibid.., p. 527), along with the work of more contemporary phenomenologists, has much to offer the scientist, philosopher, and animal ethicist concerned with contributing to an accurate picture of the lived experiences of sentient animals. For Merleau-Ponty, to grasp a proper understanding of this relation between consciousness and the world, we need to ‘leave behind … the traditional subject-object dichotomy’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002 [1945], p.  202) apparent in empiricist and intellectualist views (see, e.g., ibid., pp. 32–33) and in traditional philosophy and scientific endeavour more generally (see, e.g., ibid., pp. 54, 57, and 37–38). Instead, a ‘proper balance between involvement and detachment, of philosophising in the world, without becoming engulfed by it’ is what Merleau-Ponty seeks (Spiegelberg 1965, p. 526), and this requires starting from a perceptually engaged standpoint (see, e.g., Merleau-Ponty 2002 [1945], p. 268; see also Spiegelberg 1965, p. 526); this is the starting point of embodiment, of the lived body-subject, a standpoint that precludes the sceptical problem of other minds, including the sceptical stance with regard to animal consciousness (and some of the other problems with which philosophers of mind grapple (see Romdenh-Romluc 2012, p. 104)). (It also avoids many issues related to qualia that metaphysicians face, including the challenge posed by ‘qualia freaks’ (Jackson 1982, p. 127), or qualia-friendlies, that challenge being that physicalist theories problematically leave something important out of their theories of mind—which is qualia or the qualitative feel of an experience, which happens to be the

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

57

very thing that metaphysicians of philosophy of mind are interested in or which they are seeking to explain or account for.) This is the kind of philosophizing that is appropriate for critical anthropomorphism with its ascriptions of mentality based on engagement in the lived world of animals. Drawing on the best science, including biological evolutionary theory, it can be supplemented and informed by empirical knowledge, bodily expressions, and an animal’s natural history to gain a rich understanding of the relation between animals’ experiences and the world. Similar to Darwin, who thought that emotions and feelings are incarnate in the sense that they have bodily or concrete form, for Merleau-­ Ponty, too, the mind is incarnated. Indeed, the concept of embodiment or the perceiving lived body-subject is central to Merleau-Pontian philosophy. The perceptions of individuals are not abstract sensations, separated from their lived, conscious experiences, and so cannot be thought of in separation from their physical, bodily nature. This should not be taken to mean that Merleau-Ponty is necessarily advocating a materialist theory of mind but rather that thought, perception, and emotion are embodied: ‘The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for the living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them’ (2002 [1945], p. 94). In this sense, the human body is not simply an object that is casually related to the mind (see ibid., p.  241). Rather, it is the very vehicle that allows for meaningful communication in the world. We should add here is that nonhuman sentient beings are also body-­ subjects. They, like humans, are knowing subjects whose consciousness is inextricably linked to their bodily, perceptual experiences (see ibid., p. 475 for Merleau-Ponty’s claims here in relation to human beings). Critical anthropomorphism calls for an account of animal consciousness and cognition that accepts sentient creatures as having lived bodily experiences— experiences that we can attribute to them, that have an ontological basis. Furthermore, it also calls for an account that accepts that we can describe these experiences by employing the same terms that we use to denote mental states in humans, so that separate (or somehow more objective) terminology is not needed in the animal case. In other words, we do not need to describe animals’ experiences using terms that avoid attributing phenomenological consciousness to animals or phenomenally conscious states. This is not to say that what we attribute to and say of animals should not be informed by science, or that anecdotal evidence is all that is

58 

R. HUMPHREYS

needed. Indeed, critical anthropomorphism as a practice involves considering the knowledge of the species-specific nature of animals, and such knowledge is essential to the practice. This approach transforms the human-centric narrative in which language is considered to be the one and only or the main marker of meaningful communication; a narrative that has contributed to the rejection of critical anthropomorphism as a practice and scepticism about animal minds. The new narrative of embodiment, applied to the lived experiences of animals, can better recognize sentient animals’ bodily expressions as inseparable from the environment in which they are embodied and as meaningful because perception itself is considered a system of meanings that relate to the world and its objects (see Merleau-Ponty 2002 [1945], Preface, p. xxii). Contrary to what some higher-order theories of consciousness argue, consciousness is not merely representative of what is out there in the world but is a kind of interactive activity in which ‘perceptual meaning arises out of an exchange between subject and object, perceiver and perceived’ (Adams 2001, p. 203). Critical anthropomorphism allows us to talk about the lived experiences of the bodies of animals that are given to them via flesh and blood interaction with the world, as well as the contexts and environments in which they live, not necessarily through some abstract intellectualization of the world and its contents. As Lieberman says in explaining via the use of an analogy (but which can be aptly applied to the current discussion) the neglect by theorists of the importance of motor control in relation to human and nonhuman cognition, ‘The motto that I propose here is, “I walk, run, and talk— therefore I am”’ (2006, p.  5). Lieberman’s important work Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language (2006) on the biologic bases of human language and thought shows that ‘various attributes of language are present or present in reduced degree in other species’ and ‘that neural mechanisms specific to humans that confer linguistic ability also regulate other aspects of behaviour by virtue of their evolutionary history’ (Ibid., p. ix). Relatedly, Louise Wrestling argues against the prominent idea that language separates humans from nonhumans in terms of the former’s capacity for meaningful communication through language. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s work and evolutionary developments, she claims that [H]uman linguistic behavior gradually emerged in the course of evolution from neural structures and physical behaviours we share with primates and other animals … it remains embedded within shared abilities and cultures in

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

59

a continuum of animal behaviors that are themselves part of a myriad of communications in the living world, and that increasing evidence suggests that it is embodied and gestural. (2014, p. 103)

Indeed, for Wrestling, it is the body and its ‘perceptual engagement in the world’ that ‘makes language’ (Tait 2014, p. 2; see also Wrestling 2014, Ch.3). Of course, there are differences in perceptual abilities and bodily forms and functions among different species, and such variations will result in different lived experiences of the world, as well as differences in terms of embodied, meaningful communications. However, there will also be shared and similar capacities for meaningful communication across species. Because of this, we can expect that while some inter- and intraspecies communications that are meaningful will be understood by other species, some will not be understood as meaningful or understood at all (see further Wrestling 2014, Ch. 3; see further Tait 2014, p. 2).

Re-evaluating Anthropomorphism All in all, we may say that, if used correctly, anthropomorphism is not merely metaphorical, as Kennedy claims; rather, it has an ontological basis, as Hume and Darwin’s plausibility suggests, enabling us to understand the experiences of others. ‘Others’ or ‘others like us?’, one might interject. The objection underlying this question is that in using such language, we are saying that only animals like us have mental states and, perhaps further, that only they should be granted standing in the moral sphere on the basis that only they can be attributed as having features in common with us or human-like characteristics. However, it would be a mistake to claim that anthropomorphism always translates into a type of anthropocentrism, such a translation being what I shall call ‘moral anthropomorphism’, or that anthropomorphism is always of the naïve kind (making human-animal comparisons uncritically or simply attributing human-like thoughts and feelings to animals). As Crist helpfully explains, Darwin’s anthropomorphism does not naïvely conflate human and animal qualities, but instead reveals his distance from the skeptical premises. … Darwin’s use of language embodies a deliberate and powerful alternative perspective that is based on close observation of expressive form and evolutionary common descent. His anthropomorphic language … works at a deeper layer than a mere transposition of human attributes to animals:

60 

R. HUMPHREYS

Darwin’s language of representation reflects his understanding of animals as subjects. (Crist 1999, p. 29)

Indeed, for Crist, the application of our everyday vocabulary to the lives of animals—and thus the avoidance of mechanistic language—allows us to talk about animals as authors of their own actions (not as if authors, nor merely metaphorically as authors of their own actions), as well as express the ‘meaningfulness of experience and action of sentient life’ (Ibid., p. 29). Such language ‘encompasses the description and explanation of animal life in the ordinary language of objects and events, relation and community, action and mind’ (Ibid., p. 29; Crist cites Asquith 1984, p. 143). This gives us a more accurate account of the phenomenally conscious experiences and cognate abilities of animals than highly technical language that fails to portray the realities and complexities of their lives and in doing so not only undermines its own purpose (to achieve objectivity) but harks back to an outdated Cartesian view of animals. Of course, acceptance of the problems inherent in the practice of mechanomorphism is not inconsistent with (though admittedly sits uncomfortably with) doubt about the plausibility of critical anthropomorphism. Such resisters of critical anthropomorphism might suggest that rather than resorting to highly technical language (with respect to descriptions of the mental states of nonhumans), we resort to ‘putting’ the mental terms in inverted commas when used in ascriptions of the mental states of animals. However, this suggestion does no good, as if such terms are less real when applied to animals, have less meaning, or are tainted in some way. It also expresses a failure to recognize that we cannot help but use human terms— this is just constitutive of the way language works. That said, it does seem to be an unfortunate fact that the term ‘anthropomorphism’—I mean here in the sense of the attribution of human-like characteristics to animals (rather than the ‘misattribution’)—can be used in practice (and has been used in the literature) to denote an ordinary and justifiable way we use language: ‘unfortunate’ because of its obvious connotations of humankind being at the centre of that which is being ‘morphed’, and as such was always (and still is) likely to mislead. This problem is exacerbated by the term’s etymology, particularly in relation to the history of ideas from Descartes onwards. This is true even for the term ‘critical anthropomorphism’, but at least its definition itself is less likely to mislead. (Its definition may be recalled here as the ‘use of human intuition and knowledge of an animal’s natural history to formulate research

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

61

questions’ and ‘generate objectively testable ideas’ (de Waal 2017, pp. 26 and 320). Or following its use by Burghart, we can say that it is a method by which our ‘statements about animal joy and suffering, hunger and stress, images and friendships, are based on careful knowledge of the species and the individual, careful observation, behavioral and neuroscience research, our own empathy and intuition, and constantly refined publicly verifiable predictions’ (Burghardt 1997, p.  268; see further Burghart 2016, pp. 1–4).) But more on this will be said on this in the next chapter. Suffice it to say here that I do not want to suggest, following Hume, that it is part of our nature to see human-like characteristics in other creatures, but rather endorse the weaker claim that, as F. Karlsson notes, it is ‘an inevitable part of our language and percepts that does not necessarily imply errors’ (Karlsson 2012a, p. 108; Karlsson cites Daston and Mitman 2005, p. 6; see further Karlsson 2012b, pp. 707–20, and Bekoff 2007, pp. 122–26). To realize this is to recognize that not all anthropomorphic language is unjustified and, like our ordinary talk about humans, the way we ordinarily talk about animals is not only very much warranted in many cases but often expresses an immediate knowledge of the mental states of others (whether those others are human or nonhuman).

References Adams, Harry, ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Advent of Meaning: From Consummate Reciprocity to Ambiguous Reversibility’, Continental Philosophy Review, 34, 2001, 203–224. Asquith, Pamela J., ‘The Inevitability and Utility of Anthropomorphism in Description of Primate Behavior’, in Rom Harré and Vernon Reynolds (eds.), The Meaning of Primate Signals (Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 138–76. Bekoff, Marc, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Foreword by Jane Goodall (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007). Burghardt, Gordon, ‘Mediating claims through critical anthropomorphism’, Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling, 3(17), 2016, 1–4. Accessed at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=animsent. Accessed on 10 August 2022. ——— ‘Critical Anthropomorphism, Uncritical Anthropocentrism, and Naïve Nominalism’, Comparative Cognitive and Behaviour Reviews, 2 (1), January 2007, 136–138.

62 

R. HUMPHREYS

——— ‘Amending Tinbergen: a Fifth Aim for Ethology’, in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicolas S. Thompson, and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (Albany, US: State University of New  York Press, 1997), pp. 254–276 ——— ‘Cognitive Ethology and Critical Anthropomorphism: A Snake with Two Heads and Hognose Snakes that Play Dead’, in Carolyn A.  Ristau (ed.), Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of Other Animals, Essays in Honour of Donald R Griffin (Hillsdale, New Jersey, and Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991), pp. 53–90. Chalmers, David, ‘Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2 (3), 1995, 200–219. Clatterbuck, Hayley, ‘Darwin, Hume, Morgan, and the Verae Causae of Psychology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 60, 2016, 1–14. Cockburn, David, ‘Emotion, Expression and Conversation’, in Ylva Gustafson, Camilla Kronqvist and Michael McEachrane (eds.), Emotions and Understanding (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 126–144. ——— ‘The Mind, the Brain and the Face’, Philosophy, 60 (234), 1985, 477–494. Crist, Eileen, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999). Daston, Lorraine and Gregg Mitman, ‘Introduction’, in Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University press, 2005), pp. 1–14. Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex [1871], with an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond (London: Penguin Books, 2004). ——— The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, with photographic and other illustrations (New York: D.  Appleton and Company, 1899 [1872]). Accessed at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1227/1227-­h/1227-­h.htm. Accessed on 26 July 2022. de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). Descartes, Meditations [1641], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans. by Elizabeth S. Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997). ———, Meditations Discourse on the Method [1637], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S.  Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-­ Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997). Duchenne de Boulogne, G.B, The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, edited and translated by R. Andrew Cuthbertson (Cambridge, UK; New York; Port Chester; Melbourne; Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [originally pub. 1862]). Accessed at: https://assets.cambridge.org/97805213/63921/ sample/9780521363921ws.pdf. Accessed on 4 August 2022.

4  CRITICAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM 

63

Godfrey-Smith, Peter, Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life (London: William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2016). Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature [1739], in the version by Jonathan Bennett, 2017, presented at www.earlymoderntexts.com. Accessed on 4 August 2022. Humphreys, Rebekah ‘Contractarianism: On the Incoherence of the Exclusion of Non-Human Beings’, Percipi, 2, 21 May 2008, 28–38. Jackson, Frank, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 32 (127), April 1982, 127–136. Karlsson, F., ‘Anthropomorphism and Mechanomorphism’, Humanimalia: A Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies, 3 (2), 2012a, 107–122. ———. ‘Critical Anthropomorphism and Animal Ethics’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 25 (5), 2012b, 707–720. Lennon, Kathleen, ‘Imagination and the Expression of Emotion’, Ratio, 24 (3), September 2011, 282–298. ——— ‘Expression’ in Komarine Romdenh-­Romluc (ed.), Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 31–48. Lieberman, Philip, Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Mandelbaum, M, Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception: Historical and Critical Studies (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1964). McDowell, John, ‘On ‘The Reality of the Past”, in P.  Pettit and C.  Hookway (eds.), Action and Interpretation (Cambridge; London; New  York; New Rochelle; Melbourne; and Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 127–144. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception [1945], translated by Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). ——— The Primacy of Perception: and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, edited by James M.  Edie (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1964). Milligan, Tony, ‘Love and Animals’, in Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Online at Oxford Academic: https://academic.oup.com/edited-­ volume/34722/chapter/296469102?login=true. Accessed on 4 August 2022. ——— ‘Animals and the Capacity for Love’ in Christian Maurer, Tony Milligan and Kamila Pacovska´ (eds.), Love and Its Objects: What Can We Care For? (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), chapter 13. Montaigne, Michel de, An Apology for Raymond Seybond [1580], translated and edited with introduction and notes by M.  A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 1993). Nagel, Thomas, ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’, The Philosophical Review, 83 (4), October 1974, 435–450.

64 

R. HUMPHREYS

Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine, ‘Maurice-Merleau-Ponty’, in Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2012), pp. 103–112. Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind [1949], new edn. (London: Penguin, 2000). Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation, second edition with a new preface by the author (London; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; and Bergvlei, South Africa: Pimlico, 1995). Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, second edn, Vol. 2 (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965). Tait, Peter, ‘Review: The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language by Louise Wrestling’, Animal Studies Journal, 3 (2), 2014, 1–3. Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.ac.asj.col3/iss2/2. Accessed on 10 August 2022. Wrestling, Louise, The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014).

CHAPTER 5

Language and ‘Moral Anthropomorphism’

Unjustified Attributions In epistemological terms, there is a direct realism that underlies the work of Montaigne, Hume, and Darwin, as we saw in the last chapter; a realism that can be adopted to elucidate correct anthropomorphic practices. Animals’ ‘mindedness’ can be ‘seen’, for it is embodied in their expressions, movements, and behaviours. But what of incorrect anthropomorphic practices? What can be said of these? Acceptance of the plausibility of critical anthropomorphism is not to say that all so-called anthropomorphic attributes are justifiable or appropriate. To begin, some anthropomorphic characteristics are simply incorrect. Consider an example presented by de Waal; the behaviour of the males of kissing gouramis (or kisser-fish). One of their territorial behaviours includes them pressing their mouths together, but it would be completely wrong to say that they were kissing in a comparative sense of the human behaviour of kissing (for this example, see de Waal, 2017, p. 24). de Waal believes that, here, as in similar cases where the species concerned are distant from us, then the ‘the human-animal comparison is a stretch’ (Ibid., p. 24). In contrast, the kissing behaviour of bonobos strongly resembles that of human behaviour and is used affectionately with similarities to human kissing (Ibid., p. 25). We should add here, of course, that this is not to say that there are no commonalities across distant species but only that employing © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_5

65

66 

R. HUMPHREYS

anthropomorphism becomes more difficult where there are, for example, great divergences between species and bodily forms and functions. That being said, anthropomorphism is not immune to the problem mentioned above, even when applied to animals of species that are not so dissimilar to humans. In fact, in cases where species similarities are great, we should consider that we may jump too readily to incorrect anthropomorphic attributions, and worryingly, we may feel overly confident in our claims in this regard, resulting in unjustifiable treatment of the nonhumans concerned. Facial recognition coding systems offer an insight into how we might come to recognise a range of emotions in other than human animals, and there is an upcoming field of research that, in combination with critical anthropomorphism, perhaps provides a tool for recognition. One facial recognition platform is the WUR (Wageningen University & Research) Wolf, as used by Suresh Neethirajan as part of his fascinating research mapping the facial features and expressions of farm animals, particularly those of cows and pigs, with certain emotional states (2021, pp. 343–54). Neethirajan claims that ‘emotion sensing offers a vast potential for improving animal welfare and animal-human interactions’ (2021, p. 342). Whilst this might be true, it does have its limitations and needs to be combined with the resources utilised by the critical anthropomorphist. But that being said, such AI research could play a huge role in the future in respect of our treatment of animals and can be incredibly informative, particularly with regard to those facial expressions commonly mistaken by humans. For example, saying that a chimpanzee is happy simply because it appears to be ‘smiling’ is wrong. A chimp with a wide opened-mouthed expression, lips retracted upwards, exposing the teeth, is likely an expression of nervousness, indicating an aversion to a threat (thus, it could serve as a pacifying or submissive expression when displayed to another individual or a group). However, it can also indicate the stronger emotion of fear (see Image 5.1: we see here the fear grimace of Ham (named after Holloman Aerospace Medical Center and photographed in 1961 after a space flight for NASA, Project Mercury)). Lisa Parr has conducted extensive research on chimpanzee facial expressions using the ChimpFACS (The Chimpanzee Facial Action Coding System) to map, measure, and categorise a range of facial expressions in chimps, thereby contributing to our understanding of their emotional communications (see Parr et al. 2007, pp. 1–21). Of bared-teeth expressions, she cites Waller and Dunbar (2005) who have ‘suggested that the bared-teeth display is a signal of benign intent in that it functions to reduce

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

67

Image 5.1  Ham. (Title: “Chimpanzee ‘Ham’, the live test subject for Mercury-­ Redstone 2 test flight’ by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center)

uncertainty in a variety of both aggressive and affiliative situations and increase the likelihood of affiliative behaviour’ (cited by Parr 2007, p. 6). Of wide open-mouthed screaming, she claims that it is indicative of ‘nervousness, fear and stress, a prolonged response to aggression … and … general agonism’ (Parr 2007, p. 7), whereas a pout whimper face can also be seen as a response to aggression, albeit less obviously so than a scream: ‘Previous studies have shown the stretch pout whimper to be associated with response to aggression, signalling nervousness, or fear in tense situations (Parr et al. 2005). van Hooff (1973) clusters the whimper with affinitive behaviors, including the silent-bared-teeth face, so it might function to induce succor from others’ (Parr 2007, p. 8; Parr cites Parr et al. 2005, and van Hooff 1973). It should also be noted that any attempt to recognise a facial expression of a particular individual is more likely to end up being inaccurate if it is taken out of its social context and viewed in isolation from other relevant

68 

R. HUMPHREYS

information (such as other bodily expressions, behaviour, and environmental factors) than if it is considered from within a particular context. Similar facial expressions may convey different meanings, so that, for example, a wide-mouthed smile may convey threat aversion or nervousness, but at other times, in other contexts, such an expression may convey something closer to fear than nervousness, whereas if the mouth is relaxed but open, this can indicate a ‘play face’. Subtle and overt bodily expressions (including nuanced aversive cues) along with familiarity with species-specific traits and individual characteristics can all increase the accuracy of our facial recognition in other species. Moreover, as in the case of human beings and other animals, the expressions of chimpanzees can merge or overlap so that it is not at all clear when one expression changes into another. (For further discussion of emotional expressions in chimpanzees, see Kret et  al. 2020, pp.  378–95; and Parr 2001, pp. 223–29.) Thus, for the initiated (for one who is able to recognise the bodily— including facial—expressions of chimps) the smiling chimpanzees that we see in heartbreaking images of these poor creatures being used for space exploration, as well the images of the sometimes-smiling chimps that we used to see on television adverts, are images of chimps that are afraid (see further Cooke 2017, p.  388). We would do well here to recall the importance of a critical anthropomorphism, informed by evidence and experience. It would be incorrect to call such a widemouthed gesture ‘smiling’ simply because that is how we describe similar human gestures. To one initiated in ape gestures and their meanings, the true meaning of this ‘smiling’ behaviour would be recognised as terror, particularly with the context taken into account. Jane Goodall, after seeing the above picture of Ham taken after his space flight, is reported as saying: ‘I have never seen such terror on a chimp’s face’ (Nicholls 2013). Another example of common anthropomorphic attributions to animals that are simply wrong comes from the domesticated rabbits popular as companion animals. Sadly, ‘pet’ rabbits are very much misunderstood companion animals with needs that are not very different from wild rabbits. However, often relegated to a hutch in the garden with no company, our treatment of them is largely based on how we have treated them in the past when they were kept for meat; they were generally kept in small hutches in the garden in order to be fattened up to eat. This way of

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

69

keeping rabbits has filtered into the ‘education’ promoted by the pet trade, with small hutches for baby rabbits being sold to new adopters. Sadly, the rabbits usually end up being kept in this or a small hutch for most of their life, with many carers never buying a suitable sized hutch when the rabbit matures and never considering that rabbits require much more than a hutch in terms of their housing needs (see further RWAF 2022a). In fact, rabbits’ needs are incredibly complex, and although they make rewarding and fascinating companion animals, it takes much hard work to care for them properly. Contrary to the idea that they are ‘children’s pets’ and easy to look after (with a misconception prevalent that they require cleaning only once a week and feeding once a day), in fact they need much more care than the average companion cat. A lot of space is required in order for them to jump, run, and binky (the latter being a delightful spinning leap in the air, commonly recognised by those in the know as an expression of joy: see Image 5.2). They need to be cleaned out at least once a day, need to be

Image 5.2  Jumping for joy. (Title: ‘Footloose’ by Porsupah)

70 

R. HUMPHREYS

bonded with a companion rabbit as they are highly social, and require regular vaccinations, and copious amounts of hay. Furthermore, their caregivers need to be constantly vigilant of changes to the rabbits’ environment to prevent vector-borne diseases; these can be fatal but are very common in companion rabbits, not least because of the conditions in which they are often kept. Indeed, many companion rabbits spend their entire lives trapped in a hutch where they have to sleep, urinate, and eat in the same small space, without having enough space to stand up straight, run, or exercise. In addition, their bodily expressions are frequently misinterpreted. Confined to a hutch, they will be seen to be an animal that does not do very much, but the truth is, without the space to exercise their natural tendencies, they cannot but do little more than sit in their hutch. Trapped for much of its life in a small hutch and unable to behave in ways suitable to its own kind, the rabbit ends up becoming even more neglected as its carer’s interest slowly wanes. When animals are kept in conditions that (wrongly) assume that they are simple, uninquisitive, inactive creatures, who are unable to make choices, then they will end up with no choice but to behave in this way; this serves to reinforce our incorrect assumptions. When environmental factors, then, are neglected in forming an understanding of the behaviour of animals, this can lead to erroneous assumptions about the mental life of those animals. In relation to experimental animals and radical psychological behaviourism, ‘Behavior can be described and explained without making ultimate reference to mental events or to internal psychological processes. The sources of behavior are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind, in the head)’ (Graham 2019). With reference to the behaviourist’s assumptions about animals, Vicki Hearne claims that [t]o the extent that the behaviourist manages to deny any belief in the dog’s potential for believing, intending, meaning, etc., there will be no flow of intention, meaning, believing, hoping going on. The dog may try to respond to the behaviourist, but the behaviourist won’t respond to the dog’s response; there will be between them little or no space for the varied flexions of looped thoughts. The behaviourist’s dog will not only seem stupid, she will be stupid. If we follow Wittgenstein in assuming the importance of assessing the public nature of language, then we don’t need to lock a baby up and feed it by machine in order to discover that conceptualization is pretty much a function of relationships and acknowledgement, a public affair. It takes two to conceive. (Hearne 1986, p. 58)

Rather than the behaviourist’s assumptions about animals actually helping her to achieve objective knowledge of the animals being studied, all

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

71

these assumptions do is give a distorted view of animals. As Sue Savage-­ Rumbaugh et al. have said, ‘for two speakers to communicate … each must have a mind; and for any speaker to believe that he or she is communicating, he or she must believe that the other agent has a mind’ (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1998, p. 101). To communicate effectively with an animal, the behaviourist has to assume that that animal has a mind and mental states. There will be no effective or meaningful communication unless this assumption is made. This is true of our communications with all sentient animals, including humans, but also the humble and oft-­neglected companion rabbit. Moreover, with respect to rabbits, they are naturally ground-dwelling prey animals and tend not to like being picked up, although a tame rabbit will get used to tolerating it. Contrary to popular belief that companion rabbits ‘like’ being picked up and ‘enjoy’ being petted, it tends to make them nervous and anxious: in the wild, they would only be lifted from the ground if they were caught by a predator, so their natural response is to freeze and hunch up. Some rabbits may simply get used to being petted on a lap, and thus tolerate such treatment, or may have no other choice but to be handled (for the latter, see Image 5.3). However, as naturally nervous animals, if they are to be petted, they are more comfortable if this occurs ‘on their own level’—on the ground. Other instances of incorrect anthropomorphic attributes abound in our pet practices more generally, not just in relation to our beliefs about companion rabbits. Fortunately, we do have twenty-first century knowledge of rabbits and of keeping them as companion animals (see, for example, RWAF 2022a; and Stone 2011), but this is rarely utilised or taken on board apart from by those with a genuine interest in rabbits and rabbit welfare. Although rabbits are the most favourite companion animal after dogs and cats, they are also the most neglected; it is thought that, in the UK in 2012 alone, approximately 67,000 ended up going through rescue centres (see RWAF 2022b; Ellis et al. 2017; and The Scottish Parliament 2015). Despite rabbits being an incredibly popular pet, our perception of the capacities of rabbits is incorrectly based on their behaviours within the caged conditions in which they tend to be kept. As such, they provide a good example of how easily we can ‘go wrong’ in terms of our understanding of animals, even where the animals concerned are those that we believe ourselves to be familiar with. Image 5.2 shows a rabbit binkying, a behaviour that is indicative of happiness or joy. A rabbit needs enough space to express such behaviours, including running and jumping around. Such behaviour can look strange to untrained eyes and may be misinterpreted as there being ‘something wrong’ with the rabbit.

72 

R. HUMPHREYS

Image 5.3  Happy or nervous? (Title: Kids have fun at petting zoos but it means that many small animals are groped by inexperienced hands all day; Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media n.d.)

The image in 5.3 shows a rabbit being handled by a child. To say that a rabbit is ‘happy’ being stroked simply because the rabbit appears fit and healthy and is sitting still, being ‘petted’, may not be an appropriate anthropomorphic statement. The rabbit could be anxious, nervous, or even afraid. If the eyes are wide and alert, and the bodily position looks poised to run if necessary, then the rabbit could simply be tolerating being petted despite its nervousness (when rabbits are lifted to be petted, they usually do not have a choice but be petted and so will learn to tolerate it with appropriate handling over time, but will poise their body in a ‘down’ position to look as inconspicuous as possible).

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

73

Image 5.4  Terror. (Title: Rabbits next in line for Slaughter; Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media)

Description: This photograph is one of the images included in the book ‘We Animals’ published by We Animals Media. Drawn from thousands of photos taken over fifteen years, ‘We Animals’ is a book that illustrates and investigates animals in the human environment: those who are used for food, fashion, entertainment and research, as well as the lucky few who are rescues. While Image 5.4 clearly shows a rabbit in a state of extreme terror, the rabbit’s emotions or feelings in Image 5.5 are much less obvious because the rabbit is much less scared. The differences between the two bodily expressions can be clearly seen, but the image of the black and white rabbit indicates that fearfulness in a rabbit is not always as obvious as we might think. Indeed, the hunched bodily position of this black and white rabbit could easily be a position seen in many ‘pet’ rabbits when they are being stroked. A fearful rabbit will have a stiff/tense body, with its position hunched forwards or crouched. The ears could be pointed upwards or slanted

74 

R. HUMPHREYS

Image 5.5  Scared or nervous? (Title: ‘A scared white rabbit with black blotches ̌ on hay.’ Contributor: Adam Ján Figel/Alamy Stock Photo)

backwards, or pinned back, flat against the body, but the eyes will be wide, maybe bulging, with the pupils dilated, and possibly with the whites of the eye (or the third inner eyelid) showing (as in Image 5.4). To an untrained eye, this can look very similar to an anxious rabbit or a rabbit simply tolerating being petted. Either way, the bodily expressions of a scared or terrified rabbit are very different from the bodily positions of a relaxed rabbit. The photographs in Image 5.6 show progressively more relaxed bodily postures and facial expressions, as indicated by the lengthened, loose, flopped positions, slightly turned on the side, and/or flopping onto the back with the ears back or loose, and the eye muscles relaxed (eyes partly closed). Even though rabbits remain popular pets, their positions can still be misinterpreted easily due to a lack of familiarity with rabbit behaviour. Indeed, the position of a sleeping rabbit should not be confused with the position of a rabbit that is unwell; although there may be similarities between the postures, there are many differences too. (For more on rabbit behaviour, see Stone 2011).

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

75

The second sort of inappropriate anthropomorphism that we need to be aware of is that which gives animals moral standing only in so far as they are human-like, and this is very much an anthropocentric anthropomorphism. While anthropomorphism as the attribution or recognition of traits in animals that are similar to human traits is not necessarily incorrect (as argued in the previous chapter), what I call ‘moral anthropomorphism’—a recognition of the moral standing of a creature purely on the basis of human-like states or personhood or some other human-like criterion—is problematic, as it makes being human a necessary condition for moral consideration, a condition that should be rejected because animals other than human ones also have interests that are morally considerable and we can affect them for better or worse by our actions (see Humphreys 2016, pp. 263–72, and Humphreys 2011, pp. 70–83). We thus begin to see the importance of how we talk about animals in relation to our treatment of them. Relatedly, mental states and emotions can be embodied in very

Image 5.6  Relaxed. (a) Title: ‘Relaxed Rabbit’ by Mike’s Birds; (b) Title: Feral domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) lying on its side whilst sleeping, Okunojima Island, also known as Rabbit Island, Hiroshima, Japan. Contributor: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo; (c) Title: ‘Bunny Sleep Dancing to Thriller’ by Yiie; (d) Title: ‘Relaxed’ by i.R.P.i.

76 

R. HUMPHREYS

different behaviours and expressions from human ones, despite there also being many similarities across species. Reasons for this can be largely attributed to differences in bodily form, including facial features, as well as species differences in terms of conceptual schemas as informed by species-­ specific modalities, perceptual capacities, and environmental factors (including the habitat(s) and ecological niche in which a species lives). An understanding of ‘moral anthropomorphism’ and its problems in practice can enable us to avoid the discriminatory ‘cuddle factor’; that is, avoid attributing a higher moral status to those animals that we find cute, cuddly, or baby-like, and recognising the moral standing of only those animals that we find attractive, majestic, or appealing in some way and thus only giving those animals moral consideration, whilst excluding animals that we find less appealing, emotionally, or aesthetically (see Images 5.7, 5.8 and 5.9). The consequences of this form of anthropomorphism are far from benign for the negatively affected animals. We only have to consider the overwhelming numbers of animals in shelters who have to be rehomed because their previous ‘carers’ bought them or took them on

Image 5.7  Giant Panda. (Author: Chi King)

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

77

Image 5.8  A deep-sea blobfish. (Author: NOAA/MBARI)

because of the cuddle factor, without considering the long-term implications of taking care of an animal for the rest of the animal’s natural life. Kittens, puppies, adult dogs and cats, rabbits, ferrets, and many more animals end up unwanted, neglected, or uncared for, by their ‘owners’. A lack of understanding of the commitment and care that dependent animals need is a contributing factor to the increasing numbers of animals in shelters, as is the practice of breeding pet animals (despite the numbers already needing rehoming in shelters), and the ‘have now’ culture of capitalism, as if animals serve to satisfy just another one of our wants or whims. Of course, the pandemic has resulted in financial crises for many people and organisations, with fewer resources for animal welfare charities, rehoming shelters, and individual pet owners, with Battersea reporting that while the financial situation of the larger animal welfare charities looks ‘bleak’ for smaller animal welfare charities, the situation is even more dire

78 

R. HUMPHREYS

Image 5.9  A dead blobfish. (Title: ‘Eulogy for a Blobfish, New York, NY’ by Grufnik)

and they are finding themselves in an ‘existential crisis’ (Battersea 2020, p. 33): ‘There is a real and valid concern that for many smaller rescues in particular, who perform such a vital social and welfare function, the pressure of increased demand and reduced incomes will prove too great’ (Ibid., p. 7). Pets certainly provide a wonderful source of companionship and emotional support, particularly at times of crisis, and studies show a surge in the global number of people interested in adopting pets during the pandemic (Ho et al. 2021, pp. 1–5). However, a recent report indicates that many people who had not previously considered pet ownership yet who took on a pet or pets during the pandemic, particularly during the

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

79

lockdown period, did so without fully thinking through the long-term implications and responsibilities of pet ‘ownership’ (Ibid., p. 25). A report by Battersea further indicates that ‘19% of owners regret their decision to acquire a dog or cat, mainly because of costs, demands on their time and behaviour of their pet’ (Ibid., p. 25: based on Battersea OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK dog and cat owners, August 2020). There is a real concern that this, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 recession and an enormous increase in energy prices, will mean more companion animals are given up or abandoned, particularly cats and dogs that were adopted as kittens and ‘pandemic pups’, respectively, during lockdown (see further Battersea’s full report on the impact of COVID-19 on animal adoption charities and companion animals, 2020, pp.  1–43). In addition, as an increasing number of people return to their place of work, even experienced owners of companion animals could face behavioural issues in their pets, issues that they find insurmountable (in the case of dogs, these could include, for example, separation anxiety, including excessive barking, chewing of furniture, and other behaviours that negatively impact the home environment). Other owners, particularly those that adopted on impulse, may simply not have the time for the animals, lose interest, or may not be able to cope with the boisterousness of their pets. Sadly, this too often happens to newly adopted animals whose carers, taken in by the cuddle factor, have not truly considered the full range of needs of the animals in their care. These consequences should alert us to the problems caused by the bias of the ‘cuddle factor’, which, as noted above, is to do with attributing a higher moral status to those animals that we find cute, cuddly, or baby-­ like. However, the high numbers of abandoned animals in shelters point to something more than the cuddle factor being at play, for there is a sense in which these abandoned animals have been actually treated as having a very low moral status by the very fact that they have been abandoned and by the fact that (usually) their long-term interests have not been considered. Paradoxically then, with respect to moral anthropomorphism, even those animals that are accorded higher moral status (by society or by an individual) on the basis of aesthetic appeal or the cuddle factor (certain companion animals but also certain wild animals), do not always end up being treated as if they have a higher moral status than those animals whose interests are considered independently of whether or not those animals are human-like or have the cuddle factor. In other words, when animals’ interests are considered for the animals’ own sake, not due to some

80 

R. HUMPHREYS

misplaced human-centred concern, whim, or aesthetic judgement, then those animals are more likely to have their interests properly fulfilled (rather than thwarted) in the (short and) long term. The beautiful Giant Panda (see Image 5.7) has become a symbol of species conservation worldwide. In this case, moral anthropomorphism has afforded the species some protection, but it is still endangered due to habitat loss and fragmentation, logging, and deforestation (see Pandas International 2022). In contrast, despite what some might consider its lack of aesthetic beauty compared to the panda, the fascinating blobfish has acquired much publicity, thanks in part to the hard efforts of the Ugly Animals Preservation Society (see 5.8). This society raises awareness of the importance of the conservation of lesser-known animals and of animals that we consider to be less majestic than larger well-known mammals. However, it was the blobfish as it came to be known from its appearance in Image 5.9 that drew the public’s attention to blobfish as lesserknown animals than the more obviously adored pandas, big cats, elephants, and so forth. Image 5.9 shows a dead blobfish that has probably been caught by someone fishing. Sadly, it may well have suffered when it was caught: the pressure of being brought up from the deep sea to the surface would have been enormous, resulting in the appearance we see here. Coupled with this, blobfish do not have a skeleton, so once out of the water, they look very different and do not hold their body shape, unlike living blobfish in the deep sea of the ocean (see Practical Fishingkeeping, 2022). Live, this blobfish has a very different appearance, as in Image 5.8. However, the blobfish in Image 5.9 clearly has human-like facial features, so moral anthropomorphism is not difficult in this case, unlike the blobfish in Image 5.8 (see further Taylor’s report on the blobfish (2022)). Certainly, Image 5.9 made many people aware of the importance of thinking about animals that do not have the cuddle factor, and yet there was no doubt that the human-like features served to gain people’s attention. The climate emergency and biodiversity crisis are pushing an increasing number of animals to the brink of extinction. Whilst there are certain animals which we know to be seriously threatened, there are no doubt many other animals that we know little about, and others whose existence is unknown (the world under Antarctica is largely unknown and likely contains many unidentified animals which, irrespective of this, have their own good), with ‘ugly animals … less likely to be researched, never mind protected’ (Watt 2022).

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

81

Research presented in Climatic Change (Warren et al. 2018) indicates that up to half of the plant and animal species in certain areas of significant diversity could face extinction by 2100. But all animals, humans included, continue to be negatively impacted by habitat loss, factory farming practices, ocean acidification, pollution, and deforestation (to name just some of the anthropogenic drivers for species loss). Perhaps moral anthropomorphism could afford some limited protections for certain animals, but as we have seen in the case of companion animals, it does not afford sufficient or long-term protections, and it is not sustainable as a genuine animal ethics, as it rarely considers the good of animals for their own sake. (This is not meant to imply that it is wrong to use the cute factor or images of human-like animals for educational purposes or to gain money for conservation charities, but that—with respect to how we treat animals—these are important aspects of knowledge transfer (including raising public awareness about the plight of animals) that have consequences, some of which can be very good (and animals need all the help they can get!), others not so good. As such, it is important to be aware that moral anthropomorphism can be a discriminatory factor in our judgements and that its recognition in relation to, for example, pandas, need not exclude other reasons for protecting these bears.) This relates to a third sort of inappropriate anthropomorphism—a sort that serves much the same function as anthropo-denial (in the sense of incapsulating the human exceptionalism mentioned above) but, in many ways, is the opposite of anthropo-denial; that is, what we might call ‘over-­ anthropomorphism’. We see this sort most commonly in marketing, including television adverts and packaging. Consider, for example, adverts for chicken meat showing supposedly happy chickens, singing and dancing around the dinner table. Or consider the marketing of Happy Cow products (milk products, including cheese) on the packaging for which we see images of cows laughing and smiling. (See Leitsberger et  al. 2016, pp. 1003–1019, and Parkinson 2019, Ch.4, for excellent deconstructions of similar advertisements.) Many people tend to perceive farm animals, such as cows and chickens, as quite different from their pets; unlike farm animals, for example, pets are part of our family, and we tend to identify with them more easily than we do farm animals. In terms of marketing, this lack of identification with farm animals is partly overcome by the overly anthropomorphic depiction of the animals; a portrayal that may be seen to ‘help to connect with the product which is represented by the animal but not with the animal itself’

82 

R. HUMPHREYS

(Leitsberger et  al. 2016, p.  1013). As Leitsberger et  al argue, ‘Though anthropomorphism makes the animal appear more human-like, it intrinsically involves the idea that these animals are in fact not human-like. This is even more the case, if the kind of human behavior exhibited is believed to be uniquely human’ (Ibid.). Moreover, in the case of adverts in which we see the all-singing and all-­ dancing chicken, the overly anthropomorphic behaviour of the chicken is ludicrous, making the dancing and singing appear obviously human and not belonging to a chicken. Such human-like behaviour in a chicken is made so farcical that its depiction serves to emphasise the behaviour as properly belonging to humans only. As C. Kramer says—albeit in relation to the work of Tim Flach (Kramer 2005, pp. 137–71), but his analysis can be applied to many commercial marketing images of animals more generally—‘These human-like animals accentuate the uniqueness of being human. In doing so, they … further a mental isolationism that … separates the human animal from all other animals’, whilst also fostering ‘emotional identification’ (2005, p. 166). Furthermore, the portrayal of farm animals in many advertisements adds humour to the ads. The animals are represented as funny, and their behaviours, in thus far as they are not their own, appear comical for the very reason that they are being displayed by and through the chickens. This humorous element works to either relieve the viewer of or disengage her from the seriousness of the ways in which farm animals are treated; critical thinking (with respect to the fact that chickens used to produce meat products are actually living, breathing creatures who are usually treated appallingly before they are killed for meat) is not usually employed. The real narrative of the lives of farmed chickens is easily avoided if the message is that they are creatures, the interests of whom we should not take seriously. Indeed, narcissistically chickens’ interests are represented as our interests, with chickens happily going to their deaths (Parkinson 2019, p. 73) and even singing and dancing across our dining tables, literally jumping onto our plates, knives, and forks. This, together with the laughter it invokes, allows for a kind of trivialisation of our treatment of chickens, enabling ‘the viewer to overcome the meat-paradox’ (Bastian et al. 2012; cited here by Leitsberger et al. 2016, p. 1015) with humor as a relieving factor’ (Leitsberger et al., Ibid.). (The meat-paradox might be described here as the coexistence of our abhorrence for animal suffering and our empathy with farm animals with our eating of factory-farmed meat, despite our knowledge that animals suffer enormously through our meat-eating

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

83

practices: see further Percival 2022.) This may well be seen to promote and reinforce the extreme compartmentalisation of mind that may be seen with regard to, for example, our treatment of our pets on the one hand, and our treatment of farm animals on the other (Humphreys 2022, pp. 229–50). That the suffering of farm animals is seen as something other than what it allows for an ideology that accepts their suffering as the norm, that establishes it as somehow justifiable whilst remaining, at the same time, invisible and thus unseen (see Watson and Humphreys 2019, pp. 117, 119–20, 122–26). And, for those who feel uncomfortable about how animals are truly treated by the meat industry, then the trivialisation of the lives of farm animals via over-anthropomorphism combats this by allowing us to become desensitised to their sufferings, or at least allows us to effectively use another false narrative to overcome any cognitive dissonance we experience with regards to their use. Indeed, we may say that several different tactics work simultaneously to allow the suffering of farm animals to remain, if not unseen, then at least not important in the light of their supposed ‘trivial’ lives (lives that are deemed as such purely because we deem them to be so). Thus, over-anthropomorphism effectively takes away from the animal his/her subjectivity, hiding the real story behind every farm animal’s life, a story of suffering, discomfort, and frustration. The animals’ lives, as they truly are, get concealed behind such anthropomorphism. Relatedly, just as the language we use about certain humans and nonhumans objectifies them and reinforces their oppression (see Watson and Humphreys 2019, pp. 118–26), so too can certain sorts of anthropomorphism, such as the one just discussed, serve to do this. As Leitsberger et al. argue, ‘animals are directly objectified through their trivialized and deindividualized portrayal. They are also indirectly objectified via anthropomorphism. In the latter case, they grant significance and a subject-like status because they are human-like, but not because of their animalness. Objectification, the reference to the dominant ideology and humor all help to alleviate the tension caused through cognitive dissonance’ (Leitsberger et al. 2016, p. 1016). Such anthropomorphism then may be seen to involve strong anthropocentrism as defined by Bryan Norton as a value theory by which all value countenanced by it is explained by reference to satisfactions of felt preferences of human individuals … Strong anthropocentrism, as here defined, takes unquestioned felt preferences of human individuals as deter-

84 

R. HUMPHREYS

mining value. Consequently, if humans have a strongly consumptive value system then their ‘interests’ (which are taken merely to be their felt preferences) dictate that nature will be used in an exploitative manner. (Norton 1984, p. 165)

In line with this definition, we may say that the felt preferences here relate to our meat-eating practices, particularly our desire to be able to consume cheap, factory-farmed meat, while the ‘value countenanced’ is anything but that of the intrinsic value of the flourishing of nonhumans. (Norton’s work is mainly on environmental ethics, rather than animal ethics in a strict sense, and there is not the space to discuss this further here; suffice it to say that, on his part, he rejects strong anthropocentrism, favouring weak anthropocentrism instead. For the distinction between weak and strong anthropocentrism, see further Norton 1984, pp. 131–48.) With regard to all the above sorts of inappropriate and unjustified forms of anthropomorphism, all hold humans up as the paradigm being; the being to which we should refer when measuring, comparing, or understanding the behaviour of other species. Animal cognition research is susceptible to this problem if it attempts to discover animal mentality and/or measure animal mentality by reference to members of Homo sapiens as somehow exemplar beings in certain respects. While this is problematic in and of itself, both moral anthropomorphism and over-anthropomorphism are more problematic in that they not only use human behaviours, expressions and capacities as the standard against which nonhuman capacities are qualitatively measured but also use the human being and her attributes as the typical or ideal paradigm by which we judge who or what else we should give moral standing and/or moral significance.

Animal Sign-Language Studies The concept of over-anthropomorphism depends on an understanding of the similarities and differences between humans and nonhuman beings. However, the human exceptionalism that underlies it assumes that there are aspects of human behaviour that are unique, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Indeed, Marc D. Hauser points out that if ‘human language represents a fundamentally unique form of communication, much like echolocation represents a unique form of communication for … bats and dolphins, then we are presented with a significant evolutionary challenge in uncovering its origins’ (Hauser 1999, p.  458). He suggests that we

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

85

approach this challenge by looking at ‘whether animals have the conceptual apparatus needed to acquire language even if they can’t acquire the formal structure of language, its semantics and syntax’ (Ibid., p. 458). Many studies exemplify such an approach, including the work of ape language researchers, as well as work on grey parrots (to be discussed in what follows). Such research certainly provides evidence that some animals have the capacity to understand concepts such as sameness and difference, number and colour, the capacity to understand symbols, and the ability to produce symbols (Ibid., p. 458). Indeed, the evidence provided by these and similar studies also suggests that animals have the conceptual equipment needed to acquire language. One example includes the research done by Robert M.  Seyfarth, Dorothy L. Cheney and Peter Marler on the alarm calls made by vervet monkeys (see Seyfarth and Cheney 1999, pp. 391–417; and Seyfarth et al. 1980, pp. 1070–1094). The monkeys produced different calls or sounds as a response to different predators: ‘Vervet monkeys use different alarm calls for leopards, snakes, and eagles. Human words refer to different objects, events, and ideas. The referential method of communication is, therefore, not unique to human language’ (Konishi 1999, p. x). Such alarm calls are a frequently cited example of a semantic system of animal communication. Another example is Irene Pepperberg’s work with grey parrots, which spans over two decades and provides further evidence that humans are not the only species that use the referential method of communicating. She found that not only can grey parrots form categorical classes or concepts, but they can also learn the concept of sameness and difference (see Pepperberg 1999; see further Pepperberg 1993). It should be said here that there is, of course, an extensive amount of literature on the communicative skills of animals, and although it is beyond the scope of this book to assess that literature here, there is one piece of evidence that is particularly elucidating; as such, it deserves to be looked at more closely because it may provide an opening in which humans may be able to reassess their human exceptionalist beliefs about animals while also serving to highlight some of the biases humans have with regard to animal communication. Kanzi is a bonobo ape whose communications were discovered almost by accident when his mother, Matata, was sent to a different location to breed with his father. Ethologists Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and her colleagues had been training Matata and Kanzi had always remained on the sidelines, hanging around his mother while she was being studied and

86 

R. HUMPHREYS

trained. In the absence of Matata, Savage-Rumbaugh noticed that Kanzi had learned everything she had been attempting to teach Matata. Kanzi soon began using the computer keyboard to communicate his needs and intentions and using the keyboard to name things (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1998, p. 45). Kanzi’s communications became increasingly complex as he got older, and he began to use combinations of symbols to indicate his desires and ideas: Kanzi had learned to comprehend and use printed symbols on his own without special training. He had also learned to understand many spoken words, even though he could not speak. He knew that words could be used to communicate about things he wanted or intended to do, even though those actions were not happening at the time of the communication. He could also purposely combine symbols to tell us something... we would have had no way of knowing otherwise. He recognized that two symbols could be combined to form meanings … He used this skill to communicate novel ideas that were his own … [W]hether or not he could be shown to possess a formal grammar, the conclusion remained that Kanzi had a simple language. (Ibid., p. 63)

Kanzi’s communication skills, including his ability to understand grammatical sentences, were demonstrated to be on par with, if not better than, those of a two-and-a-half-year-old human child, Alia (Ibid., p.  69). Although Kanzi, then, could not speak, he could understand what was being said and had picked up the human spoken language by being exposed to it at a very young age. These communicative abilities of Kanzi show that humans do not have their own language that is exclusively human and that they are not the sole possessors of language. The fact that animals do not use the spoken word is no justification for the claim that they cannot communicate with members of their own species or another species. The type of communication used by animals will ultimately depend on environmental factors, such as whether one lives in a field or a rainforest, and survival necessities, such as whether one is prey or predator. Indeed, how different species, including humans, communicate depends on a variety of evolutionary factors. Furthermore, what is needed for survival in their physical and social environment turns out to be intimately connected to their perceptual skills. Whilst evolutionary factors have rendered speech and the written word the most important form of communication in the world of humans, this has put our perceptual abilities somewhat in the shade next to our linguistic ones.

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

87

So, the evidence provided by studies of some birds and primates suggests that while the differences in communication between some animals and humans may be obvious, say in the case of bats and humans, it is not so obvious when one compares humans with other animals, including, for example, humans and other primates. Indeed, it does seem that some nonhuman animals use similar methods of communication to our own, even if they do not use spoken language. That said, although the above studies do somewhat undermine the belief that animals cannot possess or acquire language, they are not without their problems, as we shall soon see.

Problems with Animal Communication Studies On the one hand, Savage-Rumbaugh et  al. rightly say that one cannot measure the true extent of Kanzi’s capacities through his use of the keyboard, and since he cannot speak, we cannot know anything other than what he is trying to say on the keyboard. On the other hand, they suggest that we can measure his language capacities by his understanding of human language and of what humans say. We then obtain a sense of the assumption that it is only through an animal’s understanding of human language that we can measure the true extent of that animal’s mental and intellectual capacities. In other words, the extent of a being’s mental capacities is based on that being’s human language skills, or, at least, an understanding of human language. Although the Kanzi study does not use what Kanzi says as a measure of his true capacity, the study still uses what humans say and his understanding of what they say as a measure of his capacity. In this sense, the Kanzi study does seem to base nonhuman ‘intelligence’ on what nonhuman beings can understand of the human language; in other words, nonhuman animals’ intellectual capacities are measured by the extent to which they compare with human linguistical ones. However, we cannot do this without distorting the true extent of an animal’s species-specific nature and capacities. Animals’ capacities are complex and when studied in their natural environment, and their varied abilities can be observed properly. The problem is that scientific studies of nonhuman animals often take place either in the laboratory or within a human setting, and this has the effect of changing their normal behaviours. Many nonhuman Ape Language Studies primarily demonstrate an animal’s understanding of human behaviours and language. Such is the case with the Kanzi study, which does not go anywhere near to uncovering the extent of actual bonobo ape capabilities. It just uncovers the extent to

88 

R. HUMPHREYS

which some apes have human-like capacities. Given their genetic similarity, bonobo apes and humans will undoubtedly share some abilities. But the extent to which bonobo apes have the same capacities as humans is not a full explanation of their mental lives; by parity, the extent to which humans have the same capacities as (say) bonobo apes, dogs or bats is not a full explanation of humans’ mental lives. Comparisons between different creatures provide us with, at best, an extremely limited indication of the mental lives of those beings. There is no doubt that many researchers are aware of this limitation. Indeed, Pepperberg criticises studies that attempt to compare animal and human linguistic abilities as a method of obtaining evidence of animal mentality: Researchers who train animals to use a human-based code in order to study nonhuman cognition often lose sight of the code as an investigative tool and argue instead about the extent to which the code is equivalent to human language (Pepperberg 1993 …); that is, they compare human and nonhuman linguistic rather than cognitive abilities. Thus data and discussions about relative cognitive capacities are lost amidst open-ended debates about the extent to which a particular animal has acquired ‘language’ or how well particular studies or procedures demonstrate linguistic competence (see, e.g., Premack 1986; K. Nelson 1987; Savage-Rumbaugh 1987; Seidenberg and Petitto 1987; Herman 1989; Schusterman and Gisiner 1989; Kako 1999). Such debates are based on the assumption that the extent to which an animal learns and uses a code indicates its cognitive capacities (Premack 1986; Terrace 1979 …). (Pepperberg 1999, pp.  34–35; citations within quotation provided by Pepperberg)

In The Alex Studies, Irene Pepperberg emphasises the importance of studying animal communication within an environmental and social context. As she says, there is ‘a strong case for involving environmental context in the learning process, particularly with respect to communication: Communication is, after all, a social process, and thus acquisition … should occur most readily in a social situation’ (Pepperberg 1999, p. 19). Studies of Kanzi and Pepperberg’s study of Alex the parrot certainly do take place within a certain social and environmental context, but that context is a human one, such are the constraints of research. This is all well and good for looking at animal communication in comparison to human communication, but a more thorough investigation of animal communication systems involves observing that communication

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

89

within its natural setting. To gain knowledge of animals, studies need to be conducted within the social and environmental context of the animals under investigation, not of the humans conducting the experiments. The environmental and social context in which studies take place will inevitably affect the results of those studies. Studies that aim to give a true picture of animals and see animals as they truly are must take place within the natural environment of those animals being studied. Pepperberg admits as such, saying of birds, ‘something appears to be missing in the overall singing behaviour when it is learned in isolation in a laboratory’ (Ibid., 1999, p. 18), despite stating that, ‘I decided to obtain a Grey parrot and begin its training in a laboratory setting’ (Ibid., p. 12). Therefore, even though Pepperberg’s study of Alex takes place within a social and environmental context, Alex is still isolated from his species-specific environmental niche. Of course, the dawn chorus of rainforests can never be emulated in the laboratory. Recordings of the dawn chorus, obtained by going into, for example, the rainforest, can give us knowledge of singing behaviours and interspecies communications of birds that cannot be obtained from anywhere else. Research conducted on expeditions is invaluable here and results in technical reports that can contribute significantly to our knowledge of other species, including their habitats, needs, and behaviours (examples include data collection and diversity research expeditions such as those conducted in Pavacachi, Amazon Rainforest, Ecuador, as well as studies of the habitats of the Upper-Imbang-Caliban Watershed, North Negros Rainforest, again, data for which were collected on expeditions. For the latter, see the report by Coral Cay Conservation 2005). Certainly, we need to study animals from within their natural environments to capture the true nature and extent of animal communication because studies of wild animals from within human society can only tell us so much. When we bring animals into our world to study them, and further, when we study them through comparisons with ourselves, we limit what we can come to understand of animals. With regard to the research of Kanzi and Alex and the importance of the work of the researchers, there is a sense in which we can see a failure to realise that animals need not be studied in a cage, in a laboratory, or kept in solitude for long periods of time in order to be isolated from their environment. Studies such as these may well go to great lengths to meet the social and environmental needs of wild animals, but they still isolate the animals from their natural surroundings; this is true whether the animals are studied in laboratories or within a human environment and

90 

R. HUMPHREYS

human social setting. Indeed, studies of Kanzi do not really tell us much about bonobos’ communications in the wild. There is a sense in which both studies do the very thing they reject: Alex is isolated from his environment, and Kanzi’s cognitive skills are measured by looking at the extent to which his communicative skills can be deemed to be language through comparisons to the exemplar of human language. In fact, both studies seem to hold human language up as the paradigm and focus on proving that animal communication is very much like this paradigm. Indeed, according to Savage-Rumbaugh et al., the very fact that animals cannot speak limits what we can really know about animals. They suggest that we could come to understand animals better by overcoming this limitation: ‘If Kanzi could produce vocal speech, he would produce many more complex utterances than he currently does. Perhaps in the future, a way around this limitation can be found’ (Savage-­ Rumbaugh et al. 1998, p. 73, italics added). However, achieving a better understanding of animals would not involve trying to change them into something they are not (by trying to make them speak) but would rather involve studying animals as they truly are. The suggestion that if we could somehow get animals to speak then we could understand their minds better says more about our limitations with respect to thinking about lived experiences that are beyond the reach of human concepts than it does about animals’ conceptual limitations. Part of the problem here is that we just cannot imagine a mode of thought that is not connected to verbal or linguistic language; we cannot imagine thought that is different from our own. Indeed, there is a sense in which attempts to do so are rather futile and require something very different from identification with another or empathetic imaginings: [T]hinking cannot give us the world without language, which is why so many refutations of proposals that animals have consciousness are refutations of animal language, or at least of communications that have a syntax. This means that the picture of animal consciousness is a picture of a creature outside of time, an immortal creature in our terms, since for us syntax is the metric of time. (Hearne 1986, p. 111)

However, that animals cannot speak may be a problem for scientists, but it is not a problem for animals, and it certainly does not limit them as animals; animals do not need to become human-like to be whole beings. There is a sense in which we just cannot comprehend how we could come

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

91

to properly understand animals without the use of the spoken or written word. Perhaps it is hard for us to accept that our language and our species-­ specific perceptual abilities do put many restrictions on what we can and cannot know. Our view of language and thought continues to be very much derived from that which was expressed by Descartes. For Descartes, humans ‘arrange different words together forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts’ (Descartes [1637] 1997, Part 5, p. 108). But even if we accept Descartes’s view of language and define language as the expression of thoughts through concepts and the grammatical arrangement of words, the remarkable thing about the studies of Kanzi and Alex is that Kanzi’s and Alex’s communications and behaviours actually do fit this Cartesian definition. So such studies are incredibly important as they show that some primate and avian species can tackle many aspects of language, and in this sense, the studies can open our eyes to animal communications, and enable us to see such animals (and maybe other animals, too) as more than just simple creatures. Despite problems with human bias, such studies show animals, or at least some animals, as beings capable of complex thought. This may provoke people to see that humans may not be the only beings capable of language, and this is a worthy step forwards in our thinking about animals, even if looking at animals only in comparison to humans is a limited way of thinking about and coming to understand our fellow nonhuman creatures.

Self-Recognition Other research on animal cognition is not immune to the above problems. Certain moral and emotive traits are studied using our own species as an exemplar, resulting in skewed test results. As Kristin Andrews says, ‘To claim that chimpanzees do not have a sense of fairness simply because they fail a test based on the human norm of unexpected bounty is to assume that this human norm can be translated into chimpanzee societies’ (Andrews 2011, p.  26). The Self-Recognition or Mirror test is another example of researchers being affected by the problem of misrepresenting animals’ capabilities. While an early study concluded that gorillas cannot recognise themselves (Ledbetter and Basen 1982, pp.  307–10), subsequent research revealed that at least one gorilla, Koko, a sign-language-­ trained gorilla, appeared to recognise herself. Therefore, the question naturally arises as to why Koko could recognise herself, but the other

92 

R. HUMPHREYS

gorillas used in the former study could not. (We should be cautious about assuming that Koko’s language use provides the answer, not least because human children can recognise themselves long before they acquire language.) One reason might well be that gorillas are xenophobic (Andrews 2011, p. 23). Francine Patterson and Ronald Cohn, using their intimate knowledge gained from working with gorillas, point out that while Koko had become habituated to her care-taker and those around her, the gorillas in the earlier study were given the self-recognition test while in the room with people they did not know despite gorillas being strongly aversive to the gaze of strangers (Patterson and Cohn 1994, p.  286, in Andrews 2011, p. 23): When first exposed to a mirror, the chimpanzees treated it socially, as if the reflection was a stranger. If gorillas find the gaze of strangers aversive, they have a strong motivation to avoid interacting with the mirror long enough to realise its function. That is, there is a difference in species-norm behaviour … than can account for early suggestion that gorillas don’t have an understanding of the self. Modification of the mark test, to account for the problem of motivation, found that gorillas do recognize themselves in mirrors. (Andrews 2011, p. 23)

Such is the problem of basing our inferences about the minds of other species on observable human behaviour. However, there is a deeper problem here. The very use of this test—the mirror test—even if it takes into account species differences, indicates a bias at work; self-recognition is something that we, as human beings, are capable of, but the underlying assumption here is that if other species can recognise themselves, then they too are similar to us either in this regard or in terms of their mental capacities more generally and that if this is the case, then they may possess self-awareness or self-consciousness even if not a sense of self. But there are no doubt capabilities that other species possess that we do not have or that we have to a much lesser degree. Consider, for example, echolocation or the olfactory powers of dogs. These are modes of perception and ways of knowing akin to human vision. Using these modes as models for the effectiveness of other modes of perception in allowing humans or other species to understand the world would be simply wrong. It would hardly give an accurate portrayal of such understanding. In fact, it is reasonable to presume that such a modelling attempt would be wide of the mark. However, we make such a mistake

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

93

when we use those mental capacities and perceptual modes that we hold dearly in humans as a basis from which to make a comparative attempt at either discovering animal cognition or attempting to measure it. Examples include analogous judgements made about an animal’s supposed lack of certain capacities by considering the extent to which that animal’s behaviour mirrors the human behaviour that we take to indicate those capacities. This is not to say that comparisons of human behaviour and nonhuman behaviour cannot allow us to understand animal cognition. It is only to say that animal cognition studies, in attempting to discover animal mentality, need to recognise, first, the pitfalls in starting from a premise that assumes the ideal model of mental life to be found in the human species and second the wealth of information acquired from those who work most intimately with the animals in question, in the animals’ own environment. When we take animals out of their homes and habitats to be studied on unfamiliar terrain, we have effectively already hindered our research in relation to what we can come to know of the cognitive capacities of the animals in question. Furthermore, with regard to human language in particular, there are undoubtedly different ways of ‘speaking’ and communicating meaningfully other than linguistically. Indeed, as well as interspecies language differences, there are also intraspecies language differences, including variations in the mode of meaningful communication used by different individuals of the same species. We see this in our own case as human beings, but it can also be seen clearly in the case of birds. Michel de Montaigne was aware of this when he referred to Aristotle, who, in his History of Animals [written in the fourth-century BC; first published in print in 1868], recounted that partridges make specific calls depending on their situation and place (see Montaigne 1993 [1580], p.  24; see also Aristotle 2019 [1868], Bk.4, Ch. IX, p. 85). Although Aristotle did not believe that nonhuman creatures have language, he thought that they had a voice and that having a voice was to be distinguished from merely being able to make a sound: ‘All animals utter a voice to invite the society and proximity of their kind’ (Aristotle 2019 [1868], p. 85). In the case of birds, Aristotle believed that their voice is learned: The voice is most conspicuous in its acuteness of depth, but the form does not differ in the same species of animals; the mode of articulation differs, and this might be called speech, for it differs in different animals, and in the

94 

R. HUMPHREYS

same genera in different places, as among partridges, for in some places they cackle, in others whistle. Small birds do not utter the same voice as their parents, if they are brought up away from them … For the nightingale has been observed instructing her young, so that the voice and speech are not naturally alike, but are capable of formation. And men also have all the same voice, however much they may differ in language. The elephant utters a voice by breathing through its mouth, making no use of its nose, as when man breathes forth a sign; but with its nose it makes a noise like the hoarse sounds of a trumpet. (Ibid., p. 85)

Like Aristotle, Montaigne also makes comparisons between humans and elephants, claiming that ‘so many of their [elephants’] actions bring elephants close to human capacities’, confidently asserting ‘that there is a greater difference between one man and another than between some men and some beasts’ (Montaigne, op.cit, p. 31). As we saw in the last chapter, Montaigne is well known for depicting nonhuman communications as other forms of language. As he says, ‘we can see they have the means of complaining, rejoicing, calling on each other for help … they do so by meaningful utterances: if that is not talking, what is it? How could they fail to talk among themselves, since they talk to us and we to them? How many ways we have of speaking to your dogs and they replying to us! We use different languages again, and make different cries, to call birds, pigs, bulls, and horses; we change idiom according to each species’ (Ibid., p. 23). Despite our difficulty in imagining a mode of thought different from our own, there are different forms of language other than the linguistical one, and we need to be wary of denying the mental life of animals via inferences from our own behaviour. But if researchers of animal cognition are not immune to problematic comparisons between humans and animals, what chance do the rest of us lay folk have? Fortunately, our everyday use of those concepts that ascribe mental states to animals does make sense, and we need not reject all forms of anthropomorphism to appropriately depict animals and their lives. Furthermore, such depictions gain more accuracy when paired with a view of animals that respects that their capabilities—mental, perceptual, and physical—are best observed from within their own habitats. Indeed, taking animals out of their own environment to somehow measure their capacities will only give a limited picture of their lives. But we also need to be wary of over-anthropomorphism, a form that ridicules and demeans animals and in doing so trivialises our treatment of them. Ironically, just as

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

95

a wholesale rejection of anthropomorphism is a form of anthropo-denial, so too is over-anthropomorphism, both maintaining the binary relations between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Relatedly, just as the Cartesian view of animals is outdated, so too is the Cartesian outright rejection of anthropomorphism. Such rejection is based on the very belief most of us now deny: the belief that animals lack minds. Since at least all sentient animals are minded creatures, there is no reason why we should not suppose that animal behaviour can be properly described in much the same way as our own behaviour. It is worth finishing this chapter with some further words from Montaigne’s An Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], in which he argues passionately that our delusion that only humans can properly be said to have mental and emotional states is nothing more than human chauvinism; made in God’s image, our anthropocentrism is linked to our need to separate ourselves from and ‘rise above’ the rest of nature: Man is the most blighted and frail of all creatures and, moreover, the most given to pride. This creature knows and sees that he is lodged down here, among the mire and shit of the world … yet, in thought, he sets himself above the circle of the Moon, bringing the very heavens under his feet. The vanity of this same thought makes him equal himself to God; attribute to himself God’s mode of being; pick himself out and set himself apart from the mass of other creatures; and … carve out for them such helpings of … faculties as he thinks fit. How can he, from the power of his own understanding, know the hidden, inward motivations of animate creatures? What comparison between us and them leads him to conclude that they have the attributes of senseless brutes? When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather that I with her? Why should it be a defect in the beasts not in us which stops all communication between us? … We ought to note the parity there is between us. We have some modest understanding of what they mean: they have the same of us … They fawn on us, threaten us and entreat us—as we do them. Meanwhile we discover that they manifestly have converse between themselves … they understand each other, not only within one species but across different species. (Montaigne 1993 [1580], pp. 16–17)

Consider Montaigne’s wise contemplation here, ‘When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather that I with her?’ Vicki Hearne believes that ‘Montaigne’s delicate alertness to such possibilities of grammatical reversal is sadly missing from most modern

96 

R. HUMPHREYS

speculations about language and consciousness’ (Hearne 1986, p. 225). There is no reason to believe that such ‘grammatical reversal’ is an inaccurate depiction of an animal’s behaviour, nor that we must reject all forms of anthropomorphism to recognise the plausibility of such a reversal.

Images: References Image 5.1: Ham Title: “Chimpanzee ‘Ham’, the live test subject for Mercury-Redstone 2 test flight’ by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-­nc/2.0/?ref=openverse. Accessed on 22 October 2022. Image 5.2: Jumping for joy Title: ‘Footloose’ by Porsupah. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-­nc-­sa/2.0/?ref=openverse. Accessed on 22 October 2022. Image 5.3: Happy or nervous? Headline: Kids have fun at petting zoos but it means that many small animals are groped by inexperienced hands all day. Country: Australia Photographer/ Filmmaker: Jo-Ann McArthur Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media Year: 2010 Accessed at: https://weanimalsmedia.org/, on 6 January 2023. License purchased for commercial use. Image 5.4: Terrified Headline: Rabbits next in line for Slaughter Description: This photograph is one of the images included in the book ‘We Animals’ published by We Animals Media. Drawn from thousands of photos taken over fifteen years, ‘We Animals’ is a book that illustrates and investigates animals in the human environment: those who are used for food, fashion, entertainment and research, as well as the lucky few who are rescues. Country: Spain Photographer/ Filmmaker: Jo-Ann McArthur Credit: Jo-Ann McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

97

Year: 2010 Accessed at: https://weanimalsmedia.org/, on 6 January 2023. Licensed purchased for commercial use. Image 5.5: Scared or nervous? Title: ‘A scared white rabbit with black blotches on hay.’ Contributor: Adam Ján Figel ̌ / Alamy Stock Photo Date taken: 4 August 2019 Location: Slovakia Accessed at: https://www.alamy.com/stock-­photo/scared-­rabbit. html, on 25 October 2022. License purchased for magazines and books. Image 5.6: Relaxed (a) Title: ‘Relaxed Rabbit’ by Mike’s Birds. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Accessed at: https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/e9387008-­ a977-­411a-­9144-­1d5a830d0290, on 6 January 2023. (b) Title: Feral domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) lying on its side whilst sleeping, Okunojima Island, also known as Rabbit Island, Hiroshima, Japan. Contributor: Nature Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo. Accessed at: https://www.alamy.com/feral-­domestic-­rabbit-­oryctolagus-­ cuniculus-­lying-­on-­its-­side-­whilst-­sleeping-­okunojima-­island-­also-­known-­ as-­rabbit-­island-­hiroshima-­japan, on 6 January 2023. License purchased for magazines and books. (c) Title: ‘Bunny Sleep Dancing to Thriller’ by Yiie. Licensed under CC BY 2.0. Accessed at: https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/81d33886-­ 0715-­4bec-­b699-­4676fc595b47, on 6 January 2023. (d) Title: ‘Relaxed’ by i.R.P.i. Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0. Accessed at: https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/149d2aa0-­ 40a1-­4f05-­9cbd-­bd2f18cd2715, on 6 January 2023. Image 5.7: Giant Panda Author: Chi King. Date: 25 December 2007. Link to Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0/deed.en Accessed at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_ Pandas_having_a_snack.jpg, on 25 October 2022. Image 5.8: A deep-sea blobfish Author: NOAA/MBARI.

98 

R. HUMPHREYS

Date: 22 May 2022. This image is in the public domain. Accessed at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psychrolutes_ phrictus_1.jpg, on 25 October 2022. Image 5.9: A dead blobfish ‘Eulogy for a Blobfish, New York, NY’ by Grufnik. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-­nd-­nc/2.0/jp/?ref=openverse. No adaptions permitted. Accessed at: https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/a8239e6a-­ 2391-­4e11-­bf32-­00d57694e388, on 25 October 2022.

References Andrews, Kristin, ‘Beyond Anthropomorphism: Attributing Psychological Properties to Animals’, in Wellbeing International: WBI Studies Repository, 2011, 1–48. Accessed at: www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org. Accessed on 20 August 2022. Aristotle, Aristotle’s History of Animals [1868] (Fairford, Glos.: The Echo Library, 2019), a re-publication of: Aristotle’s History of Animals, in Ten Books, Translated by Richard Cresswell (London: George Bell and Sons, 1887). Bastian, B., K. Costello, S. Loughnan, and G. Hodson, 2012. ‘When Closing the Human-Animal Divide Expands Moral Concern: The Importance of Framing’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (4), 421–429. Battersea, The Impact of Covid-19 on Companion Animal Welfare in the UK (London: Battersea, 2020). Accessible at https://bdch.org.uk/files/ BATTERSEA-­Covid-­Research-­Report.pdf. Accessed on 5 October 2022. Cooke, Lucy, The Unexpected Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and Other Wild Tales (London: Penguin, 2017). Coral Cay Conservation, A Comparative Study of the Habitats of the Upper Imbang-­ Caliban Watershed, North Negros Forest Reserve, Negros Occidental, Philippines, Technical Publication of the Negros Rainforest Conservation Project: A Collaborative Initiative Between the Negros Forests and Ecological Foundation Inc. and Coral Cay Conservation (London: Coral Cay Conservation Ltd., 2005). Descartes, Discourse on the Method [1637], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S.  Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997). de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017).

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

99

Ellis, Clare F., Wanda McCormick and Ambrose Tinarwo, ‘Analysis of Factors Relating to Companion Rabbits Relinquished to Two United Kingdom Rehoming Centers’, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 20 (3), 2017, 230–239. Graham, George, ‘Behaviorism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N.  Zalta (Spring 2019 Edition), accessed at https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/spr2019/entries/behaviorism/. Accessed on 30 August 2022. Hauser, Marc D., ‘Evolution of Communication’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Animal Communication (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 451–59. Hearne, Vicki, Adam’s Task: Calling Animals By Name (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). Herman, L. M., ‘In which Procrustean Bed does the Sea Lion Sleep Tonight?’, Psychological Record, 39, 1989, 19–49. Ho, Jeffrey, Sabir Hussain, and Olivier Sparagano, ‘Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Spark a Public Interest in Pet Adoption’, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Brief Research Report, Volume 8, Article 647308, May 2021. Accessible at: https:// www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.647308/full. Accessed on 20 August 2022. Humphreys, Rebekah, ‘The Moral Status of Sentient and Non-Sentient Creatures’, in Issues in Ethics and Animal Rights, edited by Manish Vyas (Regency Publications: Delhi, 2011), pp. 70–83. ———. ‘Biocentrism’, in Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics, edited by Henk ten Have, Springer, Cham., 2016, pp. 263–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­ 3-­319-­09483-­0_41. Accessed on 30 August 2022. ——— ‘Moral Feelings, Compartmentalization and Desensitization in the Practice of Animals Experimentation’, in Natalie Thomas (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 229–250. Kako, E., ‘Elements of Syntax in the Systems of Three Language-Trained Animals’, Animal Learning and Behaviour, 27, 1999, 1–14. Konishi, Mark, ‘Preface’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Animal Communication (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, 1999), pp. ix–xi. Kramer, C., ‘Digital Beats as Visual Esperanto: Getty Images and Colonization of Sight’, in Lorraine Datson and Gregg Mitman (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 137–171. Kret, Mariska E., Eliska Prochazkova, Elisabeth H.  M. Sterck and Zanna Clay, ‘Emotional Expressions in Human and Non-human Great Apes’, Neuroscience and Behavioural Reviews, Volume 115, August 2020, 378–395.

100 

R. HUMPHREYS

Ledbetter, David H. and Jeffry A. Basen, ‘Failure to Demonstrate Self-Recognition in Gorillas’, American Journal of Primatology, 2 (3), 1982, 307–310. Accessed at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.1350020309. Accessed on 25 August 2022. Leitsberger, Madelaine, Judith Benz-Schwarzburg and Herwig Grimm, ‘A Speaking Piglet Advertises Beef: An Ethical Analysis on Objectification and Anthropomorphism’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 29 (6), 2016, 1003–1019. Montaigne, Michel de, An Apology for Raymond Seybond [1580], translated and edited with introduction and notes by M.  A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 1993). Neethirajan, S., ‘Happy Cow or Thinking Pig? WUR Wolf—Facial Coding Platform for Measuring Emotions in Farm Animals’, AI, 2(3), 2021, 342–354. Nelson, K., ‘What’s in a Name? Reply to Seidenberg and Petitto’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116, 1987, 293–96, Nicholls, Henry, ‘Ham the Astrochimp: Hero or Victim?’, The Guardian, Monday 16 December 2013 12.28 GMT. Accessed at: https://www.theguardian.com/ science/animal-­m agic/2013/dec/16/ham-­c himpanzee-­h ero-­o r-­v ictim. Accessed on 17 August 2022. Norton, Bryan, ‘Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism’, Environmental Ethics, 6 (2), 1984, 131–148. Pandas International, ‘Education’ (Littleton, Colorado: Pandas International, 2022), a non-profit organization. Online at: https://www.pandasinternational. org/education-­2/. Accessed on 18 August 2022. Parkinson, Claire, Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters (London: Routledge, 2019). Parr, Lisa A., ‘Cognitive and Physiological Markers of Emotional Awareness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)’, Animal Cognition, 4 (3–4), November 2001, 223–229. Accessible at National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/24777512/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Parr, Lisa A., Bridget M.  Waller, Sarah J.  Vick and Kim A.  Bard, ‘Classifying Chimpanzee Facial Expressions Using Muscle Action’, Emotion, 7 (1), Feb. 2007, 172–181. Accessed at PubMed Central: National Institutes of Health, Author Manuscript: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826 116/, 1–21. Accessed on 17 August 2022. Parr, Lisa A., Mirit Cohen and Frans de Waal, ‘Influence of Social Context on the Use of Blended and Graded Facial Displays in Chimpanzees’, International Journal of Primatology, 26, 2005, 73–103. Patterson, Francine G.  P. and Ronald H.  Cohn, ‘Self-Recognition and Self-­ Awareness in Lowland Gorillas’, in Sue Taylor Parker, Robert W. Mitchell and Maria L. Boccia (eds.), Self-Awareness in Animals and Humans: Developmental Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 273–290.

5  LANGUAGE AND ‘MORAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM’ 

101

Pepperberg, I.M., ‘Cognition and Communication in an African Grey Parrot: Studies on a Nonhuman, Nonprimate, Nonmammalian Subject’, in H.  L. Roitblat, L.  M. Herman, and P.  E. Nachtigall (eds.), Language and Communication: Comparative Perspectives (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1993), pp. 221–48. ———., The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1999). Percival, Rob, The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy and the Future of Meat (London: Little, Brown Publishers, 2022). Practical Fishkeeping, ‘Deep Sea Trawling Leaves Blobfish Looking Sadder than Ever’ (Bourne, Lincolnshire: Warners Group Publications PLC, 2022), online at: https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-­news/deep-­sea-­trawling-­ leaves-­blobfish-­looking-­sadder-­than-­ever/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Premack, D., Gavagat (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1986). ———, Intelligence in Ape and Man (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum: 1976). RWAF (Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund), On the Hop: The RWAF Guide to Rabbit Care, 6th edn. (Somerset: RWAF, 2022a), online at: https://rabbitwelfare.co.uk/wp-­content/uploads/2021/10/On-­the-­hop-­v6-­web-­version.pdf. Accessed on 20 August 2022. ——— ‘Resources’, 2022b, online at: http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/ resources/?section=rehome.html. Accessed on 31 August 2022. Savage-Rumbaugh, E.  S., ‘Communication, Symbolic Communication, and Language: Reply to Seidenberg and Petitto’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116 (3), 1987, 288–292. Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker and Talbot J. Taylor, Apes, Language and the Human Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Schusterman, R. J. and R. C. Gisiner, ‘Please Parse the Sentence: Animal Cognition in the Procrustean Bed of Linguistics’, Psychological Record, 39, 1989, 3–18. Seidenberg, M. S. and L. A. Petitto, ‘Communication, Symbolic Communication, and Language: Comment on Savage-Rumbaugh, McDonald, Sevcik, Hopkins, and Rubert (1986)’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116 (3), 1987, 279–287. Seyfarth, R.  M., D.  L. Cheney and P.  Marler, ‘Vervet Monkey Alarm Calls: Semantic Communication in a Free-ranging Primate’, Animal Behaviour, 28 (4), 1980, 1070–1094 Seyfarth, Robert M. and Dorothy L. Cheney, ‘Production Usage, and Response in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Development’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Communication (London: The MIT Press, 1999), pp. 391–417. Stone, Tamsin, Understanding Your Rabbit’s Habits (Bedfordshire: T-Squared, 2011). Taylor, Ian, ‘The Blobfish: A Bloated Guide to the World’s Ugliest Animal (and What They Really Look Like)’, 10 February, 07:00, in BBC Science Focus

102 

R. HUMPHREYS

(Bristol: BBC, Our Media Ltd, 2022), online: at https://www.sciencefocus. com/nature/the-­blobfish-­a-­bloated-­guide-­to-­the-­worlds-­ugliest-­animal/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Terrace, H. S., ‘Is Problem-solving Language?’, Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behaviour, 31 (1) 1979, 161–175. The Scottish Parliament, ‘PE01561: Pet Rabbit Welfare’, Petitioner: Karen Gray on Behalf of Rabbits Require Rights (Scotland), 10 April 2015, accessed at: https://archive2021.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/petitionPDF/PE01561.pdf. Accessed on 31 August 2022. van Hooff, Jan A.R.A.M., ‘A Structural Analysis of the Social Behaviour of a Semi-­ captive Group of Chimpanzees’, in M. von Cranach and I.  Vine (eds.), Expressive Movement and Non-verbal Communication (London: Academic Press, 1973), pp. 75–162. Waller, Bridget M. and Robin I.M. Dunbar, ‘Differential Behavioural Effects of Silent Bared Teeth Display and Relaxed Open Mouth Display in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)’, Ethology, 111 (2), 2005, 129–142. Warren, R., J. Price, J. VanDerWal, S. Cornelius and H. Sohl, ‘The Implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate Change for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas’, Climatic Change, 147, 2018, 395–409. Watson, Kate and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘The Killing Floor and Crime Narratives: Marking Women and Nonhuman Animals’, in Kate Watson and Katharine Cox (eds.), Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Marking and Remarking (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2019), pp. 113–129. Watt, Simon, ‘The Mission’, The Ugly Animal Preservation Society, 2022, online at: https://uglyanimalsoc.com/. Accessed on 18 August 2022. We Animals Media, n.d. https://weanimalsmedia.org/, images by Jo-Ann McArthur. Accessed on 25 October 2022.

CHAPTER 6

Going Home: Returning from Posthumanism via a Defence of Identity as Continuity

Animal Liberation, Anthropomorphism, and Anthropocentrism Although the belief that animals lack minds or the ability to have phenomenal experiences is now (generally) in the past, humans continue to inflict untold suffering upon animals for even trivial purposes. That such suffering is the norm is in many ways unbelievable (but sadly all too true) in the light of the fact that many people would consider such a belief to be archaic. However, despite this, there remains a deep anxiety—in philosophy, science, and animal studies—about describing animal mentality through the use of words that we readily use to describe human mentality. Such usage of words is still denounced as being unjustifiably or inappropriately ‘anthropomorphic’. Science, for example, maintains its tendency to reject anthropomorphism, adopting instead what may be called ‘mechano-­morphism’ (the use of mechanistic terms to describe animal behaviour and other than human mental states) the endorsement of which conveys the belief that animals lack minds. However, because at least many animals are beings that are phenomenally conscious creatures, talking about animals and their behaviour in terms of, for example, ‘responses to stimuli’ is far from a true depiction of animals. Of course, some sorts of anthropomorphism are simply incorrect or are not justified (as we saw in the previous chapter). It would be simply wrong © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_6

103

104 

R. HUMPHREYS

to say of a dog that it is capable of voting, for example, or of a chimpanzee that it is ‘happy’ if it expresses a wide, open-mouthed smiling face. Nevertheless, as argued by many ethologists, critical anthropomorphism— as ‘the use of human intuitions about a species to generate objectively testable ideas’ (de Waal 2017, p. 320)—avoids the pitfalls of naively misattributing human-like characteristics to animals, and if used appropriately, it can enable us to understand the world of creatures other than humans. (For rejection of anthropomorphism as a charge or criticism, see Griffin 2001; de Waal 2017; and Bekoff 2007): ‘Thus, saying that animals ‘plan’ for the future or ‘reconcile’ after fights is more than anthropomorphic language; these terms propose testable ideas’ (de Waal 2017, p. 26). As Bekoff says, ‘Claims that anthropomorphism has no place in science or that anthropomorphic predictions and explanations are less accurate than more mechanistic or reductivistic explanations are not supported by any data. Careful anthropomorphism is alive and well, as it should be’ (2007, pp. 125–26). For many philosophers and ethologists, to reject such morphism is that which de Waal terms ‘anthropodenial’ (de Waal 2017, p.  25)—‘[t]he a priori denial of humanlike characteristics in other animals or animallike characteristics in humans’ (Ibid., p.  319)—a practice that maintains the human exceptionalism and vested interests that are threatened by many ethologists’ insistence that nonhumans have or can have phenomenal states as well as complex mental capacities. That said, the term ‘anthropomorphism’, even in its critical sense, is still an unfortunate term for the very reason that it uses the preset ‘anthropo’ coming from the Greek meaning ‘human’. Thus, not only does it have the connotation that whenever we anthropomorphize, we are effectively saying that animals are like us (anthropo-identity), rather than identifying with animals in the sense of saying that we are like them; but further, the term itself may be seen to reinforce the binary mentality of them and us, ‘we, the humans’ (the species with the model attributes) and ‘you, the nonhumans’ (with merely human-like attributes). Thus, no matter whether one is an anthropo-denier or anthropo-identifier, the very term ‘anthropomorphism’ (in relation to whichever of these stances one espouses) may be thought to play on this binary, suggesting that the more human-like a being is, the more it deserves our moral consideration (see Varsava 2014, p. 526). In relation to the debates regarding anthropomorphism, it is considered that this human/animal binary (that is so much part of our worldview) effectively contributes to the systematic oppression

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

105

of nonhuman creatures and thus perpetuates our exploitation of them (see Varsava 2014, pp. 520–36; see also Calarco 2015, particularly Ch.3). This objection expresses a general objection to what, in critical animal studies, Matthew Calarco (2015) calls ‘the identity approach’, instantiated in the work of liberationist philosophers such as Peter Singer (1995 [1975]) and Tom Regan (1983). Such philosophers rightly point out the continuity between humans and other animals, positioning humans as within the world of other animals. For identity theorists, humans and nonhumans are similar in important respects, including their capacity for sentience and cognition, and although there are differences between humans and nonhumans, these are differences in degree rather than kind. Furthermore, in thus far as they can suffer, humans and nonhumans both have morally relevant interests, and, for Singer, because the latter have interests, then the principle of equality applies to them in the same way that it applies to human beings. Indeed, for Singer, extending the principle of equality to animals amounts to no more than a proper understanding of this principle (Singer 1995 [1975], Ch.1). The worry is that the philosophies of identity theorists, despite being able to take a critical approach to the aforementioned binary, exclude animals that are not sufficiently like us, thereby maintaining the outdated ontological distinctions between them and us, as well as unwittingly subscribing to an anthropomorphism in which only human-like animals ‘get in’ through the moral door. The objection underlying this worry is that such anthropomorphism collapses into a form of anthropocentrism in which all and only that which is human or human-like deserves moral consideration. For example, although the interests-based and rights-based arguments of Singer and Regan respectively are generally considered to be anti-­ speciesist, it has been claimed by some animal ethicists that they actually privilege human consciousness in the sense that only those species that possess comparable or similar cognitive states to humans are due equal moral consideration. As, for example, Gary Francione (2008) claims of Regan’s rights-based view, Regan ‘links moral significance with the concept of being a ‘subject-of-a-life’, a notion focusing on cognitive characteristics beyond mere sentience and requiring a sort of preference autonomy, or the ability to satisfy preferences and not merely to have interests’ (Francione 2008, p. 13). Of Singer, Francione is also critical, this time of the link made between self-awareness and having an interest in continued existence (Ibid., pp.  18–20). For traditional animal ethicists

106 

R. HUMPHREYS

such as Singer and Regan, respectively, only those creatures that are significantly similar to humans in terms of their cognitive capacities are deemed to have an interest in continued existence, or (as for Regan), to be subjects-of-a-life. This means that killing animals who are deemed not to be sufficiently human-like (e.g., in factory farming and experimentation) or who lack the cognitive capacities required for being a subject-of-a-life is far less morally problematic than causing them to suffer for similar purposes. Joan Dunayer has also challenged a supposed anthropocentric bias at the heart of the work of some traditional animal ethicists, going further than Francione. She puts forward a distinction between ‘old-speciesism’ and ‘new-speciesism’ (2004). The position of ‘old speciesists’, she claims, reflects current law, as well as certain animal ethics positions and animal welfarist campaigns that, rather than challenging the legal and moral status of animals, seek reform to improve their lot (so to speak), maintaining the property status of animals and thus doing little to tackle the unjustified killing and abuse of nonhuman creatures. On the other hand, ‘new speciesist’ positions accord greater moral significance to those animals that are human-like in terms of their cognition, thereby according greater (not equal) consideration to such creatures and/or stronger moral or legal rights to them. Dunayer rejects both old-speciesist and new-speciesist stances, arguing for a position that she considers to be truly nonspeciesist in the sense that it advocates equal moral rights and legal protections against abusive treatment for every sentient creature, regardless of their cognitive capacities (Ibid., Chs.8–10). Both Dunayer and Francione reject the utilitarian arguments against speciesism that deliberate about animal and human conflicts of interest using a kind of cost-based analysis, where the costs can include nonhuman and human sufferings, the nonsatisfaction of nonhuman and human preferences, and the death of nonhumans and sometimes the death of humans. But interestingly, both consider sentience as a necessary and sufficient condition for moral standing, as Singer does, despite the objection that the latter places greater moral significance on human-like characteristics (where interests in continued existence are concerned). That said, Dunayer and Francione pose serious objections here. It is objections such as these that, in the critical animal studies literature, have thrown into dispute what were previously considered robust, nonspeciesist animal ethics positions, bolstering the rise of posthumanist theory with respect to animal ethics.

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

107

Cary Wolfe, for example, asserts that although traditional animal liberationist stances plausibly challenge the moral status of animals and take animals seriously, they do so from a position that does not question the methodology upon which their arguments are based; a methodology that is itself not axiologically anti-anthropocentric but rather humanistic in its presuppositions with regard to methodology: Just because we direct our attention to the study of nonhuman animals and even if we do so with the aim of exposing how they have been misunderstood and exploited, that does not mean that we are not continuing to be humanists—and therefore, by definition, anthropocentric. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of humanism—and even more specifically that kind of humanism called liberalism—is its penchant for that kind of pluralism, in which the sphere of attention and consideration (intellectual or ethical) is broadened and extended to previously marginalized groups, but without in the least destabilizing or throwing into radical question the schema of the human who undertakes such pluralization. In that event, pluralism becomes incorporation, and the projects of humanism (intellectually) and liberalism (politically) are extended, and indeed extended in a rather classic sort of way. (2010, p. 99)

Wolfe’s posthumanist framework rejects liberalist extensionist ethics that does not call into question the existing humanistic metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions that are at the root of traditional analytic anti-speciesist arguments, which would include those of Singer, Regan, Francione, and Dunayer (see Weitzenfeld and Joy 2014, p. 12). Such presuppositions involve, as Weitzenfeld and Joy point out, belief in the ‘autonomous human subject, morality as a set of universalizable principles, disembodied reasoning as the origin and sole arbiter of moral values, and the marginalization of animal others’ specificity and participation in morality and society’ (Weitzenfeld and Joy 2014, p. 13; see further Donovan and Adams 2007, and Wolfe 2010, referenced by Weitzenfeld and Joy). (For further discussion of the above debates, see Adam Weitzenfeld and Melanie Joy’s full discussion of humanism in relation to animal ethics (2014, pp. 3–27), in Anthony J. Nocella II, et al. (eds.), Defining Critical Animal Studies (2014). See also John Sanbonmatsu (ed.), Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (2011).) There are certainly strong grounds for rejecting liberalist principles as sufficient for protecting the interests of animals. Indeed, as Martha Nussbaum and Robert Garner have argued, such principles do not appear

108 

R. HUMPHREYS

to be able to sufficiently consider what animals are owed, as a matter of justice (Nussbaum 2006; Garner 2002 and 2013; see further Nussbaum 2023). This is, in part, because the political stance of liberalism is such that only humans are considered to be direct recipients of justice; while animals, on anti-speciesist stances, can be recognized as being direct recipients of moral obligations, they are not recognized, on liberalist principles, as having interests that can be considered as a matter of justice. Indeed, in liberalistic societies, human beings are free to reject a principle that ‘impacts negatively upon their … conception of the good’ such as, for example, a conception of the good bound to promoting economic interests at the expense of animals’ welfare (see Garner 2013 p. 38). Such is the case with regard to aspects of the practice of scientific and medical research, as well as the global meat industry; both practices involve significant economic benefits for humans at the expense of animals’ interests, including their interest in continued existence, but also their interest in not suffering and in freedom, functioning, and well-being. Therefore, there are problems with the liberal humanist methodological approach to animal ethics, and some such approaches could be accused of anthropocentrism. But this is not to say that the ethical approaches of traditional animal ethicists are always anthropocentric, even if they do not escape some humanistic assumptions. The problem, contrary to and pace some posthumanist claims (see Wolfe 2010; Varsava 2014), is not so much one of methodology, for the value theory upon which, for example, Singer bases his arguments is not anthropocentric—it is not being human or being-human like as such that is a necessary condition for moral standing, but rather, following Jeremy Bentham, it is being sentient that is necessary. Singer’s theory is sentientist, not anthropocentric, and concerns that it is the latter are, I argue below, based on a misunderstanding of the axiological underpinnings of certain variants of sentient stances as normative stances (particularly those that apply the principle of equal consideration of interests to animals, but not those, such as Varner’s, that accord greater moral significance to humans on the basis of an appeal to certain capacities: see Varner, discussed below) As a side comment, it is worth mentioning that the stances of many of those posthumanists (who argue against certain traditional ethics approaches) are sentientist stances too, and in fact do not extend direct moral standing beyond all and only beings capable of pain and suffering. And although sentientist theories may be accused of being too exclusive and have been argued to be as such by biocentrists (such as Goodpaster

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

109

1978; Humphreys 2020; and Attfield 2020), they cannot all be accused of being human-centred in terms of their value theory, particularly with regard to variants of the theory that extend the principle of equality to all nonhuman creatures (such an extension should not be confused with treating creatures with differing capacities equally, something that would be deeply problematic and result in unjustifiable treatment (in the human case and the nonhuman one)). With regard to the claim that traditional animal liberationist stances are—if not anthropocentric—then humanistic at the root (further to Wolfe’s claims outlined above, see also Smith 1991, pp. 145–54) if they place moral significance on certain cognate or supposedly human-like capacities (that, in the history of ideas, tend to be associated with humans, such as autonomy, moral agency, and rationality), one plausible response here is that no normative theory can justify saying that these capacities are never relevant when judgements regarding moral significance are called for. These capacities can be considered and weighed accordingly when interests conflict (and this is as true of sentientist theories as it is of biocentric or anthropocentric ones) while recognizing that the mere possession of such capacities is not a necessary criterion for moral standing. Nor does a being’s mere possession of such capacities mean that its interests should always take moral precedence when its interests clash with the interests of creatures that do not possess them. In other words, recognizing certain capacities when such clashes occur is not the same as saying that beings that have interests related to autonomy, moral agency, and so forth (interests that have been highly valued by the humanist) should always be given moral significance. Indeed, according to Singer’s extensionist ethics, the suffering of animals in factory farms is unjustifiable and cannot be considered more morally significant than the human interests at stake (such as, monetary interests, commercial gain, and the ‘interest’ or preference for purchasing cheap meat). Therefore, while capacities such as self-determination and rationality are not necessary for moral standing—for all living creatures, whether conscious or not, have interests and can be harmed or benefited by our actions—no ethical framework can plausibly maintain that these capacities are never relevant in real-world scenarios when interests conflict. In any case, it should be said that some humans do not possess such capacities. Additionally, there are many nonhuman beings who do have them and, as such, have interests in exercising them. Indeed, the characteristic interests presupposed by humanist approaches are often those shared by nonhumans,

110 

R. HUMPHREYS

but the humanist framework, by definition, is focused on the development of the human being by virtue of the fulfilment of such capacities. So, it is hardly the case that positions such as those of Singer can be accused of a form of veneered humanism (as, e.g., Michael F.  Smith suggests (1991, p.  146)). Such capacities matter, yes, but not because they are human ones; they matter in terms of how we are able to harm and benefit certain creatures (whatever their species) in relation to their interests; interests that are necessarily linked, at the very least, to their possession of certain species-specific capacities. There is a need for sentientist theorists to recognize the moral standing of a wider range of creatures than sentientism allows for (this is because creatures that are not sentient have interests, too) and a need to consider capacities other than sentience and those related to autonomy, as Attfield points out (Attfield 2014 [2003], p. 43). But, as the latter also plausibly argues, theorists like Peter Singer who prioritize such interests are not open to charges of discriminating on the basis of species … or of making humans more significant one for one than non-humans. … On the contrary, they make it possible to combine rejection of anthropocentrism (with important implications for inter-species ethics) with respect for rationality and autonomy as well as for vulnerability, and thus with a recognizable version of inter-human ethics. (Attfield 2014 [2003], pp. 42–43)

Besides, Singer himself associates humanism with speciesism, critiquing its conception of the human being as a being over and above all other creatures in the supposed ‘“Great Chain Being” that led from the lowest forms of matter to God himself’. In accordance with such an idea, all and only humans have ‘intrinsic dignity’, a morally relevant distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ that somehow justifies inequality between humans and other species (Singer 1976, p. 159; for a discussion of animal dignity, see Humphreys 2016). In addition to this, with respect to the most exploited groups of animals on the planet—animals used in the practices of factory farming and experimentation—it is predominately their suffering that most people will object to. That said, certainly, there are serious ethical issues arising from the fact that we kill the animals too. While accepting that different lives can have different value, so that the life of a person, all other things being equal, can be of greater value than the life of, say, a blade of grass, animals do have interests in continued existence (something to which many sentientist stances, Singer’s included, fail to give sufficient consideration, as argued by, e.g., Francione: see above).

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

111

That said, the lives of these animals do not usually end painlessly. It is part and parcel of the practice of animal experimentation that animals are often made to suffer, with the latest government figures indicating that of the more than 3 million animal experiments carried out in 2021 in Great Britain (a 6% increase since 2020, despite nonanimal research methods available), 441,403 experiments caused moderate to severe suffering of the animals used (Cruelty Free International 2021; see further Animal Aid 2022, pp.  8–9). Furthermore, cruel Lethal Dose 50 and Lethal Concentration 50 tests (which involve poisoning animals with increasing doses or concentrations of chemicals or toxins up until the point that 50% of the animals die) increased by 20% in the same year (Cruelty Free International 2021; see further Animal Aid 2022, pp. 8–9). Farm animals do not fare much better; in terms of the methods used to end these animals’ lives, significant suffering is often inflicted (particularly at the slaughterhouse and through transport methods, not least the live export trade). In addition, if we consider the suffering these animals are made to endure throughout their short lives, then their total suffering may be a greater harm than death itself. It is this suffering, in death as well as life, that degrades the animals (and ourselves for inflicting it) most shockingly. All this would be taken seriously by sentientist theorists. The concerns elucidated above—regarding the supposed disguised anthropocentric or humanistic underpinnings of certain sentientist animal ethics theories—arise from a tension between a certain long-standing conceptualization of justice on the one hand and of morality on the other; conceptualizations of which should map onto each other, rather than work against each other. In other words, it is not that certain anti-speciesist arguments are methodologically human-centred. It is rather than there is a conflict between what is traditionally said about our moral treatment of animals, and what we can say about their just treatment (and specifically the claim that, while we have moral obligations to animals, they are not the sort of creatures to which obligations of justice are owed). Indeed, most people would agree that we have moral obligations towards animals and that it is wrong to cause them to suffer, but in spite of this, obligations of justice are often held to be related to interhuman relations only (whether intentionally or not), not to our relations with other than human creatures. The theory of justice of John Rawls (1999) provides a prime example of this, as does the work of Brian Barry 1989, 1995, and 1999; Tim Scanlon 1998; and Darrel Moellendorf 2002 and 2011.

112 

R. HUMPHREYS

For such theorists, while we have moral obligations to nonhuman creatures and nonhumans are owed our compassion and mercy, they are not owed justice. This is because such writers base their theory of obligation on a Kantian conception of personhood as bound to the autonomous, rational, moral agent. This makes their theory of justice with regard to animals dependent on either having rights, being able to enter into a contract of some sort, having a capacity for a sense of justice, or being classed as an autonomous rational individual able to have reciprocal relations with other such subjects. Posthumanists are right to reject this conception, but it is to issues of justice particularly to which many sentientists tie this conception, not to their normative stance—as a sentientist one—as such. Indeed, a theorist’s conception of justice may be anthropocentric or humanistic without their conception of morality being considered as such, and morality being often viewed as a much wider sphere of obligation than justice (such is the problem). From a more general perspective, traditional theories of obligation often make justice fall within a narrow part of morality in which deliberations of justice are deemed to be much stricter and more binding than those of compassion and duty (see Midgley 1983, p. 50; see also Attfield and Humphreys 2016, pp. 1–2); the latter being considered optional, subjective even, or at least tied to an individualistic and liberalist conception of the good. For example, Möllendorf claims that ‘Duties of justice are a subset of all moral duties. Justice is not the whole of morality; its objects and scope are narrower. For one to be bound by a duty of justice to another, that other must be the right sort of thing and must be in the right relation to the one bound’ (2002, p. 31). Such is the view of justice of many ethicists. As such, even theories of moral obligations that are thought to be neutral between species can have the consequence, inadvertently or intentionally, that the respectful treatment of animals is overridden by traditionalist assumptions with respect to obligations of justice, the latter of which are unquestionably thought to override other moral obligations. A further consequence is that even when the weighty or basic interests of animals conflict with the less weighty or peripheral interests of humans, the interests of humans are (nearly always) given moral precedence (see Attfield and Humphreys 2016 and 2017). Thus, even when nonhumans’ vital interests are at stake, they are not taken seriously and are frequently unjustifiably overruled.

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

113

Indeed, the importance theorists give to deliberations of justice compared to what are considered less weighty moral matters is elucidated by Mary Midgley: [I]f one concentrates one’s attention on justice, everything outside it begins to look slight and optional. The boundary of justice becomes that of morality itself. Duties like mercy and compassion then begin to seem like mere matters of taste, aesthetic preference, luxuries, delightful and desirable no doubt in times of leisure, but not serious. (1983, p. 50)

However, as argued by Attfield and Humphreys, such a conception of justice is a distortion of the truth and should be rejected: For justice, at least in our view, concerns the satisfaction of needs among sets of individuals capable of affecting such satisfaction in others, with basic needs as a priority (in-text citation: Attfield 1987, pp. 135–53; and Attfield 1995, pp. 133–48), and this means that human interests cannot in matters of justice take invariable priority, where animal needs and interests are of equal or greater significance (an implication which warrants acceptance in any case even by those reluctant to endorse our theory of justice in general). Nor does justice always require reciprocation, for there can be justice between different generations even where no reciprocation is possible. Similarly, we contend, there can be justice between members of different sentient species (even in the absence of reciprocation), requiring the basic needs and interests of non-human animals to be heeded and not to be neglected. Indeed those who grant that animal needs and interests sometimes take priority over human interests, and that we therefore sometimes have overriding obligations to animals, are in danger of appearing inconsistent if they proceed to deny that these are obligations of justice. (Attfield and Humphreys 2016, p. 6)

This is not to say that Singer’s position falls foul of this problem, though. On his part, creatures that are sentient are creatures to whom the principle of equal consideration of like interests applies, and suffering is both a necessary and sufficient condition for moral standing. This is different from sentientist stances that stipulate serious, rather than equal, consideration for animals (see, e.g., DeGrazia 1996, p. 258). It also diverges from sentient positions that make moral significance depend on personhood. Varner, for example, argues for the requirement that persons have a biographical or narrative concept of self (that makes them special or more

114 

R. HUMPHREYS

morally significant than merely sentient beings or near-persons: see Varner 2012, Ch.8), implying the probable absence of personhood in many nonhuman beings (Ibid., see, e.g., p. 171). However, as has been argued elsewhere, not only is this view susceptible to the argument from marginal cases (pace Varner’s consideration of this problem) (Varner 2012, Ch.9; see Attfield’s and Humphreys’s review (2013, pp. 496–97) of Varner 2012), but also, many nonhuman creatures possess capacities that enhance their conscious experiences; capacities that could well add moral significance to their lives in a way that would not add moral significance to the lives of persons (this is, of course, assuming (for argument’s sake) that nonhumans are not persons). Varner admits that his arguments justify a kind of ‘“axiological anthropocentrism”, which gives pride of place to certain interests that only human beings have’, claiming that we should ‘take special care in our dealings with them’ (Varner 2012, p. 258). But the implications of this are very different from the implications of a view that makes some lives replaceable or of less value than others in cases of conflict, but that recognizes that like interests should also be given equal consideration in these cases. Before we even begin to consider the interests involved in such conflicts, Varner’s ethics applied in practice means that we have to start from a premise that human interests are more morally significant, leading to some strangely unethical implications, including the claim that we would be warranted in breeding blind chickens (nonpersons, on Varner’s view) in order to reduce feather pecking and thus reduce animal suffering, allowing us (from a utilitarianism perspective) to continue to rear them for meat or eggs but with (supposedly) improved animal welfare (Ibid., pp. 276–77). Contrary to Varner, however, the claim that we should change the conditions in which chickens are housed, rather than the hens themselves, does not assume, as Varner supposes it does, that ‘only chickens like those already in existence should be brought into existence’ (Ibid., p.  278). Rather, underlying the idea that we should improve housing conditions for intensively reared chickens (rather than change the chickens themselves), is the plausible judgement that the quality of life lived by hens matters and that we should not selectively breed them with fewer perceptual capacities, taking something away from the chickens and thereby further ‘assaulting’ them, in order that we might be able to continue with farming methods that cause distress and suffering to chickens. Feather pecking is, by and large, caused by the overcrowded, unstimulating

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

115

environments in which we keep the chickens. Whether or not animals are considered as persons, they do have their own good; a good that consists in exercising their instinctive tendencies, including perceptual ones; a good that can indeed be more significant than the peripheral interests of humans that are often at stake. Besides which, there is a strong case against breeding blind chickens on the basis that (as Attfield plausibly argues in relation to claims about generating desensitized animals) ‘an ampler range of capacities facilitates an ampler range of realization of capacities, and this is of greater value than a more restrictive range’ (Attfield 1998, p. 187). On this view, it is ‘wrong to generate creatures which lead lives more truncated than one which could have been brought into existence instead’ (Ibid., p. 186). While recognizing the moral standing of all sentient nonhuman animals, Varner denies them equal moral status on the basis of their lack of personhood, leading to very different utilitarian calculations from Singer when the interests of humans and nonhumans conflict. On Varner’s view, humans are deemed more morally significant than nonhumans not only when all other things are equal but also when things are not equal, as in the case of factory farming. The result of this is that the vital interests of animals, even their basic interests in fulfilling certain capacities related to their sentience, are overridden by less vital ones. The implications of this in practice are that welfarism is thought to be able to deal sufficiently with our responsibilities towards animals. For example, the welfarist concept of humane slaughter is deployed, a concept that underemphasizes the vital interests at stake and the immense suffering that is necessarily involved in the mass killing of animals as part of the meat industry. This is something that would be unjustifiable if the principle of equality were applied to animals. Of course, other sentientists recognize that different creatures may have lives of different value based on their capacities, including Singer, who also uses the concept of personhood to make distinctions between creatures with different capacities. But, for Singer, moral significance is not always attached to humans alone (much depends on the interests at stake as well as the capacities of the creatures concerned); some humans are persons, and some persons are not human. Thus, the concept of personhood is applied across species, and the claim that personhood is exclusively human is denied. Importantly here, applying the principle of equal consideration of interests to all sentient creatures is consistent with claiming that while, all

116 

R. HUMPHREYS

other things being equal, the value of persons’ lives is greater than that of nonpersons, all other things not being equal, the vital interests of so-called nonpersons in continued existence outweigh the less vital interests of humans in the case of, for example, our treatment of animals in the meat industry (irrespective of whether sentientists support this latter claim). All this is itself compatible with allowing for equal consideration of like interests across species. The consequence of this is a more egalitarian result when theory is applied in practice, oft resulting in an abolitionist stance much like Singer’s (in relation to factory farming), rather than animal welfarism or the advocacy of piecemeal changes or the sorts of reform that leave the current farming systems intact. Indeed, for Singer, all sentient creatures should be given equal consideration, irrespective of cognitive capacities, for it is sentience that is the characteristic deemed not only necessary but also sufficient for equal consideration in the moral sphere, whether the beings in question happen to be human or not. Therefore, the posthumanist claim that the methodology of traditional animal ethics stances (such as Singer’s) is anthropocentric is far from accurate. We have, of course, seen that Varner’s utilitarianism, whilst basing moral standing on the possession of sentience, admits of axiological anthropocentrism, and certainly traditional liberalistic theories that base direct obligations on relations or contracts or community-obligations and so forth as well as on a Kantian conception of personhood with regard to what animals are morally due undermine themselves if they purport to uphold nonanthropocentric moral principles in practice genuinely. However, animal liberationist positions differ considerably, and not all can be accused of undermining themselves in this sense (this is as true of posthumanist positions, as it is of animal liberationist ones). While no theorist can remove herself from the enlightenment history from which she is derived, nevertheless, she is free to accept a range of moral frameworks, and all ethicists who purport to be consistently or genuinely nonanthropocentric need to accept that we have obligations of justice to animals so that the significant interests of animals are not trumped by the less significant interests of humans in cases of conflict. Singer’s stance would not allow for such trumping where the significant interests in question involve, for example, the vital interests of animals in not suffering as opposed to the ‘interests’ of humans in, for example, eating cheap meat or having certain products available that have been tested on animals and caused suffering to those animals of the sort that we would not be

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

117

prepared to inflict on humans. Such a position is not anthropocentric, but neutral between species with regard to suffering. It should perhaps be noted here that appeals to the fact that we would not be prepared to inflict on humans the same suffering that we inflict on animals used in current practices, and that we would not be prepared to appeal to certain humans’ lack of particular capacities (rationality, language, and so forth) as a reason to inflict atrocious suffering on them (despite readily making such an appeal in the case of nonhuman suffering) reveals an unjustifiable bias in the case of our treatment of humans on the one hand, who are nearly always invariably favoured in terms of taking moral priority, and animals on the other hand, whose serious interests in not suffering go unheeded. Indeed, in theory, the various criteria used by anthropocentrists to exclude nonhuman creatures from proper moral consideration and to justify continuing to use them in the ways we currently do in commercial practices inadvertently exclude many human beings from proper moral consideration, as well as provide such anthropocentrists with a rationale for using—and even preferring to use, in all consistency—certain humans in such practices (but this is, of course, something that most would want to reject). Although he is best known for his endorsement of the land ethic, in his analysis of environmental ethics stances Callicott well outlines the animal liberationist’s reply to the problematic reasoning of anthropocentrists (regarding their exclusion of nonhumans from direct consideration via an appeal to their supposed lack of certain capacities): The theoreticians of the animal liberation movement … typically reply as follows. Not all human beings qualify as worthy of moral regard, according to the various criteria specified. Therefore, by parity of reasoning, human persons who do not so quality as moral patients may be treated, as animals often are, as mere things or means (e.g., used in vivisection experiments, disposed of if their existence is inconvenient, eaten, hunted, etc., etc.). But the ethical humanists [which for our purposes should here be taken to mean ‘the anthropocentrists’] would be morally outraged if irrational and inarticulate infants, for example, were used in painful or lethal medical experiments, or if severely retarded people were hunted for pleasure. Thus, the double-dealing, the hypocrisy, of ethical humanism appears to be exposed [for more details on this argument Callicott refers here to Regan 1979, p. 190; Linzey 1976; and Singer 1975, p. 144]. Ethical humanism … turns out after all, it seems, to be speciesism, a philosophical indefensible prejudice

118 

R. HUMPHREYS

(analogous to racial prejudice) against animals. … In short, the ethical humanists’ various criteria for moral standing do not include all or only human beings … although in practice the ethical humanist wishes to make the class of morally considerable beings coextensive with the class of human beings. (Callicott 1980, pp. 316–17)

Indeed, what is called ‘the argument from marginal cases’ reveals the hypocrisy of the ethical humanist’s stance, not of the normative theorist or animal liberationist who consistently applies her criteria for moral standing to deliberations of justice and morality irrespective of species and who endorses the principle of equality as being genuinely applicable to animals. Moreover, as argued above, the exclusion of animals from principles of justice has the repugnant implication that the basic interests of animals are overridden even by peripheral human ones (see further, Attfield and Humphreys 2016 and 2017). To avoid this unwanted implication, animals need to be included as recipients of justice in our moral deliberations, ‘overcoming the disparity between our understanding of our obligations to animals [as involving mercy, compassion, kindness, and so forth] and our understanding of what is owed to animals as a matter of justice [what they are due in their own right, and what they are entitled to as a matter of fairness]; in other words, what we say about obligations and about justice with regards to animals need to be aligned, so that animals’ interests are not unjustifiably … disregarded by traditionalist assumptions about the priority of humans in matters of justice. While even some non-­ anthropocentric theories (such as sentientism and biocentrism) have … excluded animals from considerations of justice, … they … have the resources to overcome this disparity, and include animals as recipients of justice’ (Attfield and Humphreys 2017, pp. 52–53). While the animal liberationist stance of Singer is a sentientist stance, posthumanists, of course, would reject his utilitarianism approach as a theory that is based on universalizable principles and excludes the particularities of individuals. But utilitarianism and other versions of consequentialism, while not without their problems, need not deny the particulars of a situation. Indeed, considering species-specific differences and differences between individuals would be necessary in the first instance as a matter of justice, particularly in relation to the principle of equal consideration of interests. So, the broad-brush stroke rejection of certain moral frameworks is not necessary in order to pay heed to posthumanist worries with regard to theories unjustifiably ignoring particularities and situational contexts.

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

119

That said, it could, following the concerns of some critics (some of whom have been mentioned above, but see Weitzenfeld’s and Joy’s overview of the work of relevant theorists here (2014, pp. 3–27)), reasonably be questioned whether there is something amiss with the traditional philosophical frameworks used to understand our treatment of animals and elucidate the wrongness of such treatment. Despite the well-argued, robust, valid, and often sound arguments put forwards from such frameworks, the plight of animals continues, and we seem nowhere near meaningful change for animals. But one must ask whether this is because of the frameworks of those arguments themselves or because of the powerful economic interests at stake as well as the ideological structures that we have long hoped such arguments would dent. Considering that the widespread oppressions of animals continue to be supported and maintained by unseen ideologies and by global conglomerates, our moral frameworks for tackling such oppressions might start to look, on the one hand, almost too idealistic to work in practice, and on the other, even flimsy and weak against such mighty powers. It is not so much that they fail to enable us to understand what is wrong with our treatment of animals, but that something more is needed, which is one reason why critical animal theorists stress the importance of praxis; of theory which is embodied by social action and activism; and of acknowledging the intersectionality aspect of oppressions (for scholars who have played a significant role in the emergence of Critical Animal Studies [CAS] as a discipline, see Nocella II et al. 2014, pp. xiv– xxxvi; and Twine 2010). We should also consider, of course, that moral progress is nearly always slow. Such is the case in animal ethics where political action in the animal liberation movement tends to have had piecemeal results, but so too in other areas, particularly environmental ethics, a subdiscipline of philosophy in which philosophers have for decades challenged Western humanistic and chauvinistic frameworks of moral action (see Routley 1973; Goodpaster 1978; Callicott 1980; Attfield 1987, 1991, 2014, and Attfield et  al. 2015). Women’s liberation and anti-racism movements, including the abolitionist movement, provide other examples in which we can point to sound intellectual arguments against sexism and racism, but which have taken many centuries to have a political or social impact on a significant scale. We only have to look at the current climate and biodiversity crisis to see that no amount of disembodied reasoning alone will solve ethical dilemmas or cause systemic change; a motivational force in the form of political

120 

R. HUMPHREYS

will and collective action is also needed. This is one reason why critical animal theorists espouse ethics in practice and the import of the social element of theory—we are dealing with real animals, real lives at stake, and horrendous suffering on an unimaginable scale, happening now; suffering that calls for urgent political action. And yet, despite people’s abhorrence of the suffering of animals in current practices, such suffering is something that is not responded to. ‘Why is it proving so difficult to tackle industrial-­ scale animal cruelty, despite public revulsion?’ asks the Centre for Animals and Social Justice (CASJ 2022). The title of Bernard Rollin’s book The Unheeded Cry aptly pointed towards this question back in 1989. One significant issue here for the anti-speciesist movement is that animals are simply not represented in the political arena and cannot represent themselves. They are very much voiceless in a relevant sense. (While animals might be ‘voiceless’ in the sense that they cannot speak in the way humans speak and are not sufficiently or directly politically represented, this is not to say that they cannot speak to us in other ways, nor that they cannot or do not express dissent to their treatment in commercial practices through, e.g., cries of pain, behaviour indicating discomfort, fleeing [if possible], and so forth.) One reason for this is the huge vested interests at stake—within the pharmaceutical industry and the meat industry. Properly responding to animals’ cries of pain would have massive implications on what we are permitted to do to animals in the name of our own interests. But with ideological frameworks maintaining the hidden abuse of animals on an unprecedented global scale, animal discrimination has become part of everything we do and consume, making the movement for change all the more difficult on motivational, habitual, and political levels. This is one reason why some political theorists have considered the potential of genuine deliberative justice in relation to animals and their interests (see Garner 2019). Robert Garner clearly explains the deficiencies with the current ‘strong’ anthropocentric approach within political systems—‘which holds that only human preferences regarding animals ought to be promoted’ (Garner 2016, p.  464) drawing on the well-­ established all-affected principle (see Warren 2017) to claim that ‘animals themselves have a democratic right to have their interests represented in the political process’ (Garner, 2016, p.  460), irrespective of whether humans desire or would prefer to have better protections afforded to animals (Ibid., pp. 459–77):

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

121

The interests of animals are affected by collective decisions and, therefore, they, or—more specifically—their representatives, have a democratic right to have some say in the making of those decisions. (Ibid., p. 459)

Most notably, and returning here to contentions about traditional animal ethics theory, Garner’s arguments are made outside of this theory, independent of capacities-based approaches to morality and justice, thereby avoiding the debates regarding the moral status of animals and the conclusions of those debates, including abolitionist ones (see, e.g., ibid., pp. 461–63, and 471–72). For further information on deliberative justice and animals, see the research being carried out by The Centre for Animals and Social Justice (CASJ).

Identity—or Continuity—Theorists? Mistaking ‘Anthropo-identity’ with ‘Anthropo-insistence’ Let us now turn to the contention made against traditional ethicists regarding reasoning as the sole basis upon which moral values are discerned. Certainly, some positions can be accused of reasoning that is disembodied in the sense that the creatures to whom such reasoning refers are somewhat encumbered, abstract, or shadowy figures who are lost sight of. The worry is that arguments that do not directly include emotional connections, relations of care, or considerations regarding the individuality of animals miss something out that is crucial in considering human-­ animal relations. Rawls’s contractors in the original position of the veil of ignorance are a case in point (see 1999, Ch. 1. Sec. 4). Although these are, of course, meant to be human beings, and Rawls excludes animals from principles of justice, they do serve to provide a good example in relation to the worry above. Indeed, the original position itself is a disembodied position, and Rawls’s framework is rooted in a particular conception of the self and rationality that requires abstracting oneself from particulars in order to achieve impartiality. Some feminist ethicists, such as Seyla Benhabib, have rightly pointed out that such a self is ‘disembedded and disembodied’ from reality (Benhabib 1992, p.  152). For Benhabib, differences need to be considered, including gender differences, if we are interested in disadvantaged people being better off. And, as Attfield and Humphreys have argued (in relation to animals and to a consideration of whether the original position has the resources

122 

R. HUMPHREYS

to include animals as beneficiaries of principles of justice), ‘it is difficult to imagine how the Rawlsian goal of equality could be attained by disembodied choosers, ignorant of the particulars (and, in terms of considering animals’ interests as a matter of justice, ignorant of species-specific differences)’. Rawls himself, of course, excludes animals from principles of justice (Attfield and Humphreys 2017, p. 49). However, reasoning independent of emotional attachments and relations of care still has a huge role to play in informing us of what makes certain actions wrong and other actions right, and in enabling us to critique value judgements, challenge prior assumptions, present alternative positions, and reveal flaws in our thinking. That this is true need not impact on the plausibility of ethics of care approaches or the role of moral emotions and imagination in informing us of value and disvalue. Certainly, there are states of affairs or aspects of animals’ lives that are of value in and of themselves, including, for example, freedom, functioning, and well-­ being. But these aspects also have instrumental value, and consideration of an animal’s good in terms of what may be considered instrumentally and intrinsically valuable aspects of their lives can provide reasons for action independently of whether someone cares about them or whether someone feels an appropriate emotion about the case/s in question. Care, relations, emotions, and imagination may be sufficient for reasons for moral actions, but they need not be necessary and, indeed, at times, reasoning itself provides the strongest case for why we should care for creatures that are not necessarily close to us, with whom we share no common interests or who are outside of our family circle. This is as true for considerations with regard to interhuman relations as it is for interspecies ones and intergenerational ones too. With regard to human-human relations, we often appeal (and think it right to appeal) to arguments that do not depend on direct or indirect relations of care. For example, we may say it is wrong to torture people or cause them unnecessary suffering irrespective of whether we care about those people; or that it is wrong to keep human beings in cages whether or not we care about those humans beings; or that adult humans should have the right to vote and that this is true whether or not we have a relation of care with all adult humans (which we clearly do not have). That said, Cora Diamond also highlights a problem with so-called humanist yet anti-speciesist approaches used by traditional ethicists, claiming that arguments against the suffering of animals distance us from the bodily experiences of animals; distance us from imaginative reflection on

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

123

their bodily existence (Diamond 2008, pp. 46–59; and Weitzenfeld and Joy 2014, p. 15). She also highlights how these arguments do not get to the heart of the horror of what we do to animals; the words do not do what we want them to do when we consider the injustices inflicted upon animals in our current practices (Diamond 2008, pp.  46–67; and Weitzenfeld and Joy 2014, p. 16) Of course, language is limited in its ability to express the horror, despair, and powerlessness we feel when we think about what we do to animals, and this is also true of atrocities against humans. Certainly, language can only take us thus far in expressing these feelings and in expressing what is wrong with certain atrocities. Poetry, other forms of creative writing, and other creative mediums can help us understand our own and others' experiences here and may allow us to ‘see’ or understand something that we might not have ‘seen’ or understood before reading, for example, certain poetry or writing. For Diamond, ‘The Regan-Singer approach makes it hard to see what is important either in our relationship with other human beings or in our relationship with animals’ (Diamond 1978, p. 467). Arguments surrounding the moral standing of animals not only fail to recognize nonhumans as ‘fellow-creatures’, a notion that, she argues, is an ‘extension of a non-­ biological notion of what human life is’ (Ibid., p. 474), but also leave out fundamental elements of our relationship with other humans that are different from our relationship with animals (e.g., these elements are involved with the fact that we do not eat other humans) (1978, p. 467). Therefore, for Diamond, there are features of our lives with other humans that are missing from traditional debates. Diamond’s post-­ Wittgensteinian approach to this omission can be found in the claim that ‘we have made something of great human significance out of the very notion of human life’ (Diamond 1991, p.  352), far removed from any biological notion. Through, for example, their culture, ethics, literature, language, and ancestors, humans have made something of the difference between human and animal life (Ibid., p. 351). By means of such things, it is argued, we have come to understand humans as ‘special’ in a way that animals are not. This ‘specialness’ (which humans have, and animals lack), Diamond argues, is fundamental to our understanding of the different treatment of humans and animals (Ibid., pp. 348–53). However, while it may be justifiable to see some humans as special, just in the sense that we have greater responsibilities towards them than other humans, and it may be justifiable to value human life and nonhuman life

124 

R. HUMPHREYS

differently, it does not follow that we are somehow justified in seeing all and only humans as special or distinct. Animals share similar interests and capacities to humans; so it is not entirely correct to say that the differences between species justify the claim that humans are distinct. Of course, we have special relationships with some humans in the sense that leads to a justifiable partiality with regard to obligation, particularly family members. But we certainly do not have special relationships or moral relations with all and only human beings. Indeed, many humans place greater value on their relationships with animals than they do with humans. For these people, their lives with certain animals may be special in a way that their lives with humans are not. In addition, relationships (whether ‘special’ or not) are not necessary for moral standing. Having a relationship may be a sufficient source of moral concern, but it is certainly not a necessary one. It should be noted that, while many people regard humans as special, this can be reconciled with acknowledging that animals have moral standing and giving them moral consideration (as Diamond does). One should also add that the language of ‘specialness’ is different from the language of value and moral obligation, and we need to be aware that there is a distinction to be made between what our modes of life with animals are at present (due to what our ancestors have made them to be, and so on) and what they ought to be. While the value we attach to different beings may be based upon relevant objective considerations, such as appeals to potentiality or other capacities, judgements of ‘specialness’ may be deemed expressivistic in that they serve to express a certain feeling or attitudes (though Diamond may choose to say otherwise). In the present context, the language of specialness could be said to express an attitude or feeling about human beings. Moreover, philosophers who employ deductive reasoning methods need not take an all-or-nothing approach to reasoning about our treatment of animals and are free to accept that reasoning is just one method by which we can come to understand our treatment of animals for what it is. It should perhaps be noted here that attempts to overcome reason-­ based humanist methods by drawing on aspects of ethics of care perspectives, including our actual caring relations with humans and other animals, need not necessarily be immune from anthropocentric charges. Indeed, some such stances may well be more susceptible for the very reason that they may make the right conduct seem dependent on empathy, sympathy, and the particularities of certain relational contexts. That said, the

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

125

universalizability aspect of traditional moral theory does in some sense require a distancing and a ‘thinking through’ and evaluating of assumptions, values, and beliefs, but impartiality and partiality can be taken into account within certain reasoning methods and by ethical theories; they are not mutually exclusive. A well-known example of this can be found in the Heinz dilemma of Lawrence Kohlberg (1981, p. 12). Let us imagine that Heinz’s wife is very ill and needs a particular drug to stay alive. We can imagine that the drug is very expensive, and so he cannot afford to buy it. Heinz decides to steal the drug to save his wife: Heinz, after all, should steal the drug because it is his wife [caring partiality]; and his wife should get the drug because any human life is more important than any avaricious pharmacist’s desire to make some extra money [impartiality]. (Flanagan and Jackson 1993, p. 74)

Heinz’s conviction that the right action to take is to steal the drug is justified partly through partial considerations concerning the fact that it is his own wife who needs the drug and to whom he has strong obligations, and partly through wider, less partial important considerations concerning ideas about the value of human life in general (that human life is, e.g., more valuable than a pharmaceutical company’s desire to make a profit). In this case, Heinz’s justifications for stealing the drug are tied to both an ethics of care perspective on the situation and a more rational universalizability perspective. Justifications of moral deliberations should not only be impartial but also be tested by appeals to universalizability to detect whether the reasons given as justifications for action are biased ones (see David DeGrazia 1996, pp.  27–30), and whether they are, for example, self-interested, and therefore not actually impartial at all. Here, universalizability should be taken to mean the sort endorsed by Richard Hare, where judgements are universalizable in the sense that they require identical moral judgements in identical circumstances (Hare 1981, p. 108). For example, if I claim, ‘X should not lie’ in certain circumstances, then universalizability requires that in similar circumstances ‘Y should not lie’. To say that X should not lie but Y should requires that there be a relevant difference between X’s and Y’s circumstances (DeGrazia 1996, p. 50). Besides, all this is compatible with taking an approach to animal ethics that considers universalizability to be central to ethical reasoning but that also considers imaginative understanding about the lived experiences of

126 

R. HUMPHREYS

animals themselves as also crucial (however limited or full that understanding may be), together with recognition of the limits of not just the language of reasoning but also of our modal schema, empathy, and imagination in terms of providing us with an accurate portrayal of the full extent of animals’ lived experiences. This is one reason why phenomenological enquiry, combined with ethological research, can be so important to an understanding of animals, alongside an examination of ethical arguments that present impartial justifications against our current treatment of them. Returning to Singer’s appeal to Bentham’s words (Singer 1995, p. 7)—‘The question is not Can they reason? or Can they talk? but Can they suffer?’ (Bentham 1789, 2017, Ch.17, p. 143)—such an appeal, despite the impartiality of the proposition upon which an argument can be robustly made, certainly does get to the heart of the argument about suffering and what is wrong with our current treatment of animals. It also points to the vulnerabilities of animal bodies, vulnerabilities shared by humans, to which Diamond draws attention in relation to the language of justice. As she says, ‘there is a kind of response in the face of what is done to them: a pain and revulsion that requires for its expression the language of injustice, pain and revulsion felt as akin to that at the exercise of power without curb over vulnerable human beings’ (Diamond 2001, p. 139). Although Diamond argues that the capacity for suffering ‘is not the fundamental moral relation’ (1978, pp.  470–71) to what she calls our ‘fellow-creatures’, the capacity for suffering is certainly something that is shared by all sentient creatures, and that makes both nonhumans and humans vulnerable in similar or comparable ways. Bentham’s claim cited above—that the relevant question we should ask ourselves in our dealings with animals is whether they are capable of suffering—shifted the focus from whether or not animals possessed rationality, agency, or language, to their vulnerability and thus whether they could be harmed (see Wolfe 2010, p. 81). In addition, it is this very question, ‘Can they suffer?’, that Derrida claims, in his The Animal That Therefore I Am, changed the discourse from the old logocentric ways of speaking of animals—as being deprived of the logos, or of this or that cognitive faculty or as lacking a power of some sort or another—to the ‘undeniability’ of our response to this ‘first and decisive question’, a response which ‘has never left any room to doubt’ (Derrida 2008, pp. 27–28; for further discussion of the issues raised here in relation to the work of Diamond and Derrida, see Wolfe 2010, Ch.3).

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

127

It has been found above that so-called identity theorist philosophers (a term associated with certain sentientist animal ethicists, such as Singer and Regan: see further Calarco 2015, pp. 6–27) correctly point out the continuity between humans and other animals, and that they position humans as existing within the world of other animals, rather than identifying specific animals with humans. This is an important point because this understanding of their work undermines objections that their arguments are unduly anthropocentric; anthropocentrism being the very normative stance that they aim to reject as unjustifiably human chauvinist and speciesist. Besides, the term ‘identity theorists’ in critical animal studies debates is open to misuse, particularly in relation to its association with pro-animal liberationists. One reason for this is that such theorists are free to move beyond the bounds of sentientism towards a more morally inclusive normative stance, such as that of biocentrism, which argues that all and only living things have moral standing on the grounds that all and only living things have interests and thus all and only they can be harmed and benefited. In addition, there are, of course, strong analogies to be made between nonsentient and sentient creatures, whether human or nonhuman (see Humphreys 2011 and 2020), and such analogies could well enable one to identify with (and recognize the moral considerability of) a range of creatures other than sentient ones. That said, it could be claimed that it is easier to identify with creatures that are similar to us in terms of mental and physical characteristics—it is much harder to identify with reptiles than it is with mammals generally, for example. The lived experiences of reptiles and mammals seem so very different, and it is much more difficult to imagine the lived sensory experiences of, say, a lizard, than, say, a rabbit. However, we should be wary of the moral anthropomorphism discussed in the last chapter, based as it is not on a critical understanding of other species (as critical anthropocentrism is) but on a prejudiced view that grants moral standing to things purely because they are like us. But this can hardly be said of all versions of sentientism, as opposed to anthropocentrism, and this can be shown via a proper understanding of the argument from marginal cases, discussed above. Further, liberationist theorists are also free to critique the old binaries that promote an ‘us and them’ mentality; indeed, they do. This can be seen in Singer’s argument against speciesism and his claim that all sentient animals deserve equal consideration, an argument that calls for an end to

128 

R. HUMPHREYS

the practices and old ideologies that perpetuate animal exploitation. The critiques of liberationist theorists tend to be well-informed by ethological studies, such as those of Frans de Waal (2017) and Marc Bekoff (2007) who themselves support a position of (what Nina Varsava calls) ‘anthropo-­ insistence’ (Varsava 2014, p. 524) with regard to the debates surrounding anthropomorphism (see below); a position that, by definition, stresses the similarities between humans and nonhumans and calls for anthropomorphism of the critical kind. This anthropo-insistence avoids anthropo-denial (the latter seeks to maintain that the differences between humans and nonhumans support giving unequal or less than serious consideration to nonhuman interests; interests which, in conflicting cases between humans and nonhumans, should be given more significance than the human ones at stake—the animal testing of detergents, cosmetics, and other nonessential items being a prime case in point). But it is crucial not to mistakenly identify anthropo-­ insistence with what we could call ‘anthropo-identity’. Indeed, anthropo-­ insistence is not the same as ‘anthropo-identity’—the latter starts from a premise that they are like us, while the former is subtly but centrally quite different in that it stresses the similarities and continuity between creatures. Thus, pace Calarco (see Calarco 2015, pp. 26–27), an identity approach to anthropomorphism and more broadly in relation to other species of mind (Allen and Bekoff 1997) need not start from an anthropocentric-­ type position based on how human-like other animals are. While it may start from this point and sometimes does—the approach of many Ape Language Studies, as discussed in the last chapter, is a case in point—it need not. Rather, it can start from a position that identifies with animals in important respects. It can also strongly argue against anthropocentrism by arguing from a position that links moral standing with being capable of being harmed and benefited (see Goodpaster 1978), while also recognizing that a range of creatures other than humans may be capable of such— sentient and nonhuman ones—and that such creatures may be different from and similar to human beings in numerous ways.

Difference and Posthumanism This points to another sense in which some of the categorizations within the critical animal studies debates attempt to slot certain philosophers into different groups without necessarily taking into account the complexity of the arguments at stake. For example, in contrast to the category of identity

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

129

theorists, we see the use of the category of difference theorists (see, e.g., Calarco’s chapter on the difference approach, Calarco 2015, Ch.2). As we might expect, the latter points to those philosophers who focus on the differences between humans and nonhumans and between individuals of the same species. Regarding philosophers in this camp, we see stress on Otherness, individuality and the subjective point of view as something that emerges from the situational and historical context in which the other finds herself (Calarco 2015, Ch.2; see further Kavanagh 2017/2018). An anti-essentialist stance with regard to human nature, the difference approach in relation to animal ethics may best be seen in the work of philosophers such as Jacques Derrida (2008, see further Kavanagh, 2017/2018, pp. 1–9; and Moser 2017/2018, pp. 221–47) and Levinas (1987, p. 122; 1991, p. 12; and 1998, pp. 9–10). For the latter, individuals are viewed as radically Other and the only way we can think ethically in relation to them is via a shocking confrontation with their Otherness, a radical Otherness that traditional ethics fails to recognize (see, e.g., Levinas 1969, p. 73). However, categorization of the difference approach as an approach that is counter to that of identity theorists all but implies that from the perspective of difference theorists, the identity approach is rather a limited animal ethics, as it cannot or does not consider emergent individualization. But despite this implication, animal liberationist philosophers (who supposedly sit firmly in the identity theorist camp) are free to consider important differences between species and between individuals of the same species while also recognizing that underlying and systematic societal structures maintain the oppression of creatures other than humans. Arguments against speciesism and arguments granting animals equal consideration of like interests (rather than equal treatment) are a case in point. Certainly, with respect to diversity, their philosophies—perhaps more than those categorized as difference theories or indistinction theories (see below)—more than acknowledge the rich complexity of animal life; they often document it too. Moreover, we should also perhaps consider that the claim that ethics requires recognition of the radicalness of the other misses a very important aspect of our relations with other individuals; we can understand others through an empathetic relation with them. Compassion and empathy inform our understanding of others in a way that is at least underplayed by the difference approach. Furthermore, we should be wary of the unwanted consequences of regarding the other as radically different from ourselves.

130 

R. HUMPHREYS

Certainly, many animals look very different from us, and there are differences between individuals of the same species, too, human beings included. With regard to other animals, radical differences in physicality have tended to lead us to overlook that such creatures may well be minded ones and sentient, resulting in some of the most appalling treatment of those creatures, including being skinned alive for their fur or skin. Reptiles are a prime example here. While they do indeed look different from us, they are nevertheless sentient, and yet their treatment in reptile farms, where they are used for ‘harvesting’ their skins, is nothing short of abuse (see PETA 2022). Similarly, viewing other humans as radically different underplays the characteristics common to our species, not only physical characteristics but also aspects of human lives that are cross-cultural; hopes, fears, ‘dreams’ of a better life, love, grief, and loyalty (which is not to say that such things are exclusive to Homo Sapiens: on animals and love, e.g., see Milligan 2017/2018, p. 197). Moreover, there are many ethologists who, in adopting critical anthropomorphism in their language, would probably be slotted firmly into the identity theorist shaped hole, and yet their philosophies often proceed from a position of intimate knowledge of the rich complexity and diversity of other than human life. Indeed, it is because of their studies relating to mental continuity and animal life that we often learn not only of the fascinating interspecies differences between creatures but also of intraspecies differences, including, for example, the different personalities of individuals of the same species. With all that said, talk of the human and the nonhuman, whether in relation to differences, similarities, or both, in some sense cannot help but suggest a harking back to Cartesian binary relations with respect to us (on the one hand) and them (on the other). This is just one reason for the claim that, in relation to the debates surrounding anthropomorphism, a critical approach is needed in the form of critical anthropomorphism. However, it is also the reason why some theorists advocate not an avoidance of anthropomorphism by way of an endorsement of mechanomorphism but rather a move in, perhaps what could be said to be, the opposite direction; a move beyond anthropomorphism in animal ethics towards a posthumanism that dissolves talk of human and nonhuman, us and others. The idea here is that anthropomorphism, even if used critically, does not overcome the unjustified emphasis we have given to the significance of everything human over and above everything that is not human, and thus is, in a sense, a form of human exceptionalism.

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

131

Posthumanism was brought to the fore of the literature within animal studies debates by D.  J. Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985 and 1991), a paper for which she is perhaps best known, and which outlined— what would come to be known as—her so-called posthumanist stance. (I say so-called posthumanist, for this is a term that she has expressed discomfort with: see below.) Haraway’s manifesto emphasizes the interrelatedness of humans, animals, and technologies, as well as our ‘joint kinship with animals and machines’ (2016a [1991], p.  15; see further Midson 2018, p. 691). Concerned with the decentring of human beings, posthumanist ideas on kinship involve reconceptualizing the human being in a way that is in opposition to all that the human is and has been in the history of ideas (a theological, anthropological, and philosophical history). As she states, her aim is to ‘learn from our fusion with animals and machines how not to be a Man, the embodiment of Western logos’ (2016a [1991], p. 52; see further Midson 2018, p. 691). (On her part, Haraway rejects the term ‘posthumanism’. Of Haraway’s work, Scott Midson presents a helpful analysis, explaining that ‘Haraway’s concern is that posthumanism pays too much lip service to the human’: as Neil Badmington puts it, ‘the “post-” is forever tied up with what it is “post-ing”’ (Midson 2018, p. 5; Midson cites Badmington 2004, p. 119); in other words, it forever harks back to human-centric ways of thinking (see Haraway 2016, especially pp. 32 and 55; see also Haraway and Wolfe 2016, pp. 261–62).) It is not clear whether such posthumanism involves a dissolution of the language barriers and an avoidance or rejection of our etymological history and its connotations, or our ontological understanding of human creatures in relation to nonhuman ones, or both. Both dissolutions are problematic, as we shall see below. However, either way, what is clear is that language certainly reinforces our prejudices, including unwitting ones, and this is certainly true of some of the language we use to describe animals (see Watson and Humphreys 2019, pp.  118–24), most notably animals on farms and animals used in experiments. One would hope that, given time, an understanding and awareness of such prejudices would affect a change in our ontological understanding of nonhuman creatures by lifting the conceptual veil on the way we currently perceive animals within our framework of human exceptionalism; exceptionalism that serves to bolster and maintain current practices that cause animals horrendous sufferings. A change in our understanding would ultimately mean embracing ways of talking about animals that do not merely reinforce binary relations at their expense.

132 

R. HUMPHREYS

Ethics in Practice However, this leads us to rightly ask, as Matthew Calarco pointedly does, ‘What practices might correspond to a life in which ‘humans’ and ‘animals’ are no longer sharply delimited and separated?’ (2015, p. 55). With regard to the two main practices that exploit animals—intensive farming and animal experimentation—answering such a question would require us to question that which we too readily do to animals that we are not prepared to do to humans. But this itself involves using the very conceptual distinctions that the posthumanist wants us to reject. Further, in terms of the argumentation surrounding these questions, the argument from marginal cases has a central role to play and would be crucial in arriving at nonbiased conclusions—but again, this argument depends on us being able to draw on what one might consider being the differences and similarities between humans and other animals. Besides this, we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater in terms of overcoming exploitative binary relational concepts. Whatever the case should be in relation to our treatment of nonhuman creatures, they remain the most exploited group of beings on the planet and attempting to use posthumanist ideas in the struggles against our unjust treatment of nonhumans is unlikely to work in practice. Similarly to the difference approach of philosophers such as Derrida, posthumanist discourse is discursive and often vague in its use of language, making it difficult for those outside the discourse to understand (for this critique in relation to the difference approach, see Calarco 2015, p.  29). Indeed, posthumanist writings have been criticized as elitist in the sense that the language used is often so jargon-laden and elaborate that it fails to penetrate beyond the ivory tower in which it is presented (Nocella II et  al. 2014, pp. xxiv–xxv). Posthumanist discourse has been accused of ‘theoretical … dissection of nonhuman animals’; a dissection disengaged from ‘real-world theory and praxis focused on the liberation or oppression of nonhuman animals’ (Ibid., p. xxiv). It is this supposed lack of praxis— whether in the form of activism, political engagement, or practical ethics—that separates posthumanist scholars, as animal studies (AS) theorists, from critical animal studies (CAS) scholars, the latter of whom are focused on critical theory in practice (Ibid., p. xxiv). Haraway’s concept of companion species may be a case in point here. Nonhumans and humans are co-constituted (2016b [2003], p. 108) and interdependent (2008, p. 19), and they co-shape each other within ‘layers

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

133

of reciprocating complexity’ (Ibid., p. 42). A Dictionary of Critical Theory provides a useful definition of Haraway’s ‘companion species’ as the mutually dependent … relationship between human animals and certain kinds of non-human animals. Companion species differs [sic.] from companion animals (such as guide dogs for the blind) in this crucial respect: it implies a two-way dependency. Haraway argues that neither human animals nor non-human animals pre-exist their relationship to one another. This is because the relationship is productive or co-constitutive. Haraway takes this line of thought back to the origin of both humans and dogs and argues that their development has to be seen as an instance of co-evolution. Neither species would be what it is today without the other. Humans are in a state of coexistence with countless microorganisms, Haraway argues, so ‘our’ sense of ‘self’ needs to be rethought. (Buchanan 2018)

There is, found in this definition, an indication of Haraway’s attempt to overcome the ‘Great Divides of animal/human, nature/culture, organic/ technical, and wild/domesticated’ (Haraway 2008, p. 15). The focus for Haraway is ‘interdependence’ of species, which she claims is ‘the play of companion species. … Not much is excluded from the needed play, no technologies, commerce, organism, landscapes, people, practices. … I am not a posthumanist; I am who I become with companion species, who and which make a mess out of categories in the making of kin and kind. Queer messmates in mortal play’ (Ibid., p. 19). But which and whose technologies? Which commerce, which landscapes, and which practices? As for the latter, the practices that most involve animals—animal experimentation and intensive rearing—are the very practices that cause global nonhuman oppression on an almost unimaginable scale. These practices prevent animals from exercising their natural tendencies to such an extent that (unlike the human species involved in that which is not excluded from the play of which Haraway talks) they are prevented from truly becoming who or what they are, in relation to their own species, their own kind (Humphreys 2016, pp. 143–62). They are beyond freedom and dignity (a freedom and dignity that for the lucky ones is sometimes reclaimed when they are rescued and allowed to live out the rest of their lives in a sanctuary that enables them to be the creatures that they really are). But many posthumanist writings are so esoteric in any case that they often evade pinning down with respect to whether they could be a means of effective change for animals, let alone overcome the worst injustices.

134 

R. HUMPHREYS

However, one thing that is perhaps so obvious that it goes unnoticed, and which is at least underplayed if not barely acknowledged in some posthumanist work, is that, for the most part, animals want to be left alone; they do not want to be interfered with. And the very idea of companion species fails to recognize that the billions of animals that we instrumentalize every year through commercial practices are forced to live in ways that we inflict upon them, often violently. Certainly, Haraway thinks there should be an encounter that allows species to be companions ‘in regard and respect’ (Haraway 2008, p. 19). But, for billions of animals, there is no such encounter. There is an oppression, manipulation, and speciesism that is at the heart of our relation with other species and that is entrenched within it and which undermines the work of some posthumanist writings, no more so than in Haraway’s sympathetic writing on animal experimentation (ibid., Ch.3), in relation to which she claims that ‘Curiosity, not just functional benefit, may warrant the risk of ‘wicked action’ (Ibid., p. 70). ‘Tangled species’ (Ibid., p.  247) we are, but it is not a mutual or co-­ entanglement, nor a companionable one, certainly not for the nonhuman species knotted tightly within our whims, desires, customs, and our political and economic systems (food systems included). There may be some interspecies relations that are companionable but when we consider the vast exploitation of animals today, these are exceptions to the rule and usually involve animals that we consider to be part of our extended family (but even with respect to these animals, the numbers of animals in shelters point to our continued ambivalence, neglect, and abuse of what we usually deem to be companion animals, as we saw in the last chapter). As Zipporah Weisberg argues, [C]ompanion species not only falls far short of any real challenge to the most problematic aspects of humanism outlined by Haraway, but reveals a disturbing collusion with the very structures of domination she purports to oppose. In particular … Haraway’s attempt to develop a theory and ethics of companion species within an instrumental framework is itself born out of the humanist project of domination she ostensibly disavows. By, in essence, providing ideological cover for such violent practices as animal experimentation, genetic engineering, dog breeding and training, killing animals for food and hunting, Haraway undermines what might otherwise be construed as an effort to overcome the speciesist ethos which characterizes humanist ideology and the normalization of brutality against animals that it fosters. (Weisberg 2009, p. 23)

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

135

While posthumanists are right to challenge the binary categories of the humanist tradition, particularly the human/animal binary overall, it is far from clear that posthumanism, together with its move beyond the ‘anthropomorphous animal’ (pace Varsava, who argues for such a move: Varsava 2014, pp. 520–36), gives us the tools to do this, let alone to do so urgently. Rethinking human-animal relations and enacting more respectful interactions means dealing with conflicts of interest, which in turn necessarily involves thinking about species-specific capacities and differences; capacities and differences between species that are morally significant in terms of how we might weigh interests in relation to harms and benefits; all other things being equal, a nonsentient being such as a plant stands to lose less from death than a sentient being such as a dog. However, in attempting to divorce ourselves from or dissolve certain conceptual understandings of those relations, posthumanism appears far too general and not sufficiently precise to guide us here, nor in giving moral consideration where it is due. Relatedly, we need to use certain conceptual distinctions to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing animal ethicists today, and we need to do this using the conceptual apparatus available to us to gain clarity and critical understanding. We live in a world where conflicts of interest between animals and humans matter—conflicts which are becoming more common and which are being exacerbated by unprecedented environmental change, posing new types of risk for humans and nonhumans (see Humphreys et  al. 2022)—and while reconceptualizing our relations with animals is necessary, this does not mean (and need not necessarily involve) abandoning those concepts that could help us to deal with real-world conflicts, as well as challenge unjust practices and oppressive institutions.

References Allen, Colin and Mark Bekoff, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (Massachusetts, US: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997). Animal Aid, Outrage, Issue 208, Autumn 2022 (hard copy: Animal Aid’s campaign magazine). For Animal Aid’s website see: https://www.animalaid.org.uk/. Attfield, Robin, ‘Biocentrism, Climate Change, and the Spatial and Temporal Scope of Ethics’, in Brian G. Henning and Zack Walsh (eds.), Climate Change, Ethics and the Nonhuman World (New York; and Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2020), pp. 63–74.

136 

R. HUMPHREYS

——— The Ethics of the Global Environment, second edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015). ——— Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century, second edn. (Cambridge: Polity, 2014 [2003]). ——— ‘Intrinsic Value and Transgenic Animals’, in A. Holland and A. Johnson (eds.), Animal Biotechnology and Ethics (Boston, MA: Springer, 1998), pp. 172–189. ——— Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics, Value Inquiry Book Series, Vol. 30 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodopi, 1995). ——— The Ethics of Environmental Concern, second edition (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1991). ———A Theory of Value and Obligation (London, New York and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1987). Attfield, Robin and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘Justice and Non-Human Animals, Part II’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 8 (1), 2017, 44–77. ——— ‘Justice and Non-Human Animals, Part I’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 7 (3), 2016, 1–11. ———Review of Gary E. Varner, Personhood, Ethics and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism (Oxford; and New  York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Review in Philosophy, 88 (3), July 2013, 493–498. Badmington, N., Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within (Oxon: Routledge, 2004). Barry, Brian, Theories of Justice (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1989). ——— Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). ——— ‘Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice’, in Andrew Dobson (ed.), Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Bekoff, Marc, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Foreword by Jane Goodall (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007). Benhabib, Seyla, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], in the version presented by Jonathan Bennett (2017), online at: www. earlymoderntexts.com. Accessed on 6 September 2022. Buchanan, Ian, A Dictionary of Critical Theory, second edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Accessed at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/ view/10.1093/acref/9780198794790.001.0001/acref-­9780198794790-­e-­7 65?rskey=RR7DwV&result=141. Accessed on 7 September 2022. Calarco, Matthew, Thinking Through Animals: Identity, Difference, Indistinction (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015).

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

137

Callicott, J. Baird, ‘Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair’, Environmental Ethics, 2 (4), Winter 1980, 311–338. Centre for Animals and Social Justice (CASJ), ‘The Problem’, https://www.casj. org.uk/ (Surrey: CASJ, 2022). Accessed on 2 August 2022. Cruelty Free International, ‘Facts and Figures on Animal Testing’ (London: Cruelty Free International, 2021), online at: https://crueltyfreeinternational. org/about-­animal-­testing/facts-­and-­figures-­animal-­testing. Accessed on 1 September 2022. DeGrazia, David, Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am, edited by Marie-Louise Mallet, Translated by David Wills (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008). de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). Diamond, Cora, ‘The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy’, in Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking and Cary Wolfe (eds.), Philosophy and Animal Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 43–89. ——— ‘Injustice and Animals’, in Carl Elliott (ed.), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 118–148. ——— The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts; and London: The MIT Press, 1991). ——— ‘Eating Meat and Eating People’, Philosophy, 53 (206), 1978, 465–479. Donovan, J. and C.J. Adams (eds.), The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader (New York: Columbia, 2007). Dunayer, Joan, Speciesism (Derwood, Maryland: Ryce Publishing, 2004). Flanagan, Owen and Kathryn Jackson, ‘Justice, Care and Gender: The Kohlberg— Gilligan Debate Revisited’, in Mary Jeanne Larrabee (ed.), An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1993). Francione, Gary L., Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Garner, Robert, ‘Animal Rights and the Deliberative Turn in Democratic Theory’, European Journal of Political Theory, 18 (3), 2019, 309–329. ——— ‘Animals and Democratic Theory: Beyond an Anthropocentric Account’, Contemporary Political Theory, 16 (4), 2016, 459–477. ——— A Theory of Justice for Animals: Animal Rights in a Nonideal World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Garner, Robert, ‘Political Ideology and the Legal Status of Animals’, Animal Law, Vol. 8, 2002, 77–91. Griffin, Donald R., Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

138 

R. HUMPHREYS

Goodpaster, K., ‘On Being Morally Considerable’, Journal of Philosophy, 75 (6), 1978, 308–25. Haraway, Donna J., When Species Meet (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Haraway, Donna J. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-­ Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ (2016a) [1991] (also published as ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s’ [1985]), in Donna J.  Haraway, Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), pp. 3–90. ——— ‘The Companion Species Manifesto’ [2003] (2016b), in Donna J.  Haraway, Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 91–198. Haraway, Donna J., and Cary Wolfe, (2016), ‘Companions in Conversations’ in Donna J. Haraway, Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 199–296. Haraway, Donna J., Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016). Hare, R. M., Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods and Point (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). Humphreys, Rebekah, ‘Suffering, Sentientism, and Sustainability: An Analysis of a Non-Anthropocentric Moral Framework for Climate Ethics’, in Brian G. Henning and Zack Walsh (eds.), Climate Change, Ethics and the Nonhuman World (New York, and Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2020), pp. 49–62. ——— ‘Dignity and Its Violation Examined within the Context of Animal Ethics’, Ethics and the Environment, 21 (2), Fall 2016, 143–162 ——— ‘The Moral Status of Sentient and Non-Sentient Creatures’, in Issues in Ethics and Animal Rights, ed. Manish Vyas (Regency Publications: Delhi, 2011), pp. 70–83. Humphreys, Rebekah, Rhyddhi Chakraborty and Nithin Varghese, ‘Ethics, Zoonoses and Human-Nonhuman Conflict: Covid-19 and Beyond’, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 22, 2022, 69–74. Kavanagh, Noel, ‘Reflective Introduction’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/2018, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 1–9. Kohlberg, Lawrence, The Philosophy of Moral Development: Volume I: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice (Cambridge; Hagerstown; New  York; Philadelphia; London; Mexico City; Sao Paulo, Sydney: Harper and Row, 1981). Levinas, Emmanuel, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969). ——— Collected Philosophical Papers, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987).

6  GOING HOME: RETURNING FROM POSTHUMANISM VIA A DEFENCE… 

139

——— Collected Philosophical Papers Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991). ——— Entre Nous: Thinking of the Other, Trans. by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). Linzey, Andrew, Animal Rights (London: SCM Press, 1976). Midgley, Mary, Animals and Why They Matter (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1983). Midson, Scott, ‘Humus and the Sky Gods: Partnership and Post/Humans in Genesis 2 and the Chthulucence’, Sophia, 58, 2018, 689–698. Milligan, Tony, ‘The Ethics of Love for Animals’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/2018, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 194–206. Möllendorf, Darrel, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002). ——— ‘Cosmopolitan and Compatriot Duties’, The Monist, 94 (4), 2011, 535–554. Moser, Keith, ‘The Biosemiosic Gaze of the Cosmic ‘Wholly Other’ in Jacques Derrida’s Posthumous Thought’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/2018, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 221–247. Nocella II, Anthony J., John Sorenson, Kim Socha and Atsuko Matsuoka, ‘Introduction: The Emergence of Critical Animal Studies: The Rise of Intersectional Animal Liberation’, in Nocella II, Anthony J., John Sorenson, Kim Socha, and Atsuko Matsuoka (eds.), Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (New York; Washington DC/Baltimore; Bern; Frankfurt; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. xiv–xxxvi. Nussbaum, Martha C., Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2023). ———. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, Massachusetts; and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006). PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), ‘Exotic Skins’, 2022, https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-­u sed-­f or-­c lothing/exotic-­s kins-­ animals/. Accessed on 7 September 2022. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Regan, Tom, ‘An Examination and Defense of One Argument Concerning Animal Rights’, Inquiry, 22 (1–4), 1979, 189–219. ———. The Case for Animal Rights (London, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983). Rollin, Bernard, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

140 

R. HUMPHREYS

Routley, Richard, ‘Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?’, Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy (Bulgaria: Varna, 1973), 205–210. Sanbonmatsu, John (ed.), Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (Lanham, Boulder, New  York, Toronto, and Plymouth, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc: 2011). Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation, second edition with a new preface by the author (London; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; and Bergvlei, South Africa: Pimlico, 1995). ——— ‘All Animals Are Equal’, in Tom Regan and Peter Singer (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1976), pp. 148–162. ——— Animal Liberation (New York: New York Review, 1975). Smith, Michael F., ‘Letting in the Jungle’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 8 (2), 1991, 145–154. Twine, Richard, Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (New York: Routledge, 2010). Varner, Gary E., Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Varsava, Nina, ‘The Problem of Anthropomorphous Animals: Toward a Posthumanist Ethics’, Society and Animals, 22 (5), 2014, 520–536. Warren, Mark E., The All Affected Interests Principle in Democratic Theory and Practice, IHS Political Science Series: Working paper 145 (Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies, 2017). Watson, Kate and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘The Killing Floor and Crime Narratives: Marking Women and Nonhuman Animals’, in Kate Watson and Katharine Cox (eds.), Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Marking and Remarking (Manchester, UK: Manchester University press, 2019), pp. 113–129. Weisberg, Zipporah, ‘The Broken Promises of Monsters: Haraway, Animals and the Humanist Legacy’, Journal of Critical Animal Studies, 7 (2), 2009, 22–62. Weitzenfeld, Adam, and Melanie Joy, ‘An Overview of Anthropocentrism, Humanism and Speciesism in Critical Animal Theory’, in Anthony J. Nocella II, John Sorenson, Kim Socha, and Atsuko Matsuoka (eds.), Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (New York; Washington DC/Baltimore; Bern; Frankfurt; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. 3–27. Wolfe, Cary, What is Posthumanism? (Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 2010).

CHAPTER 7

The Application of Key Concepts

Animal Consciousness: A Problem Concerning Description and Language In reaching the final chapter of this book, we can bring together the themes from previous chapters, including scepticism, communication, language, concepts, and the role of the body in relation to animal mentality. Further, in this concluding chapter, problems concerning animal consciousness and the possibility and acquisition of knowledge of such consciousness will be reinterpreted and found to be problems concerning something of quite a different nature, that is, problems concerning language and the description of animal mentality. In doing so, we pick up where we left off in Chap. 6 with our discussion of posthumanism. Posthumanism, in calling for a move beyond the anthropomorphous animal, may be found to replace one supposed problematic term and its corresponding approach (‘anthropomorphism’ and anthropomorphic descriptions of animal minds) with another (‘posthumanism’ and its dissolution of the human animal vis-à-vis the nonhuman animal). In the light of the foregoing discussions, perhaps we would do better to adopt a form of ‘zoomorphism’; that term meaning something like the practice of assigning a human with animalistic characteristics. Rather than describing our justified attribution of mental states to animals

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4_7

141

142 

R. HUMPHREYS

as ‘anthropomorphic’, we could then perhaps describe our attributions of mental states to humans as zoomorphic to elucidate the fact that we are like them (rather than them being like us) and thus avoid the criticism of anthropomorphism seemingly collapsing into anthropocentrism. After all, humans are animals. However, this would, of course, provoke criticisms (from, e.g., human exceptionalist stances and from those who adopt a nonegalitarian approach to the like interests of humans and nonhumans) of perhaps unwarranted reductionism in relation to what are supposedly unique or special human traits—a reduction which thereby overemphasizes our animality at the expense of our mindedness. Such a criticism withdraws back to the old dualistic binaries of human/animal, us/them, physical/conscious, as if humans are not animals and as if no nonhumans are conscious. Unfortunately, we cannot undo the legacy of Cartesianism. Nor can we avoid being limited by human terms—I mean here the terms that we ordinarily use to denote human mentality—to explain animal minds, and in this way, our descriptions of animal minds could still be deemed anthropomorphic, where the judgement that they are such is made as an accusation, as a criticism of such descriptions. However, such charges miss the point, for (supposed unjustifiable) anthropomorphous descriptions are necessary to describe the lived experiences and lifeworlds of animals. As Bekoff states, ‘The way human beings describe and explain the behaviour of other animals is limited by the language they use to talk about things in general. By engaging in anthropomorphism—using human terms to explain animals’ emotions and feelings—humans make other animals’ worlds accessible to themselves (Bekoff here cites Allen and Bekoff 1997; Bekoff and Allen 1997; and Crist 1999). But this is not to say that other animals are happy or sad in the same ways in which humans (or even other conspecifics) are happy or sad’ (2000, p. 867). Despite this, in addition to anthropomorphism often being considered a philosophical sin, it remains taboo, at least within the scientific arena (Griffin 2001, p. 28). However, the problem today does not appear to be so much a problem concerning scepticism about animal mentality (though this is not to say that such scepticism does not exist). There instead appears to be a problem concerning doubt about how to describe that mentality and about which concepts we can justifiably apply to animals. Indeed, as Raimond Gaita claims, ‘Many of our perplexities about animals are not a function of our uncertainty about the evidence, but of our uncertainty

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

143

about how to describe the evidence and how it bears on our willingness to apply key concepts’ (Gaita 2002, p. 111). Admittedly, at first glance, there does appear to be deep disagreement about the evidence. For example, many would argue that chickens do not have beliefs in the same way dogs have beliefs. Many would no doubt also argue that dogs do not have beliefs in the same way humans have them. Indeed, one may even argue that chickens or dogs do not have beliefs at all, but one is unlikely to argue the same thing about humans. However, this is not to say that one is arguing that chickens or dogs are not conscious or that they do not have any kind of mentality. Whilst accepting that some philosophers deny nonhuman phenomenal consciousness, there appears to be wide agreement that both dogs and chickens are conscious beings that can think and feel, even if the mental states of dogs, chickens, and humans are different. In addition, there is an obvious agreement that humans have mental states, and it is commonly thought that those states are different from the mental states of other animals. There is then a disagreement as to what we can say about the mental states of animals, but there is little to no disagreement about what we can generally say about the mental states of humans. So even while there is, in general, acceptance of the evidence of animal consciousness, Cartesian scepticism about animal minds permeates the evidence to the extent that now, rather than rejecting it out of hand, we do not know how to describe it, unlike the evidence of human consciousness. Of course, the reason why most people do not deny humans’ beliefs, intentions, and so forth is because the very nature of language (as shared and public) supposedly allows us to be certain about the content of human minds in a way that we cannot be of animal minds. It is often held that since humans can speak, we can be more confident about our knowledge of human minds than we can about knowledge of animal minds. Thus, human language supposedly leaves less room to doubt what we say about human mentality than about animal mentality. Moreover, most people are more familiar with humans and human behaviour and thus feel justified in inferring that humans have mental states. However, one who is familiar with animals is similarly justified in inferring that animals also have mental states, besides it just not being true that speech is our only access to knowledge or a ‘common-world’ (see Ayer 1956, p. 207). Indeed, speech certainly does not tell us everything about humans. As Peter Strawson argues, we ascribe mental states to persons on the basis of observation of their behaviour (Strawson 1959, Ch.3). Although admittedly, Strawson does

144 

R. HUMPHREYS

not apply his argument to animals, he does not underestimate the role of the body in the application of concepts that denote mental states, and his argument applies just as well to the case of nonhuman minds as to human ones. While science rejects anthropomorphism and adopts the use of mechanistic terms to describe animal behaviour, the use of such terms tends to convey the belief that animals lack minds, but, as said earlier, this belief is now (generally and thankfully) in the past. The scientific way of talking about animal behaviour, in terms of responses to stimuli, is far from a true depiction of animals (though it is very much still used). But there is still deep anxiety (in philosophy and the sciences) about describing animal mentality by words that we readily use to describe human mentality. Such usage is still denounced as being unnecessarily anthropomorphic (and, as argued earlier, wrongly so). It seems now that no language is ever good enough to describe animal behaviour. On the one hand, describing all animal behaviour in terms of responses to stimuli gives an inaccurate portrayal of animals. On the other hand, philosophers and scientists alike are sceptical of using words such as ‘know’, ‘believe’, or ‘intend’ to describe animal behaviour. What, then, is one supposed to do? How is it supposed we talk without being accused of equating animal thoughts with human-like ones or without using language that is reductivistic? The problem is that it is impossible to talk plausibly about animal behaviour without using words such as ‘know’ or ‘intend’. Of course, we could continue to talk in mechanistic terms, but then we would not be describing animal behaviour as it is nor giving an accurate description of animal life. While some anthropomorphic ways of speaking about animals may be incorrect, other supposedly anthropomorphic ways of speaking are not incorrect (see Chap. 5). While we would not be justified, for example, in saying that animals have political intentions or religious beliefs, that does not mean that we are not justified in saying that animals have intentions or beliefs generally. Tautologically the words we use to describe animal behaviour will always be human ones. However, it does not follow that we are somehow more justified in using words such as ‘belief’ or ‘intend’ to describe human behaviour than we are to describe animal behaviour. Of course, we cannot know that dogs intend in the exact same way humans intend, and neither can we think in terms of ‘doggie beliefs’ nor ‘doggie intentions’, but the same applies to human thought. Indeed, just as we can

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

145

never share the private experiences of animals, neither can we share the private experiences of humans (see further Midgley 1983, p. 129). In spite of this, we often ascribe mental states such as intentions and beliefs to humans on the strength of their behaviour, without precisely knowing the inner workings of their minds. Likewise, the behaviour of animals can inform us of when it makes sense to apply certain concepts, which denote mental states, to animals. As Mary Midgley says, The physiology of fear … has been explored for the human species as for others and very close likenesses have been found, along with the usual range of equally interesting variations. Physiologists do not throw up their hands when they reach the human case and demand a quite new set of concepts. Nor do zoologists, when observing the behaviour of frightened birds or fish, find that everyday descriptions like ‘alarm’ suddenly lose their application … and that a new set of terms needs to be invented. (Ibid., p. 129)

Midgley (like Bekoff, de Waal and Singer), in her discussions of animal life, may be seen to adopt critical anthropomorphism: an understanding of animal life informed by the concepts we readily ascribe to humans and by empirical observations, as well as, for example, natural history, evolutionary science, and ethological studies. As Bekoff says, we can be ‘anthropomorphic and do rigorous science’ (2000, p. 867). And rightly so, for to use the words, say, ‘intends’, ‘fears’, or ‘believes’ properly is to know that they apply to humans in general and to those beings that display the appropriate behavioural patterns. One does not need to know the inner private experiences of humans or animals to be justified in using such words to describe their behaviour. So, while scientific evidence challenges our assumptions about animal cognition and communication, it should also challenge our assumptions about humans and our ideas about anthropomorphic language. However, as stated in Chap. 5, scientists continue to measure animals against humans, and, despite the evidence, there is still very much a belief that human language is and should continue to be the paradigm against which all forms of communication should be compared. It tends to be believed that the extent of cognition in nonhuman animals, in significant part, depends upon the extent to which their communications can be said to replicate human language or our view of human language generally. Notwithstanding advances in the field of human language studies and variations among individual human languages, our view of language

146 

R. HUMPHREYS

generally is still very much derived from the one that Descartes himself expressed, whereby humans ‘arrange different words together forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts’ (Descartes 1997 [1637], p.  108). Thus, human language is still considered to be unique, for it alone via the use of words and speech expresses thoughts. However, to constantly compare nonhuman communications to human language in its Cartesian sense is to miss some very important observations. Raimond Gaita notes that sounds can function just as effectively in a system of communication as can words: Argument about whether signing chimps really are using a language … will not be settled by observation of them, because what counts as language cannot be settled that way. Nor can it be settled by definition. We know … that cows communicate to one another when they moo, but nobody thinks they are speaking or that ‘moo’ is another word in a cow language. In such a case we see immediately there is a difference between a sound functioning in a system of communication—and it may be a very complex system—and a sound having meaning, of the kind we attribute to a word. What it is for something to be a word has proved to be a very difficult question to answer and there is great controversy over it, not only in philosophy but in the natural sciences where there has been a long argument over whether chimps who have learnt to sign have learnt language. (Gaita 2002, pp. 112–13)

There is then a distinction to be made between those sounds made and heard by beings that function purely as communicative tools and those sounds made and received by beings that have meaning. The latter can also function as communicative tools, but, in addition, they mean something to both the beings transmitting the sounds and to the receivers of those sounds. Accordingly, some sounds other than words, including conversations, utterances, and other forms of human speech, can have as much meaning as human words themselves. Likewise, some sounds made by nonhuman creatures can be similarly communicative, and there have been many advances in the field of animal communication studies alongside advances in human language analysis and types of AI that indicate this. One example of research in this area comes from project CETI, the Cetacean Translation Initiative: By interpreting sperm whales’ voices and hopefully communicating back, CETI aims to show that today’s most cutting-edge technologies can be used to benefit not only humankind, but other species. … By enabling humans to

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

147

deeply understand and protect the life around us, we thereby redefine our very understanding of the world ‘we’. (CETI 2021)

As CETI states of Cetaceans, they are unique nonhuman model species as they possess sophisticated acoustic communications but use a very different encoding system that evolved in an aquatic rather than terrestrial medium. Sperm whales, in particular, with their highly developed neuroanatomical features, cognitive abilities, social structures, and discrete click-­based encoding, make for an excellent starting point for advancing machine learning tools that can be applied to other animals in the future. To put it simply, we’re planning to use ML [Machine Learning] to understand what sperm whales are saying, and hopefully talk back to them. (CETI 2021)

Projects such as this one are important to the expansion of our understanding of the lifeworlds of animals. But such studies are not necessarily immune from some of the criticisms concerning animal communication studies presented in Chap. 5. In addition, it is important to be aware that there is a growing body of literature concerning the anthropocentric biases inherent within AI studies (see Cave 2020, pp. 29–25; Crosby 2020, pp. 589–615; Davion 2002, pp. 163–76; Hernández-Orallo 2016, pp. 397–447; and Martínez-­ Plumed et  al. 2018, pp.  5180–187; Preston 1991, pp.  259–77). Nevertheless, alongside educational programmes, nonhuman communication studies play a crucial role in enabling us to see the connections between humans and other animals, as well as in reconceptualizing our relationship with nonhuman animals who, for the most part, continue to be exploited via our own practices. Certainly, CETI presents an example of the use of ‘compassionate technologies’ with the aim of ‘a brighter, more connective and equitable future’ in which the conceptual divide we have created between ‘us’ and ‘them’ can be bridged. Such projects, which study animals in the wild, in their own environments and from their own perspective, allow for an advancement of knowledge that does not depend on the morally problematic use of animals taken from the wild, brought into our own human lifeworlds in the hope that they might ‘better speak to us’.

148 

R. HUMPHREYS

Redefining Language: Bodily Behaviours as Syntactical Alongside sound modes of communication, such as echolocation and the spoken word, we might also add that bodily behaviours and expressions can sometimes serve the same purposes. As with sound communications, they may function purely as a communicative tool, but such expressions and behaviours may also function as physical movements, in a system of communication, which has meaning. Indeed, certain bodily behaviours and movements may, in certain contexts, have as much meaning as we give a word. Hearne’s reflections on language are illuminating here. For Hearne, all meaningful communication and all behaviours that can be called ‘language’ need to have syntax and grammar or, more generally, need to follow the rules of language, but they need not be restricted to human communications and behaviours: Calling anything in the exchanges between horses and humans or among horses syntactical as well as semantical is problematic, I know … but I have come think of syntax as prior to semantics, or of semantics as requiring syntax, since even a gesture or utterance consisting of a single counter, such as “stop” is meaningful only in context of what comes before and after, and there are rules about what can come before and after, rules there is no reason not to call grammatical. There are vast conceptual differences between what people can do with language and what even chimps and gorillas can do, but worrying about preserving the word “syntax” for use in discussions of parsing human sentences will never enable us to understand them. … [A]ll knowledge … requires meaning-in-time, and thus syntax. (Hearne 1986, p. 153)

Both syntax and grammar are terms referring to the rules of language. In its most simplistic sense, syntax refers to the way words are placed within a sentence to give that sentence meaning; grammar refers to the way sentences are formed, and the way words are accentuated to give meaning. Interestingly, Hearne sees some animal behaviours as following such rules, as illustrated by her description of the behaviour of her companion dog, Belle (see quotation directly below). Just as words are placed within a structure to form sentences, and those words and sentences are placed within a narrative to give meaning, so too do some animal behaviours take

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

149

place within a structure and a larger narrative context, and this is what gives such behaviours meaning: Even in the case of what appears to be a gesture or signal consisting of a single counter, as when Belle barks to be let out to run, the bark or tail-­ wagging or door-scratching is meaningless without what goes before and after coming in certain ways, in a rule-governed sequence. If she scratches at the door and then settles peacefully to her food dish, which is near the door, the scratching is neither syntactical or [sic.] semantic. And relationships require syntax, as anyone who has tried to speak to someone having a severe schizophrenic episode is aware. (Hearne 1986, p. 97)

For Hearne, it is impossible for behaviours, words, sentences, sounds, or utterances to be meaningful without grammar or syntax or without being integrated within a coherent narrative framework. While she recognizes ‘that syntax is prior to semantics—that you can’t have meaningful communication without grammar—without a structure that is embedded in time’ (Ibid., p. 97), she also regards the communications of some nonhuman animals (in the above case, of dogs) as fulfilling this syntactical criterion. Indeed, Hearne perceives the scent work of dogs as involving meaningful communication with humans and even advanced syntax (Ibid., p. 74). As she says of her dog, Salty, ‘when sent to select one of two or more indicated articles by scent, she can say, “It’s this one (rather than that one)”’ (Ibid., p. 74). This kind of scent work, in some sense, enables a shared language between humans and their dogs. Certainly, the olfactory powers of dogs enable them to know things we cannot possibly know, but communicating this knowledge involves far more than just stimulus-­ response behaviour. Hearne also sees the retrieval of objects by dogs as involving complex syntax (Ibid., p. 74). She talks of how she finally trained Salty to retrieve and how such training enabled new ways of speaking to Salty and deeper modes of communication and understanding: Now there are all sorts of new ways our language can be projected. I have her retrieve things besides her dumbbell. Perhaps I have her retrieve Uncle Albert. Retrieving can become carrying messages. I can teach a directed retrieve, having her retrieve things I haven’t thrown. I can, that is, use “Fetch” to name things, in somewhat the way we use “this” and “that” to name things. (Ibid., p. 74)

150 

R. HUMPHREYS

Similarly to scent work, then, the possibility of teaching a dog to retrieve does seem to depend on the existence of a shared language between humans and dogs. This is not to say, though, that we need to name things in order to have knowledge of those things or to communicate meaningfully. Putting labels on things, in the form of words, is, as Hearne says, ‘an advanced activity of language’ (Ibid., p. 58). And Hearne is not trying to say that dogs, or any animals, need to learn the English language to communicate meaningfully or have knowledge. We have already seen that Hearne believes that behaviours and gestures, embedded within a coherent narrative, can be syntactical and grammatical and thus may be seen as meaningful communications. If Hearne is correct that meaningful communications can only take place within a narrative context and within a ‘structure embedded in time’ (Ibid., p. 97), such communications can only take place between beings who have memory or are able to link past and present. Without memory, life would be unorganized and lack consistency. Indeed, it is impossible to fathom how we could properly see the world without memory. It is true, as Hearne says, that ‘all knowledge … requires meaning-in-time, and thus syntax’ (Ibid., p. 153), and this, in turn, one might add, requires memory. Therefore, if it is correct to say that some animals are capable of meaningful communications, then it would follow that such animals also have memory, and I think it would be fair to say that those animals that do have memory must also have some knowledge of the past, present, and maybe the future. They must have some sense of time, even if it is not the same as our sense of time. Hearne notes that one need not know the past, present, and future tenses of verbs to have knowledge of time: [H]orses have their own grammar of time. They can’t say anything that requires past, present or future tense, but that doesn’t mean that without us they live in eternity, in the present tense only. Their concept of time might be expressed by saying that the names of their tenses are “not yet, here and gone.” You can’t make appointments with such tenses, but you can remember, and you can anticipate the future with no little anxiety. That is to say, horses do have some sensitivity to the knowledge of death, and it makes them nervous, just as it makes us nervous. (Hearne 1986, pp. 164–65)

While Hearne’s discussions are focused on the lifeworlds of companion and working horses and dogs—in a relationship with humans that support the flourishing of these animals’ capacities—they reaffirm that which has

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

151

been suggested throughout this book; that nonhuman sentient animals are conscious of the world in their own species-specific way. They need not be able to understand tenses, words, labels, letters, sentences, numbers, or symbols to be able to understand the world or communicate meaningfully within it.

Language: The Last Bastion of Human Exceptionalism? These ideas about language are not only far removed from the Cartesian paradigm for language, but more than that, in accordance with such ideas, there does not appear to be a paradigm for communications that can be called ‘language’. Hearne, then, boldly redefines language: If we consider … the size and kind of the social space created by language shared by two or more creatures, and if we describe the integrity of a language as the physical, intellectual and spiritual distance talking enables the speaker of that language to travel together, then it looks very much as though the dog and the horse (who are neurologically simpler organisms than chimpanzees and whose linguistic codes appear simpler) have a greater command of language than chimpanzees do. There is even a sense in which a well-trained dog or horse may be said to have a greater command of language than a human being whose code is infinitely more complex. The dog/dog trainer language is more primitive … than the chimpanzee’s language … but I can go a lot farther with my dog than I can with a … Nazi. (Hearne 1986, p. 42)

This suggests that there are many different ways of ‘speaking’ (whether linguistic or nonlinguistic) and that nonhuman beings, or at least some nonhuman beings, can take part in some of these various ways. There are, in any case, strong indications that many nonhuman animals have their own species-specific form of meaningful communication or ‘language’ that relates to their cognitive capacities (see, e.g., Kiriazis and Slobodchikoff 1997, pp.  365–69; Schusterman and Gisiner 1997, pp.  370–82; CETI 2021; and Suzuki 2021, pp. 221–31; for further discussion, see Lohmar 2012, pp. 377–98; and Pepperberg 2021, pp. 1–15). In addition, even if one accepts that there are differences in kind between humans and nonhumans in terms of language use or between different species, that there are interspecies overlaps between communicative abilities makes evolutionary sense (Bekoff and Pierce 2009, p.  141; Griffin 2001, Chs.10 and 12;

152 

R. HUMPHREYS

Kiriazis and Slobodchikoff 1997, p.  369; and Kiley-Worthington 2005, Chs.7–9). This is further supported by Kendra Coulter, who claims (in her Animals, Work, and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity) that ‘in interspecies workplaces, human workers develop an ability to understand and communicate with animals; animals do the same. The concept of communication work [a prime example here is of the work of police dogs] prompts us to recognise an interspecies dynamic and the creation of a shared language, although words may not be central or are likely only one communicative component used. Many examples of animals’ work require effective deliverance and receipt of communication to convey and share meaning’ (2016, p. 72). In addition, one thing that often goes unnoticed in the relevant literature, but which Kiley-Worthington insightfully highlights, is that ‘Language, as it is predominantly used by humans as “representing the world”, can restrict understanding and create its own world. Hence, rather than being the vehicle to a greater understanding of the world, it can hamper and even prevent a serious appraisal and awareness of other worlds. … It can even create its own world so, eventually, as is often the case today, language users believe that this is the only one available to cognitively able beings’ (Kiley-Worthington 2005, p. 314). These reflections are significant for they disclose that some nonhuman animals can and indeed do learn to participate in the form of language that overlaps considerably with our own, allowing for interspecies communications that overcome the last bastion of human exceptionalism; that being our supposed uniqueness in regard to our own form of language (a language that, contrary to its exalted status, can put restrictions of what we can come to know of the world). Not only do animals of different species have their own systems for meaningful communication, but they can also participate in elements of our system. Additionally, the underlying structure of their meaningful communications is very much like our own or at least overlaps considerably with our own, at least for some animals, resulting in different species participating in a shared language. In terms of anthropomorphism, this makes anthropomorphic language use even more appropriate in many instances and we need not be afraid to use such language to describe the lifeworlds of animals. Philosophical and scientific fear of anthropomorphism has blown all talk about animals adrift from the fact that animals are beings capable of complex and meaningful communications who do have thought and phenomenological

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

153

experience—to the point where we have become afraid to say what we mean or want to say about animals for fear of being ridiculed as merely sentimental, overly anthropomorphic or unreasonable. Hearne effectively articulates a lifeworld with animals that overcomes the self-indulgent sentimentalist and the mechanomorphist whose lifeworlds, in reducing animals to objects (the former by perceiving and treating animals not as subjects in their own right, but as objects of our own over- or self-indulgence; the latter via a language and treatment that all but denies agency, consciousness and/or even sentience) are as grossly inadequate as the lifeworld of, say, a racist or a Nazi. I take it that this is akin to what Hearne means when she says, ‘I can go a lot further with my dog than I can with a … Nazi’ (see quotation above: op.cit., p. 42). Hearne’s bold redefinition of language is certainly controversial. However, there is a sense in which (despite impressive displays of linguistic skill from particular animals, such as Kanzi and Alex as discussed in Chap. 5) we can communicate much more meaningfully with domestic animals, such as dogs and horses, than we can with nondomesticated ones (or even with some humans). It is generally believed that if any communication could be seen as a language, then it would be the communications of apes; hence attempts to teach apes sign language and the increasing number of Ape Language Studies, particularly throughout the later part of the twentieth century. (The most famous of these are probably the studies of the chimpanzee, Washoe, in the 1960s (Gardner and Gardner 1969, pp.  664–72). See also Premack 1971, pp.  186–228; Patterson 1978, pp. 161–201; and Terrace et al. 1979, pp. 891–902. Later studies focused more on cognition, rather than language per se (see, e.g., Boysen et al. 1993, 208–215; Savage-Rumbaugh et  al. 1998; and Matsuzawa 2009, pp. 92–98), while more recent studies have turned to an examination of human comprehension of nonhuman ape gestures, rather than the latter’s understanding of human communications (see Graham and Hobaiter 2023).) However, although chimps may be closer to us in evolutionary terms than domestic animals, perhaps we are looking too far away from home in our search to discover the language skills of animals. There is certainly a depth of communication between humans and domestic animals that is missing between humans and chimpanzees. One comes to learn the language of the society of which one is part. But our society is not just a human society; it is a society that we share with many different domestic animals, and they too can come to learn its rules:

154 

R. HUMPHREYS

A good police dog has not only a large vocabulary but also extraordinary social skills. He understands many forms of human culture and has his being within them. He can be taken to the scene of a liquor-store robbery and asked to search, with handler trusting that he won’t molest the customers or other police officers or the clerk behind the counter. He knows what belongs and what doesn’t, sharing our community and our xenophobia as well. He can take down a criminal who is attacking his handler on Monday and on Tuesday play with patients at the children’s hospital. These dogs, then, are glorious, but for anyone familiar with working dogs they are not surprising, any more than your pet dog is surprising in his or her ability to distinguish between your friends and strangers. (Hearne 1986, pp. 21–22)

Dogs learn to know what is expected of them, and in this sense the relationship between a dog and her human caregiver can become one of trust and responsibility on the part of both the dog and the human. This is not to say that animals have a sense of trust and responsibility as we have a sense of trust and responsibility, or that they can be held morally responsible for their actions, but only that the relationship can become a trusting and responsible one without the need for the animal (or the human for that matter) to be able to reflect on trust or responsibility. Indeed, the human may be held responsible for his or her actions and may break that sense of trust by not fulfilling his or her responsibilities. The animal, likewise, may break that sense of trust for one reason or another, but, unlike the human, cannot be said to be accountable for breaking that trust in the same way that a human can be said to be morally accountable (on animals and moral agency, see Rowlands 2012, and de Waal 1996). However, dogs—and other domestic animals—can come to know what is expected of them, qua dogs, in similar ways that humans can come to know what is expected of them, qua humans. This can create a trusting and responsible relationship between a human and her companion animal. In this sense domestic animals do have a greater command of language (as Hearne defines it) than wild animals. (That said, this is not to say that there are no exceptional cases of, say, wolves living with humans in a domestic setting in which meaningful communication between the wolf and his/her human companion is fostered appropriately and allowed to flourish. Mark Rowlands’s fascinating account of his life with Brenin, a wolf, provides one such example (see his The Philosopher and the Wolf, 2008):

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

155

the possibility of our living together in any meaningful way—in contrast to him being stuck out in the back garden and forgotten—was provided by him learning a language. This language gave his life a structure it otherwise could not have had [otherwise would not have had in a domestic, human setting] and, because of this, revealed a canvas of possibilities it otherwise could not have contained. Brenin learned a language, and given that he was going to be living in a human world … this language set him free. (2008, p. 36)

That said, Rowlands, himself admits that Brenin’s life was ‘unprecedented’ for a wolf (Ibid., p. 36).) As he says of dogs, ‘the dog has been embedded in a very different environment from the wolf. Therefore its psychological processes and abilities have developed in very different ways’ (Ibid., p. 30), and one might add, likewise for other domesticated animals in contrast to wild animals.) Evidence of the linguistic abilities of signing chimpanzees is certainly impressive, but when those chimps sexually mature, sadly, they cannot be fully integrated into human society, no matter how many words they can say on a keyboard. As Hearne notes, ‘[N]o account I know of concerning work with wild animals gives useful advice for dealing with the fact that wolves, lions, tigers, orangutans and chimpanzees remain willing to commit mayhem no matter how large their vocabularies’ (Hearne 1986, p.  23). Certainly, the extent to which a being can learn a language depends on the extent to which that being can respond accurately and responsibly to the social rules and culture of the society that uses that language. As Savage-Rumbaugh et al. say, ‘Language becomes the glue that binds the individual into the matrix of social expectancies, responsibilities and moral principles’, and beings that learn a language also need to learn ‘the formal, nonstated and unconscious ways of their society’ (which uses that language) (Savage-Rumbaugh et  al. 1998, p. 191). Domesticated animals come to learn the subtleties of the language of the society of which they are a part (that is, human society). However, wild animals, including apes used in Ape Language Studies, are just not part of human society. Furthermore, such apes are not usually studied from within the society of which they are a part (in their natural environment). Indeed, with regard to her visit to a training centre that housed Washoe and Moja—just two of the chimpanzees used in Ape Language Studies— Hearne expressed dismay at the sight of the chimps in cages and about the stories she heard of Washoe and Moja violently attacking their handlers. She was also disheartened at the fact that Washoe was taken for a walk with the use of a tiger hook and a cattle prod. Hearne was asked to watch from a distance and remain very still (Hearne 1986, pp.  32–39). As Hearne

156 

R. HUMPHREYS

suggests, there does appear to be something missing from the communications between these chimps and their handlers that is not missing between domestic animals and humans. For Hearne, that something is trust. Hearne explains that her observations of the chimps went against her idea that ‘language or something like vocabulary gives mutual autonomy and trust’ (Ibid., p. 34). However, Hearne admits that their communications could be seen as ‘some condition of language’ (Ibid., p. 39). Although she does not deny them language on the basis that their communications do not enable trust, she stresses that this does indicate the limits of language, pointing out that rather than turning to scepticism and denying Washoe and Moja language, we should bravely face up to and accept these limits. Language does not always entail trust and it does not prevent violence and murder (Ibid., p. 39): Roger and Ken [ape language trainers] can’t prove, on any given day, that it is safe to take Washoe from her cage, but they can “read” her, using the same criteria that I use when I am deciding how much contact it is safe to make with the man approaching me. If Washoe is doing a lot of signing, is willing to talk, that is some sign of safety—one of the … best, even if it isn’t a guarantee. … [P]eople who work with the big apes live boldly, trusting language, speaking up in the teeth of the evidence of, as it were, her teeth, knowing that such boldness must fail in the face of Washoe’s incomplete assent to the terms of the discussion. This is what we all do. (Ibid., p. 40)

Certainly, language cannot tell us everything about animals; nor can it tell us everything about humans. However, language without reciprocal trust and respect appears somewhat ineffective. It does appear that there is a sense of trust that exists between humans and domesticated animals (which should be taken to include animals considered to be farm animals: sheep, chickens, cows, etc.) that is made possible through the existence of a shared language, and, further, this shared language enables ‘mutual autonomy’ (Ibid., p. 34) or a relationship that is not coercive and in which all those involved are able to live in relative freedom. Rowlands’s life with Brenin is a case in point here. But this is not generally true of relationships between wild animals, such as apes and humans. This is not to say that the interspecies relationships between apes cannot be reciprocal within the apes’ own environment. In the wild, apes live in social groups. They come to learn the rules of conduct of their group and form relationships based on reciprocity. However, stories about apes

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

157

learning sign language will always be stories about apes outside of their environmental context. More often than not, apes have been brought into human society as babies, by humans who have either wanted to study them or keep them as ‘pets’. When they have sexually matured, they have developed sufficient strength to kill a human being with their bare hands. With no trust in the relationship between the apes and their human caregivers, the apes have become impossible and dangerous to handle. It is the apes that have suffered the most from this relationship; although captive conditions for nonhuman apes have improved considerably, particularly in the last decade, and certain housing conditions ‘are no longer tolerated for highly social animals like chimpanzees’ (Crary and Gruen 2022, p. 70; see further Andrews et  al. 2018), examples abound of apes having spent at least some of their post-research years in cages or zoos, with the ‘lucky’ ones having ended up at animal sanctuaries. Indeed, they have usually had to be given away by their human ‘owners’, if only because keeping them has prevented their ‘owners’ from living a well-adjusted family life. The apes have become a detriment and a disadvantage to their ‘adoptive’ families, causing havoc and violence. As Hearne says, unlike apes, ‘it is not generally necessary to pension off the family dog for the sake of the marriage!’ (Ibid., p. 23). So, while many wild animals may appear to have an excellent understanding of human language, using language effectively involves much more than just being able to know certain words and how to string sentences together. Coming to understand a language involves being able to live in the society of which that language is part. This is as true of humans as it is of nonhumans. Certainly, we have closer relations with domestic animals than we ever could with wild animals, but relationships are very much a part of meaningful communication: [H]aving a full relationship with my dog entails my living with limitations, including the fact that the dog can’t read or drive me to the doctor when I’m ill, generally accepting the fact that the relationship is not an incomplete version of something else. It is a complete dog-human relationship. Accepted as such, it provides us both with what it is supposed to provide us with and has integrity—it is not something I need to do anything about. The dog fits. But Washoe doesn’t fit. (Ibid., p. 38)

Domestic animals certainly can and do fit into our society, despite their linguistic limitations and whatever their physical or mental differences to

158 

R. HUMPHREYS

ourselves. And yet the idea that dogs, cats, horses, or any other domesticated animals for that matter, farm animals included, may have a greater command of language than any of the great apes, or many other wild animals, is an idea that has been very much neglected in the philosophy of animal communication, of animal minds and by the science of animal communication, but it is an idea that needs to be considered much more seriously, not least because these are the very animals with whom we interact most closely and who have, sadly, become some of the most oppressed animals on the planet.

Conclusions There is a growing body of evidence of the communicative abilities of animals that suggests that many animals, wild and domesticated, have their own species-specific language, despite disagreement about which animal behaviours can be called ‘language’. Although our violent treatment of animals—particularly farm animals and those used in experiments—continues to be maintained (via, e.g., economic structures) and, in this sense, continues to be accepted as the norm, there does not seem to be much doubt that the animals we exploit are sentient and, at the very least, can feel and think (this is something that is recognized in UK law: see Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, 2022). At the same time, there is much doubt about whether their thoughts can be translated into behaviour through language. In this respect, ‘The investigation of animal consciousness, like the investigation of human consciousness, is centrally an investigation of language, and this ought to remind us of what an investigation of language is’ (Hearne 1986, p. 74). We might ask, what do such reflections suggest with respect to that which has been said about the role of the body in relation to animal mentality (see above and Chap. 4)? Of course, Hearne’s conception of language need not be accepted to recognize the importance of bodily expressions and behaviours in enabling us to understand and gain knowledge of the experiences of animals. However, the importance of this conception is its ability to elucidate that bodily behaviour, subtle movements (and nonsubtle ones) and cues can be just as communicatively meaningful (and sometimes more so) as verbal-linguistic language. Phenomenological methodology and folk psychology—traditionally applied to studies of human consciousness (with animals often excluded from such methods due to what has been called ‘the other species of mind’

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

159

problem)—can (and do) give us the resources through which we can constitute our understanding of nonhuman animals, including their cognitive and emotional experiences, social structures, and communications. With regard to folk psychology, as Kristin Andrews says, we use folk expertise to study and understand infant behaviour, and ‘scientists express little concern about ascribing psychological properties to human children. As an example of suitable ascriptions to infants, it is generally accepted in development psychology that children have emotions, beliefs and desires and can communicate some of these mental beliefs by 1 year of age [Andrews cites Flavell et al. 2002]. This is so despite the fact that 1-year-old children typically do not have the ability to string words together to form propositions, and often have not yet begun to produce any words, which they typically do between 12 and 18 months’ (Andrews 2011, p.  12). This accepted use of folk psychology in research on human infant minds starts from the assumption that infants do indeed have minds; an assumption that is often missing in research on animal minds, with the latter research tending to place a physical and emotional distance between researchers and their respective nonhuman subjects. For example, animals are usually caged and a detachment between the researcher and the animal(s) is often encouraged. This is very different from the trusting, bonded relationship that is often encouraged between researchers and human infant subjects, with the researchers often knowing their subjects quite well. Andrews argues that research on animal minds should be informed by folk psychology, similar to research on infant minds. Such a ‘starting point’, along with knowledge of species-species behaviour, ‘acknowledges the fact that psychology is a product of evolution, and that it evolved to cope with the natural social and physical environment of the species. … Psychologists working with infants are utterly dependent on folk expertise, and animal cognition researchers should be as well’ (Ibid., pp. 37–38). And if we start from the assumption that animals have minds and study them in environments natural to their own kind, that allows them to exhibit species-­ specific tendencies, then we at least start from a position that fosters rather than thwarts the flourishing of those animals, for their own sake but also for the sake of gaining a better or more accurate understanding their cognitive abilities and personalities as gauged from interactional cues, behaviour nuances, or otherwise. Moreover, accuracy can be increased, and a more nuanced understanding obtained, on the back of trusting relationships between researchers and animals, for the establishment of trust

160 

R. HUMPHREYS

results in interactional cues, social worlds, and intimate details of the lived worlds of the nonhuman subjects being revealed. Just as this approach is not (and need not be) subject to methodological disdain in the case of research on human infant cognition, neither should it receive such disdain in the case of research on nonhuman cognition. (For a discussion of folk psychology in relation to anthropomorphism, see further Andrews 2011, pp. 1–48, and Caporael and Heyes 1997, pp. 59–73.) However, with all this said, even if one argued contrary to the evidence of animal language in some species other than humans, it would not follow that animals (other than human ones) could not communicate meaningfully, that their lived experiences and lives were not morally significant, or that we could not come to know of their suffering, pains and discomforts. It would also not follow that we are justified in continuing to treat unimaginable numbers of animals in the ways we currently do as a matter of course, particularly animals used within commercial practices such as factory farming and animal experimentation, but also animals used for the shooting sports industry, for use in rodeos and entertainment, and for their fur. Severe confinement in cages, restrictions on their natural functioning, and a lack of consideration of their range of needs: this is a treatment that belies the fact these animals are sentient beings, capable of—at the very least—pain and suffering. This point may seem obvious, but its obviousness is not reflected in our practices, nor sufficiently in legislation which, for example, in the UK recognizes animals as sentient creatures, but which still allows, in practice, for animals to be treated like commodities within cruel systems of farming and the like. The reasons for this are incredibly complex, involving economic factors and world trade rules, as well as consumerist traits and behaviours. (See further Steven McMullen’s Animals and the Economy, 2016, and Natalie Thomas (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, 2022). But, for the billions of animals that continue to suffer in untold ways, properly recognizing them as sentient would involve changing our treatment of them. This, in part, will require aligning our knowledge and understanding of what animals are in reality (not commodities or lumps of packaged meat on a shelf, but thinking, feeling creatures) with our ethics with respect to how we should treat them, that is, as creatures that can feel and think (rather than as creatures that, for our own purposes, can be made to endure physical and psychological distress). Vague as it might admittedly sound, a ‘reconnection’ is required here, for our judgements regarding the animals we use in commercial practices have become so

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

161

compartmentalized from our judgements regarding animals we encounter outside of such practices (such as our companion animals; animals who are often individuals of the same species used commercially or at least very much alike in terms of interests and needs) that a moral judgement in the case of our treatment of animals used commercially is not brought to bear in the way it would be if we treated our companion animals in the same way, revealing an incoherence or a bias at work in our actions and practices (Humphreys 2022, pp. 229–50). Challenging such a bias is a huge task when one considers the vested interests at stake, but one that many animal charities undertake every day through educational resources, investigations, media reports, and lobbying. It also involves overcoming assumptions and a move beyond our perception of animals’ lifeworlds as purely determined by the way we actually treat them currently. (Indeed, so normalized is our current treatment of animals that our perceptions of them tend to reflect the way we actually do treat them, as if an accurate perception of human beings could be based on, for example, a value judgement that endorsed a practice that kept human beings crammed in cages, immobilized, and without access to fresh air for a particular purpose, or a practice that supported racism or violence against women. To form a conception of human beings based on the behaviour of humans kept in such cages or a conception determined by the use of such humans would be absurd, as would, a conception based on or entangled with racist and sexist notions of human nature.) As we have seen, phenomenology and ethology can inform us here, as can evolutionary science, along with folk psychology and the insight gained from those who work and live alongside animals. Such sources allow for knowledge and understanding of species but also of individuals of the same species, including individual animals’ phenomenological lived experiences. For example, Kendra Coulter (in her book Animals, Work, and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity, 2016, which attempts to identify and understand animals’ work) claims that her ethnographic research has revealed many differences among individual horses in terms of their feelings, emotions and physical states, despite those horses working in similar contexts. As she says in relation to racehorses, ‘Certain horses thrive in situations of competition; others clearly dislike their jobs and lives; many fall somewhere in between and/or their feelings change over time. Horses communicate about their physical and emotional states to those who are interested in understanding … horses’ ears, their body weight and

162 

R. HUMPHREYS

condition their body positioning, the look in their eyes, their degree of interactivity, and a number of other factors speak volumes’ (Ibid., p. 86). Of course, with regard to many domesticated animals, including animals used for food or in experiments, they are simply not allowed to thrive and are forced to live in abysmal conditions completely unnatural to their own kind. However, where such animals are permitted to exercise their species-specific tendencies, individual differences among animals of the same species can be observed readily. One of the things we rarely see in our society is ageing farm animals or experimental animals because such animals are purposely killed as part and parcel of the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation. But for those lucky animals that are rescued and allowed to live the rest of their natural lives in sanctuaries with the freedom to exercise their mental and physical capacities, individual characteristics emerge as the animals start to trust in their new surroundings and their human companion(s). Such emergence becomes more apparent as time allows for the animals to recover. Isa Leshko’s beautiful art in her book Allowed to Grow Old (2019) reveals much of what is individual about farm animals’ lives. Her photographic portraits of aged farm animal residents at well-run animal sanctuaries—residents who were formerly neglected, abused, and made to suffer within the farming system, but lucky enough to have been rescued—show individuals who have been allowed to recover from their poor treatment within the farming system and ‘age on their own terms’: When animals arrive at Farm Sanctuary, they are given food, shelter, and medical care, and they are allowed to live out their lives in peace. Cows and sheep wade and graze in open pasture; goats browse and some even climb trees; pigs root in the soil and wallow in ponds; chickens bathe and perch. They are all free to play and express their individuality. The animals communicate their likes and dislikes, and they develop friendships and relationships. They become our cherished companions; we have turkeys that follow us like puppies, looking for a chance to sit on our laps. (Baur 2019, in Leshko 2019, p. 100)

What is heart-rendering yet thought-provoking about the portraits of such animals is that they allow us to glimpse into something we hardly, if ever, see: aged farm animals and their characters. In this sense they enable us to perceive something or grasp something that we may not have recognized before. The portraits, each with a short biographical note about each

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

163

animal, open a window onto a rare world, on what we would see if we allowed animals (used for commercial purposes) to grow old; an embodied life story that would perhaps appear to us, but that we fail to see now, a failure that continues to maintain our poor treatment of farm animals. Indeed, there is a narrative provided through Leshko’s portraits, one of lived, individual experiences, hardships, discomforts, as well as joys, from the animals’ own positioning. This is very different from the narrative we tell ourselves about the lives of farm animals, a narrative that invisibilizes, for example, individual sheep as merely belonging to the category ‘Sheep’, and individual cows as Cows, without their own lives. Indeed, their lives are commonly perceived as ours, as belonging to us, something we give, and something we take away. In the same book, Gene Baur claims that visitors to sanctuaries are encouraged to meet and get to know these animals as living, feelings creatures with complex cognitive and emotional lives, and to recognise that each is an individual with his or her own personal experiences and story. We encourage people to connect with farm animals and to recognize that they are similar to the cats and dogs who live with us in our homes. Many then reflect on inconsistent societal norms whereby certain animals are treated as members of our families, while others are warehoused in crowded factory farms and then killed for food. (Ibid., p. 100)

This educational element of sanctuaries no doubt will continue to play a key role in changing perceptions of farm animals and challenging the unrelenting, normalized, yet abhorrent cruelty and violence that continues to be inflicted upon them through industrialized farming practices and many other commercial practices. Of course, much more than education is needed; animal sanctuaries are one minuscule part of the wider attempt to meet this challenge, notwithstanding the enormous difference their work makes to the lives of individual animals. Certainly, as Alice Crary and Lori Gruen point out in their book Animal Crisis, ‘human-animal relations have reached a desperate point’; the ‘horrors demand an urgent response’ (2022, pp. 13–14). (This is so not least because of the extent of the suffering but also because of the links between factory farming, environmental destruction, food inequality, and human health, discussion of which can be found elsewhere: see CIWF 2022a, 2022b, and 2022c; Crary and Gruen 2022, pp. 1–14; and Humphreys et al. 2022.) What is being called for here in this concluding chapter is a profound reflection on our lives with and alongside animals and on animals’ own

164 

R. HUMPHREYS

lifeworlds. At one level, such a reflection can give us misinformation, as the illustrations and discussion in Chap. 5 indicated. On the other hand, it is the resource that we must build upon so that we use the best animal science (a science stripped of its mechanomorphism) to re-educate and rehabituate ourselves into being sensitive to animals’ communications and, above all, to animal suffering. Central to this is the notion of continuity and its recognition in theory and practice; a continuity espoused by traditional ethicists or so-called identity theorists, the latter being a misleading term that might be better replaced by the term ‘continuity theorists’. This further calls for a recognition of animals as beings that are very much like us in numerous ways, and as having certain interests—particularly interests in freedom, functioning and well-being, and especially in not suffering—that make talk of justice and equality in relation to their lives not only applicable but crucial in challenging their continued worldwide oppression. If nonhumans and humans share similar traits and mental states, then anthropomorphic language is not always unjustified. Of course, if this is true, then, in cases where it is true, ‘anthropomorphism’ would not be anthropomorphism in the standard sense of the term, as originating in Xenophanes’s claims about gods and humans; that is, the unjustified attribution of what are thought to be exclusively human traits to other than human beings. Rather, it could be taken to mean that the critical type— informed by knowledge and a close study of animals (see Bekoff 2007, p. 124)—is not only justified but less susceptible to misrepresentation and error. As Bekoff says, ‘we all recognize and agree that animals and humans share many traits, including emotions. Thus, we’re not inserting something human into animals, but we’re identifying commonalities and then using human language to communicate what we observe’ (Ibid., p. 124). Anthropomorphic language, in this sense, is not merely metaphorical but has an ontological basis, indicating real attributes. In any case, it cannot be avoided for the very reason that it is necessarily in operation whenever we describe the mental life of other than human animals in a way that avoids mechanomorphism. Our folk psychology of other animals plays a role here in our description of animal mentality, just as it does in our description of human mental states (see, e.g., Andrews 2011, pp. 1–48), as does our immediate, direct or noninferential knowledge of the feelings of others (whether human or nonhuman). Of course, in terms of immediate knowledge, indeed, another’s emotions or feelings do not always lie open to view, but even if we responded to only those

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

165

feelings and emotions that we can or do perceive and that are communicated to us via expressions and behaviours, then this would necessarily involve a recognition of the obvious immense sufferings of creatures who are exploited for our own benefit. This suggests how we might (re)construct an adequate ontology of a lifeworld with animals, (one that would involve a re-evaluation of anthropomorphism) and the moral implications of that construction. Indeed, a new, more adequate way of seeing the world (a world of complex, communicating, suffering animals) has moral consequences. Such recognition should prompt a call for urgent action on their behalf, a call that is stronger when combined with empirical knowledge and an intimate understanding of the creatures in question. These ways of acquiring knowledge can be recognized as significant in describing intra- and interspecies similarities and differences and species-specific interests, all of which can be taken into account in moral deliberations and considered equitably when interests conflict. This approach embraces elements of both the so-called identity approach and the difference approach (discussed in Chap. 6) and can appreciate the connectedness of Homo sapiens and other species without taking us down the dark hole of posthumanist indistinction.

References Allen, C. and M. Bekoff, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997). Andrews, Kristin, ‘Beyond Anthropomorphism: Attributing Psychological Properties to Animals’, in Wellbeing International: WBI Studies Repository, 2011, 1–48. Andrews, Kristin et  al., Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief (London: Routledge, 2018). Ayer, A.J., The Problem of Knowledge (London: Penguin Group, 1956). Baur, Gene, ‘What Farm Sanctuaries Teach Us’, in Isa Leshko, Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, Forward by Sy Montgomery, Essays by Gene Baur and Anne Wilkes Tucker (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2019). Bekoff, Marc, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Foreword by Jane Goodall (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007). ——— ‘Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures’, BioScience, 50 (10), October 2000, 861–870.

166 

R. HUMPHREYS

Bekoff, M. and C. Allen, ‘Cognitive Ethology: Slayers, Sceptics, and Proponents’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicholas S.  Thompson and H.  Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 313–334. Bekoff, Marc and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). Boysen, S.T., G.G.  Berntson, T.A.  Shreyer and K.S.  Quigley, ‘Processing of Ordinality and Transitivity by Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes)’, Journal of Comparative Psychology, 107, 1993, 208–215. Caporael, Linnda R. and Cecilia M.  Heyes, ‘Why Anthropomorphize? Folk Psychology and Other Stories’, in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 59–73. Cave, S., ‘The Problem with Intelligence: Its Value-Laden History and the Future of AI’, Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, New York, US, 7–8 February 2020, pp. 29–35. Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI): Project CETI, 2021: see https://www. projectceti.org/about. Accessed on 3 June 2022. CIWF (Compassion in World Farming), ‘Ending Factory Farming: Environmental Damage’, (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022a), online at: https://www. ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/environmental-­damage/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. ——— ‘Ending Factory Farming: People and Poverty’ (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022b), online at: https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/ people-­and-­poverty/, accessed on 2 October 2022. ———: Your Health’, (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022c), online at: https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/your-­health/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. Coulter, Kendra, Animals, Work, and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity (New York, and Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Crary, Alice and Lori Gruen, Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2022). Crosby, M., ‘Building Thinking Machines by Solving Animal Cognition Tasks’, Minds and Machines, 30(4), 2020, 589–615. Crist, E., Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism, and Animal Mind (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1999). Davion, V., ‘Anthropocentrism, Artificial Intelligence, and Moral Network Theory: An Ecofeminist Perspective’, Environmental Values, 11(2), 2002, 163–176. Descartes, Discourse on the Method [1637], in Key Philosophical Writings, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane, edited and introduction by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1997).

7  THE APPLICATION OF KEY CONCEPTS 

167

de Waal, Frans, Good Natured: The Origins of Rights and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA, and London: 1996). Flavell, John H., Patricia H. Miller and Scott A. Miller, Cognitive Development, 4th edn. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002). Gaita, Raimond, The Philosopher’s Dog (London: Routledge, 2002). Gardner, Beatrix T. and R.  Allen Gardner, ‘Teaching Sign Language to a Chimpanzee’, Science, 165, 1969, 664–672. Graham K.E. and C.  Hobaiter, ‘Towards a great ape dictionary: Inexperienced humans understand common nonhuman ape gestures’, PLoS Biology, 21(1): e3001939, 2023. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pbio.3001939. Accessed on 1 March 2023. Griffin, Donald R., Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Chicago and Oxford: The University of Chicago Press, 2001). Hearne, Vicki, Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). Hernández-Orallo, J., ‘Evaluation in Artificial Intelligence: From Task-Oriented to Ability-Oriented Measurement’, The Artificial Intelligence Review, 48 (3), 2016, 397–447. Humphreys, Rebekah, ‘Moral Feelings, Compartmentalization and Desensitization in the Practice of Animals Experimentation’, in Natalie Thomas (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 229–250. Humphreys, Rebekah, Rhyddhi Chakraborty and Nithin Varghese, ‘Ethics, Zoonoses and Human-Nonhuman Conflict: Covid-19 and Beyond’, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 22, 2022, 69–74. Kiley-Worthington, Marthe, Horse Watch: What it is to be Equine (London; J.A. Allen, 2005). Kiriazis, Judith and Con N. Slobodchikoff, ‘Anthropocentrism and the Study of Animal Language’ in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New  York Press, 1997), pp. 365–369. Leshko, Isa, Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, Forward by Sy Montgomery, Essays by Gene Baur and Anne Wilkes Tucker, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2019). Lohmar, Dieter, ‘Language and Non-Linguistic Thinking’, in Dan Zahavi (ed.), The Oxford, Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 377–398. Martínez-Plumed, F. et al., ‘The Facets of Artificial Intelligence: A Framework to Track the Evolution of AI’, Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-18), Stockholm, 13–19 July 2018, 5180–5187.

168 

R. HUMPHREYS

Matsuzawa, T., ‘Symbolic representation of number in chimpanzees’, Current Opinions in Neurobiology, 19, 2009, 92–98. McMullen, Steven, Animals and the Economy, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Midgley, Mary, Animals and Why They Matter: A Journey Around the Species Barrier (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983). Patterson, F.  G., ‘Linguistic capabilities of a lowland gorilla’, in F.  C. C.  Peng (ed.), Sign Language and Language Acquisition in Man and Ape (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), pp. 161–201. Pepperberg, Irene M., ‘Nonhuman and Nonhuman-Human Communication: Some Issues and Questions’, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 12, September 2021, 1–15, online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021. 647841/full,. Accessed on 26 September 2022. Premack, D., ‘On the Assessment of Language-Competence in the Chimpanzee’, in A. M. Schrier and F. Stollnitz (eds.), Behavior of Nonhuman Primates, Vol. 4 (New York, NY: Academic Press, 1971), pp. 186–228. Preston, B.,‘AI, Anthropocentrism, and the Evolution of Intelligence’, Minds and Machines, 1(3), 1991, 259–277. Rowlands, Mark, Can Animals be Moral? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). ——— The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness (London: Granta, 2008). Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker and Talbot J. Taylor, Apes, Language and the Human Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Schusterman, Ronald J. and Robert C.  Gisiner, ‘Pinnipeds, Porpoises, and Parsimony: Animal Language Research Viewed from a Bottom-up Perspective’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicholas S.  Thompson and H.  Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 370–382. Strawson, Peter, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen and Co Ltd., 1959). Suzuki, Toshitaka N., ‘Animal Linguistics: Exploring Referentiality and Compositionality in Bird Calls’, Ecological Research, 36 (2), March 2021, 221–231. Terrace, H. S., L.A. Petitto, R.J. Sanders and T.G. Bever, Can an Ape Create a Sentence? Science, 206, 1979, 891–902. Thomas, Natalie (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). UK Government, Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, 2022. See: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2867. Accessed on 26 September 2022.

Bibliography

Aaltola, Elisa, ‘The Rise of Sentimentalism and Animal Philosophy’, in Elisa Aaltola and John Hadley (eds.), Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy (London and New  York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2015), pp. 201–218. Academic: en-academic.com, ‘Saltation (biology)’, in Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, accessed at https://en-­academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/2000978. Accessed on 21 July 2022. Adams, Carol J., The Pornography of Meat, New and Updated Edition (London, New York, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2020). ——— The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, 25th Anniversary Edition (London, New  York, New Delhi and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015). Adams, Harry, ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Advent of Meaning: From Consummate Reciprocity to Ambiguous Reversibility’, Continental Philosophy Review, 34, 2001, 203–224. Allen, Colin and Marc Bekoff, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997). Allen, Colin and Michael Trestman, ‘Animal Consciousness’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/consciousness-­animal/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. Andrews, Kristin, ‘Beyond Anthropomorphism: Attributing Psychological Properties to Animals’, in Wellbeing International: WBI Studies Repository,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4

169

170 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2011, 1–48. Accessed at: www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org. Accessed on 20 August 2022. Andrews, Kristin, et  al., Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief (London: Routledge, 2018). Animal Aid, Outrage, Issue 208, Autumn 2022 (hard copy: Animal Aid’s campaign magazine). For Animal Aid’s website see: https://www.animalaid.org.uk/. Aristotle, Aristotle’s History of Animals [first published in print in 1868] (Fairford, Glos.: The Echo Library, 2019), a re-publication of: Aristotle’s History of Animals, in Ten Books, Translated by Richard Cresswell (London: George Bell and Sons, 1887). Armstrong, D.M., ‘What is Consciousness?’, in his The Nature of Mind and Other Essays (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 1–15. Asquith, Pamela J., ‘The Inevitability and Utility of Anthropomorphism in Description of Primate Behavior’, in Rom Harré, and Vernon Reynolds (eds.), The Meaning of Primate Signals (Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 138–76. Attfield, Robin, ‘Biocentrism, Climate Change, and the Spatial and Temporal Scope of Ethics’, in Brian G. Henning and Zack Walsh (eds.), Climate Change, Ethics and the Nonhuman World (New York; and Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2020), pp. 63–74. ——— The Ethics of the Global Environment, second edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015). ——— Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century, second edn. (Cambridge: Polity, 2014 [2003]). ——— ‘Intrinsic Value and Transgenic Animals’, in A. Holland and A. Johnson (eds.), Animal Biotechnology and Ethics (Boston, MA: Springer, 1998), pp. 172–189. ——— Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics, Value Inquiry Book Series, Vol. 30 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodopi, 1995). ——— The Ethics of Environmental Concern, second edition (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1991). ———A Theory of Value and Obligation (London, New York and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1987). Attfield, Robin and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘Justice and Non-Human Animals, Part II’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 8 (1), 2017, 44–77. ——— ‘Justice and Non-Human Animals, Part I’, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 7 (3), 2016, 1–11. ——— Review of Gary E.  Varner, Personhood, Ethics and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism (Oxford; and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Review in Philosophy, 88 (3), July 2013, 493–498.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

171

Ayer, A.J., The Problem of Knowledge (London: Penguin Group, 1956). Bacon, Francis, Novuum Organum: New Instrument [1620] (Dumfries and Galloway, UK: Anodos Books, 2019). Badmington, N., Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within (Oxon: Routledge, 2004). Barry, Brian, ‘Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice’, in Andrew Dobson (ed.), Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). ——— Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). ——— Theories of Justice (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1989). Bastian, B., K. Costello, S. Loughnan, and G. Hodson, n.d. ‘When Closing the Human-Animal Divide Expands Moral Concern: The Importance of Framing’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (4), 421–429. Battersea, The Impact of Covid-19 on Companion Animal Welfare in the UK (London: Battersea, 2020). Accessible at https://bdch.org.uk/files/ BATTERSEA-­Covid-­Research-­Report.pdf. Accessed on 5 October 2022. Baur, Gene, ‘What Farm Sanctuaries Teach Us’, in Isa Leshko, Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, Forward by Sy Montgomery, Essays by Gene Baur and Anne Wilkes Tucker (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Oress, 2019). Bekoff, Marc, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Foreword by Jane Goodall (Novato, California: New World Library, 2007). ——— ‘Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures’, BioScience, 50 (10), October 2000, 861–870. Bekoff, M. and C. Allen, ‘Cognitive Ethology: Slayers, Sceptics, and Proponents’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicholas S.  Thompson and H.  Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 313–334. Bekoff, Marc and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). Benhabib, Seyla, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], in the version presented by Jonathan Bennett (2017), online at: www. earlymoderntexts.com. Accessed on 6 September 2022. Boysen, S.T., G.G.  Berntson, T.A.  Shreyer and K.S.  Quigley, ‘Processing of Ordinality and Transitivity by Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes)’, Journal of Comparative Psychology, 107, 1993, 208–215.

172 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Browne, Derek, ‘Carruthers on the Deficits of Animals’, Psyche, 5 (23), 1999, http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v5/psyche-­5-­23-­browne.html, 1–8. Accessed on 2 August 2022. Buchanan, Ian, A Dictionary of Critical Theory, second edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Accessed at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/ view/10.1093/acref/9780198794790.001.0001/acref-­9780198794790-­e-­7 65?rskey=RR7DwV&result=141. Accessed on 7 September 2022. Burghardt, Gordon, ‘Mediating claims through critical anthropomorphism’, Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling, 3 (17), 2016, 1–4. Accessible at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=animsent. Accessed on 10 August 2022. ——— ‘Critical Anthropomorphism, Uncritical Anthropocentrism, and Naïve Nominalism’, Comparative Cognitive and Behaviour Reviews, 2 (1), January 2007, 136–138. ——— ‘Amending Tinbergen: A Fifth Aim for Ethology’, in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicolas S. Thompson, and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (Albany, US: State University of New  York Press, 1997), pp. 254–276 ——— ‘Cognitive Ethology and Critical Anthropomorphism: A Snake with Two Heads and Hognose Snakes that Play Dead’, in Carolyn A.  Ristau (ed.), Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of Other Animals, Essays in Honour of Donald R Griffin (Hillsdale, New Jersey, and Hove and London: Lawrences Erlbaum Associates, 1991), pp. 53–90. Calarco, Matthew, Thinking Through Animals: Identity, Difference, Indistinction (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015). ——— Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Callicott, J. Baird, ‘Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair’, Environmental Ethics, 2 (4), Winter 1980, 311–338. Caporael, Linnda R. and Cecilia M.  Heyes, ‘Why Anthropomorphize? Folk Psychology and Other Stories’, in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 59–73. Carruthers, Peter, Consciousness: Essays from a Higher-Order Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). ——— Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). ——— ‘Animal Subjectivity’, Psyche, 4 (3), 1998a, 1–8. http://psyche.cs.monash. auk/v4/psyche-­4-­03-­carruthers.html. Accessed on 2 August 2022.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

173

——— ‘Natural Theories of Consciousness’, European Journal of Philosophy, 6 (2), 1998b, 203–222. ——— Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Carruthers, Peter and Rocco Gennaro, ‘Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Accessed at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/ consciousness-­higher. Accessed on 2 August 2022. Carter, Caroline, ‘Theriomorphic Forms: Analyzing Terrestrial Animal-Human Hybrids in Ancient Greek Culture and Religion’, 2019, MA thesis, The University of Arizona: University Libraries, UA Campus Repository. Accessed at https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/633185/azu_ etd_17201_sip1_m.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed on 29 July 2022. Cave, S., ‘The Problem with Intelligence: Its Value-Laden History and the Future of AI’, Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, New York, US, 7–8 February 2020, 29–35. Centre for Animals and Social Justice (CASJ), ‘The Problem’, https://www.casj. org.uk/ (Surrey: CASJ, 2022). Accessed on 2 August 2022. Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI): Project CETI, 2021: see https://www. projectceti.org/about. Accessed on 3 June 2022. Chalmers, David, ‘Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2 (3), 1995, 200–219. Charles River Laboratories, Basic Research [Online], 2014. Available at http:// www.criver.com/products-services/basic-research [accessed: 23 June 2014], cited by Linzey, Andrew et al., Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey, and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). Charles River Laboratories Ocular Toxicology [Online], 2014. Available at http://www.criver.com/products-­services/safety-­assessments/toxicology/ ocular-­toxicology [accessed: 23 June 2014], cited by Linzey, Andrew et  al, Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey, and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). CIWF (Compassion in World Farming), ‘Ending Factory Farming: Environmental Damage’, (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022a), online at: https://www. ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/environmental-­damage/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. ——— ‘Ending Factory Farming: People and Poverty’ (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022b), online at: https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/ people-­and-­poverty/, accessed on 2 October 2022.

174 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

———: Your Health’, (Surrey, UK: CIWF International, 2022c), online at: https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-­farming/your-­health/. Accessed on 2 October 2022. Clatterbuck, Hayley, ‘Darwin, Hume, Morgan, and the Verae Causae of Psychology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 60, 2016, 1–14. Cockburn, David ‘Emotion, Expression and Conversation’, in Ylva Gustafson, Camilla Kronqvist and Michael McEachrane (eds.), Emotions and Understanding (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 126–144. ———‘The Mind, the Brain and the Face’, Philosophy, 60 (234), 1985, 477–494. Cojocaru, Mara-Daria and Philipp von Gall, ‘Beyond Plausibility Checks: A Case for Moral Doubt in Review Processes of Animal Experimentation’, in Kathrin Hermann and Kimberley Jane (eds.), Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change, Vol. 22 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), pp. 289–304. Cooke, Lucy, The Unexpected Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and Other Wild Tales (London: Penguin, 2017). Coral Cay Conservation, ‘A Comparative Study of the Habitats of the Upper Imbang-Caliban Watershed, North Negros Forest Reserve, Negros Occidental, Philippines’, Technical Publication of the Negros Rainforest Conservation Project: A Collaborative Initiative Between the Negros Forests and Ecological Foundation Inc. and Coral Cay Conservation (London: Coral Cay Conservation Ltd., 2005). Coulter, Kendra, Animals, Work, and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity (New York, and Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Crenshaw, Kimberle, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Issue 1, Article 8, Volume 1989, 139–167. Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/ uclf/vol1989/iss1/8. Accessed on 19 July 2022. Crary, Alice and Lori Gruen, Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2022). Crist, Eileen, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999). Crosby, M., ‘Building Thinking Machines by Solving Animal Cognition Tasks’, Minds and Machines, 30 (4), 2020, 589–615. Cruelty Free International, ‘Facts and Figures on Animal Testing’ (London: Cruelty Free International, 2021), online at: https://crueltyfreeinternational. org/about-­animal-­testing/facts-­and-­figures-­animal-­testing. Accessed on 1 September 2022. Darwin, Charles, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, with photographic and other illustrations (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

175

[1872]), accessed at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1227/1227-­ h/1227-­h.htm, 26 July 2022. ——— The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex [1871], with an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond (London: Penguin Books, 2004). Datson, Lorraine and Gregg Mitman (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Davion, V., ‘Anthropocentrism, Artificial Intelligence, and Moral Network Theory: An Ecofeminist Perspective’, Environmental Values, 11 (2), 2002, 163–176. DeGrazia, David, Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am, edited by Marie-Louise Mallet, translated by David Will (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008). Descartes, René, Meditations [1641], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S.  Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997a). ——— Discourse on the Method [1637], in Key Philosophical Writings, trans, by Elizabeth S.  Haldane, edited and introduced by Enrique Chavez-Arvizo (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth, 1997b). de Waal, Frans, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animal Are? With drawings by the author (New York: Granta, 2017). ——— Good Natured: The Origins of Rights and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA, and London: 1996). Diamond, Cora, ‘The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy’, in Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking and Cary Wolfe (eds.), Philosophy and Animal Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 43–89. ——— ‘Injustice and Animals’, in Carl Elliott (ed.), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 118–148. ——— The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts; and London: The MIT Press, 1991). ——— ‘Eating Meat and Eating People’, Philosophy, 53 (206), 1978, 465–479. Donovan, J. and C.  J. Adams (eds.), The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader (New York: Columbia, 2007). Dretske, F., Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). Duchenne de Boulogne, G.B., The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, edited and translated by R. Andrew Cuthbertson (Cambridge, UK; New York; Port Chester; Melbourne; Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [originally pub. 1862]). Accessed at: https://assets.cambridge.org/97805213/63921/ sample/9780521363921ws.pdf. Accessed on 4 August 2022. Dunayer, Joan, Speciesism (Derwood, Maryland: Ryce Publishing, 2004).

176 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dunn, Kirsty, “Do You Know Where the Light Is?’: Factory Farming and Industrial Slaughter in Michel Faber’s Under the Skin’, in Annie Potts (ed.), Meat Culture (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017), pp. 149–162. Ellis, Clare F., Wanda McCormick and Ambrose Tinarwo, ‘Analysis of Factors Relating to Companion Rabbits Relinquished to Two United Kingdom Rehoming Centers’, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 20 (3), 2017, 230–239. Flanagan, Owen and Kathryn Jackson, ‘Justice, Care and Gender: The Kohlberg-­ Gilligan Debate Revisited’, in Mary Jeanne Larrabee (ed.), An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1993). Flavell, John H., Patricia H. Miller and Scott A. Miller, Cognitive Development, 4th edn. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002). Francione, Gary L., Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Gaita, Raimond, The Philosopher’s Dog, (London: Routledge, 2002). Gardner Beatrix T. and R.  Allen Gardner, ‘Teaching Sign Language to a Chimpanzee’, Science, 165, 1969, 664–672. Garner, Robert, ‘Animal Rights and the Deliberative Turn in Democratic Theory’, European Journal of Political Theory, 18 (3), 2019, 309–329. ——— ‘Animals and Democratic Theory: Beyond an Anthropocentric Account’, Contemporary Political Theory, 16 (4), 2016, 459–477. ——— A Theory of Justice for Animals: Animal Rights in a Nonideal World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ——— ‘Political Ideology and the Legal Status of Animals’, Animal Law, Vol. 8, 2002, 77–91. Garrad, Greg, Ecocriticism, second edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2012). Ghiselin, Michael T., Review: ‘Mr Darwin’s Critics, Old and New’, in Journal of the History of Biology, 6 (1), Spring 1973, 155–165. Review of Peter J. Vorzimmer, Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy, the ‘Origin of Species’ and Its Critics 1859–1882 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970). Godfrey-Smith, Peter, Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life (London: William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2016). Good News Bible (Swindon, UK: The Bible Societies, Collins/Fontana, 1976). Goodpaster, K., ‘On Being Morally Considerable’, Journal of Philosophy, 75 (6), 1978, 308–25. Graham, George, ‘Behaviorism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N.  Zalta (Spring 2019 Edition), accessed at https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/spr2019/entries/behaviorism/. Accessed on 30 August 2022. Griffin, Donald R., Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (Chicago and Oxford: The University of Chicago Press, 2001). Haraway, Donna J., ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-­ Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ (2016) [1991] (also published as ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

177

1980s’ [1985]), in Donna J.  Haraway, Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), pp. 3–90. ——— Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016a). ———Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016b). ———When Species Meet (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Haraway, Donna J., and Cary Wolfe, ‘Companions in Conversations’ (2016), in Donna J. Haraway, Manifestly Haraway (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), pp. 199–296. Hare, R. M., Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods and Point (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). Hauser, Marc D., ‘Evolution of Communication’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Animal Communication (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 451–59. Hearne, Vicki, Adam’s Task: Calling Animals By Name (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). Herman, L. M., ‘In which Procrustean Bed does the Sea Lion Sleep Tonight?’, Psychological Record, 39, 1989, 19–49. Hernández-Orallo, J., ‘Evaluation in Artificial Intelligence: From Task-Oriented to Ability-Oriented Measurement’, The Artificial Intelligence Review, 48(3), 2016, 397–447. Ho, Jeffrey, Sabir Hussain, and Olivier Sparagano, ‘Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Spark a Public Interest in Pet Adoption’, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Brief Research Report, Volume 8, Article 647308, May 2021. Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature [1739], in the version by Jonathan Bennett, 2017, presented at www.earlymoderntexts.com. Accessed on 4 August 2022. Humphreys, Rebekah, ‘Moral Feelings, Compartmentalization and Desensitization in the Practice of Animals Experimentation’, in Natalie Thomas (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 229–250. ——— ‘Suffering, Sentientism, and Sustainability: An Analysis of a Non-­ Anthropocentric Moral Framework for Climate Ethics’, in Brian G. Henning and Zack Walsh (eds.), Climate Change, Ethics and the Nonhuman World (New York, and Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2020), pp. 49–62. ——— ‘Biocentrism’, in Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics, edited by Henk ten Have, Springer, Cham, 2016, pp.  263–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-­3-­319-­09483-­0_41. ——— ‘Dignity and Its Violation Examined within the Context of Animal Ethics’, Ethics and the Environment, 21 (2), Fall 2016, 143–162.

178 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

———‘The Moral Status of Sentient and Non-Sentient Creatures’, in Issues in Ethics and Animal Rights, ed. Manish Vyas (Regency Publications: Delhi, 2011), pp. 70–83. ———‘Contractarianism: On the Incoherence of the Exclusion of Non-Human Beings’, Percipi, 2, 21st May 2008, 28–38. Humphreys, Rebekah, Rhyddhi Chakraborty and Nithin Varghese, ‘Ethics, Zoonoses and Human-Nonhuman Conflict: Covid-19 and Beyond’, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 22, 2022, 69–74. Jackson, Frank, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 32 (127), April 1982, 127–136. Jamieson, Dale, ‘Science, Knowledge, and Animal Minds’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 98, 1998, 79–102. Jamieson, D., and M. Bekoff, ‘Carruthers on Nonconscious Experience’, Analysis, 52 (1), 1992, 23–28. Kako, E., ‘Elements of Syntax in the Systems of Three Language-Trained Animals’, Animal Learning and Behaviour, 27, 1999, 1–14. Karlsson, F., ‘Anthropomorphism and Mechanomorphism’, Humanimalia: A Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies, 3 (2), 2012a, 107–122. ———. ‘Critical Anthropomorphism and Animal Ethics’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 25 (5), 2012b, 707–720. Katsnelson, Mikhail I., Yuro I. Wolf and Eugene V. Koonin, ‘On the Feasibility of Saltational Evolution’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (42), 2019, 1–8. Accessed at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336163050_On_the_feasibility_of_saltational_evolution. Accessed on 21 July 2022. Kavanagh, Noel, ‘Reflective Introduction’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/2018, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 1–9. Kemmerer, Lisa, ‘Introduction’, in Lisa Kemmerer (ed.), Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice, foreword by Carol. J.  Adams (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2011), pp. 1–44. Kennedy, J.  S., The New Anthropomorphism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Kiley-Worthington, Marthe, Horse Watch: What it is to be Equine (London; J.A. Allen, 2005). Kiriazis, Judith and Con N. Slobodchikoff, ‘Anthropocentrism and the Study of Animal Language’ in Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology (Albany, NY: State University of New  York Press, 1997), pp. 365–369. Kirk, R., Raw Feeling (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

179

Klopfer, Peter H., ‘Animal Cognition and the New Anthropomorphism’, International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 18 (3), 2005, 202–206. Ko, Aph, Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (Brooklyn, New York: Lantern Books, 2019). Ko, Aph and Syl Ko, Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters (New York: Lantern Books, 2017). Kohlberg, Lawrence, The Philosophy of Moral Development: Volume I: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice (Cambridge; Hagerstown; New  York; Philadelphia; London; Mexico City; Sao Paulo, Sydney: Harper and Row, 1981). Konishi, Mark, ‘Preface’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Animal Communication (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, 1999), pp. ix–xi. Kramer, C, ‘Digital Beats as Visual Esperanto: Getty Images and Colonization of Sight’, in Lorraine Datson and Gregg Mitman (eds.), Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 137–171. Kret, Mariska E., Eliska Prochazkova, Elisabeth H.  M. Sterck and Zanna Clay, ‘Emotional Expressions in Human and Non-human Great Apes’, Neuroscience and Behavioural Reviews, Volume 115, August 2020, 378–395. Ledbetter, David H. and Jeffry A. Basen, ‘Failure to Demonstrate Self-Recognition in Gorillas’, American Journal of Primatology, 2 (3), 1982, 307–310. Accessed at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.1350020309. Accessed on 25 August 2022. Leitsberger, Madelaine, Judith Benz-Schwarzburg and Herwig Grimm, ‘A Speaking Piglet Advertises Beef: An Ethical Analysis on Objectification and Anthropomorphism’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 29 (6), 2016, 1003–1019. Lennon, Kathleen, ‘Imagination and the Expression of Emotion’, Ratio, 24 (3), September 2011, 282–298. ——— ‘Expression’ in Komarine Romdenh-­Romluc (ed.), Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 31–48. ———‘Natural Expressions’, n.d. unpublished paper, 28 pages [pp. 1–28]. Leshko, Isa, Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, Forward by Sy Montgomery, Essays by Gene Baur and Anne Wilkes Tucker, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2019). Levinas, Emmanuel, Entre Nous: Thinking of the Other, Trans. by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). ——— Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991). ——— Collected Philosophical Papers, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987).

180 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

——— Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969). Lieberman, Philip, Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Lindgren, Johnson, Race Matters, Animal Matters: Fugitive Humanism and African America, 1840–1930, Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture: Series (London and New York: Routledge, 2018). Linzey, Andrew, Animal Rights (London: SCM Press, 1976). Linzey, Andrew et al., Normalising the Unthinkable: The Ethics of Using Animals in Research, Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey (eds.), A Report by the Working Group of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, 2015). Lohmar, Dieter, ‘Language and Non-Linguistic Thinking’, in Dan Zahavi (ed.), The Oxford, Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 377–398. Lurz, Robert, ‘Animal Minds’, n.d., The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/. Accessed on 22 July 2022. ——— (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009). ——— ‘A Defence of First-order Representationalist Theories of Mental-State Consciousness’, PSYCHE, 6(1), February 2000, 1–11. Accessed at http:// psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v6/psyche-­6-­01-­lurz.html. Accessed on 22 July 2022. Lycan, W.G., Consciousness and Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). ——— ‘Expression’ in Komarine Romdenh-Romluc (ed.), Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 31–48. MacIntyre, Alasdair, Ethics and Politics, Selected Essays, Vol.2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Mandelbaum, M, Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception: Historical and Critical Studies (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1964). Martínez-Plumed, F. et al., ‘The Facets of Artificial Intelligence: A Framework to Track the Evolution of AI’, Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-18), Stockholm, 13–19 July 2018, 5180–5187. Matsuzawa, T., ‘Symbolic representation of number in chimpanzees’, Current Opinions in Neurobiology, 19, 2009, 92–98. McDowell, John, ‘On ‘The Reality of the Past”, in P.  Pettit and C.  Hookway (eds.), Action and Interpretation (Cambridge; London; New  York; New Rochelle; Melbourne; and Syndey: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 127–144. McMullen, Steven, Animals and the Economy, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

181

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception [1945], translated by Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). ——— The Primacy of Perception: and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, edited by James M.  Edie (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1964). Midgley, Mary, Animals and Why They Matter: A Journey Around the Species Barrier (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983). Midson, Scott, ‘Humus and the Sky Gods: Partnership and Post/Humans in Genesis 2 and the Chthulucence’, Sophia, 58, 2018, 689–698. Milligan, Tony, ‘The Ethics of Love for Animals’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/18, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 194–206. ——— ‘Love and Animals’, in Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Online at Oxford Academic: https://academic.oup.com/edited-­ volume/34722/chapter/296469102?login=true. Accessed 4 August 2022. ——— ‘Animals and the Capacity for Love’ in Christian Maurer, Tony Milligan and Kamila Pacovska‫( ﹶ‬eds.), Love and Its Objects: What Can We Care For? (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), chapter 13. Mitchell, Robert W., Nicolas S.  Thompson, and H.  Lyn Miles, ‘Taking Anthropomorphism Seriously’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicolas S.  Thompson and H. Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (Albany, US: State University of New York Press, 1997). Möllendorf, Darrel, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002). ——— ‘Cosmopolitan and Compatriot Duties’, The Monist, 94 (4), 2011, 535–554. Montaigne, Michel de, An Apology for Raymond Seybond [1580], translated and edited with introduction and notes by M.  A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 1993). Moser, Keith, ‘The Biosemiosic Gaze of the Cosmic ‘Wholly Other’ in Jacques Derrida’s Posthumous Thought’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society: Special Issue: Humans and Other Animals, 2017/18, edited by Noel Kavanagh, 221–247. Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere (Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). ——— What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’, The Philosophical Review, 83 (4), October 1974, 435–450. Neethirajan, S., ‘Happy Cow or Thinking Pig? WUR Wolf—Facial Coding Platform for Measuring Emotions in Farm Animals’, AI, 2 (3), 2021, 342–354. Nelson, K., ‘What’s in a Name? Reply to Seidenberg and Petitto’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116, 1987, 293–96, Nicholls, Henry, ‘Ham the Astrochimp: Hero or Victim?’, The Guardian, Monday 16 December 2013 12.28 GMT. Accessed at: https://www.theguardian.com/

182 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

science/animal-­m agic/2013/dec/16/ham-­c himpanzee-­h ero-­o r-­v ictim. Accessed on 17 August 2022. Nocella II, Anthony J., John Sorenson, Kim Socha and Atsuko Matsuoka, eds., Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (New York; Washington DC/Baltimore; Bern; Frankfurt; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014). Norton, Bryan, ‘Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism’, Environmental Ethics, 6 (2), 1984, 131–148. Nussbaum, Martha C., Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2023). ——— Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, Massachusetts; and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006). Oxford Reference, ‘Intersectionality’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), online at https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199599 868.001.0001/acref-­9780199599868-­e-­975. Accessed on 29 July 2022. Pandas International, ‘Education’ (Littleton, Colorado: Pandas International, 2022), a non-profit organization. Online at: https://www.pandasinternational. org/education-­2/. Accessed on 18 August 2022. Parkinson, Claire, Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters (London: Routledge, 2019). Parr, Aaron, ‘Mapping Contemporary Cinema: Short Guide to Zoomorphism’, online at http://www.mcc.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/?p=1528. Accessed on 19 July 2022. Parr, Lisa A., ‘Cognitive and Physiological Markers of Emotional Awareness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)’, Animal Cognition, 4 (3–4), November 2001, 223–229. Accessible at National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/24777512/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Parr, Lisa A., Bridget M.  Waller, Sarah J.  Vick and Kim A.  Bard, ‘Classifying Chimpanzee Facial Expressions Using Muscle Action’, Emotion, 7 (1), Feb. 2007, 172–181. Parr, Lisa A., Mirit Cohen, and Frans de Waal, ‘Influence of Social Context on the Use of Blended and Graded Facial Displays in Chimpanzees, International Journal of Primatology, 26, 2005, 73–103. Patterson, Charles, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (Brooklyn, NY: Lantern Publishing and Media, 2021 [2002]). Patterson, Francine G.  P. and Ronald H.  Cohn, ‘Self-Recognition and Self-­ Awareness in Lowland Gorillas’, in Sue Taylor Parker, Robert W. Mitchell and Maria L. Boccia (eds.), Self-Awareness in Animals and Humans: Developmental Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 273–290. Patterson, F.  G., ‘Linguistic capabilities of a lowland gorilla’, in F.  C. C.  Peng (ed.), Sign Language and Language Acquisition in Man and Ape (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), pp. 161–201.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

183

Pepperberg, Irene M., ‘Nonhuman and Nonhuman-Human Communication: Some Issues and Questions’, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol.12, September 2021, 1–15, online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647841/ full, accessed 26 September 2022. ——— The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1999). ——— ‘Cognition and Communication in an African Grey Parrot: Studies on a Nonhuman, Nonprimate, Nonmammalian Subject’, in H.  L. Roitblat, L.  M. Herman, and P.  E. Nachtigall (eds.), Language and Communication: Comparative Perspectives (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1993), pp. 221–48. Percival, Rob, The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy and the Future of Meat (London: Little, Brown Publishers, 2022). PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), ‘Exotic Skins’, 2022, https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-­u sed-­f or-­c lothing/exotic-­s kins-­ animals/. Accessed on 7 September 2022. Pfungst, Oskar, Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology, Original Text, Carl L.  Rahn (trans.) (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Accessed at www.gutenberg.org. Accessed on 20 April 2020. Practical Fishkeeping, ‘Deep Sea Trawling Leaves Blobfish Looking Sadder than Ever’ (Bourne, Lincolnshire: Warners Group Publications PLC, 2022), online at: https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-­news/deep-­sea-­trawling-­ leaves-­blobfish-­looking-­sadder-­than-­ever/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Premack, D., Gavagat (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986). ——— Intelligence in Ape and Man (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum: 1976). ——— ‘On the Assessment of Language-Competence in the Chimpanzee’, in A. M. Schrier and F. Stollnitz (eds.), Behavior of Nonhuman Primates, Vol. 4 (New York, NY: Academic Press, 1971), pp. 186–228. Preston, B., ‘AI, Anthropocentrism, and the Evolution of Intelligence’, Minds and Machines, 1 (3), 1991, 259–277. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Regan, Tom, The Case for Animal Rights (London, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983). ——— ‘An Examination and Defense of One Argument Concerning Animal Rights’, Inquiry, 22 (1–4), 1979, 189–219. Rollin, Bernard, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science, expanded edition (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1998). Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine, ‘Maurice-Merleau-Ponty’, in Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard (eds)., Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2012), pp. 103–112.

184 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosenthal, D., ‘A Theory of Consciousness’, in N.  Block, O.  Flanagan and G. Güzeldere (eds.), The Nature of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 729–753. ——— ‘Two Concepts of Consciousness’, Philosophical Studies, 49 (3), 1986, 329–359. Routley, Richard, ‘Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?’, Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy (Bulgaria: Varna, 1973), 205–210. Rowlands, Mark, Can Animals be Moral? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). ——— The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness (London: Granta, 2008). RWAF (Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund), On the Hop: The RWAF Guide to Rabbit Care, 6th edn. (Somerset: RWAF, 2022), online at: https://rabbitwelfare.co.uk/wp-­content/uploads/2021/10/On-­the-­hop-­v6-­web-­version.pdf. Accessed on 20 Aug. 2022. RWAF (Rabbit Welfare Association ‘Resources’, 2022, online at: http://www. rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/?section=rehome.html. Accessed on 31 August 2022. Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind [1949], new edn. (London: Penguin, 2000). Saint Augustine, On the Trinity, translated by Arthur West Haddan, accessed at http://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/trinity/1101.html. Accessed on 18 August 2021. Sanbonmatsu, John (ed.), Critical Theory and Animal Liberation (Lanham, Boulder, New  York, Toronto, and Plymouth, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc: 2011). Savage-Rumbaugh, E.  S., ‘Communication, Symbolic Communication, and Language: Reply to Seidenberg and Petitto’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116 (3), 1987, 288–292. Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker and Talbot J. Taylor, Apes, Language and the Human Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). Schusterman, Ronald J. and Robert C.  Gisiner, ‘Pinnipeds, Porpoises, and Parsimony: Animal Language Research Viewed from a Bottom-up Perspective’, in Robert W.  Mitchell, Nicolas S.  Thompson and H.  Lyn Miles (eds.), Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (Albany, US: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 370–382. Schusterman, Ronald J. ‘Please Parse the Sentence: Animal Cognition in the Procrustean Bed of Linguistics’, Psychological Record, 39, 1989, 3–18. Seager, W., ‘A Cold Look at HOT Theory,’ in Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-­ Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology, Advances in Consciousness

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

185

Research 56 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004), pp. 255–276. Seidenberg, M. S. and L. A. Petitto, ‘Communication, Symbolic Communication, and Language: Comment on Savage-Rumbaugh, McDonald, Sevcik, Hopkins, and Rubert (1986)’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116 (3), 1987, 279–87. Seyfarth, Robert M. and Dorothy L. Cheney, ‘Production Usage, and Response in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Development’, in Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi (eds.), The Design of Communication (London: The MIT Press, 1999), pp. 391–417. Seyfarth, R.  M., D.  L. Cheney and P.  Marler, ‘Vervet Monkey Alarm Calls: Semantic Communication in a Free-ranging Primate’, Animal Behaviour, 28 (4), 1980, 1070–1094 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, ‘The Letter Writer’ in his Collected Stories: Gimpel the Fool to the Letter Writer (New York, NY: The Library of America, 2004), pp. 724–755. ——— Enemies: A Love Story (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977). Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation [1975], second edition with a new preface by the author (London; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; and Bergvlei, South Africa: Pimlico, 1995a). ——— Practical Ethics, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995b). ——— Practical Ethics‘All Animals Are Equal’, in Tom Regan and Peter Singer (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­ Hall Inc, 1976), pp. 148–162. Smith, Michael F., ‘Letting in the Jungle’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 8 (2), 1991, 145–154. Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, second edn, Vol.2 (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Hijhoff, 1965). Stone, Tamsin, Understanding Your Rabbit’s Habits (Bedfordshire: T-Squared, 2011). Strawson, Peter, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen and Co Ltd., 1959). Stumpf, Carl, ‘Supplement IV: The report of December 9th, 1904’, in Pfungst, Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology, Original Text, Carl L.  Rahn (trans.) (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Accessed at www.gutenberg.org. Accessed on 20 April 2020. Suzuki, Toshitaka N., ‘Animal Linguistics: Exploring Referentiality and Compositionality in Bird Calls’, Ecological Research, 36 (2), March 2021, 221–231.

186 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tait, Peter, ‘Review: The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language by Louise Wrestling’, Animal Studies Journal, 3 (2), 2014, 1–3. Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.ac.asj.col3/iss2/2. Accessed on 10 August 2022. Taylor, Ian, ‘The Blobfish: A Bloated Guide to the World’s Ugliest Animal (and What They Really Look Like)’, 10 February, 07:00, in BBC Science Focus (Bristol: BBC, Our Media Ltd, 2022), online: at https://www.sciencefocus. com/nature/the-­blobfish-­a-­bloated-­guide-­to-­the-­worlds-­ugliest-­animal/. Accessed on 22 August 2022. Terrace, H. S., ‘Is Problem-solving Language?’, Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behaviour, 31 (1) 1979, 161–175. Terrace, H. S., L.A. Petitto, R.J. Sanders and T.G. Bever, ‘Can an Ape Create a Sentence? Science, 206, 1979, 891–902. The Scottish Parliament, ‘PE01561: Pet Rabbit Welfare’, Petitioner: Karen Gray on Behalf of Rabbits Require Rights (Scotland), 10 April 2015, accessed at: https://archive2021.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/petitionPDF/PE01561.pdf. Accessed on 31 August 2022. Thomas, Natalie (ed.), Animals and Business Ethics, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series (Switzerland; Springer Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Twine, Richard, Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (New York: Routledge, 2010). Tye, M., Ten Problems of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). Tyler, Tom, ‘If Horses Had Hands…’, Society and Animals, 11 (3), 2003, 267–281. UK Government, Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, 2022. See: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2867, accessed 26 September 2022. van Hooff, Jan A.R.A.M., ‘A Structural Analysis of the Social Behaviour of a Semi-­ captive Group of Chimpanzees’, in M. von Cranach and I.  Vine (eds.), Expressive Movement and Non-verbal Communication (London: Academic Press, 1973), pp. 75–162. Varner, Gary E., Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Varsava, Nina, ‘The Problem of Anthropomorphous Animals: Toward a Posthumanist Ethics’, Society and Animals, 22 (5), 2014, 520–536. Wadiwel, Dinesh Joseph, The War Against Animals (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). Waller, Bridget M. and Robin I.M. Dunbar, ‘Differential Behavioural Effects of Silent Bared Teeth Display and Relaxed Open Mouth Display in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)’, Ethology, 111 (2), 2005, 129–142. Watanabe, Shigeru, ‘How Animal Psychology Contributes to Animal Welfare’, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 106 (4), 2007, 193–202.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

187

Warren, Mark E., The All Affected Interests Principle in Democratic Theory and Practice, IHS Political Science Series: Working paper 145 (Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies, 2017). Warren, R., J. Price, J. VanDerWal, S. Cornelius and H. Sohl, ‘The Implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate Change for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas’, Climatic Change, 147, 2018, 395–409. Watson, Kate and Rebekah Humphreys, ‘The Killing Floor and Crime Narratives: Marking Women and Nonhuman Animals’, in Kate Watson and Katharine Cox (eds.), Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Marking and Remarking (Manchester, UK: Manchester University press, 2019), pp. 113–129. Watt, Simon, ‘The Mission’, The Ugly Animal Preservation Society, 2022, online at: https://uglyanimalsoc.com/. Accessed on 18 August 2022. We Animals Media, https://weanimalsmedia.org/, images by Jo-Ann McArthur, accessed on 25 October 2022. Weisberg, Zipporah, ‘The Broken Promises of Monsters: Haraway, Animals and the Humanist Legacy’, Journal of Critical Animal Studies, 7 (2), 2009, 22–62. Weitzenfeld, Adam, and Melanie Joy, ‘An Overview of Anthropocentrism, Humanism and Speciesism in Critical Animal Theory’, in Anthony J. Nocella, II, John Sorenson, Kim Socha, and Atsuko Matsuoka (eds.), Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (New York; Washington DC/Baltimore; Bern; Frankfurt; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. 3–27. Wiesel, Elie, ‘Foreword’, in George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin (eds.), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. vii–ix. Wolfe, Cary, What is Posthumanism? (Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 2010). Wrestling, Louise, The Logos of the Living World: Merleau-Ponty, Animals, and Language (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014). Xenophanes (fragment): Fr.15, Clement, Stromateis., V, 109, 3; in G.S.  Kirk, J.E.  Raven and M.  Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). See further Diels-Kranz, B15: H.  Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th to 7th editions, Berlin 1934–54, edited by W. Kranz.

Index1

A Activism, 119, 132 Adams, Carol, 33, 34, 107 Advertisements, 81, 82 Aged animals, 162 AI, see Artificial Intelligence All-affected principle, 120 Allen, Colin, 5, 16, 17, 26, 128, 142 Ancient Greece, 34 Andrews, Kristin, 91, 92, 157, 159, 160, 164 Animal abolitionists, 116, 121 anxiety, 30, 47, 103, 144 behaviour, 10–13, 15, 19, 103, 144, 148, 158 cognition, v, 12–14, 49, 84, 91, 93, 94, 145, 159 death, 30, 82, 106, 111, 135 discomfort, 83, 120, 131, 160, 163 ethicists, 35, 105, 106, 108, 127, 135

experimentation, 20, 28, 30, 40, 110, 111, 132–134, 160, 162 farming, 20, 40, 110, 114, 132, 160, 162 fear, 8, 30, 45, 130, 145, 152, 153 harm, 111, 135 joy, 17, 47, 56, 61, 71, 163 liberation, 39, 103–121 love, 49, 50, 130 mentality, 1, 3, 6, 13, 20, 25, 26, 48, 84, 88, 93, 103, 141–144, 158, 164 minds, 5, 14, 20, 26, 45, 58, 141–143, 158, 159 personality, 159 preferences, 105, 120 rights, v sentience, v, 105, 106, 115, 116, 153 suffering, 37, 82, 114, 164 welfare, v, 66, 77, 114

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Humphreys, Animals, Ethics, and Language, The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32080-4

189

190 

INDEX

Animal Aid, 111 Animality, 33, 38, 39, 142 Anthropocentrism, 2, 3, 59, 83, 84, 95, 103–121, 127, 128, 142 Anthropo-denial, 3, 26–34, 81, 95, 104, 128 Anthropo-identity, 104, 121–128 Anthropo-insistence, 3, 121–128 Anthropomorphism, 1–3, 5–13, 15, 19, 20, 25–27, 33, 34, 45–61, 65–96, 103–121, 127, 128, 130, 141, 142, 144, 145, 152, 160, 164, 165 See also Critical anthropomorphism; Moral anthropomorphism; Over-anthropomorphism Anti-essentialist, 129 Anti-speciesist, 105, 107, 108, 120 Ape Language Studies, 87, 128, 153, 155 Argument from marginal cases, 51, 114, 118, 127, 132 Aristotle, 8, 93, 94 Artificial Intelligence (AI), 66, 146, 147 Asquith, Pamela J., 6, 7, 60 Attfield, Robin, 36, 109, 110, 112–115, 118, 119, 121, 122 Autonomy, 105, 109, 110, 156 B Bacon, Francis, 8, 9 Barry, Brian, 111 Bats, 18, 84, 87, 88 Baur, Gene, 162, 163 Bees, 18 Behaviour of animals, 11, 50, 70, 145 as bodily, 148–151 as human-like, 82 of humans, 161

as species-specific, 35, 36, 68 as syntactical, 148–151 Behavioural nuances, 159 Behaviourism, 12, 70 Bekoff, Marc, 1, 5, 17, 20, 26, 61, 104, 128, 142, 145, 151, 164 Beliefs, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17–19, 30, 40, 45, 47, 70, 71, 85, 87, 95, 103, 107, 125, 143–145, 159 Bentham, Jeremy, 108, 126 Binary relations, 2, 27, 95, 130, 131 Biocentrism, 118, 127 Biology, 10n1, 54 Birds, 20, 49, 50, 87, 89, 93, 94, 97, 145 Blobfish, 77, 78, 80, 81 Bodily cues, 68, 158–160 C Calarco, Matthew, 2, 36, 37, 105, 128, 129, 132, 127 Capabilities, 13, 87, 91, 92, 94 Carruthers, Peter, 16–18 Cartesianism, 142 Chalmers, David, 55 Chickens, 20, 36, 47, 81, 82, 114, 115, 143, 156, 162 Chimpanzee, 17, 18, 66, 68, 91, 92, 104, 151, 153, 155, 157 The Chimpanzee Facial Action Coding System (ChimpFACS), 66 Christianity, 7, 50 Clever Hans, 13, 14 Climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, 80 Cognition, v, 3, 12–14, 49, 57, 58, 84, 88, 91, 93, 94, 105, 106, 145, 153, 159, 160 Cognitive dissonance, 83 Commercial practices, 2, 20, 32, 40, 117, 120, 134, 160, 163

 INDEX 

Communication as embodied, 57, 59 interspecies, 89, 93, 122, 151, 152, 165 intraspecies, 59, 93 meaningful, 1, 57–59, 71, 93, 148–152, 154, 157 referential method of, 85 Communicative function, 146, 148 sounds, 146 speech, 5, 54, 86, 90, 93, 94, 143, 146 tools, 146, 148 utterances, 90, 94, 146, 149 Companion animals, 68, 69, 71, 79, 81, 133, 134, 154, 161 See also Dependent animals Compartmentalisation, 83 Compassion, 29, 112, 113, 118, 129 Concept of sameness and difference, 85 Conflicts of interests, 106, 135 Consciousness easy problems of, 55 hard problem of, 55 Consequentialism, 118 Conservation, 80, 81 Consumerism, 20, 40, 84, 120, 160 Continuity theorists, 121–128, 164 Coulter, Kendra, 152, 161 Cows, 6, 32, 33, 66, 81, 146, 156, 162, 163 Crenshaw, Kimberle, 35 Critical Animal Studies, 1–3, 35, 39, 105–107, 119, 127, 128, 132 Critical anthropomorphism, 26, 45–61, 65, 66, 68, 104, 130, 145 Critical realism, 52 Cute factor, 81

191

D Darwin, Charles, 1, 10, 26, 45–49, 52, 57, 59, 60, 65 Deconstruction, 81 DeGrazia, David, 113, 125 Dependent animals, 77 Derrida, Jacques, 36, 37, 126, 129, 132 Descartes, René, 8, 9, 13, 19, 26, 54, 55, 60, 91, 146 De Waal, Frans, 1, 3, 6, 7, 20, 25–27, 31–32, 48, 61, 65, 104, 128, 145, 154 Diamond, Cora, 122–124, 126, 30 Difference approach, 129, 132, 165 Directive On the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes, 29 Direct realism, 52, 65 Dogs, 14, 18, 20, 36, 49, 70, 71, 77, 79, 88, 92, 94, 104, 133–135, 143, 144, 148–155, 157, 158, 163 Dolphins, 84 Domesticated animals, 155, 156, 158, 162 Dualistic, 39, 54, 55, 142 Duchenne smile, 46 Dunayer, Joan, 106, 107 E Economics, 108, 119, 134, 158, 160 Education, 69, 163 Egyptian mythology, 33 Embodiment, 51, 53–59, 131 Emotions, 9, 11, 12, 27, 46–48, 52, 57, 66, 73, 75, 122, 142, 159, 161, 164, 165 Empathy, 9, 11, 29, 61, 82, 124, 126, 129 Empiricism, 9, 19, 53

192 

INDEX

Endangered animals, 80 Environmental destruction, 163 Environmental ethics, 84, 117, 119 Equal consideration, 3, 35, 36, 108, 113–116, 118, 127, 129 Equality, 2, 3, 35, 36, 105, 109, 115, 118, 122, 164 Ethical theories, 125 Ethology, 10, 26, 49, 161 Eurocentric, 38, 39 Evolutionary theory, 45, 46, 57 Existentialism, 53 Experimentations research, 111 vivisection, 117 Exploitation, 38, 39, 105, 128, 134 Expressions, 13, 26, 27, 45–48, 52, 53, 57, 58, 65–70, 73, 74, 76, 84, 91, 126, 148, 158, 165 F Facial expression, 46, 47, 52, 66–68, 74 Facial recognition, 66, 68 Factory farming, 20, 25, 37, 40, 81, 106, 110, 115, 116, 160, 162, 163 See also Intensive rearing Farmed animals, 40, 66, 81–83, 111, 156, 158, 162, 163 Feelings, 12, 13, 26, 27, 29–31, 47, 48, 57, 59, 73, 123, 124, 142, 160, 161, 163–165 First-order theory, 15–20 Fish, 18, 145 Flourishing, 84, 150, 159 Folk psychology, 158–161, 164 Francione, Gary, 105–107, 110 Freedom, 108, 122, 133, 156, 162, 164 Functioning, 108, 122, 146, 160, 164 Fur, 130, 160

G Gaita, Raimond, 142, 143, 146 Garner, Robert, 107, 108, 120, 121 Genetic engineering, 134 Giant Panda, 76, 80 Global conglomerates, 119 Goodpaster, K., 108, 119, 128 Gorillas, 91, 92, 148 Grammar, 86, 148–150 Griffin, Donald R., 20, 104, 142, 151 H Haraway, D. J., 131–134 Hare, Richard, 125 Hearne, Vicki, 70, 90, 96, 148–151, 153–158, 95 Higher-order theory, 15–18, 56, 58 Holocaust, 36, 37 Horses, 6, 13, 34, 94, 148, 150, 151, 153, 158, 161 Human /animal divide, 39 -animal relations, 2, 121, 135, 163 bias, 15, 26, 31, 85, 91, 92, 117 death, 106 exceptionalism, 10, 25–40, 81, 84, 104, 130, 131, 151–158 language, 54, 58, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 93, 143, 145, 146, 157, 164 Human-centric, 131, 58 Humanism, 107, 110, 117, 134 Humanistic, 36, 40, 107–109, 111, 112, 119 Hume, David, 1, 48–53, 59, 61, 65 Humour, 82, 83 I Identity theorists, 3, 105, 127–130, 164 Ideology, 34, 39, 83, 119, 128, 134

 INDEX 

193

Imagination, 9, 30, 49, 122, 126 Impartiality, 121, 125, 126 Indistinction, 2, 129, 165 Individuality, 32, 121, 129, 162 Infants, 117, 159, 160 Instinct, 15–20, 51 Intelligence, 50, 87 Intensive rearing, 133 See also Factory farming Intentionality, 10–12, 52 Interests, v, 3, 26, 27, 29, 33, 35, 36, 40, 47, 70, 71, 75, 79, 80, 82, 84, 104–110, 112–122, 124, 127–129, 135, 142, 161, 164, 165 Intersectionality, 2, 3, 34–40, 119 Intrinsic value, 84 Intuitions, 17, 26, 48, 60, 61, 104

and the limitations of, 157 as linguistic, 58, 86, 88, 90, 94, 151, 153, 157 as mechanistic, 10, 60 and representation, 60 as shared, 143, 149–152, 156 as species-specific, 91, 151, 158 users, 152 Legislation, 28, 29, 160 Levinas, Emmanuel, 129 Liberalism, 107, 108 Lifeworlds, 1, 142, 147, 150, 152, 153, 161, 164, 165 Lived experiences, 3, 5, 16, 31, 32, 56, 58, 59, 90, 125–127, 142, 160, 161 Live export, 111 Lurz, Robert, 16, 18, 19

J Johnson, Lingren, 39 Justice, 3, 108, 111–113, 116, 118, 120–122, 126, 164

M MacIntyre, Alasdair, 28 Marketing, 81, 82 Meat, 2, 32, 68, 81, 82, 84, 109, 114, 116, 160 Meat industry, 32, 83, 108, 115, 116, 120 Mechanistic reductivism, 12, 104 Mechanomorphism, 9–12, 26, 31, 130 Memory, 12, 47, 150 Mental capacities, 26, 87, 92, 93, 104, 162 language, 47 phenomena, 16, 46 states, 5, 7, 8, 12–14, 16–18, 26, 27, 48, 57, 59–61, 71, 75, 94, 103, 141–145, 164 Mentality (description of), 1–3, 6, 13, 20, 25, 26, 48, 57, 84, 88, 93, 103, 104, 127, 141–144, 158, 164 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 52, 55–58

K Knowledge, 5, 7–9, 12, 19, 26, 27, 31, 46–48, 52, 53, 55–58, 60, 61, 70, 71, 81, 82, 89, 92, 130, 141, 143, 147–150, 158–161, 164, 165 noninferential, 48, 52, 164 Ko, Aph, 38–40 L Laboratories, 27, 29, 30, 32, 87, 89 Language barriers, 131 and consciousness, 12, 90, 96, 141–147, 158

194 

INDEX

Meta-cognition, 18 Methodology, 8, 107, 108, 116, 158 Midgley, Mary, 112, 113, 145 Mirror test, 91, 92 Mixanthropism, 34 Montaigne, Michel de, 49–51, 93–95, 1, 48–53, 65 Moral anthropomorphism, 3, 59, 65–96 consideration, 31, 75, 76, 104, 105, 117, 124, 135 criticism, 28 deliberations, 118, 125, 165 distancing, 33, 125 judgements, 28, 81, 109, 125 norms, 30, 40 paradigm, 27–34, 40, 45 significance, 84, 105, 106, 108, 109, 113–115 standing, 25–40, 59, 75, 76, 84, 106, 108–110, 113, 115, 116, 118, 123, 124, 127, 128 theory, 112, 125 values, 27, 107, 121 Moral anthropomorphism, 3, 59, 65–96, 127 N Nagel, Thomas, 15, 28, 55 Natural functioning, 160 Natural history, 26, 46, 48, 57, 60, 145 Naturalistic, 8 Neuroanatomy, 147 New-speciesism, 106 Nussbaum, M. C., 107, 108 O Objectification, 33–40, 83 Objectivity, 9, 13, 25, 27, 28, 33, 45, 60

Obligations, 108, 111–113, 116, 118, 124, 125 Old-speciesism, 106 Ontology, 26, 165 Oppression, 1, 2, 33–35, 37–40, 83, 104, 119, 129, 132–134, 164 Otherness, 129 Other species of mind, 5, 12, 14, 26, 27, 128, 158 Over-anthropomorphism, 81, 83, 84, 94, 95 P Pain, 12, 29, 30, 47, 52, 108, 120, 126, 160 Parr, Lisa, 66–68 Partiality, 124, 125 Patriarchal, 34, 39 Pepperberg, I. M., 85, 88, 89, 151 Perception, 16, 18, 26, 29, 48, 52, 56–58, 71, 92, 161, 163 Pets, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 77–79, 81, 83, 154, 157 Phenomenology, 51–54, 56, 161 Philosophy, v, 1, 5–20, 45, 48, 49, 51, 53–57, 103, 105, 119, 129, 130, 144, 146, 158 Posthumanism, 2, 103–135, 141 Practicality, 28, 29 Praxis, 119, 132 Principle of equal consideration of interests, 3, 35, 108, 113, 115, 118 Problem of other minds, 56 Psychological properties, 159 Public perception, 29 Q Qualia, 56

 INDEX 

R Rabbits, 47, 68–74, 77, 96, 97, 127 Racism, 34, 35, 37–39, 119, 161 Rational contractors, 112 Rationality, 12, 50, 109, 110, 117, 121, 126 Rawls, John, 111, 121, 122 Realism, 52, 65 Reciprocity, 156 Regan, Tom, 2, 105–107, 117, 123, 127 Relationships, 34, 70, 123, 124, 133, 147, 149, 150, 154, 156, 157, 159, 162 Research, vi, 1, 11, 29–31, 48, 54, 60, 61, 66, 73, 81, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96, 108, 111, 121, 126, 146, 159–161 Rodeos, 160 Rollin, Bernard, 2, 9, 120 Rowlands, Mark, 154–156 Ryle, Gilbert, 54 S Sanbonmatsu, John, 107, 36 Sanctuaries, 133, 157, 162, 163 Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, 71, 85–87, 90, 153, 155 Scepticism, 14, 45, 58, 141–143, 156 Science, v, 9–12, 14, 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 45, 52, 54–57, 103, 104, 144–146, 158, 161, 164 Self-consciousness, 17, 55, 92 Self-recognition, 91–96 Semantics, 85, 148, 149 Sentience, 105, 106, 110, 115, 116, 153 Sentientism, 110, 118, 127 Sentimentalism, 9

195

Sexism, 34, 35, 37–39, 119 Sheep, 32, 156, 162, 163 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 36 Singer, Peter, 1, 2, 35, 36, 51, 105–110, 113, 115–118, 123, 126, 127, 145 Slaughterhouse, 111 Social environment, 86 Social structure, 28, 147, 159 Societal norms, 163 Space exploration, 68 Speciesism, 1, 2, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 106, 110, 117, 127, 129, 134 Species-specific capacities, 47, 135 Speech, 5, 54, 86, 90, 93, 94, 143, 146 Stimuli (responses to), 12, 30, 55, 103, 144 Subjects-of-a-life, 105, 106 Suffering, 2, 3, 9, 29, 32, 37, 55, 61, 82, 83, 103, 106, 108–111, 113–117, 120, 122, 126, 131, 160, 163–165 Sympathy, 124 Syntax, 54, 85, 90, 148–150 T Teleological, 8 Therioanthropism, 34 Thought first-order, 17 phenomenological, 152 second-order, 17, 18 Time (sense of), 150 Trust, 154, 156, 157, 159, 162 U Universalizability, 125 Utilitarianism, 114, 116, 118

196 

INDEX

V Value, 11, 27, 28, 36, 37, 40, 52, 83, 84, 107, 109, 110, 114–116, 121–125, 161 Varner, Gary E., 108, 113–116 Varsava, Nina, 3, 104, 105, 108, 128, 135 Veil of ignorance, 121 Violence, 32, 38, 39, 156, 157, 161, 163 Vocabulary, 60, 154–156 Vulnerability, 110, 126

Well-being, 108, 122, 164 White supremacy, 38, 39 Wild animals, 79, 89, 154–158 Wolfe, Cary, 107–109, 131, 126 Wolves, 154, 155 Women’s liberation, 119 World War II, 31

W We Animals Media, 73 Weisberg, Zipporah, 134 Welfare, 29, 33, 66, 71, 77, 78, 108, 114

Z Zoocephalic, 34 Zoologists, 145 Zoomorphism, 7, 33, 34, 141 Zoos, 38, 157

X Xenophanes, 6, 7, 164 Xenophobia, 154