I understood that anthropomorphism a very dubious word to defend against cruelty to creatures who cannot speak and defend themselves against human exploitation. –Sir Brian May, founder member of the Queen and Save Me Trust.1
The mental threshold at which we can say we are “uniquely human” is shrinking at an alarming rate. Carts can distinguish faces, dolphins call each other by name, pigs use tools, zebras sleep, parrots go Zoom, and sometimes crabs get caught. worrying. Meanwhile, chimpanzees exist in complex cultures, like ours, with fashion trends. – Martha Gill2
For too long, a self-serving anthropocentrism has dominated how we view and position nonhuman animals (animals) in the natural world. Arguing about human exceptionalism while placing animals below and apart from ourselves misleads some people into thinking that we are above and apart from other species – often “better” and “more valuable” at their expense.a myth that does not represent what solid French science has repeatedly shown.3
in fact, Inhumans are not subhumanand to see all species as unique and important in their own way is to represent members of many different communities on earth, none of which is better or more valuable than the others. These are among the many reasons why I recently found Dr. Josephine Donovan book Radical Natural Law: The Critical Position of Animals and Nature be an important and enlightening read in which he successfully decenters humans, situates other animals, and offers a holistic view of the natural world.
Mark Bekoff: Why did you write? Radical natural law?
Josephine Donovan: In previous work, I’ve made the point that while philosophers talk about how we should treat animals, they never think that animals have anything to say about it. (See especially my book Animals, Mind and Matter: The Inside Story and the article “Feminism and the treatment of animals: from care to dialogue”.)
So I suggested that animal ethics, that is, principles about how to treat animals, should be based primarily on what animals tell us about how they want to be treated and what their needs are. In Radical natural law I have supported this idea with critical theoretical grounds that relationships with people should be rooted in the expressed perspectives of the people in question. In particular, I used the work of Ernst Bloch in this case, that the natural law lies in the apparent resistance of the oppressed to cruel treatment. While Bloch limits his concept to humans, I have extended it to animals. Radical natural law exists in the resistance of animals (and other individuals) to abusive and degrading treatment, the direct expression of their needs.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
JD: I have written several books and articles on animal ethics. In particular, I (and others) brought feminist care theory into the discussion. Care theory is a dialogic theory, so it leads naturally to the radical natural law concept I outline in my new book.
MB: Who do you hope for?
JD: I hope the book establishes a new theoretical foundation for animal therapy. To date, the dominant theories are utilitarian and Kantian, which I have called inadequate. More broadly, I hope people will take seriously the idea that animals’ opinions about how they want to be treated should be attended to and listened to by humans.
New information about animals intelligence and communication abilities (some of which you have contributed to) occur, which inevitably leads people to take animals more seriously in general and therefore pay more. attention (one hopes) and give more weight to their expressed resistance to harmful treatment. Cows run off loading ramps, chimps run out of labs, fish swim, dogs snarl and bite again. Animals usually express themselves. But in the past, people rejected and dismissed animal opinions in favor of speciesist behavior that benefited humans.
MB: What are some of the topics you cover and what are your key messages?
JD: I approach the various philosophical traditions that support the overall thesis of the book, from Stoic views on natural law that dominated until the early modern period, when natural law became limited to humans and was known only through human reason (which Thomas Jefferson famously called “human egos” in the Declaration of Independence). However, several contemporary philosophical schools, including Hungarian Marxists, Oxford feminists, feminist care theorists, and various ecological theorists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have returned to or reinvented the concept of natural law to include animals and what they think, feel, and need. This newly established radical natural law provides the philosophical basis for animal ethics.
The main thesis of the book is summarized in its first and last sentences; citing Robin Wall Kimmerer in Weaving sweet grassI suggest we ask the goldenrod, meadowlarks and monarch butterflies how they feel about their habitat being turned into a parking lot. Or ask a caged chimpanzee how he feels about being confined; or ask a pig how it reacts to slaughter, or a mouse genetically engineered to carry human diseases. We know what the answers to these questions will be. Let’s listen to them.
MB: How is your work different from others that deal with some common themes?
JD: To date, most theories about animal therapy do not include the animals’ personal opinions about their treatment Radical natural law It is an attempt to restore one’s positions for discussion.
MB: Do you hope that as people learn more about this important topic, they will treat nonhuman animals and their homes with respect and compassion?
JD: Yes, I think that as people become more appreciative of the complexity of animal minds and emotional lives, reductive ideas about animals as “animals”—and therefore morally unworthy of serious consideration—will disappear. Acknowledging the subjectivity of animals, I hope, will lead to a change in their current status as inanimate objects in law, business, and laboratory science. Radical natural law provides a philosophical and theoretical basis for such a change.
