Animal Rights v Humanism: The Charge of Speciesism

I am going to present highlights of three quite distinct sections of a larger work in progress. For each of the three I will suggest further lines of research that are needed. To present my own positions, I will draw implications critical of current practices involving the use of animals in psychological research. The first section employs a postmodernist style to give a historical account of laboratory animals-- to show how that development involved the social construction of a category of animals distinct from wild, pet, and farm animals. The second is an analysis of the concept of the animal model strategy of research showing how the function of that research is commonly misunderstood and misrepresented, and examining the ethical constraints implicit in a proper understanding of it. The last section suggests that official psychology currently takes two distinct ethical positions, the humane ethic and permissive utilitarianism. Both are found to be largely apologies for the status quo.

Ethics & Behavior, 1993

It seems impossible for a human being not to have some point of view concerning nonhuman animal (hereafter animal) welfare. Many people make decisions about how humans are permitted to treat animals using speciesist criteria, basing their decisions on an individual's species membership rather than on that animal's individual characteristics. Although speciesism provides a convenient way for making difficult decisions about who should be used in different types of research, we argue that such decisions should rely on an analysis of individual characteristics and should not be based merely on species membership. We do not argue that the concept of species is never useful or important. To make our points, we present a conversation among a skeptic, an agnostic, and a proponent of the view that our moral obligations to an animal must be based on an analysis of that individual's characteristics. In the course of the discussion, concepts such as personhood, consciousness, cognitive ability, harm, and pain are presented, because one's understanding of these concepts informs his or her ethical decisions about the use of animals by humans.

Springer, 2017

This book presents a new way to understand human–animal interactions. Offering a profound discussion of topics such as human identity, our relationship with animals and the environment, and our culture, the author channels the vibrant Italian traditions of humanism, materialism, and speculative philosophy. The research presents a dialogue between the humanities and the natural sciences. It challenges the separation and oppression of animals with a post-humanism steeped in the traditions of the Italian Renaissance. Readers discover a vision of the human as a species informed by an intertwining with animals. The human being is not constructed by an onto-poetic process, but rather by close relations with otherness. The human system is increasingly unstable and, therefore, more hybrid. The argument it presents interests scholars, thinkers, and researchers. It also appeals to anyone who wants to delve into the deep animal–human bond and its philosophical, cultural, political instances. The author is a veterinarian, ethologist, and philosopher. He uses cognitive science, zooanthropology, and philosophy to engage in a series of empirical, theoretical, and practice-based engagements with animal life. In the process, he argues that animals are key to human identity and culture at all levels.

Environmental Ethics

A common Western assumption is that animals cannot be persons. Even in animal ethics, the concept of personhood is often avoided. At the same time, many in cognitive ethology argue that animals do have minds, and that animal ethics presents convincing arguments supporting the individual value of animals. Although "animal personhood" may seem to be an absurd notion, more attention needs to placed on the reasons why animals can or cannot be included in the category of persons. Of three different approaches to personhood-the perfectionist approach, the humanistic approach, and the interactive approach-the third approach is the strongest. Personhood defined via interaction opens new doors for animal ethics.

Journal of Social Issues, 2009

Ethicists have tended to treat the psychology of attributing mental states to animals as an entirely separate issue from the moral importance of animals' mental states. In this paper I bring these two issues together. I argue for two theses, one descriptive and one normative. The descriptive thesis holds that ordinary human agents use what are generally called phenomenal mental states (e.g., pain and other emotions) to assign moral considerability to animals. I examine recent empirical research on the attribution of phenomenal states and agential states (e.g., memory and intelligence) to argue that phenomenal mental states are the primary factor, psychologically, for judging an animal to be morally considerable. I further argue that, given the role of phenomenal states in assigning moral considerability, certain theories in animal ethics will meet significant psychological resistance. The normative thesis holds that ethicists must take the psychology of attributing mental states into account when constructing moral ideals concerning animals. I draw from the literature in political philosophy on ideal and non-ideal theory to argue that non-ideal theories for animals must account for human psychology because—like current social and political conditions—human psychology limits the achievement of moral ideals.

Humanimalia, 2016

The field of post-anthropocentrism in current animal philosophy and related disciplines is structured by heterogeneous concepts of anthropocentrism on the one hand and different usages of the prefix ‘post’ on the other. This paper expounds different perspectives on anthropocentrism, while additionally focusing on the possibilities of its overcoming: on how anthropocentrism is problematized rather than on what is problematized. Two different positions are used as examples: humanist post-anthropocentrism, as advocated by Gary Steiner, and post-humanism, as advocated by Cary Wolfe in reference to Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction. In conclusion, the notion of ‘excess’ is analysed to illustrate the structural differences regarding a crucial term for both positions.

In this chapter, I explore mainstream culture's ambivalent relationship to our dependence on animals, particularly the animals in our homes, by turning to discussions at the intersection of disability studies and animal studies. Critically revisiting the debate between some from disability studies (Eva Kittay and Licia Carlson) and some from animal studies (Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan), over the comparative moral status of animals with higher IQs and some severely mentally disabled people, points to problems with the very framework of the debate. Furthermore, comparisons between supposedly non-rational human beings and non-rational animals—so called " marginal cases " —continue to vex both utilitarian (Singer and McMahan) and Kantian (Cheshire Calhoun and Christine Korsgaard) approaches to animal ethics, as well as disability studies. Here, spelling out some of the problems with both of these mainstream approaches to questions of animal ethics, I propose the need for an alternative approach to questions of both animals and disabled persons. Drawing on postmodernist resources, including Jacques Derrida's writings on the human/animal opposition, Cary Wolfe's Derridean-inspired analysis of posthumanism, a critical engagement with Julia Kristeva's work on disability, and my own past work on animal ethics , I suggest some ways forward through the thickets of moral status when it comes to living beings considered " non-rational, " particularly those with whom we share intimate domestic space. I begin with the nonhuman animals literally at the intersection of disability and animal studies: service dogs. 10_Castricano_Oliver.indd 269 16-07-22 11:26 AM

Animal Law Review, 2012

This is one of the fundamental questions that frame the study of animal law: To what extent should nonhuman animals be considered legal persons? Of course, this question presupposes that we share or can arrive at a common and stable conception of legal personhood. In fact, there are a variety of conceptions of legal personhood. This Introduction will explore one in particular and, in the process, question the extent to which simply being born Homo sapiens satisfies the potentially complex and demanding requirements of being a legal person. This argument will lead us to reframe animal law a bit and question whether we protect animals by focusing on their status or whether we are better off focusing on the status of humans-and not so much who we are but who, as legal persons that constitute legalities, we ought to be.