Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story PDF
Preview Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story
A N I M A L S , M I N D , A N D M AT T E R THE ANIMAL TURN Series Editor Linda Kalof Series Advisory Board Marc Bekoff and Nigel Rothfels Making Animal Meaning Edited by Linda Kalof and Georgina M. Montgomery Animals as Domesticates: A World View through History Juliet Clutton-Brock Animals as Neighbors: The Past and Present of Commensal Species Terry O’Connor French Thinking about Animals Edited by Louisa Mackenzie and Stephanie Posthumus Animals as Food: (Re)connecting Production, Processing, Consumption, and Impacts Amy J. Fitzgerald Mourning Animals: Rituals and Practices Surrounding Animal Death Edited by Margo DeMello Whose Dog Are You? The Technology of Dog Breeds and the Aesthetics of Modern Human–Canine Relations Martin Wallen Hats: A Very Unnatural History Malcolm Smith Spanish Thinking about Animals Edited by Margarita Carretero-González Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era Sarat Colling Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story Josephine Donovan ANIMALS, MIND, AND MATTER The Inside Story Josephine Donovan Michigan State University Press East Lansing Copyright © 2022 by Josephine Donovan i The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). pMichigan State University Press East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5245 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Names: Donovan, Josephine, 1941– author. Title: Animals, mind, and matter : the inside story / Josephine Donovan. Description: East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2022] | Series: The animal turn | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021052803 | ISBN 9781611864373 (paperback) | ISBN 9781609177072 (PDF) | ISBN 9781628954753 (ePub) | ISBN 9781628964691 (Kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Animal welfare. | Animal welfare—Moral and ethical aspects. | Consciousness in animals. Classification: LCC HV4708 .D67 2022 | DDC 179/.3—dc23/eng/20220105 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052803 Cover design by Erin Kirk. Cover photo is by Александр Денисюк, Adobe Stock. Visit Michigan State University Press at www.msupress.org Science deals with objects. Story deals with subjects. —Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry Contents Preface ix Introduction xiii Chapter One. Caring to Heed the Voice of Animals 1 Chapter Two. Interspecies Dialogue 9 Chapter Three. The Inside Story 21 Chapter Four. Subjectivity, Telos, and Ethical Meaning 39 Chapter Five. Animal Dignity 51 Chapter Six. Radical Natural Law 61 Chapter Seven. The New Materialism and the Question of Subjectivity 67 Chapter Eight. Panpsychism, Participatory Epistemology, and Cosmic Sympathy 77 Chapter Nine. Ethical Mimesis and Emergence Aesthetics 87 Conclusion 97 Acknowledgments 99 Notes 101 Works Cited 105 Index 119 Preface The title of this book—Animals, Mind, and Matter—may be read in two ways: with “mind” and “matter” as nouns or as verbs; in the latter case with “animals” as the subject. In the first reading “animals,” “minds,” and “matter” are substantive concepts, topics to be consid- ered; the second reading states that animals (subjects) mind (they care what happens to them) and they matter (it is of ethical significance what happens to them). Both readings are intended in this book. The fact that animals have minds and do mind is why they matter, why they are morally considerable. The book comprises articles or parts of articles published between 2013 and 2020, revised, reorganized, and extensively expanded, together with original chapters. My guiding focus during this phase of my work has been the question of mind or subjectivity. I had to this point published many articles in animal ethics, centered on the premise that animals’ voices or standpoints—their opinions about what is happening to them—should be part of any human discussion about how to treat them ethically. It seemed to me obvious that animals readily express their viewpoints in various ways and that it is easy for humans to understand what they are saying. But this assump- tion ran counter to the prevailing views in science, economics, and the law: that animals are but objects, have no or negligible subjectivity, and therefore are not morally considerable, or only minimally so. I felt therefore it was necessary to prove that animals are subjects in hopes of destabilizing once and for all the assumption that they are but objects. This led me to explore the nature of sub- jectivity, the primary concern in these articles and in this book. In the process I engage with some of the latest theories in contemporary science, such as quantum physics and emergence, which point away from classical Cartesian objectivist science. As a result, this book offers an updated elaboration and enrichment of feminist ethic-of-care and standpoint theory, culminating in the radical expansion of animal standpoint theory introduced in chapters five and six. In the first chapter I offer an introduction to the subject by revisiting and refining feminist care theory, which has established itself as a viable alternative to rationalist modes of moral decision-making. Espousing dialogical, particularized modes instead, care theory proposes a relational subject-subject epistemology which recognizes that animals are subjects who voice opinions that matter and which we should heed. In this chapter I explore aspects of care theory developed by certain French theorists with some of whose premises I disagree, as well as aspects of Cora Diamond’s vegetarian theory, in hopes thereby of deepening our understanding of care ix
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