Animal Suffering: Philosophy and Culture (The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series)

Utilization of non-human animals is integral to contemporary consumerist societies. As is often argued, these societies have largely adopted an instrumentalist view towards other animals, according to which those animals are primarily things to be used rather than individuals with their own value. The use of other animals varies from breeding companion animals for profit, racing dogs and horses and keeping zoos or visiting animal circuses, to hunting, animal experimentation and animal farming. These practices are of astonishing proportions, many involving from hundreds of millions up to tens of billions of animals each year. They also involve clear financial incentives, as utilization is almost always linked to profit -thus, animal industries form one of the world's largest business sectors. As the financial driving forces behind them urge greater efficiency and turnover, the practices are becoming increasingly intensified. As a result, animals bred for meat, eggs, fur or dairy are kept in huge warehouses, where their production rates are optimized with a definite cost to their physical and mental well-beingpigs, cows and hens are pushed to grow faster and bigger and to produce more, which in many cases means that the animals themselves become utterly exhausted.Animal rights and animal liberation philosophies have become more vocal in arguing that this type of instrumentalization of non-human animals is morally wrong, simply because other animals are also individuals of value. According to these critics, 'use' is 'abuse'. Those with a more moderate stance -often called 'welfarists' -have sought to highlight the pain and discomfort non-human animals are put through and have suggested that animal 'use' be made more 'animal-friendly'. For both camps, the suffering of non-human animals poses a significant moral issue: it is precisely suffering that perhaps most fully manifests The politics of truth about animals is understood to be the push and pull of knowledge generated and perpetuated about them, together with concurrent power apparatuses in support of that knowledge as well as the ever present resistance to that power. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power -that is, that knowledge is a carrier of power, power is a perpetuator of knowledge, and all power relations have resistances - this work employs Foucault's archaeological method to uncover dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and to describe power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things. This project describes the changeable nature of "truth" about animals and, necessarily, the politics of it, since the politics of truth is understood to be propelled by whichever knowledge and associated power are then dominant. Statements in "error" are also examined as resistance to power-knowledge about animals.- Animal Suffering: Philosophy and Culture explores how animal suffering is made meaningful within Western ramifications. It is often argued that today's culture is ambivalent in its attitudes toward non-human animals: on the one hand, many speak of the importance of 'animal welfare', and on the other, billions of animals each year are treated as little more than production units. The book gains its impetus from here, as it seeks to map out both the facts and norms related to animal suffering. It investigates themes such as animal welfare and suffering in practice, scepticism concerning the human ability to understand non-human suffering, cultural and philosophical roots of compassion, and contemporary approaches to animal ethics. At its centre is the pivotal question: What is the moral significance of animal suffering? The key approach brought forward is 'intersubjectivity', via which the suffering of other animals can be understood in a fresh light Although Foucault did not address the question of the animal, he asserted the assessment of whether a new politics of truth can be constituted as "the essential political problem" (1980, p. 134). Though the "essential political problem" may be considered as it relates to the politics of truth about animals, a Foucaultian perspective does not allow a prediction in response, other than the recognition that change may occur. What is understood to be "true" about animals may change if the relationships between events that exist at a given time ("conditions") require the emergence of a different way of knowing. This Foucaultian critique of thought about animals examines "truth" about animals as an historical contingency, variable according to the conditions that have allowed its production. This project contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals.- Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-4 Animal Suffering: The Practice....Pages 5-48 Knowing Suffering....Pages 49-67 History of Caring....Pages 68-96 Morality and Non-Human Suffering: Analytical Animal Ethics....Pages 97-145 Morality and Animal Suffering: Continental Investigations....Pages 146-155 Emotion, Empathy and Intersubjectivity....Pages 156-197 Action against Suffering....Pages 198-205 Concluding Words....Pages 206-209 Back Matter....Pages 210-247 Exploring how animal suffering is made meaningful within Western ramifications, the book investigates themes such as skepticism concerning non-human experience, cultural roots of compassion, and contemporary approaches to animal ethics. At its center is the pivotal question: What is the moral significance of animal suffering?