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

With an ever-growing body of evidence on the links between different oppressions, never have the debates in Critical Animal Studies surrounding intersectionality in relation to animal ethics been more important. In particular, the arguments related to anthropomorphic attributes of mentality to other than humans promise to provide fruitful new ground for re-assessing human-animal relations. This book maps the central debates surrounding anthropomorphism in relation to our descriptions of animals, their lives, animal mentality, and meaningful communication in the nonhuman world. Rebekah Humphreys synthesizes the work of critical animal theorists, philosophers, and cognitive ethologists, and provides a critical account of how the debates concerning anthropomorphism play a key role in a proper understanding of animal ethics. Series Editors’ Preface 6 Contents 8 List of Images 10 Chapter 1: Introduction: Anthropomorphism and Animal Ethics 11 References 13 Chapter 2: Anthropomorphous Animals and Philosophy 14 Introduction to Anthropomorphism 14 Mechanomorphism and Science 18 The Sceptical Stance, Neo-Cartesianism, and Animal Cognition 21 Instinct and Consciousness: HOT and First-Order Theories 24 References 29 Chapter 3: Moral Standing and Human Exceptionalism 33 Anthropomorphism as Philosophical Sin 33 Anthropo-denial: Maintaining the Moral Paradigm 35 Intersectionality and Objectification 42 References 48 Chapter 4: Critical Anthropomorphism 52 Darwin on Attribution via Expression 52 Montaigne and Hume: Unapologetic ‘Offenders’ 55 Embodiment and Phenomenological Consciousness 60 Re-evaluating Anthropomorphism 66 References 68 Chapter 5: Language and ‘Moral Anthropomorphism’ 72 Unjustified Attributions 72 Animal Sign-Language Studies 91 Problems with Animal Communication Studies 94 Self-Recognition 98 Images: References 103 References 105 Chapter 6: Going Home: Returning from Posthumanism via a Defence of Identity as Continuity 110 Animal Liberation, Anthropomorphism, and Anthropocentrism 110 Identity—or Continuity—Theorists? Mistaking ‘Anthropo-identity’ with ‘Anthropo-insistence’ 128 Difference and Posthumanism 135 Ethics in Practice 139 References 142 Chapter 7: The Application of Key Concepts 148 Animal Consciousness: A Problem Concerning Description and Language 148 Redefining Language: Bodily Behaviours as Syntactical 155 Language: The Last Bastion of Human Exceptionalism? 158 Conclusions 165 References 172 Bibliography 176 Index 195