Matthew Calarco

Thinking Through Animals

Identity, Difference, Indistinction

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Matthew Calarco is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 88
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. Juni 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 200mm x 126mm x 7mm
• Gewicht: 99g
• ISBN-13: 9780804794046
• ISBN-10: 0804794049
• Artikelnr.: 42649691

Autorenporträt

Matthew Calarco is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Identity
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 analyzes the key notions that constitute the foundation for many
of the modern movements for animal liberation and animal rights. This
approach is referred to as the identity approach, inasmuch as it founds its
ethical and political framework on human-animal identity. While identity
theorists do not maintain that human beings and animals are identical in
every respect, they do argue that our shared evolutionary history has given
rise to fundamental similarities in terms of key ethically relevant traits.
If we accept the basic ethical principle of treating likes alike, then this
would imply, identity theorists argue, that we need to rethink our
attitudes toward and interactions with animals that are similar to human
beings in ethically relevant ways. The chapter concludes with an
examination of the central ethical and political upshots of this framework
as well as some of its critical limitations.
2Difference
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 engages with the difference approach to animal studies found in
the writings of philosopher Jacques Derrida and related theorists.
Difference theorists in general tend to have a critical relation to
standard conceptions of human nature and ethics, and seek to develop in
their place a more relational conception of human beings based on the
radical singularity, or radical difference, of individuals. Pro-animal
theorists in this tradition have noted that these critical reworkings of
our basics ideas about human nature and ethics also call into question
traditional ideas about the human/animal distinction and ethical relations
with animals. They argue that a thought of difference, when pursued in view
of its implications for animals, can generate an expansive notion of ethics
that acknowledges the importance of human-animal relations and that
respects the singularity of animals.
3Indistinction
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 examines the indistinction approach, which aims to think about
human-animal relations in a manner that de-emphasizes the importance of
human uniqueness and the human/animal distinction. Indistinction theorists
and activists explore some of the surprising ways in which human beings
find themselves to be like animals, while also examining the varied ways in
which animals demonstrate their own forms of agency, creativity, and
potential. The political task for indistinction theorists consists
primarily in trying to shrink the influence of the institutional and
economic practices that limit animal potentiality and to create other ways
of life that allow for both human beings and animals to flourish.