Transcript Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human

ANIMALS AND SOCIETY:
AN INTRODUCTION TO
HUMAN-ANIMAL STUDIES
Chapter 2: Animal-Human Borders
C o py r i g h t M a r g o D e M e l l o a n d C o l um b i a U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 2 01 2
Animals and Humans: The Great
Divide
1. What is the border between human
and (other) animal?
2. Is this a “real” or constructed
border?
3. And on what does this border rest?
4. What makes humans, and nonhumans, so different?
Non-Western Understandings
Cultures which blur the humananimal boundary
•Animism: a worldview that finds that humans, animals,
plants, and inanimate objects all may be endowed with spirit.
•Hunter gatherers saw humans and animals as related, and
humans are as much a part of nature as are animals.
•There are many societies which have animals as creator
figures
•A variety of cultures have animal gods or spirits which can
manifest themselves in either human or animal form.
•Other cultures had gods which were part human, part animal
Cultures which blur the humananimal boundary
•Animals play a role in the kinship systems of people around the world,
generally as totems—important genealogical figures to whom members of
a clan trace their ancestry, and who provide protection.
•Other cultures believe that the souls or spirits of the dead are incarnated
in animals.
•Transmigration, in which a person transforms into an animal, is a common
belief in both shamanistic cultures and cultures with a belief in witchcraft.
•The Hindu belief in pantheism—that the natural and human worlds are one
and the same—is reflected in the notion not only of reincarnation of all
species, but of the interconnectivity of all species.
•Why then does the Western system that we subscribe to remove humans
from the realm of animals?
Speciesism and the Rise of the
Human-Animal Border
The Rise of the Human-Animal
Boundary
1. The Domestication of Animals, which
led to animals being seen as
creatures to be owned and controlled
2. In the West, a number of
philosophies emerged to then explain
and justify this new reality
The Human-Animal Boundary
•Aristotle: animals lack rationality
•Old Testament: animals lack a soul; were not
created in God’s image
•The Great Chain of Being: all life created in a
hierarchy
•Aquinas: without souls, animals are simply
things
•Descartes: animals as automata
•Kant: animals lack rationality as well as a
moral code
Evolution and the Continuity
between the Species
The Continuity Between Species
•Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: all
species are related, and all derive from
the same source
•Linnaeus’ Systenuz Naturae: humans
are in the primate order
•Tyson demonstrated anatomical
similarities between human and ape
The Continuity Between Species
•Today, animal behaviorists and
ethologists show that there is no radical
break between the emotional and
intellectual capacities of humans and
non-humans. Instead, there is a
continuity of capacities.
•Genetics, too, shows how closely related
some animal species are to humans.