social science question
susie999
FudgePlumwoodlecture1.pptx
Readings:
Erica Fudge, “Introduction,” Animal. London: Reaktion Books, Ltd. 7-24.
Val Plumwood, “Dualism: the logic of colonisation,” in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. New York: Routledge. 1993. 41-68.
Modernity, and
humans vs. the natural world
(dualisms)
Links
Sap on T: https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpdNEd8fWcwhttps :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDKEI4QKI
Hyenas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBCNWmU5apE
Crows: tools insight 2:30 https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g&t=667s
Fairness study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysC
Cultural transmission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZcTvFqzxA0&t=71s
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Normalization
Through mundane conventions, discourses legitimise certain ways of being as natural and inevitable, while marginalising alternatives.
Naturalization
Attributable to “human nature”: assumed to be natural and inevitable.
Normalization and naturalization serve to organize meaning and social practices shaping our lives.
Discourses
Come to operate as a set of accepted premises that can normalize and naturalize some arguments and render others unpersuasive or unimportant
They enable, but also limit discussions of a given subject
They coexist, compete, and can become obsolete.
Dualisms
Rob Macinnis,
the dualistic system of western thought
Reason/Nature
Rationality/Passion
White / Black
Male / Female
Reason / Emotion
Culture / Nature
Mind / Body
Subject / Object
Human/Animal
Human/Nature
“civilized”/“primitive”
Science/superstition
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Which side is marginalized as “other”? Who is othered?
Dualism in western thought
Mindful human sphere vs. mindless, clockwork natural one
The way to escape dualism is to replace it with a non- hierarchical concept of difference.
“Our differences are our strength”
“We don’t want a world without race; we want a world in which race doesn’t matter.” We want a world with difference but we don’t want a world in which difference implies hierarchy.
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Radical separation?
Most of us regard humans as completely separate from the rest of nature, viewed as little more than a resource to be exploited – with little consideration of the implications to these other beings, and the ecosystem.
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882
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Darwin & evolutionary theory
19th c evolutionary theory presented the world as dynamic, in constant motion – unlike earlier, static model of the Great Chain
Evolution: the transmutation of species by changes to, or modifications in ancestral forms (Anderson, 84).
14
Evolution & natural selection
Evolution for Darwin was "what happened to all species as the result of the action of natural causes: Natural selection."
He challenged the idea of divine will (God) as the causal force in the evolution of species.
15
Non-human animal subjectivity has always been, and continues to be a conundrum for mainstream European thought.
A long tradition in Western philosophy has declared the capacity for rational thought and its manifestation in language (consciousness, language, agency) as that which distinguishes human and nonhuman animals. But research since the 1960s has proven this wrong, as this is shared by some animals, and not possessed by some humans.
The search for animal intelligence
The search for intelligence is the same as an assertion of human power and domination. How do we use categories to define ourselves and exercise power over animal others?
Language is regarded as the domain of the human and signifies rationality –in Ancient Greek thought, logos could be used equally to for speech or reason.
Descartes: language evidence of reason. Animals have no reason, he argued. If a chimp can speak using hands, where does the difference between the species lie? Where is our power then?
anthropocentrism
Basis of western moral thought.
describes the tendency for human beings to see themselves as most significant. Reality is considered only through human perspectives.
Human exceptionalism / ANTHROPOCENTRISM
Old Testament roots of anthropocentrism shaped our view of non-human animals:
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” ~ Genesis: 1:26
Human exceptionalism
The belief that humans are essentially different and superior to nature and nonhuman animals
The view of the human as sole proprietor of consciousness and agency.
Erica Fudge - Animal
Our perceptions are based on our limitations and the fact that animals’ abilities and experiences exceed our capacity to conceive of them.
“It is easier to assume human difference than to have to reassess the possibility of animal capacity” (Fudge 2002: 113–166).
Nonhuman animal subjectivity “has always been, and continues to be, a blind spot, a conundrum for mainstream European thought” (Corbey 2013: 69).
Nature-Human Dualisms Nature vs. Culture, Genetics vs environment
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M. C. Escher
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Nature – nurture
Exclusion based on biological, natural inferiority - justifying differential treatment and hierarchy
Nature-nurture debate
Naturalizes domination
