Animal Difference in the Age of the Selfsame

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter, I argue that mainstream animal-centered (i.e., “humane”) ethics and critical animal studies attempt to account for nonhuman moral considerability in terms of those animals’ similarities with human animals. I argue that this emphasis on similarity is a reason why these two fields are generally anti-naturalistic and ultimately (though ironically) anthropocentric. Moreover, on the assumption of a general Levinasian ethic of alterity, this anti-naturalism and anthropocentrism is violently immoral. I propose, therefore, an ethic of animal difference based on an ethically naturalistic reading of intra- and inter-specific behavior sets. However, such naturalism is problematic if the Anthropocene is understood to be a naturalized fact which undermines all (metaphysical or normative) claims to naturalness or wildness. In response, I argue that the Anthropocene is not a naturalized fact but a socially-contingent and constructed fact, and as such is open to moral evaluation. My proposed ethic of animal difference offers one such critique, and one more effective than those found in mainstream humane ethics or critical animal studies.