The Speaking Animal: Ethics, Language and the Human-Animal Divide

Alison Suen

doi:10.5771/9781783485130

Summary

Animals regularly populate philosophical texts as a foil to illustrate what it means to be human. How should we understand this human-animal divide? Not only does it inform us of who we are, it also tells us how we should relate to the larger non-human world. The Speaking Animal interrogates the human-animal divide by looking at our linguistic differences – how the speaking human subject is constructed through its opposition to the dumb animal. Alison Suen begins with an analysis of the role of language in animal ethics, with an eye toward the voice/voiceless opposition that is at work in animal advocacy. After offering a critical analysis of the ethical and political significance of speaking for animals, the booktakes on a more constructive turn, going against the usual interpretation of language as a capacity that allows us to reason. Instead, it argues that our language capacity is also a relational capacity. Language is that which enables us to develop kinship with others – including animal others.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2015
Copyright Year: 2015
ISBN-Print: 978-1-78348-512-3
ISBN-Online: 978-1-78348-513-0
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 138
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgements No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 6
1. What Is Wrong with Animal Rights? No access
2. Having a Right and Having a Say No access
3. The Problem of Speaking for the Animal No access
4. Silencing Silence No access
5. Speaking for the Animal Other and Human Exceptionalism No access
6. Animal Solution: Animals Speaking for Themselves No access
7. The Primacy of the Animal’s Voice No access
8. Can We Get Away with Not Speaking for Animals? No access
9. Reconceptualizing Language No access
10. Notes No access
1. Freud and Animal Fathers No access
2. Prohibitions and Animal Rights Discourse No access
3. Freud and da Vinci’s Animal No access
4. Da Vinci and the “Kissing Vulture” No access
5. A Freudian Care Ethics No access
6. Notes No access
1. Human-Animal Linguistic Divide No access
2. “As-Structure” in Propositional Statements No access
3. Relationality and Logos No access
4. Being-With and Language No access
5. Animal’s Captivation No access
6. Animal’s Poverty in Relationality No access
7. Language Acquisition and Sociality No access
8. Transposability and Speaking for Animals No access
9. Notes No access
1. Some Animals Are More Equal than Others No access
2. Animal Identity in the Animal Protection Movement No access
3. Animal Identity, Animal Standpoint No access
4. Wittgenstein’s Critique of Essentialism No access
5. A Familial Account of the Human-Animal Relationship No access
6. The Violence of Literal and Metaphoric Confinements No access
7. Silencing the Animot? No access
8. Translation and the Purity of Animal Voice No access
9. Notes No access
1. Racism and Speciesism: The Analogy Debate No access
2. Reinscribing White Privilege Through Animal Advocacy No access
3. Animalization as Dehumanization No access
4. Case Study: The Cove No access
5. Beastliness as a Given of the Beast No access
6. The Language Divide in The Cove No access
7. Revisiting the Cruelty-Beastliness Link No access
8. Animal Violence and National Identity No access
9. Marginalizing Others in the Name of Cultural Diversity No access
10. Notes No access
1. Note No access
Bibliography No access Pages 125 - 134
Index No access Pages 135 - 138