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Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (No. 1) 2016

BOOK REVIEWS

Inside : On the Demands of Moral Thought by Alice Crary

Stina Bäckström

Crary, Alice (2016). Inside Ethics: On the Demands of Moral Thought. Press.

We treat animals deplorably. Images will focus on the two perhaps most from inside a chicken factory farm, important claims: 1) humans and for instance, are gut-wrenching. What non-human animals are equally inside sorts of consideration should be ethics in that they have observable allowed into our calls for change? moral characteristics, 2) we should This is the central concern of Inside look to disciplines inside ethics, such Ethics. Crary’s contention is that the as literature and the arts, for debate about the rights and welfare empirical of human and of animals has been hampered by a animal lives relevant to ethical widely shared assumption: human considerations. (Two terminological beings and other animals do not notes: Crary uses ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ possess observable moral interchangeably, and she uses characteristics. To dislodge this ‘animal’ and not, say, ‘non-human assumption and show by example the animal’, to refer to animals of the reasoning that then becomes non-human variety. I will follow her available is Crary’s main aim. usage.) Inside Ethics is directed both at Why is it, Crary wonders, that professional and others many philosophers and non- who share the concerns of the book. philosophers invested in the ethical In this regard, it is exemplary. It standing of animals, think that the brings philosophy to bear on facts relevant to this debate need to practical issues, while also making be themselves normatively neutral? contributions to philosophy. There The answer, Crary argues, is that are many controversial points in the there is a widely shared metaphysical book that deserve discussion, but I assumption according to which

131 Book Reviews CC-BY moral values are not features of the the idea that the psychological objective world. This assumption is significance of human and animal supported by a particular conception behavior comes into view within an of what requires: in order ethical conception of the kind of to be objective, empirical animal in question. By ‘ethical descriptions cannot contain conception’ Crary means a concern references to our responses. On this for what matters in the life of the conception, objectivity needs to live animal we’re interested in. up to an abstraction requirement, Psychological properties are, for according to which what is objective Crary, examples of empirical, is what is left once we have observable, phenomena that become abstracted from subjectivity. She calls available given “ethically loaded this the ‘narrower conception of understandings of the lives of the objectivity’. Using resources from the creatures” to whom psychological later Wittgenstein and John concepts apply (62). Psychological McDowell, Crary argues that the thought is thus, for Crary, essentially abstraction requirement is a a kind of ethical thought. Since Crary philosophical myth. Strictly thought finds no persuasive argument to the through, not even the most effect that we should discredit the paradigmatic cases of objective most obvious and unproblematic thought (such as arithmetic) stand for cases of attributions of mental it. Thus, she argues, there is no properties, she argues that such reason to discard the idea of thinking is also cognitively objective, observable, moral authoritative. Crary’s view “invites us properties just because their to conceive our categories for availability depends on us having the thinking about psychological qualities right modes of responsiveness to as ethically inflected categories” and them. Rather, the right way to ensure at the same time “it asks us to objectivity is to ask whether the understand these categories as properties in question can “survive essentially matters of sensitivity to critical scrutiny and establish how things really are” (37). themselves as authoritative” (82). According to Crary, seeing Something that has survived such animal life in psychological categories critical scrutiny has, as Crary puts it, means, for instance, noting that cognitive authority, and this notion is certain things are dangerous for the the core of the wider conception of animal whereas others are desirable; objectivity that Crary herself that some things need to be espouses. protected and others are to-be- By turning to philosophy of befriended, and so on. This mind, Crary argues that moral perspective is one from which the properties are objective in this wider world is -laden. Importantly, the sense. In one of the most interesting world is given in terms of values not sections of the book, Crary defends

132 Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (No. 1) 2016 only for the animals, but also for us. Since disciplines inside ethics – Crary says: disciplines that do not set aside any ethical concerns but allow themselves Our ability to recognize a full use of moral imagination – are creatures as possessing the ones within which ethical [psychological] characteristics objective characteristics are allowed presupposes that we have at to come most clearly into view, Crary least imaginatively adopted an argues that ethics should look to attitude towards them as them for empirical guidance. She beings who are caught up in thinks science legitimately sets aside such lives [where things are, ethical concerns of the sort she has in e.g., dangerous] and who mind, and that this makes the accordingly, in appropriate empirical descriptions science yields circumstances, merit specific ill-suited for subsequent ethical modes of concern and reflection. In literature and the arts, attention. […] Despite the by contrast, ethical concerns are general philosophical antipathy allowed to inform the accounts and to the idea of objective moral the emanating descriptions are values, these values are therefore more valuable in ethics. embedded in pervasive and entirely unmysterious features Thus Crary arrives at the of animate life. (p. 88) thoughts that human beings and animals have observable moral The step taken in this passage is properties and that we should look to important, because it is what makes disciplines inside ethics for empirical thinking about what matters in the guidance. Let us begin our reflection life of an animal a kind of ethical on these claims by asking whether thinking. That is, unless such there is not a tension between them. thinking had immediate bearing on In my summary of Crary’s argument how we should treat the animal, we against the narrower conception of would be left with normative objectivity, I noted that she does not assessments falling short of being think that this conception is a ethical normative assessments. That is, sensible for any discipline or we would be in a position to say intellectual endeavor, not even for whether individual animals are doing what is sometimes called the “hard well or badly with respect to what sciences”. Moreover, she argues that matters in their lives, but such even such mundane observable assessments would not speak to what phenomena as expressions of joy or we should do. In taking this last step anger in dogs, small children, or adult Crary’s account departs from the, in human beings come into view within some respects closely related, ethical an ethically inflected mode of seeing. naturalisms of and In the light of this, we might wonder Michael Thompson. (I will come why she insists on still placing back to this issue.) scientific approaches to human

133 Book Reviews CC-BY beings and animals “outside ethics”, of Emotion in Man and Animal”, and humanistic and literary where animals are portrayed as approaches “inside ethics”. Given expressive agents, capable of choice that it is an ambition of some and possessing a rich experiential life. branches of science to understand Crist relates, for instance, how precisely the psychological and social Darwin describes joy as giving rise to lives of animals, it appears as if “various purposeless movements” in Crary’s argument would make it both humans and animals. Darwin imperative for them to recognize the continues, “We see this in our young ethical backdrop against which their children, in their loud laughter, data can emerge, rather than allowing clapping of hands, and jumping for them to think that they are outside joy; in the bounding and barking of a ethics. dog when going out to walk with his Crary’s own answer to this worry master; and in the frisking of a horse is that moral concerns are when turned out into an open field” legitimately bracketed in scientific (Quoted in Crist 2000: 24). It seems practice, whereas in literature the full clear to me that such depictions use of moral imagination is exemplify precisely the sort of imperative. One example she morally involved perspective that discusses is the practice of coding Crary is advocating. But Crist’s expressive behavior in empirical analysis does not give us reason to psychology, i.e., the attempt to isolate think that Darwin’s perspective and correlate discrete physical stands in conflict with his scientific configurations and behavior. As she aims. To the contrary, Crist wants to herself notes, however, coding is question precisely this inference. One parasitic on and beholden to a thing that emerges in Crist’s study is conception of the role of different a sense for what, from a scientific psychological phenomena and standpoint, we lose by condemning expressions in the life of the animal this way of approaching animal we are interested in. And why should studies as misguided and unscientific we think that the development of anthropomorphism. such a conception is something that There is no doubt an interesting takes place outside of the science in discussion in this vicinity about question? whether scientific method and Consider, for instance, Eileen practice require a form of Crist’s Images of Animals, a study of objectification of its subject matter, the conceptual resources drawn on in an objectification that stands in late 19th-early 20th century animal tension with the agency and studies – resources radically different expressiveness of animate life. It is from those employed in in no way obvious to me that contemporary and scientifically respectable inquiry into sociobiology. One of Crist’s animate life could not also be examples is Darwin’s “Expressions psychologically rich and morally

134 Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (No. 1) 2016 imaginative. So my question to Crary particular examples (from Tolstoy, remains: once we’ve removed the Sebald, and Coetzee) to be need to imagine our practices living cognitively authoritative. But the up to a narrower conception of generality of her methodological objectivity, why think that science is suggestion signals a default inherently in conflict with the entitlement to treat literature as a ethically inflected perspective? It source of empirical facts. I see no seems to me that what Crary’s basis for such an entitlement, even if argument rather warrants is a general I have full sympathy for the idea that wariness of letting methodological literature can be a resource in ethics. concerns, regardless of discipline, be My second worry is more serious, governed by the abstraction in that it concerns the basic requirement inherent to the narrower framework within which Crary treats conception of objectivity. the human-animal relation. Moreover, the injunction to turn Philosophical reflection on the to literature instead of science for human-animal relation needs to empirical guidance is problematic, contend with a fundamental tension since it appears to operate with a between closeness and distance. presumption that literature is Now, we often drawn to such words cognitively authoritative – a source of also during the course of objective empirical descriptions. We philosophical reflection on knowing are entitled to this presumption when other human beings. Yet we feel that approaching scientific accounts; one there is something special about the of the aims of science is to establish sort of closeness and distance in empirical facts. (This is meant to be a question when it comes to the trivial point: a failure to be true to the human-animal relation, as if there empirical facts is straightforwardly a were a shift in key. Animals are alike ground for criticism of a scientific us in so many respects: they play, account.) But the relation between they form attachments, they suffer, literature and truth (in particular they communicate. And yet, they are empirical truth) is much more fraught. alien, so free of the particular plights Its narratives can explore points of of the human condition. (This gap view that obscure rather than bring can give rise to wistfulness or pity; to light features of reality, without animals can prompt fantasies of an thereby being bad literature. Thus existence either in care-free whether or not a particular literary immediacy or in perpetual depiction is a source of cognitively victimhood.) Crary’s position with authoritative facts about animal life, respect to this tension is to takes special argument to establish. emphasize closeness and continuity. This is something Crary herself The cost is, I think, the obscuring of acknowledges in her literary difference. discussions. She takes it upon herself Crary argues that humans and to explain why she considers her animals are equally inside ethics in

135 Book Reviews CC-BY that they (and we?) possess When we formulate an ethics for observable moral characteristics. This human beings, we are vulnerable to application of the metaphor of repudiation by the very creatures we inside/outside muddles things. For are aiming at describing. Ethical when I imagine us discovering by thinking is (at least partly) a matter of observation that an animal of some listening to and negotiating with particular kind has moral others – others who are equals in the characteristics, this creates a picture sense of being equally in a position to of what it means for a creature to be articulate what matters in life. inside ethics. More specifically, it Now, one might argue that we yields the idea that by paying (sometimes) engage with animals by attention to a creature, we living with them and not by understand that it is it is worthy of a observing them, too. But there still is certain kind of treatment. But when I a sense in which we are limited to try to apply this picture to human what we, from an involved beings, I meet resistance. The life of participant’s perspective, can see human beings is not something I when it comes to animals. Whereas encounter merely or primarily with human beings, their own take through observation of human and understanding of a situation, beings going about their business. revealed in what they say, is always a To be inside ethics as a human part of what we have to contend being is to be responsive and with. It is a part of what determines vulnerable to ethical considerations, the ethical significance of a situation demands, and arguments put forth by or action. others. Animals are not inside ethics Crary points to ways in which we in this sense. Animals do not talk can see continuities between human back. They do not participate in the life and , most practice of articulating what they care prominently continuities in about, negotiating the extent of their conceptual and other psychological responsibilities, or explaining the capacities. And perhaps one response grounds of their actions. They are to my worry could be that we should sometimes the objects of ethical see continuity here as well. It is considerations, but they do not certainly arguable that some animals themselves provide ethical can participate in a kind of reciprocal considerations. With respect to understanding of a situation and animals, we articulate what matters in make a claim on you to adjust your their lives, ideally with the aid of a conception, and, also, that it is morally imaginative engagement. It possible for you to be reproached by seems misleading to the point of an animal when you do it injustice. I distortion to say that moral thinking am not ruling this out. What I miss in about human beings is a matter of Crary’s account, however, is a observing them (us?) through a lens discussion of the limited relevance of of what matters in their (our?) lives. the observable in the human case,

136 Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (No. 1) 2016 and what implications this might his anti- is one expression have when we think about animals. of what I think is a natural and I mentioned above that Crary’s compelling thought, namely that view is in some respects congenial to moral knowledge is not (at least not the ethical naturalisms of Foot and entirely) a matter of observing moral Thompson. One thing Crary has in facts. Therefore, Crary should have common with Thompson and Foot dug a bit deeper in her engagement is the idea that the assessment and with Thompson. appreciation of properties and In this connection, it should be features of individuals, humans as noted that Crary mainly discusses well as animals, is relative to the life- examples of animals integrated in form of the creature in question. human practices, such as dogs, However, for both Foot and horses, pigs, and chimpanzees raised Thompson the human case is special, by humans. With respect to such in that it is the human life-form that animals ethical issues are obviously can serve as a basis for specifically relevant – how we live is a part of the ethical assessments. Thompson picture from the start. But her claim explicitly ties the specialness to the that animals have observable moral fact that we know our life-form not characteristics is meant to be only by observation. I can know my perfectly general, it covers also wild life-form partly by “reflection on the animals. However, when we turn to logical conditions of particular facts examples of wild animals, it is not about myself which are themselves immediately obvious that empirical not matters of observation” depictions of the sort that Crary (Thompson 2004: 71). The concept endorses are ethically inflected. Once ‘human’ is, on Thompson’s view, not we consider animals whose lives are an empirical concept. This is not intertwined with ours from the important for Thompson because he start, it is much less clear that mere wants to argue that his commitment descriptions of their lives – even to the idea that ethical judgments are when those descriptions are allowed life-form relative does not commit to be psychologically rich and him to thinking that we arrive at imaginative – supply us with reasons ethical judgments by empirical for action. A Thompsonian observation. This would, on naturalist, convinced that ethics is Thompson’s view, be a bad form of not a matter of responding to naturalism. empirical moral facts, could argue Although Crary has a quite that this difference between wild and extensive critical discussion of domestic animals shows that it is in Thompson and Foot, she does not fact our life-form, known partly non- touch upon this issue. There might observationally, that is the real source well be problems with Thompson’s of ethical responses. particular way of understanding the As an illustration of the point limits of observability in ethics, but that the careful and imaginative

137 Book Reviews CC-BY attention to wild animals is not gives the Peckhams reason to do obviously ethically inflected, I will anything in particular, except perhaps quote a passage from a study of not to disturb it. Is the ethical wasps that figures in Crist’s book. It dimension in the observation of wild occurs in an account by George and animals and their interactions there in Elizabeth Peckham, pioneers in the presence of a commitment not to animal studies from the previous disturb or interfere with their lives? turn-of-the-century. The Peckhams How, in that case, are we to are describing a wasp returning to the understand such a commitment, nest with her prey, a caterpillar. The especially given how much wasp has just found her way back to their lives can contain? the entrance of the nest, laying the In sum, even if I see some quite caterpillar down to remove two serious problems with the view Crary pieces of pellets serving as a covering presents in Inside Ethics, I find it of the hole to the nest. highly valuable to think through her The way being thus prepared, claims and locate possible points of she hurries back with her resistance. Both Crary’s attack on the wings quivering and her whole narrower conception of objectivity manner betokening joyful and her argument for the idea that triumph at the completion of psychological ascriptions are ethically her task. We, in the mean time, inflected are worth serious con- have become as much excited sideration. over the matter as she is herself. She picks up the Åbo Akademi University caterpillar, brings it to the stina.m.backstrom @ gmail.com mouth of the burrow, and lays it down. Then, backing in herself, she catches it in her References mandibles and drags it out of sight, leaving us full of Crist, E. 2000. Images of Animals: admiration and delight. Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind. (Quoted in Crist 2000: 60) Paperback edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The Peckhams weave together Thompson, M. 2004. “Apprehending psychologically rich descriptions of Human Form”. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 54, pp. 47-74. the wasp with reports of their own emotional investment in the wasp’s project, thereby displaying that close attention to what the wasp is doing is neither evaluatively nor emotionally neutral for them. However, it is not clear that the wasp’s leading its life (which includes killing the caterpillar)

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